Republican News · Thursday 30 January 1997
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We demand civil rights, all the marchers did say
BY MICHEAL Mac DONNCHA
We demand civil rights all the marchers did say
Ten thousand people assembled that day
From Free Derry Corner set off with a cheer
Our march it was peaceful, we'd nothing to fear.From the song
Bloody SundayIT IS GENERALLY acknowledged that Bloody Sunday struck a fatal blow to civil rights as a movement. The march was planned to mark a revival of the movement which had been savagely dealt with first by the Stormont regime and then by the British Army which enforced internment without trial in August 1971. Many of the movement's leaders and activists had been interned and, apart from almost daily rioting in and around nationalist areas, street protests had diminished.
In defying the ban on marches the Civil Rights movement was declaring itself undeterred. In the pamphlet it published after Bloody Sunday NICRA said those marching in Derry that day ``were marching to open the gates of Concentration Camps, smash torture chambers, end repression and military terror. They were met with a new and terrible escalation of administrative violence.''
Nationalists had seen a peaceful movement shot off the streets, hundreds of their people interned, and now the ultimate repression where, in NICRA's words, Derry ``has taken its place with My Lai and Sharpeville as a milestone in the struggle of humanity against oppression''. Support for the IRA was never stronger. The nationalist people were off their knees and in the face of repression the chosen method of resistance of great numbers of them was armed struggle.
Not until the struggle in the H-Blocks at the end of the 1970s did nationalists return to the streets in a mass movement once again. Since then they have seldom been absent from the streets. They have asserted their rights, and won many of them, in a variety of campaigns. All highlighted the sectarian nature of the Six-County state. A look at the balance sheet presented here shows that sectarianism still thrives and that the second-class citizenship of nationalists is a live issue.
Demands relating to the Irish language are noticeable by their absence from the 1972 list of civil rights issues. But the Irish-speaking community in the Six Counties has been to the fore in demanding its rights from a hostile state. By persistent and militant action that community has asserted itself as never before.
The injustice of partition and the denial of Irish democracy is manifested in the denial of rights to nationalists within the Six Counties. But all citizens suffer from the lack of democracy. The issues listed here are today vital to the resolution of the conflict - issues like the release of prisoners, the disbandment of the RUC, an end to discrimination and, centrally, the repeal of the Government of Ireland Act and related legislation.
Bloody Sunday disrupted the Civil Rights Movement and set the struggle of the nationalist people on a new course. Twenty-five years on the nationalist people are still off their knees but progress towards real democracy is barred by the government which was responsible for Bloody Sunday. The need to challenge that government across the whole range of issues is as great today as it was in January 1972.
Policy of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
Adopted at Annual General Meeting, February 1972
To create conditions in which talks can take place, the following demands must be met and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association must be represented at such talks.
1. The immediate release of all internees.
2. The withdrawal of troops from all areas pending their total withdrawal, and an immediate end to the policy of military occupation and repression of anti-unionist areas.
3. Legislation by the Westminster government to abolish the Special Powers Act in its entirety.
4. The dismissal of the Stormont administration and immediate legislation at Westminster to guarantee the following:
Free elections under Proportional Representation;
The rights of all political groups including those opposed to the present state.
An end to discrimination.
A recognition that it is as legitimate to work for an independent and united Ireland as it is to work for the maintenance of the Union of Northern Ireland with Great Britain and the removal of all legislative obstacles in the Government of Ireland Acts that stand in the way of this objective.
The minimum acceptable outcome of these talks would be the ending of:
1. The Public Order (Amendment) Act, the Criminal Justice (Temporary Provisions) Act, the Flags and Emblems Act, the Payment of Debt (Emergency Provisions) Act and other repressive legislation.
2. Discrimination in all forms of private and public employment and housing and the allocation of development capital.
3. All elections to be held under PR with fair boundaries.
4. The establishment of a civilian impartial police force.
5. A radical reform of the entire legal system to include: the implementation of the idea of law as a community service available to all, and not a repressive agency used against some; the end to anti-working class and anti-feminist and political bias in the selection of jurors; the dismissal of all politically appointed judges; the immediate creation of an impartial public prosecutor's office, outside the control and influence of government.
6. That the involvement of local organisations id deciding future policy for their area, as recommended by the McCrory Report, should be real and meaningful.
7. An amnesty for all political prisoners in British and Irish jails.
8. An amnesty for all illegally held guns and the disbandment of sectarian gun clubs.
9. Those responsible for murdering innocent people, and torturing detainees and war crimes should be brought to trial.
10. That the Westminster government which bears an immense and overwhelming burden of guilt for its neglect of this area, and its unwillingness to take any action against the excesses of its subordinate government at Stormont, make available the capital necessary to end unemployment, bad housing and the lack of community amenities.
We stress that our function is to secure basic human and civil rights for all of the people in this area, irrespective of their politics or religion. This could be attained by the adoption of an effective Bill of Rights by the government in power.
Where those rights stand in 1997
1. Internment without trial was not ended until 1975. Between 1971 and 1975 over 2,000 people, the vast majority of whom were nationalists, were interned. The power to intern remains on the British statue book to be implemented at any time with the stroke of a pen. Over 600 Irish political prisoners are currently held in jails in Ireland and Britain.
2. Nearly 20,000 British troops are deployed throughout the Six Counties, occupying nationalist areas in some of the most heavily fortified and high-technology bases in the world.
3. The Emergency Provisions Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act continue the repressive powers of the old Special Powers Act, including juryless, one-judge trials (Diplock courts). In the case of the PTA the repressive law was extended to Britain where it has been used predominantly against the Irish community. These acts have been repeatedly renewed and refined over the past 23 years, and supplemented with a raft of other repressive British legislation and `orders in council'.
4. The Stormont parliament was prorogued by the British government on 24 March 1972.
There has never been Proportional Representation in Westminster elections in the Six Counties or in Britain.
The rights of voters for Sinn Féin, which is opposed to the state, are denied through the party's exclusion from the current talks.
Discrimination in employment is still rife in the Six Counties. Catholic males suffer just under two and half times the rate of unemployment of Protestant males.
The legislative obstacles to Irish unity contained in the Government of Ireland Act (1920) and the Ireland Act (1949) have been added to with the Northern Ireland Constitution Act (1973) and the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985).
1. As noted above, a raft of repressive legislation is in place including refined Public Order legislation. The flying of the Tricolour is still severely restricted by the RUC.
2. Despite over 20 years of the British government-established Fair Employment Agency/Commission there has been no significant diminution in job discrimination. A 1994 Family expenditure survey showed that the average gross weekly income for Protestants was 17% higher than the average income for Catholics. 29% of Catholic households derived their total income from social welfare payments in comparison to 17% of Protestant households.
3. See 4 (1) above.
4. The RUC remains a sectarian, repressive force as demonstrated last year at Drumcree. A ``civilian and impartial police force'' has been ruled out by the British government.
5. Under the Diplock system juries were abolished for those charged under `emergency' legislation. All judges are politically appointed. The Director of Public Prosecutions in the Six Counties is an integral part of the repressive legal apparatus.
6. Local organisations in the Six Counties have no power in deciding public policy; decisions are taken by the Northern Ireland Office under direction from the British government in Whitehall and Downing Street.
7. On several occasions during the peace process British Ministers claimed that there are no political prisoners held in British jails.
8. There are over 130,000 legally-held weapons, 43 gun clubs and 39 firing ranges in the Six Counties; the vast majority of these are in the unionist community. These weapons were ruled out of the debate on the decommissioning of weapons, the issue which was used by the British government to delay and destroy the peace process.
9. No member of the RUC and only two members of the British army have been convicted of murder in the conflict in the Six Counties, despite the fact that over 300 people have been killed by British forces since 1969.
10. People in the Six Counties suffer the highest levels of unemployment in Western Europe. Around one in five of the workforce, 135,000 people, are without jobs. 50% of these are long-term unemployed. While housing for nationalists has improved from the dire situation pre-1972 the lack of new public housing in recent years, and the threatened privatisation of the Housing Executive point to major difficulties ahead. Overall the Six Counties has a crisis economy, heavily dependent on the subvention from Westminster. Its periphorality within the United Kingdom, its divorce from the rest of the Irish economy, its total lack of democratic accountability ensure that it will continue in crisis until radical change is implemented.
Related Articles:
New evidence destroys Widgery facade Bloody Sunday remembered in London Aftermath of Bloody Sunday in the 26 counties Survivors tell their stories More extracts from Eyewitness Bloody Sunday
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