Republican News · Thursday 25 April 2002

If you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one

BY JIM GIBNEY

The people of north Belfast, nationalist and unionist but particularly the nationalist people and the Catholic and nationalist people across the Six Counties must be wondering today whether their lives and the lives of their children are worth a damn.

They must be bewildered and angry sitting in their homes watching David Trimble on television with their windows covered in metal grilles, front and back doors bolted shut, self imposed curfews on their movements to protect their and their children's lives while pitched battles take place at the corner of their streets with loyalists throwing an assortment of life threatening missiles, including pipe and petrol bombs.

They must be wondering to themselves, amidst a UDA orchestrated sectarian pogrom, what sort of a game is David Trimble, their First Minister, playing.

There he is on screen and radio declaring that he is on a shuttle mission, which will take him from the PSNI/RUC's Belfast headquarters, to Downing Street and back to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

I'm sure the nationalist people of north Belfast are wondering what exactly is Mr Trimble in pursuit of. Is he driven by the needs of these people who don't know what a secure night's sleep is like in two years? Is he pressurising the PSNI to arrest loyalists, put checkpoints up in their areas, search homes for guns, and turn over the bomb making factories? Is he motivated to prove to the nationalist and Catholic people of the Six Counties, who are in the eye of a sectarian storm, that he has been doing everything he and his party can do to end their nightmare?

No, Mr Trimble is not motivated by any of these urgent and dire demands. His motivation is of a baser kind. He is dancing to the tune played by those in British intelligence and the PSNI Special Branch, who are trying to undermine and divert the peace process into a cul-de-sac.

They have handed him a baton marked 'big lie' and he is eagerly lapping around the media and political circuit spreading it as widely as he can. He has allowed the faceless people of the intelligence community to put a face, his, and the authority his office and position as leader of the UUP carries, onto their campaign.

Everyone knows, Tony Blair, John Reid, Bertie Ahern and David Trimble, that the raid on Castlereagh was carried out by one of the many competing intelligence agencies. We might not have the exact reason, yet, why they did it but in the minds of people without an alternative agenda, there is no doubt they are responsible.

So why has David Trimble bought the 'big lie' about Castlereagh. Why is he threatening the peace process over a 'target list', which, if it exists at all, doesn't mean it belongs to the IRA? Because David Trimble is playing politics with the peace process in his attempts to keep the DUP at bay. He is permanently on a shopping expedition in search of any issue, which he can use to show that he is 'tough' on republicans.

He wasn't without options at this point in time. The IRA's arms initiative of a few weeks ago had created a positive climate for all pro-Good Friday Agreement parties.

His initial reaction was the correct one when he welcomed it. He could have built on the opportunity arising from this among unionists. He could have ushered in a period of political stability, which would have at a minimum helped to isolate the DUP and other anti-Agreement unionists. Instead, he has decided to become the public mouthpiece of the Special Branch 'leakers'.

A period of stability doesn't suit those in the Special Branch and the intelligence forces who ran a dirty war against republicans for the last 30 years. A period of stability threatens these malign forces because the issue of policing for example might be resolved, thereby letting republicans back new policing arrangements. This would lead to these forces losing control and could lead to their clandestine and murderous activities being publicly revealed.

The stakes could not be higher and while the people of north Belfast live in fear inside their homes and their districts, David Trimble has joined the securocrats in their sordid offensive against republicans.