Tempt by the Loyalist population and boycotted by the Republican population. In such circumstances even a good result for the British Government would nave wue meaning. while a vote against the Government would provoke a even worse crisis.
But it will take more than this to encourage British imperialism to withdraw its troops from Ireland. Churchill's remark. in the last century still holds true when the imperialists look at their investments in ICI, Chemstrand, Courtaulds, RTZ and all the other major capitalist concerns; and when they assess the impact of a complete hand-over to the Loyalists, resulting in a drawn out war involving sections of the 26 County population, such a hasty withdrawal is ruled out. The imperialists will only withdraw once the Catholic population is seen to be defeated.
Repression So the Rees recipe remains much the same as before. Its main ingredients are the intimidation and repression of the Catholic minority in order to make them more susceptible to the influence of the sell-out artists of the collaborationist Social Democratic & Labour Party. Hence the Army and SAS operation, which also serves as a sop to the Loyalist LOICES.
Unfortunately for Rees, appetite comes with eating in the Six Counties as elsewhere, and one good sop merely deserves another as far as the Loyalists the Provisional IRA on 22 November.
now face in South Armagh.
MURDER ATTEMPT The Labour Government's decision to send men of the Special Air Services (SAS) into South Armagh on 7 January, far from being an immediate re action to the deaths of Irish workers a couple of days earlier, had been taken almost a full month previously. It is now believed that the decision was in fact taken no later than 9 December, after a British Army spy post on the border with the 26 Counties had been wiped out by According to the Dublin paper the Sunday World, officers of the 22nd SAS regiment, based at Bradbury Lines Camp in Hereford, already knew that they were going to Ireland before they went on Christmas leave. Certainly their training for some months previously was carried out in conditions very similar to those they Harold Wilson's claim in Parliament that this is the first occasion on which the SAS has been despatched to Ireland is of course nonsense. This modern version of the Black and Tan terror force used in Ireland in the 1920s is no stranger to the Six Counties. The SAS have been operating here in a variety of guises since 1971, often attached to regular British Army regiments.
For some time they operated here under the name of the Military Reaction Force, which concerned itself primarily with the fomenting of sectarian conflict and assassinations. Times correspondent Robert Fisk described in a recent interview with Irish television how the SAS had tried to murder a Protestant from the Black's Road estate at Suffolk, on the outskirts of Belfast. Fisk named the man as a former Ulster Defence Regiment sergeant called Black, and explained that the murder attempt was made after Black had given information about the SAS murder campaign against Catholics which he had stumbled upon while in the UDR.
'SECURITY FORCES Generally speaking, the responsibility for the killing of a Protestant in such circumstances is usually attributed by the so-called 'security forces' to Republicans.
There are numerous examples of SAS involvement in an assassination campaign against Catholics. They were responsible for the murder of Paddy MeVeigh, a member of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen's Association who was shot dead two years ago at Riverdale. It was also three SAS men in plain-clothes who shot and wounded three taxi-drivers and another man at a bus roundabout on the Glen Road in Belfast in June 1972. On that occasion they were caught red-handed -armed with a Thompson submachine gun. They were charged and brought to court, but needless to say they never found themselves on the other side of the prison wars The following year the SAS were involved in the bombing of Kelly's Bar at Whiterock Road, and in the gun battle which followed they joined forces with the Loyalist Springmartin estate. Scores of other shooting and bombing incidents in Belfast - including the massacre at McGurk's Bar, North Queen Street, in which 15 people died from passing cars have been the work of the SAS.
The SAS have also been used to stir up the various feuds which have taken place amongst para-military organisations, both Loyalist and Republican.
- and dozens of hit-and-run gun attacks Robert Fisk recounted the SAS's involvement in one part of 1974. A young Protestant w Protestant pub near Portadown railv men who, although they were trying accents, had earlier been heard talki Fisk told Irish television: In fact that an SAS unit operating in plainin the very near vicinity of that pub night. The suggestion was made to n these were SAS men trying delibera feud between the UDA and the UV. say that the our man, amener later able to identify one of his kidn a number of British soldiers who ha in plain-clothes by the police in Sou the same time During the recent Republican fet icials and the Provisionals claimed t responsible for some of the deaths. ed that it was the SAS who gunned an, Official IRA Commander in Bel the confliet with the Irish Republic in early 1975 NOT ALL SUCCESS It would be wrong, however, to have been able to operate with com Six Counties. A number of their co leading to action against them by t Perhaps the most notable incident Laundry shootings in the Twinbroo Here the SAS were posing as laund houses and generally trying to obta a swoop on their van, the IRA desp men elsewhere in their whiter-than Duty in the Six Counties has tak SAS in other ways as well. Last mo who had served in Belfast was sent tution when he pleaded guilty to ki torturing an Irish member of the B a three day period. Captain David
January 1976 Part 3