contemporary question of the state, has undermined the Unionist claim that they represent the national interest, and has prevented outside support for the barbaric which the Orangemen of Ulster usually apply to their hapless catholics.
The catholic population is still segregated, deliberately deprived of jobs and houses to CHISUTC their emigration the continual numerical superiority of the protestants (Alderman George Elliot, mayor of Enniskillen publicly refused to sanction building houses for catholics and asked Why should we do it, we would only be cutting a stick to beat ourselves with.). The continuing policy religious apartheid was escalated to a new level last year when the first civil rights march at Dungannon in August was banned from specific streets by Craig, then Minister of Home Affairs. He marched through, thus mobilising the Paisleyites to prevent the march and to 'defend' the town. The precedent and policy set by the government was willingly enforced by police: at the Burntollet ambush, Paisleyites received news of the long march's progress from police radios and openly organised and armed themselves. When Porter, the current minister, banned the march through Burntollet last Saturday, the day after Bernadette Devlin's election, he declared that he knew of armed men who would prevent the march from coming through. He capitulated to the thugs of the Orange Order. The forces which his predecessor encouraged were now openly in control of the Burntollet road. Porter's refusal to take police action to disarm the Paisleyites, coupled with the openly sectarian behaviour of the police, could not have been more calculated Danger the catholics. Especially as the evidence as to who the armed men are is quite lear. As reported in today's Belfast Telegrapi the South Jerry Ulster Protestant Volunteer offered to put 'one thousand responsible able-bodied men' at the disposal of the police, and at the same time warned against another proposal to march from Burntollet bridge to Derry, stating if allowed to take place the march may well have fatal consequences. Ivan Cooper, the Derry Protestant Civil Rights MP claimed that he knew there were men armed with telescopic rifles waiting for the marchers at Burntollet. But the police have hot moved against them.
At Derry on Saturday the RUC transformed a small crowd of forty civil rights demonstrators into insurrection. The civil rights protesters had CITY CENTRE E o 1. FERRYGATE ST. - - 3. BISHOP'S 2. BUTCHER'S GATE 4. the police down Waterloo Street, sometime advancing, sometimes retreating, did battle at Littlewoods Corner in Waterloo Place, broke the police resistance, advanced to the Victoria Barracks and smashed all of its windows. Then police reinforcements arrived, including heavy water cannon, and the demonstrators were driven back down Waterloo Street and down William Street. Three barricades were erected where Rossville Street becomes Lecky Road, night with heavy patrols provoking population.
Some of the police atrocities have been documented: a water cannon mounted pavement and ran down a youth, breaking both an his legs. The RUC battered down the door of Ctrept which is just past
Not before time, and no thanks to English mass
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included the non-segregated commercial town centre as officially protestant and not to be
So much for the law. And the order which goes with it is battle order.
William Street, where a pitched battle took place at the junction of Rossville Street and
but by midnight the RUC, striking in force, smashed through the barricades and occupied Bogside, where they remained throughouf the