Free Citizen: Vol. 2 no. 6, 6 November 1970

HWS. WYNBURNE 1 EDWS CE

= FREE

CITIZEN

REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER AT THE POSTOFFICE

NEWSPAPER OF THE

PEOPLES DEMOCRACY

3

PRICE

WEEKLY FRI.

6 NOV 1970

POLICE MURDER

"WILFUL ASSAULTS", ''GRIEV-

OUS BODILY HARM" AND A " CON-

SPIRACY OF SILENCE AMONG

THOSE OFFICERS WHO POSSESS

THIS GUILTY KNOWLEDGE":

THOSE WERE THE THREE SHOCK

PHRASES WITH WHICH SIR

ARTHUR YOUNG ANNOUNCED

THE RESULTS OF AN ENQUIRY

INTO THE MURDER BY POLICE

OF SAMUEL DEVENNEY IN DERRY

LAST YEAR, THE STARK FACT

THAT SERVING MEMBERS OF THE |

POLICE FORCE HAVE BEEN PUB- |

|

LICLY ACCUSED BY THEIR SEN-

IOR OFFICER OF A CONSPIRACY

TO CONCEAL THE IDENTITY OF is

A POLICE MURDERER; THE STARF

FACT THAT THESE CONSPIRA~

TORS AND MURDERERS STILL

SERVING IN THE R.U.C. MAY BE

CALLED TO GIVE EVIDENCE members of the R.U.C nobody iar Dae ee Fak eee | is able to identify even one of the ; a a ‘ “a be oe

(SEE STORY INSIDE)

the course of justice by serving FOR A MOMENT FROM THE EVEN police involved in the assault. Not MORE HORRIFYING ADMISSION even a year's investigation by ex- MADE BY SIR ARTHUR YOUNG ; perienced detectives has wormed THAT "WILFUL ASSAULTS WERE | from these hardened police con- UNDOUBTEDLY MADE UPON | spirators the identity of the murderers. It is difficult for an ordinary civ-

HARRY AND HIS DAUGHTERS

ANN AND CATHERINE". i ilian to conceive of the persistent, | | callous, determined lying that each | (8 ’ wilful | of these police murderers has had The report does not directly to do - and that each of the other accuse the silent police conspir- | policemen who know their identity ators of murder - that would be up has had to do - over the past year to to a court of justice (if there were | conceal the truth from an experany justice in this country) to de- | ienced detective. Only the most cide. But what Sir Arthur Young | purposeful, organised and skilful says can leave no doubt in anybody's | liars could have kept up the premind that the 'wilful assaults which | tence successfully so that now, and the police undoubtedly made" | probably for ever, their conspiracy |

SAMUEL DEVENNEY, HIS SON

brought about Devenney's death: of silence will remain unbroken.

"Having studied the extensive and Yet these consummate liars, who complex medical evidence placed have proved their skill by baffling before me, the appropriate charges | an experienced detective, are called would have been for offences of upon in court to give evidence causing grievous bodily harm". against members of the public.

was as a result of this ''grievous Sir Arthur has not said who they bodily harm" that Samuel Devenney died. Murder most foul! And yet be- | cause of a conspiracy to prevent It may be, or how many of them there are. Until every one of those suspected of be ng involved in the conspiracy is sacked from the R.U.C., | police evidence. | April 19th 1969 is suspect.

| suspects are dangerous: remember

CONSPIRACY

PART OF THE CROWD AT MONDAY'S BUS FARE PROTEST

it will be impossible justly to conviet any member of the public on How is the court to know that beneath the plausable exterior and neat police uniform there does not lurk one of the Devenney murder conspirators? Until the last conspiracy suspect is sacked, members of the public are advised, in their own interest, to treat every member of the RUC with suspicion. Every policeman who was in Derry on the night of And the they have lied their way out of a murder charge.

GALLAGHER

It was after the publication of a name in FREE CITIZEN that the Drury enquiry’was started. We think that that enquiry, in at least publicly admitting that there is a police conspiracy, was worthwhile, For the same reason we would welcome enquiries into the deaths of John Gallagher, shot by the B Specials in Armagh, and Frank McCloskey, who died after a beating by R.U.C. in Dungiven.

LICENSE

FREE CITIZEN 6th NOVEMBER 1970

TO KILL

BY CYRIL TOMAN

Not content with General Freeland's shoot-to-kill order, the British Army has now announced its new order: "shoot first, ask questions later". Major Farrar-Hockly announced last weekend that anyone in a crowd where a petrol bomb had been thrown is liable to be shot. From now on soldiers will not even have to invent a petrol bomb as they did in the case of Danny O'Hagan.

Needless to say, none of the soldiers guilty of these murders will even have to appear at an inquest.

As usual a brief 'statement' from a ‘Corporal A' will be read and murder will be sanctioned by the courts The way in which murder can be committed and covered up by the forces of the Crown has bred great resentment among the working people of Belfast. There is no need to invent "outside agitators" or "minute minorities" to explain antiarmy riots, as army officers and one R.C. bishop chose to do in statements issued last weekend.

Major 'License-to-kill' Hockly, General 'Shoot-to-kill' Freeland, and Major Spurgeon (commanding the Royal Marines) all spoke in quick succession about "some outside organisation" being responsible for the Ardoyne riots; and in a sermon, which dovetailed in nicely with the British army statements, Dr.

Philbin blamed "a minute number of older people”. The fact is that only an English Sunday newspaper could believe that "eighteen IL.R.A. men from across the border" could be responsible for rioting which went on for five or six ‘hours on two successive nights.

sensible person could for a moment accept that riots on this scale could continue in a residental area without the support of the local people.

That is not to say that the local people wanted to start riots. They did not. But week after week the working class people in one area of Belfast or another are having riots thrust upon them by the agressive pig-headed behaviour of the British troops. A few weeks ago, after a relatively minor incident, thousands of homes on the Shankill were bombarded by C.S. gas cannisters.

When people's homes come under attack they are completely justified in defending themselves and driving off the attacker, whether that attacker be a sectarian mob, or in the case of all the recent riots in Belfast, the so-called peace-keeping British army. Last weekend's troubles were sparked off when a British soldier shot three people without even the excuse of provocation. Instead of at once withdrawing after such a fiasco, the officer in charge ‘apologised’ to the wounded through a loudhailer, and then proceeded to clear the streets - or try to. ByZ the following day the whole questio 4 g cover up for the British Army's | G of the shooting had conveniently been forgotten, and the I.R.A.

bogeyman could be introduced to bullying incompetence. If British officers want to blame "outsiders" they should ask themselves from what part of Ardoyne (or, indeed, Ireland) do the 500 Royal Marines now occupying that area come from. Only the most ‘blindly arrogant of imperialists could blame "outsiders" while being responsible for saturating Ardoyne with British troops. It is also the height of hypocrisy to condemn people for defending themselves with primitive home-made ombs when the British army Vasu moves into an area with armoured vehicles, water cannon, tear gas grenades, high-powered rifles, rubber bullets and machine guns to name but some of their weaponry. The single most effective gesture shat troops could make towards the restoring of peace is to get out of working class areas and stay out.

Constant patroling by armed troops heightens tension. Most of the riots in the past few months have been anti-army rather than sectarian. The barbed-wire 'peace' line permanently marks sectarian divisions and makes the growth of working class unity more difficult.

But, then, the present regime are hardly interest in working class unity. They appear more interested in crushing all opposition than in granting any reform. A large 'mixed' crowd protesting No Alast Tuesday were horrified to see menancingly up and down Royal Avenue: the demonstration was watched by soldiers with sten-guns: a platoon of troops in full riot gear, gas grenades at the ready, was standing by 200 yards away in Zabout increased bus fares in Belfast a military water cannon patrolling and not surprising- Hastings Street, ly provoked some incidents with those returning from the demonstration. This type of intimidation must be stopped. P.D. will mount a public campaign (similar to our campaign against the Public Order Act) against the oppressive military presence in working class areas.

One word of caution: this article does not support the idea that rioting of itself is the best way to oppose the presence of troops, or their blundering behaviour. Far from it. Opposition to an oppressive occupying army is only successful if it has widespread public support. And the way to gain that is by carrying out widespread public demonstrations against the troops and public being | heir blunders.

At present ther > much public Watssatietaction W ith the troops' behaviour. But t will require a political campaign to make this dis- Zz held a meeting in Toome to protest at the savage sentences meted Zz

SELL OUT

Last Saturday night the P.D.

out to 18 P.D. members by the hatchet-man Magistrate Shearer in Magherafelt over a week ago.

These sentences were for taking |-part in a sit-in at the offices of the Toome Eel Fisheries. Speakers castigated Shearer for being a Unionist hack, and a supporter of blood-sucking foreign imperialists, and they pledgéd the support of the Peoples Democracy in the struggle to drive out capitalists, both native and foreign, from this country.

One of the more interesting happenings at the meeting was a discussion engaged in by two members of the P.D. and a local Green Tory who said that the people of Toome did not welcome the P.D.'s campaign for the expropiation of Lough Neagh. He said that Lough Neagh was going to be bought over by the businessmen around the Lough. Thus it seems that the canr paign by the P.D. in trying to get rid of the London businessmen who at present own Lough Neagh is going to benefit a lot of local capitalists who have sat back like scavengers waiting to see what they could steal. Let these so-called republicans and green capitalists beware! P.D.

has called for the expropiation of Lough Neagh from ALL capitalists, to be controlled by the people around |.ough Neagh who earn their living with the sweat of their labour. The P.D. does not believe that the lot of the fishermen and small farmers west of the Bann will be improved one iota by changing the control of the resources of this country from international exy Ploiters to national exploiters. A G better way of life can only be brought about in this country by driving ALL these blood-sucking leeches and parasites out, and making sure they never return by building a Workers Republic.

A final word on the Green Tory comment about the people of Toome.

The working people of Toome have supported the P.D. since it began Z and even more-so now that it is socialist. Certainly the capitalists Ww Y | around Toome, like capitalists everywhere, detest everything we stand for. They would not be cap italists if they supported us.

SSK

satisfaction felt. In the face of such a capaignarmy propagandists will be unable to talk smugly about "senseless violence". Such a campaign can also expose the depressed conditions in which people are forced to live in in the ghettoes. It can also highlight the repressive machinery of courtroom perjury and mardatory prison sentences to which so many young people are delivered for the simple 'crime' of defending their homes.

HEL: CITIZEN

IT’S A GAS RACKET

BY OUR LURGAN CORRESPONDENT

All-Unionist Lurgan Borough Council is trying to hush up a scand alous swindle. It is a swindle involving embezzlement of public funds by a Council employee and the sudden disappearance of two wellknown local figures. If this were merely the usual crooked scandal that corrupt Unionist local government throws up (like the thieving Derry Motor Taxation Officer) it would not be so bad@= it would be quite normal. But it is a swindle which is harming financially the completely innocent people of working class Drumnamoe Estate, Lurgan. bills The affair surfaced last week when Lurgan Borough Council sent mountainous gas bills for gas central heating costs to scores of Drumnamoe tenants. Yet the local tenant's association can show that when the estate opened three years ago tenants signed tenancy agreements stating that on payment of 25/- per week over and above rent and rates householders could haye gas-fired central heating supplied. This arrangement continued for three years and then, suddenly, unexpected gas bills backdated to 1968 started arriving. Some were for as much as £70, £80 and, in one case, £145. ers were flabbergasted as their tenancy agreements clearly stated that all the costs of the gas central heating were covered by the 25/weekly addition. But just take a closer look at some of those involved in this attempt to swindle the Drumnamoe tenants.

GOODBYE

Goodyear are going to pull out of Craigavon. The American rubber giant has had enough. They want to abandon their £6,500, 000 factory built for them with taxpayers’ money by Brian Faulkner and William Craig. Their management is already making preparations to kiss Faulkner's folly - the new city of Craigavon - goodbye. They have no other choice. Since opening in October 1967 they have faced problems that are not only enormous but insoluble. In the last three years they have lost just over £3 million. Their capital grants from Faulkner's Ministry of Development expire at the end of a five year period and then they will be, financially speaking, on their own. They can't leave immediately, as they would like to do, because if they scuttled the project before the expiry of the five-year period they would be obliged to hand back every penny of the taxpayers' money. So they must hang on reluctantly until 1972: But then what? How long will the The working class wage earn Take Jim Carson, Mayor of Lurgan in 1968 when the estate opened.

Carson claims he told tenants at that time of the possibility of a charge over and above the agreed 25/- per week should extra gas be used - and of the possibility of a refund should less be used. Yet nothing was heard of this for three years. Certainly no-one heard of any refunds. Meantime, however, Carson has hurriedly left town, his office-supplies business in chaos, with another man's wife. Behind him he left his own wife and child ren and sundry frantic business partners. Take Council Housing Manager A.G.Waite. He too blew town leaving behing him a mysterious but sizable deficit in the Housing Account (which includes rents from the Drumnamoe houses). The deficit had to be made up somehow.

But how? Beginning to see the light now? The gas-light?

No wonder the popular town clerk, William McCleary, resigned. It was too much to expect a man of integrity and proven decency to work in the middle of this corruption. o end the story - in August 1970 the Drumnamoe tenants wrote to the Lurgan Borough Council pointing out the terms of their orginal agreements signed in the Carson-Waite era. So far there has been no reply from the Council. Why not?

Is it taking all this time for the shifty financial sharks on the Council to concoct a story justifying their attempt to rob the workers of Drumnamoe in order to compensate for the swindling of the discredited absconders ?

GOODYEAR

U.S. capitalists behind the Goodyear project continue to pour their own money (as distinct from your money) into what is clearly a lost cause? In fact to continue supportworthy and solvent Goodyear MUST pull out. The manpower situation at Goodyear is a second major factor in their coming decision. They employ 1,500 men, yet out of this vast force they have a huge monthly turnover of 125 shop-floor workers.

In other words every single job in Goodyear, on average, becomes vacant once a year. A 100% turnover every twelve months. Almost an entire shop-floor to be trained every year. This colossal wastage is due to the squalid wages Goodyear pay, the sweated labour conditions in their notorious ''Bambury" department, plus the ludicrously high rent charges in the new housing estates of Moylinn and Meadowbrook (up to £6. 5s. Od. per week!).

Even Goodyear consider these rents exorbitant and are at loggerheads with the Craigavon Commissioners ‘70's, has had it. To those apologists and slobbers in the NUMskulls or Alliance or Nationalist or Semi De tachued L.P, who claimed that 'class war' was outdated, the latest actions of our ‘SOV ernord must have been a severe blow. Anthony Barber (a gentleman with 'interests' in S.Africa) as Chancellor of the Exchequer produced the most class orientated "mini-budget! in 50 years.

lresult w orking ¢ class people have been dealt a vicious blow. No more free school milk, prescr seein charges up, dwatal charges up!

Who benefits? Well, big industrialand anyone earning over £40 a week, for whom the 6d. off income tax is intended - if you get less than £40 a week (as 98% of the population do) you'll be even worse off than before, and the poorer you are the worse it is. Nothing on pensions, so another 10,000 old people will die this winter (at least) from cold or hunger - these are officially accepted figures teachers Here in Belfast, the working class lave excluded from the City Hall and a bunch of car-owning gangsters, led by the clown Cairns, put up the | bus fares - and put £180 a year on many working class families bills.

These people are the enemies of the working class - and it is they who have declared CLASS WAR, just as they have always done.

They even can blatantly admit their thefts - last week Her Majesty's Treasury admitted that since 1925 it owed teachers the incredible sum of £1,000 million which is "the ex- .

cess of contributions over the money paid out to teachers in pensions" The state is a robber, and it robs the working class most. Power to the people, not the state!

Asa ists, over them. goes on. The most discouraging symptom of the Goodyear disease is that it is spreading. Not a single new major American industrialist has been attracted to the area since Goodyear began ailing. The reason is simply that Goodyear have warned them all off. It's a case of once bitten. To save face Goodyear will be forced for a time to deny that they are going. Political pressure will be brought on them to repudiate this intention. But going they are.

Craigavon, wonder city of Unionism and Faulkner's gateway to the But still the wastage northern star 2

THE NEW NORTHERN STAR

IS NOW OUT

COPIES FROM:

88 LADYBROOK

BELFAST.

2/-d. POST FREE.

PARK

6th NOVEMBER 1970- | | ? ;

BUS FARES -THE FIGHT IS ON

BY JOHN MURPHY

As predicted in last week's Free Citizen the Belfast Corporation faced tremendous’ opposition when they introduced their increased fares and cut services on Monday.

In spite of the bad weather a great many people boycotted the buses altogether , while others used them but temporarily withheld their fares. As a result of the boycott most passengers have not even realised that services have been reduced. The first day of the new fares coincided with the November meeting of the City Council and saw one of the largest demonstrations Belfast has witnessed for some time. The Peoples Democracy had anounced two meetings; one for two o'clock at the City Hall, and another at Castle Junction at five o'clock.

speeches Many organisations voiced their support , and those who attended included striking construction workers from I1.C.I. at Kilroot, members of the Falls and Newtownabbey Labour parties, the Communist party, various trade unionists and representatives from the tenants associations. There were so many people there when the loudspeaker car arrived-at 1.30pm the meeting was started immediately..

Representatives from all the organisations present were invited to speak and speeches were followed by a few circuits of the flower beds in the City Hall grounds, followed in turn by more speeches.

All the speakers were well received by the good-humoured crowd, and the marches were large and noisy. Chants of ''Two-four-sixeight - Put the buses on the rate” could be heard as far away as the Bank Buildings. A demonstration at the Transport Departments Information Kiosk was suggested and a large section of the audience took off for an improntu march down the middle of Donegall Place.

At Castle Junction they crossed and re-crossed the road with the result that cars were held up and a traffic jam started. After about twenty minutes the demonstrators regrouped and marched back to the City Hall. There, after more speeches they marched round the City Hall a couple of times. A small group stopped at the back gate, and their presence ther® prevented Councillor Quinton O'Hara from driving out in his Rover 33 Litre. However as the porter refused to open the gate a number of housewives and some children were trapped inside.

A deal was made between the protesters and the porter. They would step back and clear a passage and would not rush the gates, and he would open one of them and let the women and children out. However, == = WE ia as soon as the women were through, printed and published weekly by the FREE CITIZEN 6th NOVEMBER 1970 troops menace crowd smart-alec James Stewart, Alderman for St. Annes and resident of Lisburn, jumped in behind them and thought he would slip through on their skirt tails. The porter realising this was not part of the bargain started to close the gate, but Sneaky Jim squeezed through in spite of his large size. At this point the demonstrators surged forward, and the good Alderman laid into several people with a large envelope full of books. One demonstrator had his glasses broken and a lady was knocked to the ground.

The police, of course, took no action; an ordinary worker would have earned a six month jail sentence. Nevertheless, proceedings for assault will be taken against the Alderman. Meanwhile round at the front it had been anounced that the Council would refuse to allow in evena deputation. This decision was taken on the Lord Mayor's casting vote after a tie. It so angered the crowd that some of them stormed the gates trying to get in. At this point five _ were arrested and charged with disorderly behaviour (some were members of the public, not P.D. members. They will appear at the Petty Sessions Court on Monday. Members of public are invited to attend and give them support.). But not until many had been attacked by the police (prominent among those using the boot was Constable No.1507).

promises The meeting continued until just after five when another march was staged back to Castle Junction. A meeting had been planned for there, but because of the traffic jam the car with the loudspeakers could not get there from the City Hall. The demonstration, which started strongly at lunchtime and then dwindled to a few hundred, now numbered about one thousand. Because of superior numbers, the police were forced to conceed a ten minute march round and round the cross roads. They were even obliged to lend a loud hailer. All this was in return for a promise from a P.D. member that after a demonstration in the middle of the road from 5.24 to 5.34 that he would ask the crowd to disperse.

.At the end of the agreed period it was announced that there would be another meeting the next day at the same time and there further plans would be revealed. The demonstrators then went home leaving behind one of the biggest traffic snarl-ups Belfast has ever seen.

-In spite of this, many workers who had been delayed did not seem to mind too much. A typical comment the next day was "Sure, what's a bit of a delay, if they get the fares Another meeting was held on Tues- .day evening. There it was announced that the P.D. intend to collect signatures from 16 Councillors to have the bus fare issue re-considered by the Council. As an example to the businessmen who control the corporation the P.D would picket, on Friday morning, one of the six shops belonging to the Lord Mayor. This was intended as a warning to the rest of them that if they did not re-consider the question, then the working people of Belfast would hit them where it hurt most - in the pocket. Widow Victimised Unionist hatred for their enemies knows no boundaries. The old saying of ''following one to the grave" has been changed by them to add, "and often beyond the grave’. The wife of a republican who was interned from 1957 - 1960 applied in the normal manner for her widow's pension. Imagine her dismay on being informed that because her late husband did not mark his cards for 1957/1960 she is only eligable for 3 pension. Now there is red tape for you! This man was available at all times for work, but because of his different political views they in their wisdom threw him into jail without trial or charges. He was in no way able, because of their disorder, to mark his cards. Now they intend to punish his wife. Let all so-called liberals and moderates pass comment on this latest Unionist affront to an innocent woman, whose only 'crime' was to stand by her husband in all his troubles. We give a warning to all those men who were interned - to see to it that they, and their families, will not also be victimised similarily. The P.D. have a message for 'liberal' Chi Chi Clarke. Put this inhuman decision to one side, or it will be another crime you and your minnows will have to answer for before the People's Courts. > Peoples Democracy 88 Ladybrook Pk Belfast Subscrption 50/- per year