The preliminary hearings in the case of the "Belfast 10, charged with "conspiring to cause explosions in Central London on 8 March, finally got under way at Lambeth Magistrates" Court on Monday. The 10, arrested after the London car bombings, have already been held for more than two months under maximum security conditions. The present hearings, the 'committal proceedings,' are supposed Tribune, the paper of the Labour left, recently published the text of a confidential statement sent by the Engineering Employers Federation to Sir John Donaldson, president of the National Industrial Relations Court. The statement contained detailed criticisms of the operation of the Act and suggested amendments to its content and procedures. This is extremely important since the EEF is the most powir ful employers" federation in British Industry and played an important role in the formulation of the Industrial Relations Bill, The document points out that follow ing the defeats inflicted in the NIRC by the working class movement and the change of strategy by the ruling class involved in a statutory incomes policy, the Act needs drastic amend ment if it is to be any use. The Counter-Inflation legislation provides new framework for *individual employment relations. *provision for voluntary procedures for resolution of recognition prob lems," and linally to provide a new framework for tougher picketing laws (although since the EEF document was written the Government has been seeking in the Shrewsbury CAse for example, to adapt axisting criminal law for this purpose). The document makes it clear that trade union leaders are therefore walking into a trap which the Govern ment has set for the working class Tory MPs have openly encouraged the TUC to demand amendments to the Act in return for accepting Phase 3. The Tory Party was previously divided over whether the Government should descend to the market place and bargain on a law made by holy Parliament. Yet last week, James Prior, Tory Leader of the Commons, was saying Anything can be raised, industrial anything can be examined, nothing But the massive security precautions London at the time! The rest can be lett to the imagination.
However a few other methods are also being employed to try to streng then the prosecution's case. In an attempt to turn the detendants against cach other and confuse their supporters, Kennedy dramatically informed the court on Monday that one of the accused, Roisin McNearney, had admitted to being in London on business connected with the IRA? It was stated that she had been both grotesque and moved from Brixton Prison to Holloway last week for her own safety, after making a statement implicating the others.
This is patently absurd. Roisin Mo Nearney did not even know any of the others until their unplanned meet ing in Ealing police station last March Her switch to Holloway, like the simultaneous move of Liam McLarnon to Wormwood Scrubs, is a deliberate move to weaken the morale of the 10. The two of them were singled out because they are youngest of the defendants and considered, presumably, the casiest to break. Neither has in fact done so. IMPERIALISM The proceedings are expected to drag on for ar least another Iwo weeks. The prosecution have some 40 or s0 witnesses lined up tor the entertainment of the court.
But we must heware of becoming too bound up with the niceties of capitalist court procedure. For us the weight of evidence that should count is not the hall-baked stories of the pro secution but the crushing volume of facts which condemn the actions of British imperialism in ireland. The horror of these facts makes the professed concern of any court in thisland with justice' for Irish people contemptible.
The only judgement which we can accept is that given by the Irish people, and their verdict on British Imperialism is inscribed too deeply and with too much blood, into our history to be denied Imperialisin has placed the Belfast 10 in the dock; we must reply that it is British Imperialism which stands ac cused. Imperialism will try to unload its guilt for the miseries of Ireland onto the heads of these ten Irish and women; we must reply that the guilt of Imperialismo makes the innocence of the Belfast 10 in need of no further proof. Imperialism will seek to punish the 10 for the crimes it has committed; we must reply that each brutal act of Imperial. ism serves only to bring Closer the day of its own final arraigament before the tribunal of the peopl
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Almont a thousand people marched in London in a big thow of support for the Belfast 20 last Sunda to determine whether or not there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial.