From GERY LAWLESS, Belfast : Republican prisoners in prisons and concentration camps in Ireland cheered and clapped when they heard of the Irish Republican Army's response to the British breach of the cease fire.
This was stated at a press conterence in Free Belfast on Thursday, July 13th, given by the Officer Commanding the Belfast Brigade of the Privisional IRA, Brigadier Seamus Twomey. The press conference was called to explain the background to the breakdown of the bi-lateral cease fire between Irish Republican and British Crown forces, and to deny categorically the suggestions being spread by the British mass media that the cease fire was ended because of differences between the Proves' General Head Quarters in Dublin and the Belfast Brigade.
Beginning the conference, Brigadier Twomey said that the events which led up to the breach of the truce had been clearly documented by the IRA: "Our G.H.Q in Dublin was fully aware and fully informed of everything that took place and were in complete agreement with Belfast and units all over Northern Ireland going back into action. The return to activity was only undertaken after the British Army had violated the truce by the use of rubber bullets, water cannons, and Saracens, and by their breach of the undertaking given that there would be no harassment of the people."
Brigadier Twomey said that the Republican Army had a whole catalogue of complaints from the people in the nationalist areas of Belfast about the British Army breaches of the truce. He gave some examples:1. At 3.30 pm on Sunday 9th July. the day the truce broke down, several hours before the confrontation in Lenadoon Avenue, he was personally removed from his staff car at Andersonstown barracks by the British Army, who proceeded to search the car, in clear breach of the truce and a personal assurance given to him by his British opposite number.
2. Although the Provos had released two British Army officerswho had entered Free Derry in civvies (under the unpublished truce terms the Provos would have been entitled to shoot these as spies) the British Army had arrested two IRA volunteers on Sunday morning who still remain in British custody. Under the terms of the truce Republican volunteers were to be allowed to carry out their own patrols provided that they did not ostentatiously display arms.
3. Despite the fact that the bi-lateral cease fire agreement provided that the British Army would keep a "low profile". they went during the cease-fire on foot patrols into areas where foot patrols had never ventured before. Brigadier Twomey stated that in his own command area he had protested on seven separate occasions through the Joint Mediators about British Army breaches of the truce.
4. Referring to the actual dispute in Lenadoon Avenue, Brigadier Twomey gave details of meetings between officers of his local unit and himself with the British Army. He said that the British Army O.C., Colonel Tomlinson, had made what Brigadier Twomey called an outrageous suggestion; "This was that Twinbrook estate could become a Catholic ghetto if we so desired and that maisonettes in the Turf Lodge area would be tidied up in due course to pur families into and that a small advance engineering factory that had been turned down by Mr. Brian Faulkner would in all probability be given the planning permission to go ahead." But, said Brigadier Twomey, local people had been horrified and extremely angry to find that the British Army proposed to do nothing for the 114 adult refugees and their 212 children. Dealing with the actual incident which led to the breach of the truce, he stated that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the government body controlling housing in northern Ireland, allocated houses in Lenad -oon Avenue to the Catholic families who had been forced out of their homes in other areas of Belfast by the Orange ultras of the U.D.A.; the British Army made no objection to this. It was only when the UDA objected to the rehousing that the British Army discovered that this might lead to a breach of the peace. After three meetings to try and iron out this difficulty, the Troops fire rubber bullets at Lenadoon marchers in breach of the cease fire terms people in the neighbourhood themselves took the initiative to rehouse refugees and some 2,000 Catholics marched behind a lorry carrying the furniture of the families.
The British Army used a large Armoured Personnel Carrier to ram this lorry, and then used CS gas, rubber bullets and water cannons against the local people in clear breach of clause 2 of the cease fire; "G.H.Q. in Dublin was informed, and the decision to defend the people was a decision of General H.Q. in Dublin", said Brigadier Twomey The Irish Times in an article by the usually well informed London Editor, Jim Downey, made it clear that Whitelaw is anxious for a return to the cease fire, and the attitude of Republican leaders, in Dublin and elsewhere, shows that the Provos would be willing for another bi-lateral cease fire.
With the final vote on the Common Market Bill out of the way, Whitelaw and those elements in the cabinet which represent manufacturing capitalist interests (Europeans) are now trying to sum up the courage to take on the Orange ultras, and their backers in the Tory Party, the old guard "Commonwealthers". But before they do this, they must clear from their flanks the military lobby represented by General Tuzo, and behind him the Defence Minister, Peter Carrington.
Whitelaw and the "Europeans" blame the ultra-Orange back-lash for the break down in the truce, and recognise that implicitly or explicitly, any new bi-lateral cease fire, to be acceptable to the Provos, will have to be based on a willingness on their part to call the Orange bluff. While being frightened of this possibility, they are haunted by another spectre - the spectre of a Southern backlash. They fear that a renewal of the confrontation with the Catholic population of the North will lead to other Derry massacres, without the sacrificial lamb of a British Embassy in Dublin to appease Southern anger.
BLOODY NOSE Their tactics are to work for a cease fire as early as possible, but first to appease the military lobby they want to inflict what is known in British Army circles as a "bloody nose" on the IRA. What this quaint English euphemism means is, a new cease fire in which the British Army can interpret the terms, where Whitelaw, if the necessity again arises, can squeeze the Catholics to make room for the granting of concessions to the Orange ultras, without the danger of another Lenadoon Although Republican leaders are playing their cards close to their chests, informed sources close to the leadership make it clear that whatever the other weaknesses of the movement, in this case they have taken Whitelaw's measure and are determined that any new bi-lateral cease fire will not be one which is imposed upon them in the after-math of a British victory.
While not desiring a civil war with the Orange ultras, they are determined that the Orange bluff be called, and that this festering boil be lanced and the Unionist monolith destroyed. Only then will the possibility arise for winning any section of the Protestant working class to democratic or socialist politics.