Free Citizen: Vol. 2 no. 11, 11 December 1970

REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER AT THE POSTOFFICE

NEWSPAPER OF THE

PEOPLES DEMOCRACY

3

PRICE

WEEKLY FRI.

CITIZEN

11 DEC 1970 |

jail without trial...... |

LYNCH LAW FOR SOUTH

LAST FRIDAY THE CHIEF

TURNKEY AND LICKSPITTLE OF

BRITISH IMPERIALISM IN IRE-

LAND, JACK LYNCH, ANNOUNC-

ED THAT HIS GOVERNMENT WAS

ABOUT TO REINTRODUCE IN-

TERNMENT IN THE 26 COUNTIES.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT WAS

MADE BY LYNCH AND HIS LAT-

EST HATCHET-MAN O'MALLEY,

MINISTER FOR JUSTICE, ATA

PRESS CONFERENCE WHERE

THEY REFUSED TO ANSWER ANY

QUESTIONS. THEIR EXCUSE FOR

REOPENING THE INTERNMENT

CAMPS WAS A FANTASTIC AND

LUDICROUS 'PLOT' BY A TINY

GROUP TO KIDNAP OR ASSASS-

INATE GOVERNMENT MINISTERS

AND CIVIL SERVANTS. IT WAS

NO WONDER THEY REFUSED TO

ANSWER QUESTIONS. AND IT

WAS NO WONDER EITHER THAT

LYNCH MADE NO STATEMENT TO

THE DAIL UNTIL THE FOLLOW-

ING WEDNESDAY. HE NEEDED

THE EXTRA FIVE DAYS TO

THINK UP SOME NEW LIES TO

‘JUSTIFY HIS ACTIONS.

The real reasons are simple. So long as the opposition to Fianna Fail in the South consisted of the exBlueshirts of Fine Gael and the weak-kneed forelock-pulling Labour Party Lynch & Co. felt perfectly safe. They could reign for thousand years if need be. But recently a new spirit has been stirring in the land - the spirit of revolt. More and more people, especially young people, inspired *y the ideals of Connolly, have nut been prepared to tolerate any longer the depressing cycle of poverty, unemployment and emigration which afflicts the whole of Ireland. At the same time the tyranny of capitalism and imperialism has been tightening its grip. Forced more and more openly to support the employers and exploiters against the people, Fianna Fail are trying to introduce a wage freeze, bring in anti-trade union legislation and take the 26 Counties into the E.E.C. They are desperately

WHILE THE

PEOPLE OF

THE NO@TH —/Y

C2iMINAL"JUSTICE” AND

SPECIAL POWERS ACTS~

'—So In THE SouTH

WE WILL IMPRISON

PeoPLe withoot ThA. —

UNDER THE

OFFENCES AGAINST |

THe stave Act! afraid that the hardship and misery this will cause will win many recruits for the growing socialist revolutionary movement. So they want to act now to crush their opponents before the discontent grows even greater. Lynch's action represents the most treacherous, deadly anddishonest attack on the revolutionary movement in this country since the signing of the Treaty in 1921. But he can rest assured of one thing. He is storing up a legacy of hatred and discontent which will one day crush him and his kind. But perhaps the most tragic aspect of Lynch's shameful stab in the back is the open invitation it provides to the Stormont regime to reopen the internment camps in the North as well. The Unionists have been straining at the leash for some time. Every back-bencher and local political boss in the North has his own private list of people he wants interned. Now Jack Lynch has given themthe green light to go ahead. When the time comes and the camps are opened in the North Lynch will be as fully responsible for the jailing of each internee as if he had personally turned the key in the lock behind them. This move shows more clearly than ever before the unwritten alliance between Lynch and Chichester-Clark in the service of their common master Heath.

These cats paws of imperialism have thrown down the gauntlet to the left inIreland. It must be taken up and their Special Powers Acts and Concentration Camps thrown back in their teeth. The P.D. will be in the forefront of that struggle. There will be a march in protest against Lynch's internment plans in Dublin on Sunday December 20th called initially by Northern Republicans., All Socialists should support it.

es Wee Joe Cairns is a typical member of the Belfast City Hall Unionist Party. He is a well-to-do business man, owner of five shops, office premises and a big house on the wealthier part of the Antrim Road. He loves dressing-up in his ceremonial robes, and is always photographed wearing the Mayoral gold chain around his brass neck.

On Monday week last, not many months after arriving back from an all-expenses-paid-frompublic-funds transatlantic holiday, he was driven round to the B.B.C.

in the Rolls-Royce provided for him by the people of Belfast. There in comfort and at his convenience he recorded an appeal for money for the Lord Mayor's Coal Fund. The technicians in Broadcasting House were suitably amazed at the sight of a small man wearing such a ‘huge gold chain. The Appeal was broadcast last Sunday evening. In spite of the bad weather, the B.B.C. was picketed by 10 P.D. members, carrying placards such as ''Give pensioners their rights not charity" and ''Free Buses fof the over 65's".

While there were few passers-by the event was well reported in tne next day's papers (but not mentioned by the B.B.C.!). The P.D. objected not to the Coal Fund as such, but to the sheer bare- FREE CITIZEN 11th DECEMBER 1970

CRITE ©

faced affrontery of the Lord Mayor.

Within weeks of presiding over a 50% increase for all, including many pensioners, the hypocrite Cairns was trying to recoup some of his lost prestige by exploiting the misery of some elderly people.

It is commonly believed that pensioners get a concession on Belfast buses - and so they do, once they are over 70, five years after they have retired. Even then the concession is restricted to certain hours, and is subject to a means test. Instead of a once-a-year charity appeal,the Lord Mayor would be better recognising that old people have a right to decent housing, a reasonable standard of living, warmth, and incidentally, free travel. Last year the Coal Fund collected £4,500; a similar sum could be raised by getting rid of the official car, or cancelling a few banquets for visiting dignitaries, and scrapping the Public Relations excerise on the Macrory report.

If the Cairns' appeal is anything more than a cheap gesture, let him call a special meeting of the council to propose free buses for all pensioners - and, at the same time, he could put a date on the implementation of the reduced fare for children.

POLITICAL PROGRAMME

Dear Sirs, I quite agree with your last point of your Political Programme: ''no membership in the E.E.C.", not only because the entrance of our country in the E.E.C. would mean an increase in living costs - the fact is that Ireland would suffer greatly by entry into the Common Market because of its excentric position. If you consider that the geographical centre of the E.E.C. is roughly Strasburg, on the border between France and Germany, and that, if Britain enters this centre could shift to Brussels, Ireland is, in both cases, very from the attraction cere, w means that no capitalist industrialist would be ready to settle a facty outside the circle of the greatest profit zone. A large part of Britain, on the ot} iand, ] within this zone, } ingness to enter. far their willcountries or parts of countr’: are alread affected by this re’ nce to invest far from the ntr some parts of Ital. (the South especially) and parts of france (Britanny for example).

The Common Market is a capitalist organisation which is aiming at reorganising the disintergrati national economies cf \ European countries on safer grounds. The socialist movemenis in Italy and France are hindered by the existence of this tighter conection between the countries of ng Printed and Published by the Peoples Democracy 88 i the E.E.C.

1 RIAL ACTION.

) THEM AT CHRISTMAS.

- contracts between capitalists of the Six are signed every week to exploit further the i workers at the cheapest possible price. } mean our refusal to fight capital- Joining the E.E.C. would 4 ism. P.D. seems to have been quite aware of this - and it is a proof of their political seriousness, the fact of which I have never doubted.

Yours, Laurent Houtan. Don’t Forget

THE FOLLOWING P.D. MEM-

BERS ARE AT PRESENT IN PRIS-

ON, SENTENCED EITHER UNDER

THE CRIMINAL 'JUSTICE' ACT,

OR FOR THEIR PART IN INDUST-

DON'T FORGET

WRITE TO

THEM AND SEND THEM BEST

WISHES:

EUGENE CASSIN

BRIAN VALLELY

RODGER O'DOHERTY

TOMMY MARRON

GERRY DUNDAS

ALL C/O. H.M. PRISON,

CRU\MLIN ROAD, BELFAST.

WRITE ALSO TO FRANK ROACH,

xo.086700, H.\l. PRISON,

BRIXTON, |LONDON - ONE OF THE

FEW MEN WHO ENTERED PARL-

IAMENT WITH HONOURABLE ILN-

TENTIONS!

Dad's Army The heroic Ulster Defence Regiment (remember it?) struggles vn manfully - if that's not too strong a word - to reach its official target of 6,000 officers and men. But recruitment has been a gigantic flop. All those gut-stirring T.V. advertisements showing arthritic flat-feet panting to string two strands of barbed wire across a bog road near Cullybackey are a dead loss. Not even David Mahlowe's urgent staccato can bring movement to the manoeuvring.

Ian Gilmour, Minister of State for Defence at Westminster, had to admit in Parliament that after almost a full year of existence only 3,869 men (or 64% of the proposed total) had enrolled. Recruitment is deadly slow, despite a vetting system that goes out of its way to favour ex-B Specials and allied stormtrooper types. Of the 10,000 thugs in black, who rampaged with arms in August 1969, only 2,106 had joined the British-run Dad's Army by May 1970. (Are they afraid it's a trick to draft them for Vietnam?, It's the pace of recruitment that is slowly killing the U.D.R. On 1st May 1970 its 'strength' was 3,702, but seven months later on 20th November 1970 it had progressed to only 3,869, an increase of 167, a puny 43%. Catholics are getting out fast. In May there were 657 of them, making up 18% of the total.

Now Gilmour admits that "Catholics make up about 16% of the requirement’, That is 617 men only, a decrease of 40 inside seven months.

The quality of recruits too is worsening. In May 1970 Government figures showed that 1,625 applications were then "under consideration". That was seven months ago. Since then only 167 new men have joined. What of the other 1,458 being considered? Were they all rejected? Is the Army scraping the bottom of the barrel to such an extent that it is forced to reject exactly 90% potential U.D.R. mey?

Does it take seven months for the Army to make up its mind about who is to harass motorists in Enniskillen or guard the water-mains at Dunadry? The Socialist answer to the whole sickening mess is to sweep away the entire paraphernalia of regiments, and uniforms, and guns, and midnight harassment. Dad's Army, or any other army, are our oppressors designed to keep the working class split into 35% Catholics and 65% Protestants, even while gullible workers in kindly-provided uniforms protect the property, the moneyed interests, and the profitable set-up of their cynical exploiters.

To those workers who swallowed the capitalist bait and donned the ill-fitting khaki - P.D. says: Resign from Dad's Army Now!

You have better things to do with your spare time. E

BUY WEST BELFAST NEWSHEET.

A(PRICE 1d. AT LEAST) Ladsbrook Purk Belfast Subs. 50/- per year

GRAIGAVON -

A BURDEN FOR LOCAL UNIONISTS

The first signs of a Unionist revolt over the new city of Craigavon have come. The patchwork facade of Unionist Unity hiding the true facts about this now tottering monument to 50 years of injustice is cracking. County Armagh Unionists, especially the extremists, are showing signs of disenchantment with their new toy and their mounting discontent has begun to break through the barrier of silence imposed by their traditional loyalty to Stormont. Money, of course, is the real point of complaint. Their own money. Armagh Unionists have just discovered that Craigavon and its various services have to be paid for, and that as county ratepayers they will have to cough up a major portion of the cost. And they don't like this at all. The new critical Unionist attitude to Craigavon came in a pointedly anonymous letter published in last week's "Ulster Gazette", a pro- Paisley Co. Armagh weekly. (The "Gazette" features prominently every burbling rant of the 'Great Godman! and his local acolyte, Rev.

S.B. Cooke, but refuses to print material submitted by the local P.D.). The letter, which the editor sensationally headlines: ''The Burden of Craigavon", savages Stormont and complains bitterly that the ratepayers of Co. Armagh, with its huge 16,000 Unionist majority at the June 1970 General Election, are the victims of "gross extravagance".

Rarely have Unionists been so outspoken. In a key passage the anonymous critic complains: "Why should the ratepayers of Co. Armagh have to pay for Craigavon and their own existing services as well? It is indeed typical of the grossly unfair wrongs being committed by the various Stormont Ministries which utterly refuse to listen to the people, while the Ministries are utterly reckless, delving into vast expenditures. The people of this county should rise in protest.....

This is the language of revolution, of a risen people. Or at least of a people realising they have been conned by gloryhunters. But behind the compelling and popular reason of a new financial burden there is another reason far more frightening for Unionists. Strong rumours are current throughout the area that the balance between Unionists and anti-Unionists already in or currently coming into Craigavon is not what Craig and Faulkner expected it to be. They sacked their first Craigavon head-of-design, Professor Geoffrey Copcutt, in 1964 because he refused to play ball with them over their gerrymandering ideas. Copcutt said, "I was told by a source close to the Northern Ireland Cabinet that the Ulster Government would not countenance any scheme that would upset the voting balance between Protestant and Roman Catholics in the area"’. He pointed out that this kind of calculation would make Craigavon not only morally wrong but unviable and resigned in protest.

Now as the slow build-up of population continues, the Unionists are beginning to panic. Immigrants to the new city who are traditional Unionist voters tend to take a short look at Craigavon, at Goodyear, at the facilities, at the wages, and fly back home to their Belfast ghettos.

Anti-Unionists, usually Catholics, having nothing worthwhile to fly back to, tend to hang on. And so it has come about that the voting balance is tilting against the Unionists.

No wonder right-wing extremists in the rest of County Armagh are beginning to react against Craigavon.

Why should they subsidise another Bogside, Falls, Newry, or Strabane? What with the ailing shipyard the sick aircraft industry, the rising unemployment, the fly-by-night factory magnates, the general unrest, they have quite enough burdens to shoulder without the additional burden of a Papist Craigavon.

P.D. Christmas

P.D. CHRISTMAS CARDS ARE

NOW AVAILABLE. THE OUT-

SIDE SHOWS A DELIGHTFUL

SMILING SANTA CLAUS BEAR-

ING GIFTS FOR ALL,INSIDE IS A

SUMMARY OF THE SPECIAL

POWERS ACT (N.1I.) AND THE

OFFENCES AGAINST THE STATE

ACT (IRISH REPUBLIC). IN

ADDITION THERE IS THE GREET-

ING

"HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM

CURRAGH CAMP*, CRUMLIN

ROAD JAIL* (DELETE ONE)

CARDS ARE SIXPENCE EACH

COMPLETE WITH ENVELOPES,

AND MAY BE OBTAINED BY POST

FROM: 88 LADYBROOK PARK,

BELFAST, FOR CRDERS UP TO

ONE DOZEN PLEASE ENCLOSE

6d. EXTRA FOR POSTAGE, OVER

A DOZEN, POST FREE.

FREE CITIZEN 11th DECEMBER 1970

STORMONT'S

_FAME FIESTA

Unionist manipulators throughout the province are now cynically using local cultural and sporting enthusiasts to palm off their pathetic ''Ulster 1971" fiesta on otherwise indifferent local organisations. By way of a blue-print take how it's being done in the 'new city of Craigavon. Charlie Cooper, Unionist ex-Mayor of Portadown now raking in the cash from his cushy Craigavon Public and Social Relations Officer job, is stage-managing the attempt to con local or ganisations into boosting "Ulster 1971". Charlie ('Dare to be a Daniel') has formed a committee to organise the annual Craigavon Festival Fortnight from 24th May to 13th June next year. Much the same as last year, and so on, he'll tell you. But this time Charlie wants the local annual festival to link up with "Ulster 1971". He has called his latest venture the "Ulster 1971 Craigavon Festival Fortnight", all in one mouthful. The organisations usually involved don't particularly mind offering their services and facilities to celebrate Craigavon, but many of them object strongly to this calm bland tie-up with Stormont's whitewaghing carnival. They know that what they do for Craigavon, will be astutely mis-represented by Cooper and the Unionists who control him as evidence of euthusiasm for ''Ulster 1971''. So bodies who backed previous Festivals, like G.A.A. clubs, have already opted out of this new cheap trick to use them as a boost for Stormont!s image abroad. Watch that your local festival or civic week is not hijacked by grass roots Unionists to give artifical respiration to the dead-as-a-duck Ulster Unionist Government 50th anniversary 'celebrations' organised by John Brooke at Stormont.

You could well find yourself unknowingly working for the Unionist Party!

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airmail to anywhere in the world Per Year.... I would like to become a member of the People's Democracy. I enclose .a fee of 10 shillings. All letters, gifts, correspondence etc. to:- 88, Ladybrook Park, Belfast

Lyttle by Lyttle Every barrell has its bad apple and the R.U.C. is just 'unlucky' in having more than its fair share. Recently some of the R.U.C. have become worried about this and have suggested to us that some publicity would help keep in check these forces of 'anarchy and chaos' within the ranks. In our columns previously we have mentioned the unfortunate case of 425 Trevor Lyttle - known to his brother officers as 'the beast’.

punch drunk efforts with the riot squad in Ardglass have already drawn applause from connoisseurs ol the psychotic - and from those who love to see perjury badly done.

Last Friday evening passers-by in Royal Avenue were startled to seea vanload of agitated policeman disembark and run round and round the G.P.O.; heading them was the beast, capless, snarling and incoherent.

Within 10 minutes they returned to their wagons, without apprehending anyone. Onlookers thought it was merely a false alarm. A more sinster explanation could be that from his rugby days Trevor has had too many kicks on the head and is now prone to lose control - so it was really the beast they were chasing? Anyway the beast is still alive, well and kicking, in the R.U.C.

His This weekend the Irish Labour Party holds a special Conference in Cork. The Conference will debate - and pass - a motion supporting coalition with Fine Gael. The motion is proposed by the party's Administrative Council and backed by all but one of the party's T.D.'s.

Anticipating the result a little, both Labour candidates in the recent Dublin County and Donegal-Leitrim by-elections called on their supporters to give their second preference to Fine Gael. What is the Fine Gael Party that Labour want to form a coalition with? Fine Gael is the party of the Treaty and the Free State, the party of Collins and O'Higgins. It is the party which first abandoned the struggle against imperialism and persecuted, hounded and murdered those who didn't. It is the party which reduced the old-age pension and the dole below the level under the British in order to line the pockets of the new grasping middle class for whom it built up the Free State. Fine Gael is the party which formed its own gang of Fascist stormtroopers, the Blueshirts, when it was put out of office in 1932. Many of the Blueshirts later went off to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Even today Fine Gael is still run by a small clique of very wealthy families, the Cosgraves, O'Higgins, Costelloes etc. and re- FREE CITIZEN 11th DECEMBER 1970 The columns of the so called "Ulster Gazette and Armagh Standard'' recently contained lengthy 'challenges' to P.D. to explain their views. The Editor ever wrote to say he would print their letters "provided they don't say anything nasty about the government, any organisation or any person". So much for free speech. However, a P.D.

member wrote a detailed letter covering all the points raised about where P.D. stood. Next week the following appeared in the gazette: -

“* CURIOUS ** REMAINS—CURIOUS !

The “ Ulster Gazette’ would inform the Belfast P.D. supporter who has replied by letters to “ Curious ” and “ Former P.D. Supporter,” who were critical of the Peoples’ Democracy Organization, that the “ challenge issued, was to Armagh People’s De- | mocracy and was a request for constructive comment on the P.D.'s proposed ‘ Workers’ Socialist Repab lic,” and how it would work. We have /heard nothing from the local P.D. leaders although this is the second letter from a Belfast address “not for publication,” that has been handed in at the “ Gazette "' Office.

—k- Ulster Gazette and Armagh .Stangard THURSDAY. 3rd DECEMBER, 1970, presents the largest farmers, the wealthiest shop-keepers, and the lawyers and other sections of the professional middle class.

It is not two years since Brendan Corish announced that he would retire rather than lead Labour into another coalition. It is not five years since the Labour Party declared itself to be firmly and irrevocably a socialist party dedicat- ' ed to the establishment of a Workers' Republic. And this same Labour Party is now proposing to enter into coalition with a party which represents the most reactionary capitalist elements inlreland. Yet this is hardly surprising on reflection. Twice before the Irish Labour Party has been in a coalition government.

Each time with Fine Gael. In the first inter-party government under the combined attack of the Catholic heirarchy and the wealthy doctors of the Irish Medical Association, the Labour Party ratted on Dr.

Noel Browne as shamelessly as their coalition partners. The second coalition government's economic policies led to an astronomical increase in unemployment and emigration. The Labour-Fine Gael response was a drastic credit squeeze and a cut in unemployment benefit. Meanwhile Jim Everett, the Labour Minister for Justice was busily interning Republicans in the Curragh Concentration camp.

Book Augustus Harland, 12, Boyne Villas, Belfast, describes himself as a moderate. He is a bigot, a fool, and a dupe. He is also the "hero! of an extremely funny book "A Little Bit British" by Martin Waddell (Stacey 35/-d.). Set in 15 day last August the buffoon Harland goes from ‘moderation' to 'fenian burning' in the space of a fortnight.

Despite the serious intention and the tragic background of 'Diary of | a nobody', the diary of this boring stupid little man makes hilarious reading; included are the 'Papal Democracy’, ‘Michael Gun-barrell', 'Burn-a-debt Devlin', John Inhume- | ane' and a host of others.

The trouble is that the Harlands of Ireland exist, and that laughter alone won't rid us of them. Mat Martin Waddell is a member of the | N.I.L.P. (more out of desperation than anything else) but until he gains some political education he will merely remain what he is - a very able and funny writer. This is a pity. Just as the foul Harland ends by discovering that the toilet in his own house is being secretly used as an illegal radio for the P.D.

so Waddell may find that his laughter will not protect him against a totalitarian take-over. Supported when it succeeds by ‘left-wing moderates'. JOHN McGUFFIN.

LABOUR-BLUESHIRT ALLIANCE

With such a record it is hardly surprising that at the chance of a Cabinet seat or a Ministeral Mercedes the new 'Socialist Labour' Party has turned into the old gang of cynical political charlatans. The Irish Labour Party was never socialist. It shirked its part in the anti-imperialist struggle from 1919 -23 for fear of splitting the Trade | Unions. Since then it has sneered at what it termed ''civil-war" politics and represented itself - accuratgly enough - as politically somewhere between Fianna Fail and-Fine Gael. Any genuine socialist organisation must always be in the fore-front of the struggle against imperial- | ism. The Labour Party's dismal record in this field is only matched by its equally shameful record on | more straightforward "economic" issues. The massive vote in favour of coalition in Cork should prove more clearly than ever the basically capitalist nature of the Labour Party.

The crisis situation all about it, with Fianna Fail threatening internment, a wage freeze, anti-union laws and entry to the E.E.C.

should prove the crying need for ' a revoluntionary socialist party in Ireland. The P.D. have laid the | foundations for it in the North. It's more than time the socialists in the South took up the task as well. It , may soon be too late.