IRELAND—Two Views (I) BRITAIN MUST TAKE TROOPS EROM NORTHERN IRELAND NOW

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32848, 23 February 1972, Page 16

IRELAND—Two Views (I) BRITAIN MUST TAKE TROOPS EROM NORTHERN IRELAND NOW

(By

BERNADETTE DEVLIN.

reprinted by arrangement from the "New York Timet." February 6. 1972)

COOKSTOWN (Northern Ireland). — What Britain must do is take her troops out of Northern Ireland now. People will ask: What will happen when the troops come out? After last Sunday in Derry hat’s a pretty sick question. When people ask you who will protect you if the British Army goes, the question we ask is who will protect us from the British Army? And so they should take their troops out now and seek a political settlement.

The only political settlement that will be of any consequence to the people of the North of Ireland is one that improves their standard of living, both economically and socially, and that means a radical economic programme. In the immediate sense, internment has got to be ended. We have the kind of legislation against marching that led to 13 people being killed. One no longer has a right to march in a peaceful demonstration—that’s against the law—and one no longer has the right to publish articles against the State —that’s against the law. Unless these things are ended, then more and more people, feeling themselves deprived of any democratic means of objecting, will tum to violence as the only way they can see of fighting their way out of the comer into which the Government has pushed them. Self-protection I am asked whether there would not be large-scale bloodshed if the troops left. My answer is: We’ve had it. We’ve had it from the British Army. If we have to defend ourselves against the might of an organised army, we’ll defend our areas, our ghettos and ourselves against anybody else’s army. The British Army does not afford us protection. We afford ourselves what protection we need against any comers, and the training we’ve had' in being forced to do it against the British Army will certainly stand up. Looking at it from the point of view of the vast majority of the Protestants, their economic condition is not essentially a great deal better than the economic condition of the majority of the Catholics here. They have 10 per cent unemployment, a low-wage problem, a shortage of decent housing. The Protestants cannot be asked, nor would I ask the Catholic community here, to join the existing Irish Republic because it makes little difference to the people whether their unemployment benefit is paid in Bank of England notes or Bank of Ireland notes. And their problem is unemployment benefit instead of work.

There are two battle fronts at the moment. The longterm problem is to create a country in which the people of Ireland can live in har-rr-ny, live in peace and live in dignity. Against imperialism The immediate fight is against British imperialism, which means in its most immediate terms that we

have got to have barricades on the fringes of the Catholic ghettos. We have got to keep the British Army from coming into those areas interning people, arresting us, generally harassing, intimidating, terrorising the Catholic population. In the best of all possible worlds I would hope to see all the working class at one side of the barricades and all the ruling class, owners, on the other, and certainly make our successful bid for a workers’ republic. But that’s not the way things are happening.

We’ve got the Catholic working class population of the ghettos on one side of the barricades, the army on the other, and admittedly the Protestants doing nothing, because they see the army as still protecting them. What’s going to happen if they feel that Britain would sell them out—which of course she would do if it was in her own political and economic interest—l don’t know. If the British take the

army away, then we’ll still be on our side of the barricades for exactly the same reason, to defend our areas. I don’t think that anyone can point to any concentrated attempt by the Catholic community to attack the Protestant community. It certainly wouldn’t happen if the British Army pulled out. Attacks doubted I doubt that the Protestant community would make massive attacks on the Catholics at this stage. But if they did, then we would have to defend ourselves as we’re doing at the moment Anti-British feeling is running very high in all of Ire« land at the moment..

If Jack Lynch (the Dublin Prime Minister) attempted to take any real action at the moment against Republicans in the South of Ireland, against any of those now on trial in the South of Ireland, his Government would fall.

I’m not a prophet. Whether lots more people die or not depends on the Britrih Army. They’re killing them.