Monthly Archives: October 2013

Britain and the Formation of Modern Yemen: Aaron Edwards

Posted on 15/10/2013 by Compound| Comments Off on Britain and the Formation of Modern Yemen: Aaron Edwards

Britain and the formation of modern Yemen

Aaron Edwards

Half a century ago today a tribal revolt began in the mountainous Radfan region of South Arabia (now Yemen), which was to have far-reaching repercussions for Aden, Britain’s only Middle Eastern colony and its military headquarters in the region. Most South Arabian tribes were Sunni Muslims, divided up into hundreds of different groupings, each part of larger confederations.

By 1967, the Radfan revolt was regarded as the opening salvo in a national liberation struggle that would lead to British withdrawal and the beginning of the end of its East of Suez role. Until then it was generally accepted that Britain would continue to play a leading role internationally, but with the devaluation of sterling in the mid-1960s the country’s economic base began to disintegrate. When it was returned to office, the Labour Party restricted defence expenditure, recognising that Britain could no longer afford an imperialising mission. Britain’s withdrawing from Aden in November 1967 left behind a non-functioning government. No official handover of power took place as in other colonial exits such as Malaya and Kenya. The new Peoples’ Republic of South Yemen was staffed by relatively inexperienced men who had been junior government officials under the British or led an armed struggle against their colonial masters.

Aden had been a viable entity during British rule, but the new state of South Yemen suffered from extreme poverty, political instability and structural violence. This Marxist regime drove out the old ruling sultans, sheikhs and amirs and established itself in palaces of the former elites. Crucially, the Marxists sought to eradicate the centuries-old tribal system exploited so well by the British to safeguard their interests in the region. After 1967 the Marxist regime also accepted aid from the Soviet Union in exchange for serving as a vital naval base. Arguably, Aden’s status as a safe-haven for a range of terrorist organisations – including the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and other Islamist-based groups – sowed the seeds of insecurity that western countries live with today.

Therefore it is important to reflect on the meaning of 14 October, especially in light of attempts to reach a political consensus about the kind of state Yemenis want in the run up to Presidential elections in 2014, the resurgence of secessionism in the south, and continuing violence from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Surprisingly, some southern Yemenis fondly recall the stability afforded by the British until 1967, while others blame Britain for their country’s historic problems. There are merits in both interpretations and much to be learnt by examining the Radfan revolt half a century ago.

The revolt began when the Egyptian Intelligence Service smuggled guns and ammunition across the porous border from North Yemen to dissident tribesmen in the British-administered Western Aden Protectorate. This rugged terrain, staunchly independent, risked becoming a no-go area for the British.

South Arabia became a Protectorate under the Colonial Office in the 1920s, with Britain exerting control through ‘bribery, bluff and bombing’. For Middle East analyst Fred Halliday this was part of Britain’s wider colonial strategy of ‘indirect rule’ – providing local tribal chiefs with guns and cash in exchange for non-interference in British control of Aden. There were few guarantees in this tribal system and frequent disputes, manifested for example in attacks on the British-trained Federal Regular Army (FRA).

When the British attempted to open the South Arabian interior to free trade in 1963 they set their Federal allies on a collision course with the Radfani rebels. The tribesmen had long resisted the imposition of trade tariffs by the local sultan. For centuries they had levied their own taxes on local traders and camel trains passing along the Dhala Road from Aden to the border with Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

As the local British Political Officer Godfrey Meynell would discover, colonial authority had limited purchase in Radfan. When he requested FRA support, the Radfanis saw it as a declaration of war and fighting broke out in Wadi Misrah, home to the restive Qutaybi tribe, part of the Radfani tribal confederation. The Qutaybis, led by Sheikh Rajih bin Ghalib Lab’uza, sent the FRA retreating to Dhala. After a disagreement between Meynell and the FRA commander, Colonel Haider Saleh al-Habili, Meynell contacted authorities in Aden and was told to return to Wadi Misrah in force the next day.

After a fierce battle on 14 October 1963, involving RAF Hawker Hunter aircraft and armoured cars, Sheikh Lab’uza was killed. Subsequently claimed as the first martyr of the National Liberation Front (NLF) struggle against the British, Lab’uza was replaced by 26-year-old Ali Ahmad Nasir Antar, who would later become Vice President of the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of South Yemen.

After terrorists tried to assassinate him in Aden, and in light of FRA casualties on the Dhala Road, High Commissioner Sir Kennedy Trevaskis authorised a more punitive military expedition. When this failed to repel the Radfani tribesmen, Trevaskis reluctantly turned to Britain’s Middle East Command which deployed a larger brigade-level force in April 1964. Radfan Force (known as Radforce), was spearheaded by 45 Commando, 1 East Anglian Regiment and 3 Para, backed by British aircraft, helicopters, artillery and tanks. In total 3,210,688 bullets, tens of thousands of grenades, hundreds of thousands of pounds of high explosive, and an enormous quantity of bombs and rockets, eventually broke Radfani dissidence.

By mid-June Radforce had succeeded in clearing Wadi Misrah of rebel tribesmen at a cost of only a handful of British casualties. The Dhala Road reopened and with it a renewed British determination to maintain their Arabian foothold. The Minister of Defence Peter Thorneycroft said in Parliament:

For the foreseeable future Aden will be necessary to our strategy, and our absence from it would both render us unable to discharge our direct obligations to our friends, and would set in train events harmful to the cause of peace. It is therefore our purpose and intention to stay there, and our military plans, dispositions and actions will be shaped to this end.

In other words, Aden would remain central to British grand strategy in the Cold War.

However, the growing insurgency faced by Britain was matched by the political challenge of establishing a broad-based government in Aden. When the Labour Party was returned to power in October 1964 they reversed Conservative policy on South Arabia. In 1966 the Foreign Office continued to back the Federal rulers only until ‘something better came along’. By early November 1967 Britain was ready to negotiate with the NLF and on 30 November the new state of Southern Yemen was born. In 1990, it was united with the North.

Examining the Radfan revolt 50 years on offers important insights into the current problems bedevilling Yemen’s bid to transition from the old regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh to a more representative government as promised by the current President Abdo Rabu Mansour Hadi.

October 2013

About the author

Aaron Edwards is a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and author of the forthcoming book Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Aden and the End of Empire   (Mainstream/Random House, 2014). aaron_edwards@hotmail.com

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Richard Reed: A Response to Jamie Bryson

Posted on 14/10/2013 by Compound| 6 Comments

Richard is currently a Research Fellow in the Social Inclusion Unit at Macquarie University in Sydney. Prior to taking up the post in Sydney, Richard held a position as an Honorary Research Fellow at Queen’s University, Belfast, following doctoral studies on the nature of identity narratives among the major loyalist paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland. Richard has also worked on a number of knowledge exchange and community transformation and coherence initiatives with former loyalist combatants and prisoners in Northern Ireland, and has published a number of articles related to the history of the loyalist paramilitaries, current transition efforts, and methodologies for working in sensitive and politically di

In response to Jamie Bryson’s ‘Traditional Loyalism in Modern Society’

 

Jamie Bryson’s latest comments on this website illustrate, for me, the dangers of a rather limited thinker with a big voice. To me it reads like a suicide note that fills the reader with despair and frustration. The only flicker of hope I felt came from a small voice in my head that said his ‘argument’ (I use that term rather loosely) is so absurd that most people of good sense would ignore it and move on. But as long as ill-thought out, irrational, tribalistic and thoughtless drum-beating fills the airwaves (or the internet waves, in this case), it’s feels somehow incumbent on those with a modicum of good sense to resist the temptation to sigh and move on, and to actively contest it.

 

The truth is that there is a logical, coherent, and powerful argument to be made about the preservation of traditional values. On this evidence, however, Mr Bryson certainly isn’t the one to make it. There are so many parts of Mr Bryson’s commentary I could take issue with it’s hard to know what to include. So as far as possible, I’ll try to counter on terms that he uses himself. I also won’t dwell on the rich hypocrisy that runs through the piece – save to say that I thought it a shame that Mr Bryson dilutes what weak arguments he does make by lamenting the name-calling of the ‘tree-hugging’ left while throwing a few choice insults around himself.

 

Instead I’ll deal with some of the ‘substance’ of Mr Bryson’s comments. And that word – substance – is probably a good place to start from. In short, there is none. Instead, what Mr Bryson has offered is repetitive, vacuous, and entirely lacking in argument, to say nothing of sense. Mr Bryson says loyalism is based on ‘God’s word’. But what is that, exactly? Nowhere do I see a reference to what ‘God’s word’ is, and certainly not an argument as to why God’s word conflicts with socialist values. I suspect if such an argument was made it would be pulled apart at a number of points, not least because ‘God’s word’ (in the literal, Biblical sense) also tells us a number of social practices that have since thankfully been eradicated – among them slavery – are correct and appropriate ways of behaving. I’m not a theologian but I also wouldn’t have much difficulty in constructing an argument that says those words were never intended to be taken literally. Instead we could argue that what should be preserved is the central message of those words – in the New Testament, of course, that message is love. The means with which we live in true accordance with that message is, inevitably, a matter of adapting to the times in which we live.

 

Which leads to the second or many problems with this piece. Mr Bryson talks about the ‘founding elements’ of the tradition, and how socialists and ‘tree huggers’ are selling those elements out. My view is simply that they have another understanding on what those founding elements actually are. Protestantism broke with Catholicism in part because it rejected the old, exclusive and hierarchical way many Catholics had of seeing the world. It was a tradition birthed by thinkers, by people who wanted to challenge and change the way society and religion worked. Those men and women often risked being burned at the stake for speaking out, and for taking on authority and accepted ways of doing things.

 

Great men like John Knox, the 16th century founder of Presbyterianism, or John Calvin, the great French religious reformer, were deep thinkers who sought to understand the demands of faith in the political and social contexts in which people lived. The Scottish covenanters who did so much to increase the influence of Protestantism in Great Britain, were also political radicals who challenged authority and developed concepts of democracy, equality and contracts between ruler and ruled that are the lifeblood of (whisper it quietly around Mr Bryson) the ‘modern’ world that Mr Bryson seems to dislike so much. These men and women, while still steeped in religious tradition, were the liberals of their time – and many of them died for it. Years later, many died again fighting to preserve that essential liberal creed – the belief that all are equal before the eyes of God – during the world wars of the twentieth century.

 

Since those founding times, of course, the tradition that has emerged has become rich and complex, but at its heart still stands the enduring commitment to and belief in equality and respect for alternative viewpoints – and, importantly, the value of rational argument.  These were ideals that, if we buy in to James Webb’s fascinating Born Fighting, were part of the fabric of life for the clans and tribes that had inhabited Ulster and Scotland and fought with such determination against the English for liberty and the freedom to live in accordance with their own beliefs and values. And in that tradition too the Scottish covenanters refused to have bishops thrust upon them, and dissented, time and time again. They were the men and women who took on authority during the great revolutions of the 18th century, in America, in France, and, like it or not, during the Irish rebellion of 1798.

 

So isn’t it pretty ironic that Mr Bryson should use the phrase ‘the reformed religion’ while so aggressively critiquing the concepts of ‘modernizing’ or ‘adapting’, and so ultimately the very notion of change upon which the Protestant tradition was truly founded?

 

And there’s something else that confuses me. If Protestantism is in fact none of these things, what differentiates it from Catholicism? This rather odd piece of chest-thumping actually seems to have made the case for a version of Protestantism that is not substantively different from the Catholicism that I’ve no doubt Bryson detests with every fibre of his being. Is it really all as tribal as Mr Bryson would have us believe?

 

To put it most kindly, therefore, Mr Bryson’s words are an inaccurate portrayal of that tradition. But one might also argue that Mr Bryson’s words are a betrayal of much of what that tradition represents and what many fought and died for. Instead of basing his argument in fact, Mr Bryson is using the siren call of ‘identity’ to justify his hatred against anything he doesn’t agree with.

 

Which brings me on to the next point. Identity is itself a complex phenomenon. It isn’t something we are born with, and we all have many different identities, some of which are important in some moments (my identity as a man feels important when I hear statements like ‘all men are rapists’). There are days when a loyalist feels that side of his or her identity more than others – the Twelfth, or during Remembrance services. Likewise I can assure Mr Bryson that if he had been born on the Falls he would not be writing as he is now. We are all influenced by those we grow up with, and we continue to be influenced by all those around us, all the time, consciously or subconsciously. And our identities are constantly changing because of those influences. None of us are the same person we were ten or twenty years ago. None of us hold entirely the same views on everything as we did back then. What this unavoidable reality means is that there is no single loyalist ‘identity’. Indeed, if we are again to stay true to the democratic principles at the heart of loyalism, there ought to be (and in reality are) many different loyalist identities.

 

All of which might be too nuanced or complex to work with. But before returning to beating the drum Mr Bryson, I’d urge you to stop and give thought to my last argument. Even if you disputes what the Protestant tradition really means, even if you refuse to see identity as something complex and changeable and susceptible to lots of different influences, perhaps you might accept that holding fast to illiberal, intolerant and exclusive creeds in the name of preserving what is good about the past just won’t get loyalism very far. The steps towards advancing as a people, raising our quality of life, making a better future for our children and making our society better have always, history has shown, been made by those who could take what was best about their culture and tradition and adapt it to the world they lived in. Who could find ways to connect with others of different creeds, who could find the core humanity that lies in us all, no matter what our beliefs, life goals, dreams or values.

 

What you propose, Mr Bryson, in the name of ‘standing up for your beliefs’ is, in fact, a form of killing those very beliefs and the people who live by them. You won’t protect what is best about loyalism by climbing into a bunker and erecting walls. You won’t protect what is best about loyalism by refusing to explain it in terms that other people can understand. No, instead you’ll ensure loyalism dies, becomes an irrelevance, is sidelined and ostracised by politicians, businesses and even a lot of regular folk.

 

Nor can you protect what is best about loyalism by denying the value of progress and wanting to unpick what society has become and return to some sort of stone age era where we piss around our territory and steal women and food from opposing tribes. I for one value modern medicine, I value the fact that our kids have the chance to go to school. I value the computer that allows me to read your views and respond, even though I now live far away. I value the fact women don’t die in childbirth. I value the fact that with some exceptions we don’t generally go around killing others and causing suffering in the world because of what we believe. And yes, I even value the fact that Mr Bryson has a platform to say what he believes.

 

Those are the things Mr Bryson would give up by clambering into that bunker. If every human had his attitude we’d never have left the cave. So not only is he betraying Protestantism, not only is he refusing to see the complexity in the world, not only is he betraying society and progress and everything that helps him get by in the world, he is betraying loyalism. When we refuse to adapt we die – that is a fact that human history has shown in a thousand different ways. And what Mr Bryson is proposing is a suicide note for loyalism, for Protestantism and for a people who are thoroughly decent, who have fought and suffered, and who deserve a lot better.

 

If Mr Bryson would only stop checking under the bed for those red boogie men long enough to think a bit he might realise that too.

visive contexts.

 

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Posted in Current Affairs, Loyalism Today

The Wait for Haass: Testing Times: Dr. John Coulter

Posted on 14/10/2013 by Compound| Comments Off on The Wait for Haass: Testing Times: Dr. John Coulter

Dr John Coulter is a political columnist with the Irish Daily Star and Tribune magazine. With the Haass talks given until Christmas to produce a solution to the current impasse, Dr Coulter takes stock of the situation facing the talks participants.

Northern Ireland has just endured a summer of hate as the peace process deteriorated into its most volatile state since the 1994 terrorist ceasefires.

The media recorded the worst riots since the 1981 republican hunger strikes and the 1996 Orange Order parade standoff at Drumcree.

The diabolical situation has left many wondering how the peace process crumbled given the highly successful G8 conference in Fermanagh, which included a public relations coup with President Obama; Londonderry celebrating the UK City of Culture year, and Ulster hosting the prestigious World Fire and Police Games.

The peace process unravelling gives the perception the island is returning to the bitter sectarian conflict which has gripped Ireland for the past eight centuries. At first sight, the reasons for the unrest seem politically stupid.

Firstly, there is the decision by Belfast City Council to fly the Union flag on designated days rather than all year round. The Council was once the bastion of Unionism, but now has a republican and centre Alliance Party ruling coalition.

The Parades Commission, which rules on the routes of many of Northern Ireland’s contentious marches, is being blamed for its decision to refuse loyalists from marching along the Catholic ‘Ardoyne Shops’ in north Belfast, and republicans holding their Tyrone Volunteers parade near Castlederg town where the IRA murdered numerous people.

There is also the equally controversial future of the former Maze prison, which once held some of Europe’s most dangerous terrorists. It was the location where 10 IRA and INLA hunger strikers died in 1981.

Republicans want one of the so-called H Blocks retained; Unionists say the so-called peace centre will become a terrorist shrine. This summer’s rioting has again witnessed hundreds of police officers injured, and thousands of pounds of lost business.

Millions of pounds in European Union funding is also at stake for the peace centre, when DUP First Minister Peter Robinson, dramatically withdrew his support for the peace centre project, sparking speculation that he bowed to pressure from Right-wingers in his party and placing his leadership in serious jeopardy.

Supporters of the peace centre must be wondering how they will guarantee the EU funding before any referendum on the UK’s EU
membership, especially if the British electorate votes to leave the EU.

Robinson is now facing the same crisis which forced his predecessor Ian Paisley senior – now Lord Bannside – out of both the DUP leadership and First Minister’s post. Again, at first sight, the solution is simple – replace Robinson with a more traditional Right-wing Unionist.

But the current peace process held because Sinn Fein and the DUP have been able to maintain the power-sharing Executive at Stormont since 2007. It has been one of the longest periods of devolved government in Northern Ireland since the original Stormont Parliament was axed in 1972.

The Union flag row, parade disputes and Maze shrine argument have all combined to lift the lid on the underlying cause of the unrest which, if not addressed, will unhinge the peace process – the growing political disengagement in the loyalist working class.

The 1994 ceasefires and especially the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which shifted the peace process into top gear saw the emergence of dissident terrorist movements in both republicanism and loyalism.

Over the last almost two decades, republicanism has witnessed the development of terror groups opposed to the peace process, such as the Continuity IRA, Real IRA, New IRA and Oglaigh na hEireann. Although these organisations have been heavily infiltrated by the security forces on both sides of the Irish border, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has constantly warned about the threat posed by republican dissidents.

This summer’s rioting from Protestants has now seen the development of a dissident loyalist terror movement, not witnessed since 1999. The 1994 loyalist paramilitary ceasefires were called by the umbrella organisation, the Combined Loyalist Military Command, which represented mainstream terror groups – the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association.

In 1999, dissident loyalists formed the rival Protestant Military Alliance, which represented the Orange Volunteers, Red Hand Defenders and Real Ulster Freedom Fighters. As with the dissident republicans, the British security forces used their network of agents and informers to penetrate and neutralise the dissident loyalists.

Loyalist street violence this summer has seen more than 50 police officers injured. The Police Federation, which represents ranks and file police officers, has called for more officers to be recruited to cope with the troubles. The PSNI leadership has had to rely on police officers from mainland Britain being sent to Northern Ireland.

The real core of the crisis is that the loyalist working class feels abandoned by the mainstream Unionist parties, perceiving that the peace process has substantially benefited the Catholic communities.

There is particular anger directed towards Robinson’s DUP. Although it was founded in 1971 as a predominantly Protestant working class movement, to overtake the rival Ulster Unionist Party, the DUP has had to eat into the electorally lucrative Unionist middle class.

However, in becoming the dominant party in Unionism, the perception has now been created among loyalists that the DUP has abandoned them in favour of power at Stormont, and power with the most extreme form of republicanism at that.

Many loyalists remember that the DUP fought its 1985 local government election campaign under Paisley senior on a ‘Smash Sinn Fein’ platform. Loyalism has interpreted Sinn Fein’s ability to secure peace funding for nationalists areas as an attack on British heritage and culture.

In this respect, the DUP has fallen into a political pitfall which Sinn Fein has tactically avoided. Like the DUP, Sinn Fein’s main power base from 1981 onwards was the Catholic working class. To become the dominant force in Northern republicanism, Sinn Fein had to capture the nationalist middle class; the traditional ground occupied by the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party. This electoral victory by Sinn Fein over the SDLP was achieved in the 2003 Assembly poll and has been held ever since.

However, Sinn Fein has been able to target electorally lucrative Catholic middle class voting areas while retaining its support base in working class republican strongholds. It is a fine cross-class balancing act which Robinson’s DUP has been unable to copy.

Such has been the alienation between the DUP and the loyalist working class, Robinson has even been forced to seek support from a significant minority of pro-Union Catholics, commonly called ‘Castle Catholics’.

This has propelled the DUP into voter territory which it was traditionally unaccustomed to – the centre pro-Union fraternity. The DUP found itself in a tough election battle with moderate UUP, Alliance, the Northern Ireland Tories, and the new moderate pluralist party spawned from the UUP, known as NI21.

Policy-wise, the 2013 Robinson-led DUP found itself on the same political ground as the 2003 UUP then led by First Minister David Trimble, now Lord Trimble of the Conservative Party.

Working class loyalists have begun to organise electorally against the DUP, going in urban areas mainly to the socialist-leaning Progressive Unionist Party, viewed as the political wing of the terrorist UVF and Red Hand Commando. The Union flag protest campaign has also led to the creation of the hardline Protestant Coalition party.

The 2014 European elections have also thrown another wild card into the political mix for the three Northern Ireland seats – UKIP. In mainland Britain, especially in England, the Nigel Farage-led Eurosceptic movement has been gaining ground substantially and may even emerge as the United Kingdom’s largest party in the European Parliament ahead of the Tories and Labour.

Over the summer, Farage pulled off a public relations coup when he visited Northern Ireland to promote UKIP and went ‘walk about’ in the loyalist working class stronghold of East Belfast – Robinson’s Assembly constituency.

Farage made it very clear in his speeches that while Sinn Fein and the UUP seemed likely to retain their MEPs, the DUP’s European seat was vulnerable given the working class backlash against the DUP.

To avoid the electoral fate of the UUP and Trimble, the DUP may be forced to lurch politically to the radical Right and offer Robinson as a sacrificial lamb. But the present stability of the Stormont Executive is finely balanced on Sinn Fein and the DUP being able to work together in the middle ground.

It was this effectively working scenario which earned Paisley senior and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness the nickname of The Chuckle Brothers – after the popular children’s TV programme – but which was to lead to Paisley senior’s eventual demise.

The question, therefore, given that the DUP has a reputation for putting party survival before keeping politicians, is when, not if, Robinson will quit. His departure will see a three-horse leadership race with the winner having to make some substantial Right-leaning policy shifts to placate grassroots Unionists before the 2014 European poll.

The choices are Executive Minister Arlene Foster, a former UUP member from the rural Fermanagh border constituency. She is a Robinson supporter who could maintain the DUP’s slender relationship at Stormont with Sinn Fein.

There is former Executive Minister Sammy Wilson, the East Antrim MP and ex-Belfast Lord Mayor who has strong working class credentials, and would be a popular choice to rebuild the DUP’s links with loyalism.

The outsider would be East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell, viewed as being on the party’s Christian fundamentalist wing. When Paisley senior was leader, he was also Moderator of his fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster which he founded 20 years before the DUP in 1951. Since his departure from the leadership, the fundamentalists have largely been a minority voice within the party.

Another wild card in the survival of the Stormont Executive and ultimately the peace process will be the outcome of the September 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. If Scotland voted to leave the Union, could it mean more Westminster cash for Northern Ireland?

If Scotland narrowly voted to remain within the Union, would it trigger the maximum devolution scenario – the so-called ‘Devo Max’ solution – whereby the Scottish Parliament was given even more devolutionary powers? This would effectively mean total Home Rule for Scotland, the next best step to full independence.

A consequence of this would be to kick-start a ‘Devo Max’ project for the Stormont Assembly. Again, this would be akin to granting Home Rule to Northern Ireland. Ironically, many Unionists are staging centenary commemorations of Unionism’s fight against Irish Home Rule plans when Ireland was one nation under the Union and which brought the island to the brink of civil war. That sectarian slaughter was only averted with the outbreak of the Great War in Europe in August 1914.

Likewise, a strong UKIP showing throughout the UK in 2014 will have a clear impact on the Republic of Ireland, the only other EU state to have a land border with the UK in Northern Ireland.

The Republic, like Greece, has had to be given a massive multi-million euro bailout to help the country survive the effects of the disastrous collapse of the once-thriving Celtic Tiger economy. Already there are rumours of some shops on the Southern side of the border abandoning the euro and trading in sterling.

If the North leaves the EU as part of a general UK departure following any future referendum, the South will have no other option financially but to follow the UK. The South’s only other option would be to re-negotiate its re-entry back into the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, formed originally as the Empire Parliamentary Association in 1911. Ireland was a founder EPA member when Ireland was entirely under British rule.

The seeds of a new political map for the British Isles could now be sown. This could see Scotland out of the UK, but still in the EU, with England, Wales, and Ireland (North and South) out of the EU, but in a new Union of the British Isles.

The key to this scenario becoming a reality is the future survival of the Stormont Assembly. If the Executive collapses amid street violence and paramilitary terror, could it reinvigorate violent nationalism in Scotland and Wales with the Scottish National Liberation Army and Free Wales Army?

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Posted in Current Affairs

Ulster Ratlines: Provo Priests: Part One

Posted on 14/10/2013 by Compound| Comments Off on Ulster Ratlines: Provo Priests: Part One

Ulster’s Ratlines: Part One

Firsta appeared on October 13th on ulsternews@live.com

ratlines

“On balance it appears that the best agents for deception on a high level are long-distance agents, who have been carefully built up, and who have served a long apprenticeship before any major deception is attempted through them.”  Sir John Masterman, The Double –Cross System: Theory And Practice.

In the early 1970s,  a group of Roman Catholic priests formed supply and support lines, that would eventually encompass half the globe. Their aim was a simple one: obtain as much ordinance and finances as could obtain in order to help, the Provisional Irish Republican Army in its murderous campaign, both in the United Kingdom and Europe.

In a number of reports we will look at the structure, makeup and achievement of these “Ratlines” and how they crisscrossed, Ireland, Britain and most of Europe.  These clergy would supply explosives and bomb components that would be used to murder thousands and injure tens of thousands.

Our first report will deal with the case of a Roman Catholic priest who supplied most of the explosives that were used in the North West of Ulster, in the PIRA’s devastating, civilian bombing camping.  This destroyed most of Northern Ireland’s second city, Londonderry, and was coordinated by the current Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuiness.  The commercial explosives and detonators  used in, what has been termed as, the PIRA’s most focused urban camping, were sourced in Scotland and supplied by a Glasgow priest.

The story starts in rural Ireland; John Bartholomew Burns was born in 1935, into a staunchly republican and traditional catholic family, they lived in Sneen, a small village, of a few hundred in the Ring of Kerry, on the western tip of Ireland.  Burns went on to be schooled by religious orders and at 25 was ordained as a priest – 1960. As was the case with most Irish ordinations at the time, he was sent abroad to fulfil his ministry.  His position was as a curate in St. Eunan’s, Gilmore Street in Clydebank on the outskirts of Glasgow.  He stayed there until around 1966, when he was moved to the fanatically republican Parkhead area of East Glasgow, at St. Michael’s on Gallowgate. It was while he was there he would make contact with many who would help him arm the PIRA, with explosives stolen from coal mines in central Scotland.  For four years, Burns would help set up routs of supply that would bring arms, explosives and cash to enable murder and mayhem on the streets of North Ulster. Read more »

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The Eradication of PUL Culture: Jim Wilson

Posted on 09/10/2013 by Compound| 7 Comments

Jim Wilson is a 60 year old community activist from East Belfast.  He has been a long time resident in one of the most volatile Interface flashpoints on the Lower Newtownards Road.  For many years he has represented that community in an unpaid role and has become a well recognised figure through voicing his opinions on many PUL related issues.

The Eradication of PUL Culture

 

Long before the “Flags Issue” which began in early December 2012 there had been grumblings from within the PUL community. Grumblings that grew from the realisation that they were gaining less and less from the Good Friday Agreement which of course had been implemented 14 years previously.  Some of the main areas of contention included a lop sided approach to cold cases from the Historical Enquiries Team, an abundance of other hugely expensive enquiries such as the Saville Inquiry for Bloody Sunday, the uneven implementation of the Parades Commission and a perceived pandering to Sinn Fein in an all out attempt to keep them on the Peace Train. In many respects the venting of frustrations and anger in the wake of the removal of the Union Flag from Belfast City Hall was the culmination of many prior fears–the last straw, so to speak.
If you are a Loyalist today, it seems, and voice an opinion on the reasons behind the malaise within the Protestant working classes is to be a whinger, were scant notice is taken of grievances.
For one who was a vehement “Yes” supporter in the protracted lead up to the Good Friday Agreement it saddens me to say that if the same vote were being cast now I fear that I would be much less confident than I was then.  To me the most important factor that has came out of the GFA is the undoubted saving of lives and this alone is a great motivating factor for me.  Believing that the Yes vote would bring about a new start—an even footing—and equal opportunities for all I gave it my full blessing.  I spent many hours persuading those naysayers to do likewise and argued long and hard with countless doubters.  Slowly but surely, in the subsequent years my faith has diminished.  Pandering to the Sinn Fein agenda by successive British governments the media and remarkably now by the politicised PSNI has only hardened my attitudes towards, what is a pitiful and shameful peace at any cost scenario.
This past 10 months has of course been notable for the amount of protests within the PUL communities.  But it cannot have happened without logical reasons.  The vote on the removal of the Union Jack for instance had been on the cards for many years.  It was another aspect of the Sinn Fein led campaign to strip away loyalist culture.  This was just one of the tactics being employed to do so.  For the past number of years there has been a concerted campaign around the parades to demonise marchers and to control those areas which were always seen as traditional routes.  Why for instance has the parade from Ligoniel along the Crumlin Road only become contentious in the past few years—is it a coincidence that it became contentious after the Lower Ormeau and Garvaghy Road parades had been stopped?  And why is it only contentious in the evening?  The fact is that once the dust has settled on the Ardoyne parade the serial objectors will take their road show to somewhere else.  And make wherever that is contentious as well.  The inept and totally inadequate Parades Commission have shown too in recent times that they are as much a part of the conspiracy as anyone else.  This useless body reward violence time and time again as has been proven this summer.  The Loyal Orders and supporters meekly jump through every hoop placed before them but sadly to no avail.  The powers that be, have spoken.  It is blatantly obvious that all recent decisions by the Parades Commission have been politically manoeuvred—particularly in the case of Ardoyne.  But here again there is a bigger picture evolving.  All is not rosy in the Republican garden.  In some areas Sinn Fein are meeting stiff opposition in the form of the many dissenters and dissidents.  The main reason for this is the accusation that Sinn Fein has sold their Republican ideals to administer United Kingdom rule from Stormont.  In order to save face in areas just like Ardoyne SF must project a front whereby they are seen to be still fighting for the cause.  And they will receive all the assistance they need from their former enemies in order to remain within the peace process.  At times this year it has been difficult to distinguish between Sinn Fein and the PSNI—the relationship is very cosy indeed.  Add to this the favouritism shown to Nationalist politicians from the assorted media outlets and it becomes clearer why there are so many frustrations within Loyalism.
In an article recently to an online journal an eminent—Nationalist-academic-pointed out that the reason behind the Sinn Fein obsession with denuding Loyalism of its culture was because they have realised that they have nothing else left.  Their goal of unification is long gone and there is a new realisation within Nationalism here in Northern Ireland that the status quo is a much better option that some forlorn distant  delusion.
Since time immemorial, when all periods of conflict subside and the dust has settled there has to be in old cowboy parlance, goodies and baddies.  So, if the whiter than white Sinn Fein can re-write history to show that they were blameless and that they were the oppressed—the “goodies”–then it stands to reason that the aggressors and the “baddies” in all of this must have been the Loyalists.
Without wishing to sound like a conspiracy theorist, I have to say that many of my thoughts have changed recently and much of what I have witnessed at close hand in the preceding months have hardened my resolve.  It is as if there is a concerted drive against all things within the PUL community, and this coming from most sections of the media in tandem with the PSNI, and the majority of the Stormont Assembly led by Sinn Fein.
To be a protestor against all that is going on is almost to be a pariah—they are treated with contempt and disdain and singled out for draconian sentences even for minor offences.  Let us not forget that the vast majority of protestors in this past nine months have been totally innocent—have broken no laws—and yet are treated terribly.  They have suddenly become the reason for the full malaise that Northern Ireland finds itself in.  Tourism has apparently fallen because of them—so too City Centre trading—and a slump in the economy.  Not to mention the cost accrued for policing protests etc:  Were, incidentally there has been no fatalities and very little damage to the infrastructure—something that cannot be said for the 30 years we had to endure an IRA blitz that caused untold damage to this—and other countries—not just in monetary terms but ultimately in thousands of lives.
A big concern for the Unionist community at present is the continuing clamour for enquiries—for Nationalists—despite a reluctance—sorry, refusal—by leading Republicans to accept any blame for their past crimes.  The issue of the past—which will prove to be the biggest stumbling block to the pipedream of a Shared Future—is another that it seems is only attributable to the PUL community.  From many Republican leaders there is an insistence that all their grievances are answered whilst they remain implacable in even acknowledging their murderous past.  In the case of the Bloody Sunday enquiry, now that there was acknowledgment that the victims were innocent bystanders killed by the Army—there is a new cry for prosecutions.  This isn’t seeking justice—but revenge.  And if the soldiers of the Parachute Regiment are charged with those killings, surely then that opens the door for prosecutions around the killing of Prison Officer Ferris—the disappearance and murder of Jean McConville or the countless atrocities committed by the Derry IRA when our DFM was Commanding Officer.  It’s only logical isn’t it?
I met a senior politician recently and in the course of the conversation mentioned about police brutality in looking after the Loyalist protests and how I witnessed it at first hand.  There was an air of disbelief that again leads me to believe that certain sections of Unionism—working class Loyalism—and now sections of the Orange Order are fighting an increasingly difficult battle on our own.  We face discrimination and demonization at every turn.  My conclusion is that there is an ulterior motive here and that is to divide and conquer and to overall weaken the already fragile position of Unionism.  The importance of what I am saying cannot be overestimated, and unless there is a united front on all of the issues Loyalism—and in many respects Unionism, is doomed.  United we stand—divided we fall.

Jim Wilson

 

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Posted in Loyalism Today

Innocent Victims Are Not Always Genuine:Primo

Posted on 09/10/2013 by Compound| 1 Comment

Innocent Victims Are Not Always Genuine

 

I am responding to your query about my line concerning innocents who are not genuine. I have to start by laying out my position in regards to the way I see the world. Following on from my years of imprisonment and instruction to learn for myself I see the world as multi coloured, not black and white and certainly not  green and orange. The world is an amazingly complex,  intricate mix of people, events and ideas. I do not take the line that the world or N. Ireland can be summed up in a quick news bite for Sky TV. Our situation cannot be summed up in a 500 word article for a newspaper. I challenge the narratives that are about. The narrative, when I was young, was that all Roman Catholics (aka taigs) are dirty, don’t work and are generally bad people.  I got rid of that stereotype a long time ago.  Our need for clear discussion and debate is not helped by simplistic concepts and inadequate language,  labels and communication. And that is where the term victim comes in. I do not think it is a proper term for the discussion we need to have. The term victim would appear to be  simple enough i.e. someone who is hurt or killed by someone or something. That’s a pretty wide definition.  There also, for me, is an intentionality in there. Someone is  a victim because someone else meant to cause harm for no good reason. And that’s where my multi coloured idea comes in. The term ‘victim’ cannot accommodate all the shades of reality.

So some examples.  All real. The largest mass rape occurred in Berlin in 1945 as the Russians took over the capital and decided to teach the Germans a lesson. The Russians had experienced the brutality of the Nazis as they invaded Russia.  So where the women victims of a sexual crime?  Victims of war? Or non-victims as far as the Russians where concerned? Did the rest of the world rush to aid and comfort these ‘victims’? In Belfast a 75 year old man is stabbed in broad daylight by a 25 year old. The knife is plunged some 10 inches into the old man. He survives.  The situation changes somewhat when you know that the old man is a notorious sex offender and the young man is one of his victims from many years ago. The old man; victim or not? Many ordinary people will say is he not a genuine victim and deserves what he got.  The young man, victim? Or offender in the eyes of the law? Or both?

Theoretical now. A man serves in a shop he owns and is shot dead by a terrorist. A sociable , hardworking, family man with no convictions.  In reality he is a member of a terrorist group who has killed people but not yet come to police attention. Victim or not? Genuine on the surface but guilty all the same?

I contend that the word victim is inadequate to debate what has happened here in N.Irealnd. As a contrast take the word water. How many adjectives can you put in front of water? e.g. tap, drinking, sea, salt, iced, mineral, dish, sparkling, spring and so on.  Quite a variety to look at the many different aspects of that substance. How much more important is it to differentiate the word victim? So what can be done to start such a process? First we could be careful with the term ‘innocent victim’. It immediately implies that there could be a guilty victim. (The dead terrorist kind?) What about using terms like primary victim, secondary, even tertiary?  Occluded victim i.e. someone deliberately killed but we have an opt out clause, to not regard them as a real (primary?) victim because they have a conviction of some sort. As an ex-prisoner of the Troubles  I believe  the guy killing himself while blowing up other people is not a victim in the same sense as they are.  He can’t be a victim because there was no intentionality from another. He was his misfortune, bad luck or whatever that killed him.  He can be a very definite causality of the conflict. But not a victim. To summarise then there are many types of victim. It is a hugely complex area as we see in public debate. An agreed terminology is a long way off. Consensus will be even more difficult to achieve.  In some ways victimhood may be like beauty (or ugliness); its in the eye of the beholder? And from that we find that some innocents are not regarded as genuine by particular sections of the community we live in.

Primo

 

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Posted in Current Affairs

Can Progressive Politics Flourish With Its Star Hitched to Orangeism?: Sean Byers and Connal Parr

Posted on 08/10/2013 by Compound| Comments Off on Can Progressive Politics Flourish With Its Star Hitched to Orangeism?: Sean Byers and Connal Parr

This article first appeared on www.eamonnmallie.com

 

One of the abiding images from the past year is that of PUP leader Billy Hutchinson dressed as Edward Carson, the Dublin-born barrister, anti-socialist and friend-cum-foe of Oscar Wilde. Hutchinson played the role of Carson at the Ulster Covenant commemoration last September and once again at the recent Ulster Day march held to mark the centenary of the UVF’s formation. The gesture is literally reflective of the reactive (and reactionary) alliance of the Unionist classes into which progressive loyalism has occasionally fallen.

Recent studies of loyalism – for example, Tony Novosel’s excellent Northern Ireland’s Lost Opportunity: The Frustrated Promise of Political Loyalism – have sought to challenge simplistic portrayals of working class Unionist politics, highlighting the series of attempts by loyalist thinkers such as John McMichael, Glenn Barr, Gusty Spence and his Long Kesh disciples to bring an end to violence and advance a broadly leftist political programme. This built on the contribution of Aaron Edwards, who re-established the Protestant working class’s Labour credentials and drew a line between the Progressive Unionist Party and the old Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP), right down to their overlapping membership and constituencies.

Yet, while the caricature of loyalism has largely been dispelled, recent events have led to its reaffirmation. Most remarkably of all Hutchinson himself could easily be included among those who at one time advanced an independent vision. During the negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement, he informed Fianna Fáil’s David Andrews that there were ‘damn all’ Orangemen sitting on the PUP/UDP side of the table after the Minister for Foreign Affairs announced the Irish government had secured funding for a heritage park on the site of the Boyne. Back in a 1995 interview with Feargal Cochrane he spoke of how he was loyal only to his class and that ‘for me, it’s not about being a Protestant and it’s not about being an Orangeman…pure and simple Unionism is about the link with Britain’. However, recent political exigencies appear to have occasioned a change in tack by Hutchinson and the other present day leaders of loyalism.

 

 

Now that the centre of protest has moved from flags and Belfast City Hall to parading and the Twaddell Avenue ‘civil rights’ camp, it is important to appraise critically this particular alignment of loyalism with the DUP, UUP and the Orange Order, which W.D. Allen MP described in 1925 as ‘a remarkable feudal, patriarchal, tribal, historical anachronism in these days of moderation, toleration … [and] enlightenment’. For the two main Unionist parties the all-class alliance helped to distract from their historic failings in government. The most serious of these within Unionism always centred on the suggestion that the Protestant working class was in any way ‘privileged’ under the old Stormont regime. As Glen Barr said during an interview with one of the authors, whereas Catholics could always highlight the iniquities of the state, ‘We suffered our poverty in silence’. For both the PUP and the UPRG, both of which have haemorrhaged support since 1998, there is logic to the resuscitation of the cross-class bloc: populism offers the chance to recruit, the two parties make ensuing electoral gains, and are then able to proceed from a position of strength in carving out an alternative path for their constituencies.

By pandering to the lowest common denominator, however, loyalist leaders risk subordinating questions of power and class relations to a generic tribal formula. Brian Spencer has delivered a robust – though occasionally oversimplified – liberal critique of Unionism in its Ulster variant as ‘unBritish’ in its deeds and words (here and here). To its credit the PUP has overruled criticisms from religious fundamentalists to take up liberal positions on issues such as gay rights and abortion, reflecting popular opinion more closely than the two main Unionist parties and the Protestant Coalition. The pressing questions of health, housing, integrated education and unemployment are, in the words of one PUP activist, ‘addressed on a daily basis’ in the community. Speaking to the Irish News in the lead up to the PUP annual conference this weekend, Hutchinson reiterated his commitment to a left-leaning programme. Unlike Stormont’s happily inert duopoly he is opposed to a reduction in the rate of corporation tax – which he has quite correctly outlined will benefit only the well-educated and those in ‘higher end jobs’ – while the PUP leader has also criticised the DUP and Sinn Féin for supporting the introduction of Public Private Partnerships. These positions contrast sharply with the language employed by the five parties of government, all of which are ideologically committed to a process of neoliberal peacebuilding.

In the broader context of economic austerity and falling living standards, the picture is one of progressive loyalism now sitting in isolation from the British and Irish labour movements. Compared to the enthusiasm with which Unionist/Orange commemorations are greeted, events marking the labour struggles such as the 1907 dock strikes, the 1913 Lockout and the 1932 outdoor relief strikes have generated little or no interest in loyalist circles. The PUP and UPRG seemed conspicuous by their absence from May Day celebrations, though an incident on the day when Éirígí activists hijacked proceedings to display their banner alongside those of trade unions illustrates that traditional mistakes by all sides damages the prospect of progressive Unionism. Hutchinson rather unfortunately justified his party’s non-participation in the ICTU ‘Another World is Possible’ march against the policies of the G8 on the basis of its ‘anti-British’ content. Thus it can safely be argued that the leaders of progressive loyalism are less willing to encourage people to take to the streets in opposition to the dismantling of the NHS and welfare state – institutions lauded by the veteran socialist republican Tommy McKearney as achievements of the British state – than in support of the ‘right’ to march through a predominantly Catholic working class district. A class alliance appears to have been rejected, though the planned introduction of Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms to Northern Ireland presents another opportunity for loyalist parties to contribute to an oppositional united front of the labour movement and progressives.

Writing in 1980, Austen Morgan – no friend of republicanism – acknowledged the organic, bottom-up character of the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike while at the same time delivering an important warning: ‘To hail it as a proletarian upsurge is to prettify sotto voce Protestant public house politics, to appropriate the language of socialism for an all too virulent loyalism.’ The same analysis could be applied to the flag protests and the Twaddell Avenue ‘civil rights’ camp, which are working class at the base yet are spearheaded by the dominant, traditional voices of Unionism.

 

PUP leader Billy Hutchinson

PUP leader Billy Hutchinson

 

This weekend the PUP will set out in broad terms the programme upon which it will seek to add to its tally of just two elected representatives (both to be found on Belfast City Council). Hutchinson has indicated that the party will continue to look in the direction of the British Labour Party for ideological inspiration, though – unlike that party – the PUP actually retains its ‘Clause IV’ commitment to nationalisation. In this respect, it is important for working class politics that the PUP continues to remain on the scene. But Hutchinson should be wary of the limits of Orangeism and, as he has always insisted he will, find a way of rediscovering the party’s compelling NILP heritage. Tribal politics in Northern Ireland are resilient. However, much like Hibernianism, Orangeism and progressive politics will always make incompatible bedfellows.

About Seán Byers and Connal Parr

Seán Byers received his PhD from the University of Ulster in 2012. His research interests include Irish labour, republican and international socialist history and politics. Presently, he is conducting research on the role of Republican Youth in post-conflict Northern Ireland and is writing a political biography of Seán Murray (1898-1961), the prominent Irish republican and communist. Connal Parr has completed a PhD on Protestant working class politics and culture at Queen’s University Belfast. He serves on the board of the Etcetera theatre group and has published articles in the News Letter, Dublin Review of Books and the detail.

 

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Posted in Loyalism Today

For God And Ulster: Traditional Loyalism in Modern Society: Jamie Bryson

Posted on 08/10/2013 by Compound| 3 Comments

This article first appeared on www.jamiebryson.blogspot.co.uk

For God And Ulster- Traditional Loyalism in Modern Society

I have been greatly disturbed in recent months by a small but significant number of loyalists attempting to fundamentally alter the founding elements of traditional loyalism in the name of ‘evolving’ or ‘modernising’. This has ranged from a subtle but significant separation between God and our cause with many taking the view that Bible believing Protestantism should be kept separate from the cause of loyalism.
There has also been a rise in extreme socialist and liberal politics which is anathema to the reformed faith of Protestantism and even at times there have been attempts to use elements of traditional loyalism to justify this sharp shift to the extreme left of the political spectrum.
The notion that left wing politics are the only kind that is acceptable and/or beneficial to the working class is a carefully constructed mis-truth.
Loyalisms natural home is within Bible based Protestantism, it is this faith that has provided the moral and spiritual backbone to our cause for generations. It is from this reformed faith that sprang the motto ‘For God And Ulster’ that is proudly carried on our standards and engraved upon our murals and headstones all over this Country.
Attempts to pursue political or social aims that quite clearly undermine the word of God subsequently cast a dark shadow over the religious element of our cause.
It is a indisputable fact that the majority of those within loyalism would not be practising Protestants however it is important to keep in focus the moral and social stability that is provided from a continued reliance on Biblical principles.
Aside from the religious side of things, the attempts to dilute loyalism to become a ‘please everyone all of time’ modern liberal identity is the very thing that will sow the seeds of the ultimate destruction of the loyalist identity.
The attempts to re-brand loyalism into some kind of ultra accepting, liberal identity of appeasement and compromise with a strong reliance on extreme left wing politics will perhaps attract some young ‘hug the world’ type of voters, it will however more tellingly alienate the core base of traditional loyalists, many of whom whilst being a long way from practising Protestants, would still draw strongly on moral Biblical principles and would still argue fiercely for the merits of Protestantism and faith in God underpinning our cause.
This section of loyalism would be described as ‘intransigent, dinosaurs, bigots, sectarian, homophobic’ to name but a few tags that would be thrown towards us.
These words play to one of the fundamental truths of communication, words matter.
The use of these words has an automatic stigma, an automatic turn off affect in the minds of the majority of the population.
The truth of the matter is that it is very easy to throw these labels towards people who refuse to compromise their core beliefs. It is an easy way to discredit political arguments that do not embrace the ‘hug the world’ attitude. It is a favourite tactic of liberals and socialists.
There is no shame in refusing to compromise your core beliefs and there is no merit in diluting or changing your cultural or religious identity so as to ensure you offend no one or to appease those that wish to force change upon you.
Many men fought and died ‘For God And Ulster’ and it is proudly carried on many of our modern and traditional standards. A political move away from the social principles of Gods word towards a liberal and socialist doctrine of removing all traces of God from politics and society in general is a move that will provide for nothing but disaster.
Loyalism springs from the well of Biblical Protestantism, to try and dilute this to create some new brand of loyalism that is all embracing progresses so far from our traditional identity one could argue it is no longer even loyalism.
This new brand of loyalism that some are promoting has little that separates it from extreme socialism and given that I would contend that Sinn Fein and the SDLP are both Nationalist Socialists, when you take away the constitutional issue and cultural issues (which most of the tree huggers will readily compromise if they are forced to in the name of ‘equality’)  then there is very little that will separate the new brand of ‘loyalist’ from those who seek to destroy our Country.
They will find common cause in extreme left wing politics which will remove every trace of Godly principles from society, schools and Government and eventually provide the destruction of the stable communities and society that have served the United Kingdom so well for Centuries in exchange for a atheist ‘anything goes’ society without parameters or boundaries and where everything that anybody says makes them happy is accepted in the perverse name of ‘equality’.
This type of ‘Unionism’ has already been seen in all it’s glory with John McCallister, Basil McCrea and their NI21 party. This is the trajectory of attempts to liberalise loyalism and shift it sharply to the left of the political spectrum.
The traditional ‘loyalism’ and ‘Unionism’ was strong and uncompromising.
It was based and relied heavily upon biblical and Godly principles.
The Solemn League and Covenant which has been often described as the Birth certificate of Northern Ireland placed strong emphasis on many principles of the reformed Protestant faith.
Contrary to recent assertions the majority of the signatories of the Ulster Covenant would not have been left wing socialists but instead working class centre right Bible believing Protestants.
The attempts to turn a Solemn promise to strive for ‘Civil and Religious liberty’ into a weapon to be used in campaigns to undermine God’s word under the cloak of equality is a perverse and gross mis-interpretation of the original meaning.
Does anyone seriously contend that those who framed the Covenant would have in any way supported undermining Gods word in the name of ‘equality’. This Covenant was drawn up by those steadfast and resolute in their commitment to the reformed faith and therefore the Civil and Religious liberty they spoke of was not to be taken as ‘anything goes as long as it makes people happy’. It has to be taken in the context of the Christian context in which it was written.
The anchor of loyalism has always been the ‘For God’ element based within Bible believing Protestantism which has provided a stable backbone to the Loyalist cause.
This is not to say that every loyalist even believes in God, but the majority would have some resemblance of Protestant faith, especially older generations.
The argument I make is that if loyalism abandons the word of God it abandons everything it stands for and it abandons the fundamental principles that our forefathers fought and died for.
In one recent example a loyalist said to me ‘Yes but when you are saying For God And Ulster you just mean your God, what about all the other Gods?’
This is an example of how the liberalising of loyalism could lead to a frightening dilution of our identity.
Entwined within Loyalism is Protestantism, to crystallise the point I am making, the attempts to create a liberal socialist Loyalism will seek to separate loyalism from Protestantism. This would depart from everything that our forefathers fought and died to maintain.
To stay true to our founding principles we must stay true to the genuine principles of the Ulster Covenant and robustly challenge any attempts to dilute them or ‘evolve’ them to suit modern whims.
Loyalism does not need to move forward any further, we need to go back to what loyalism really is and what it always has been. It is based in the Protestant faith and it carries the motto For God And Ulster.
Stay true to who we really are.
FOR GOD AND ULSTER
 
Jamie Bryson
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Posted in Current Affairs, Loyalism Today

The Crum: Patrick Greg

Posted on 08/10/2013 by Compound| Comments Off on The Crum: Patrick Greg

The Crum: Patrick Greg.

 

It was with interest that I started to read this book given that a) I have spent 4 separate spells in the Crum, courtesy of the Troubles and b) it is written by an ordinary spud who worked there.  I have to say that I hated the Crum. The noise, the filth, tension, food, hated, etc. So that’s my background when reading this tale.  The first thing that strikes me is the human element, the reality,  honesty and openness that the author brings to this book. I liked his style. And while he and I were on different sides (literally at times) I respect his honesty and motivation to tell this tale.  I do have criticisms of the book but overall this is a good read.

I enjoyed his character sections talking of the celebrity prisoners like Paisley and Mc Guinness. Also there is realism by talking to the likes of Gusty Spence, the Martin Meehans, and Davy Ervines.

I already knew a lot about the executions in the Crum but his section on hangings is an excellent summary  of those events.  I assume that serving as a screw is a bit like being locked up there. You don’t know what it’s really like unless you done it. I like the author’s warts and all presentation. He doesn’t gloss or moralise. I accept his fascination with the building although as I said I hated the place. There are the funny moments which gives a more realistic view of life in there. While serving at Magilligan he tries to be undercover which he goes for a drink outside. The locals take about 5 seconds to suss him out.  I really like his honesty about his colleagues (or ex colleagues). Prisoners are not exactly blind to what they see going on with staff. We knew the drinkers, the sleazy, the nasty, the weird and the decent ones.  For anyone who has never been a prisoner this should be an amazing insight into their world.

On the negative side I was really disappointed about the naming of two of my friends who I had served a long time with. I think he could have written the book and got his story across without naming them. In this website we have the opportunity to name past staff. So far that has not happened. Nor would I want it.  The author knew the victim who they had killed. So he got a bit emotionally involved by dwelling on this one event among thousands. And yes I appreciate what he says about the effect it had on him personally.  It is one thing to name Gutsy and Gerry Kelly who are household names but these two men got back into society and done well. He makes the point about prisoners trying to condition screws. Maybe in the Crum but in the compounds we wanted things quiet and there was no need to condition anybody. However there was often conflict and that was very up front.

I completely challenge his assessment of loyalist prisoners although I assume from his book that he never served in the compounds section. He said the loyalists where not as disciplined as their republican counterparts. He should have spoken to some of his compound colleagues.  One day during a protest the prison sent in their riot squad. They stood in ranks of 3 demanding to get into our compound. I know because I was standing on our side of the wire. Our man in charge said come on in. The prison staff stood down. We were highly trained, fit and motivated. We drilled, took orders, cleaned out rooms (cubes) every week, cleaned the toilets,  painted, gained Degrees, kept fit, sent out high class craft work,  everything. We were as disciplined as it could get. I can’t talk about the H Blocks as I never was there as an ordinary prisoner. Special category went there in 1988 but as Special cat prisoners.

But overall a good book which helps add a bit more realism to that aspect of the Troubles.

Primo

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Posted in The Arts

Those Guilty of PIRA Genocide Should Stand Trial: David Nicholl

Posted on 07/10/2013 by Compound| Comments Off on Those Guilty of PIRA Genocide Should Stand Trial: David Nicholl

This article first appeared on ulsternews@live .com

Those Guilty of PIRA Genocide Should Stand Trial

Crimes Against Humanity

      Crimes Against Humanity

Guest writer, David Nicholl, former UDP political advisor for Londonderry & North Antrim, puts forward the case for war crimes’ charges against the PIRA leadership. 

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” .  J.R. Tolkien

Geneva Convention states:

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, caste, religious, or national group”, [Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical  racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately Inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Now having read the above, what do you think has been happening to the Protestant Unionist People of Northern Ireland over the course of the past 4 decades and more? Is it not the case that the leaders of Sinn Fein/Provisonal IRA are and have been involved in acts that have the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, our nation; which contains our ethical , racial and religious ways, indeed the substance  of our being on this island?

I am sure, like me, many of you will agree that they have indeed engaged in such acts and continue to wage war against our people. This being the case, the question has to be asked, “why are these war criminals in Government and not on trial for offences against Humanity?”  Raphael Lemkin, in his work Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), coined the term “genocide” by combining Greek genos (γένος; race, people) and Latin cīdere (to kill).

Lemkin defined genocide as follows:

“Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”

The Nuremberg Trails brought charges of crimes against the peace which sought and obtained convictions on the grounds of an unethical war,  waged on criminal grounds. These were based on a number of principles that are now enshrined in international law. They are:

Nuremberg principles

Principle I states, “Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.”

Principle II states, “The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.”

Principle IV states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him”.

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of  aggression or a war in violation of international treaties,  agreements or assurances;

The war that was rage on the people of Northern Ireland, regardless of their background, was done so in breach of all aspects of international law and, as such, those who pursued such a war a guilty of infringement on the articles set out. The fact that those who now sit in government are guilty of:

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned (i).

And of using that conspiracy to murder large numbers of civilians in breach of Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 8(2)(b)(iv), which “prohibits actions where the anticipated civilian damage outweighs the anticipated military advantage.”

What is now needed is a full investigation into the actions of the Irish Government and the leadership of the PIRA.  This would have to be an international body as the British and Irish governments are unwilling and unable to search out the truth

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