The brutal killing of Kenneth Lennon last Easter raised a storm of protest.
Three days before his death he had visited the offices of the National Council of Civil Liberties, and told them that he was scared that the Special Branch were going to kill him. Lennon was a police informer who infiltrated the Republican movement in Britain and helped to set-up two Irish militants in Luton (both are still in jail).
Roy Jenkins asked the police to investigate the killing. Inevitably. they have prepared a whitewash report exonerating the Special Branch.
Judge Widgery, no mean whitewasher himself -he exonerated the army over the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry — said while dismissing an appeal by Lennon's family, that in these days of troubles the Spocial Branch had to do a lot of "unpleasant' things. The learned judge cold have gone on and added: including killing off troublesome ex-informers". WHITEWASH The coroner at Epsom, Lt. Col George MeEwan, no doubt got the message loud and clear from the Home Office, He refused to allow the lawyer for the Lennon family. John Matts-Milb, QC, to summon the two Spocial Branch offioers, Commander Rodger and Det. Inspector Wickens.
The Lt. Colonel remarked: I think it best that these officers should not attend'. The foreman of the jury re affirmed that he did not wish the Special Branch officers questioned and the jury conveniently decided that Lennon had been murdered by "a person or persons unknown'. George McEiwan is a coroner who knows his job so the white wash is complete, with only the police report commissioned by Jenkins remaining to be published.
Not a single capitalist newspaper has made the Lennon alfair into the Watergate of the British police establishment. Too much else would SPECIAL. BRANCH some out and the proprietors of our for publishing Lennon's statement before he was killed and breaking it to the press is somehow got rid of. The establishment also dominates the NCCL. "free press" might get tainted. Whenever a massive cock-up involving the Special Branch or the Army or the Secret Service occurs the British establishment closes ranks. Both wings of the Parliamentary Labour Party eagerly concur with only the odd Labour MP striking a discordant note. An oppreasive curtain of silence is drawn over the whole affair. Even the National Secretary of the NCCL, who was responsible Only the socialist press of the revolutionary left (Workers Press, Sociaint Worker and Red Weekly) will question the coroners decision und they, unfortunately, reach a small audience. Nonetheless over the next months we bave to ensure that the question of Lennon, Littlejohn and the use of SB provocateurs is raised whenever Labour MP's and Ministers attend meetings. Lennon was killed so that he could not tell any more tales, but his victims are still in prison.
Roy Jenkins must not he allowed to get away with concealing the iden tity of Lennon's murderers.
C. Howard L.K.
in compromising with the Loyalists.
rate strikers they had previously backed so vociferously.
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7- cpendent nation'.
Loyalists launch ramme of national salvation.
while first step. WORKERS MOVEMENT THE APATHY OF THE WORKERS MOVEMENT about the role of the Labour Government in Ireland was taken up last week by the two opposite ends of the political spectrum based on the Catholic working class in the Northern six counties of Ireland. That John Hume of the reformist and collaborationist Social and Democratic Labour Party could be pushed into tongue lashing all wings of the Labour Party indicates how far the Labour Government has gone Only five months ago there was a Cabinet Minister in a govern ment that presided over Long Kesh and defended the whole policy of internment. But the SDLP is subiect to two quite contradictory pressures which force it into periodic somersaults- the Southern 1 Irish bourgeoisie and the Catholic workine class in the whettes of the North. In 1970, the five MPs who later formed the SDLP voted for the Criminal Justice Act which carried a mandatory six montls prison sentence for anyone arrested by the British army snatch squads. However only one year later, the upsurge of the Catholic masses had forced the SDLP out of Stormont. They gave their full backing to the mas anti-internment, rent and rates strike pledging never again to accept office until internment was ended-and then entered the power-sharing administration which ended so abruptly with the Loyalist general strike in May. Not only did they do nothing about these pledges but hounded the rent und Now with their power-sharing house of cards collapsed and Long Kesh in ashes, they are once again on their "militant" band waggoning desperately hoping they will not lose support to the republicans.
With his pathetic accusation that 'internment acts as a recruiting * agent for the Provisional IRA. Home is making a plaintive plea for a few crumbs from British imperialism to assuage the insurgent base In doing that he exposed the type of rubbish that Labou Minister Merlyn Rees goes in for. Hume proclaimed to argue that internment is necessary in Northern Ireland because of the violence that exists there' is dishonest. "Internment has increased rather than Hume had no solutions, but Drithi O Conail, Vice President of Provisional Sinn Fein, speaking on ITV's Weekend World program me was able to spotlight the real problem-"the terror waged by the troops in Ireland. His answer was far more relevant than that of the SDLP. He wanted the troogs out of Ireland. He didn't just want an end to internment but the opening up of the jails in Ireland and Britain." And he was clear that Irish people should be free to sort out their own affairs free from British interference through an "All-freUnfortunately, the bombing campaign in Britain which he threatened to step up is not the way to achieve these ends. The fact of the matter is that the Irish Catholic working class is still under the tutelage of the SDIP. The key task is the winning of these forces * to the essential demands of the withdrawal of troops and for self determination. The struggle of the Irish people has not yet reached the sage of all-out war, except in the heads of the Provisional Icadership. All the political problems of winning the Irish people to * Imperialism is on the cards have not been solved. Because of this that stage of mobilisation where a fight to the death against British misestimste of where the struggle is at, the demands that he put ditional withdrawal" can only confuse the masses in Ircland and under mine the solidarity movement for the withdrawal of troops in this O'Conail was absolutely correct to insist on the need for the armed defence of the Catholic ghettoes. He cut through all the hyp ocrisy that it is British troops which are preventing a civil war A secturian war has been going on for three years under the cover The Provisionals recognise that this sectarian conflict would probably continue after the withdrawal of troops. But the IRA did not seek confrontation with the Loyalists. We seek dialogue with all shades of Irish opinion. But the chief obstacle at the moment is the presence of an army which is bostile to the very ilea of a free Ireland, coming into its own in the development of a free and indThese troops have to be got out. Even in a situation where the La civil war, O'Conail clearly pointed out the Irish dimension. "The people of the South will create an army that will not permit the slaughter of Catholics on a massive scale. The trish people right across the nation will not stand idly by, irrespec tive of what the politicians will say. Significant sections of the Irish army will not stand by irrespective of what orders come from politicians". The mistake of those who argue that the British army is needed to stop a civil war is precisely that of those who look at Ireland through the imperialist spectacles of the Six Counties alone.
The insistence of the SDLP that it was "high time that the labour movement was left in no doubt and was fully aware of the outrages for which it was responsible' despite the hypocrisy hits the mark Unless the British trude union movement begins to take up its responsibilities on Ireland the consequences will be far worse than IRA It will be at the expense of the unity of the working class in the face of a chauvinist campaign led by someone like Powell on a prog O'Conuil certuinly does not provide any relevant answers with his bombing campaign, but he raises some of the crucial problems confronting the Irish peoplo. A trade union conference to discuss the responsibilities of the British trade union movement, as called for by the Troops Out Movement, especially in the face of a Labour government administering imperialist policy, would be a worth
iron threshold Scm high and a soundproof screen was placed on the cell window. This total sonic vacuum can have extremely damaging effects.
Scientific research has established that torture through withdrawal of sound has the same effect on the mun labour movement. Only the groups on the revolutionary left (including the German section of the Fourth Internations), who disagree totally with their tactics (urban guerrilla warfare in German cities) are in the forefront of their