The Northern Ireland Convention has been postponed yet again. It will now meet on Thursday 11 September, two days after the first postponement date. The official reason given for this further postponement by Sir Robert Lowry, the Chairman of the Convention, was that the parties were making a determined effort to solve very difficult and complex issues and need time for this purpose'. What these difficult and complex issues' are no one is saying, but it is sure that power-sharing between the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the United Ulster Unionist Coun cil (UUUC) has finally been laid to rest.
Ian Paisley, one of the triumvirate that heads the UUUC, declared on the eve of the Convention elections back in May that the outcome would be no power-sharing, no Irish dimension and the return of the B-Specials'. they have outlined to the SDLP over the last few weeks in their secret talks.
The Constitutional Convention was just one more in a long line of 'British solutions' to the problems of the Irish people, and like its predecessors it was doomed to failure from the start. Only last week Merlyn Rees acknowledged the point when he spoke of continuing direct rule from Westminster.
But direct rule is hardly an option that remains open to the British Government. It has been rejected by every single one of the Loyalist factions who are united in seeking an 'Ulster' solution. This can only be successful through increased repression of the Catholic minority; and on that issue there is little difference between the UUUC call for martial law in South Armagh, Paisley's call for the formation of a home guard, and the 'preparations for the inevitable onslaught' made at the meeting of the Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee (which links the main Loyalist para-military organisations) last Saturday.
The Ulster Volunteer Force have already let it be known that their battalions are engaged in widespread assassination of 'persons connected with Republican and Communist organisations. The UVF in the past have demonstrated their inability to distinguish between revolutionaries and the minority population in general and only a fortnight ago gave the green light for the murder of workers who happen to be members of the more This is the exact same position that Mocracy. Irish Congress of Trade Unions, describing them as 'enemies of Ulster'. Catholic workers at the Belfast meat abattoir have already suffered at the hands of the UVF gunmen, and last week took strike action, threatening to close the abattoir if the killings continue. The situation is therefore one of intense gloom for the nationalist community in the North of Ireland - intimidated from their homes, harassed by the British Army, and murdered by Loyalist extremists. are growing in confidence as they put the finishing touches to their plans for a takeover, confident that the British Government will not move against a mass movement that has so often been its ally in the subjugation of Ireland.
While mass resistance to the Loyalist takeover needs to be organised, the SDLP continues to collaborate in the Convention and to barter the lives of the minority for crumbs from the Loyalist table. within the anti-Unionist population retaliate to the assassination of Catholics by the assassination of Protestants - actions which have been repudiated by all the anti-imperialist organisations and the anti-imperialist population as a whole. As the Revolutionary Marxist Group pointed out in a recent press release, the only way to defeat the Loyalist murder gangs and the Loyalist takeover is for the anti-Unionist population to rely on its own struggle, democratically organised in the nationalist areas.
It was for this reason that the RMG participates in the United Anti-internment Committee along with the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the People's DemThe Committee organised a number of protests during the fourth anniversary of internment, and has laid plans for a further series of street protests culminating in a conference open to all anti-imperialist organisations and individuals. This will discuss the formation of a united resistance movement capable of mobilising the mass of the anti-Unionist population against the Loyalist takeover and for the end of British domination. The building of such a united resistance is the prime responsibility of anti-imperialists in the North Whatever the outcome, however, Irish revolutionaries look to their comrades in Britain to intensify their efforts in building solidarity in the British labour movement.
The Loyalists Sic areas.
Some elements
red weekly 11 september 1975