>From MCELROY@zodiac.rutgers.edu Sun May 2 19:44:38 1993 THE PARTITION OF IRELAND Issued August 1990 by Sinn Finn ********** BACKGROUND Throughout history, the island of Ireland has been regarded as a single national unit. Prior to the Norman invasions from England in 1169, the Irish people were distinct from other nations, cultivating their own system of law, culture, language and political and social structures. The historical and contemporary existence of the Irish nation has never been in dispute. "For centuries, Britain has sought to conquer, dominate and rule Ireland. For centuries the Irish people have sought to free Ireland from British rule. Britain, a large, powerful and ruthless colonial power, was able to defeat the numerous and sustained efforts of the Irish people to liberate themselves. In the course of the 19th century, as a result of British oppression and famine, the population of Ireland was halved." (Sean MacBride, recipient of the 1983 Nobel and Lenin Peace Prizes.) Until 1921, the island of Ireland was governed as a single unit--as a colony of Ireland. A combined political/military campaign by Irish nationalists between the years 1916 to 1921 forced the British government to consider that position. With the objective of "protecting English interests with an economy of English lives" (Lord Birkenhead), the partition of Ireland was conceived. Partition was imposed on the Irish people by an Act of Parliament, the Government of Ireland ACt (1920), passed in the British legislature. The consent of the Irish people was never sought. It was never freely given. Proffered as a solution under the threat of "immediate and terrible war" (Lloyd George, the then British Prime Minister), the Act made provision for the creation of two states in Ireland: the 'Irish Free State' (later to become known as the Republic of Ireland), containing 26 of Ireland's 32 counties; and 'Northern Ireland', containing the remaining six counties. 'Northern Ireland' (the Six Counties) represented the greatest land area in which Irish unionists could maintain a majority. The partition line first proposed had encompassed the whole province of Ulster (nine counties). Unionists rejected this because they could not maintain a majority in such an enlarged area. The partition of Ireland was merely an innovation of the British government's tried and trusted colonial strategy of divide and rule, used throughout its former colonial empire. However, while the British government had the single objective of 'protecting British interests', its strategy for achieving this created deeper, more acute and more bitter multiple divisions in Irish society than those previously fostered, and which, until then, had helped sustain British rule in Ireland. "British interference led to the Civil War (1922-23) which has disrupted the life of the country for several decades. The imposition of partition had led to a permanent insurrectionary situation in the six North Eastern counties of Ireland." Sean MacBride Partition did not only physically divide the national territory of Ireland. It spawned the Civil War in 1922, which has molded politics in the 26 County state ever since. It made more acute the divisions between nationalists and unionists in the Six County state, and between the population of the two states. Not least, it created real and lasting divisions among nationalists themselves. Increasingly, partition has generated the foolish and self-interested 'ostrich' mentality in the power structures of the two statelets, which seeks piecemeal treatment of the symptoms, through coercion and censorship, instead of root- and-branch treatment of the problem. Throughout the 19th century and until partition in this century, the British government provided its colonial rule in Ireland with a cover of 'democracy'. Like other colonial powers in continental Europe, which 'integrated' their colonies into the imperialist state, Britain 'integrated' Ireland into the 'United Kingdom' through the Act of Union (1801), which made provision for Irish representation at the British parliament. In the changed conditions of a full-blown struggle for independence in 1920, new means for 'protecting British interests' had to be found together with a new 'justification' for the continuing British presence which that necessitated. The 'wishes' of Irish unionists in North East Ireland have provided that 'justification' since partition. Today, this finds expression in Article 1 (a) of the 'Anglo-Irish Treaty' signed in November 1985. Article 1 (a) states: "The Two Government (a) Affirm that any change in the status of Northern Ireland would only come about with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland." THE UNIONISTS The unionist veto over Irish independence, grafted by the British government onto its deliberate fracture of Irish national unity, has become the cornerstone of the British government's public rationale for its continuing exercise of sovereignty over the Six Counties. British government-fostered political division between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants through a system of political, social and economic privileges has produced today's unionists in the Six Counties. Unionists seek the maintenance of British rule on their terms for a variety of reasons, including the perception that it protects their interests as conferred by privilege. Unionists are held up by the British government as the major reason for its continuing presence in Ireland. Today's unionist represent some 20 percent of the Irish nation. THey are a national minority--a significant minority but a minority nevertheless. To bestow the power of veto over national independence and sovereignty on a national minority is in direct contravention of the principle of self-determination. To prescribe self-determination for a national minority as a distinct entity from the rest of the nation is a mutation of the principle of self-determination. British government policy has created and maintained a division of political allegiances in Ireland--the national allegiance of a clear national majority and the pro-British allegiance of a national minority. That policy upholds the political allegiance of the unionists as a national minority against the national and democratic rights of the national majority. When a people are divided in political allegiance, the democratic principle is that majority rights should prevail--the more so when such fundamentals as national rights are in question. Both as individuals and as a significant national minority, unionists have democratic rights which not only can be upheld but which must be upheld in an independent Ireland. That is the democratic norm. That is an essential ingredient of peace and stability. Those democratic rights, however, must not extend to a veto over the national rights of the Irish people as a whole. However, the unionists hold only tenancy of the veto. The title deeds rest in the political vaults of Westminster and Downing Street. The unionist veto is, in fact, the British manufactured gerrymander which dictated the size and make-up of the respective populations of the Six and 26- County states. The historical and contemporary purpose of that gerrymander was, and is, to protect British interests through the erection of a barrier against Irish reunification in perpetuity. It flouts all the accepted concepts of democracy. As such, it is basically flawed. The inequities which the Six-county state has spawned are an inevitable consequences of its very existence. Inequality is the price which has to be paid for a state founded on a system of political, social and economic privilege. That price will be demanded and paid for as long as that state exists. In the wake of partition, unionist society rapidly adopted a monolithic structure with an almost seamless fusion of political, social, religious and industrial organizations. Unionist political and economic influence and control permeated all aspects of society. Sir Basil Brooke, who was Prime Minister of 'Northern Ireland' for 20 years, synopsised the situation thus: "I have always said that I am an Orangeman first and a politician and member of parliament afterwards...All I boast is that we have a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state." Founded on the denial of democracy and generally informed by such rationale as Brooke's, the Six-County state could only be maintained by undemocratic methods. The inbuilt, manufactured unionist majority meant continuous government by the Unionist Party and its control of the autonomous legislature at Stormont. For the Unionist Party, its single most important piece of legislation was the Special Powers Act (SPA). The SPA was a comprehensive pieces of repressive legislation with wide-ranging powers of search, arrest, detention and imprisonment and included the power to prohibit inquests. So appealing was the SPA to despots that it prompted the then South African Minister for Justice Mr. Vorster to say that he "would be willing to exchange all the {South African} legislation of that sort for one clause of the Northern Ireland Special Powers Act." The SPA was actively and enthusiastically enforces by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)--nominally the police force but in effect the paramilitary adjunct of the Unionist Party--and its reserve force the 'B' Specials. Both forces were overwhelmingly Protestant in composition, the latter exclusively so. For nationalists, Brooke's "Protestant state" was a system of political and economic apartheid with which the envious Mr. Voster could easily find affinity: *The manufactured unionist majority determined that political power would reside in the hands of the Unionist Party for as long as Stormont existed. *Local government boundaries were gerrymandered to ensure Unionist Party control of local government, even in areas with clear nationalist majorities. *Nationalist political dissent was harshly suppressed by the RUC and the unionist judiciary. *Discrimination was rampant: in employment practices; in housing allocation; in the electoral franchise. The Westminster Parliament had given unionists political power through a system of devolved government, while at the same time ensuring that it distanced itself from the repressive and undemocratic methods used by Stormont regime. It turned a blind eye to the institutionalized discrimination, electoral gerrymandering and human rights abuses and the inevitable sectarian pogroms instanced by a sectarian stat. Unionist rule was conditional only on its ability to maintain British rule through political stability. CIVIL RIGHTS Organized discontent with the apartheid system began to emerge in the late 60's and led to the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Its moderate demands were aimed at trying to reform and democratize the state. The issue of partition was not part of its agenda. Unionists, however, interpreted any form of political dissent, however moderate, as a threat to their privileged position and the union with Britain. Peaceful civil rights supporters were consequently viciously attacked by the RUC and 'B' Specials. The violent reaction of the state shocked the world as television cameras relayed scenes of unprovoked attacks on civil rights marches and demonstrations. The British government was not prepared to allow its interests to be compromised by widespread political unrest. At 5pm on August 14th, 1969, substantial numbers of British soldiers moved into Belfast and Derry. The British army was injected into the situation under the propaganda cover of being a peace-keeping force deployed "to keep the warring factions apart." The 'religious war' myth was regenerated as justification for the occupation. In reality, it had been introduced as a life-support unit to sustain a state which was under threat of collapse. The bad dream of partition was about to become the 'nationalist nightmare'. Within a relatively short period, the British Army's real role became apparent. With the unionist government nominally still in control, the actual power behind the throne was the British government's proxy, the British army. The Falls Curfew, Internment and Bloody Sunday in Derry clearly identified it as an indispensable and major instrument of government for Westminster in the same way as the RUC had previously served the Stormont regime. Within weeks of the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972, Westminster had prorogued Stormont and resumed direct responsibility for governance of its colony. Some two decades ago, people in the Six Counties were marching for civil rights, justice, equality and self-respect. The moderate and just demands of the Civil Rights movement were: *One man, one vote (sic); *An end to the gerrymandered local government boundaries; *An end to discrimination in the allocation of housing: *An end to discrimination in employment; and *The repeal of the Special Powers Act (SPA). Pursuit of those demands and the Stormont regime's reaction to it brought the state to a point of collapse. Only the life support system provided by the British Army staved off the collapse, and in the process of attempting to sustain the state has exacerbated the situation. A brief and by no means comprehensive survey of the situation over the last 20 years and as it exist now demonstrates the denial of civil rights throughout that period and the current state of civil rights today. The SPA was indeed repealed. However, it was replaced by even more comprehensive regressive legislation, chiefly embodied in the Emergency Provision Act (EPA) and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). This has had the effect that, since its inception, the Six-County state has been continuously governed by repressive legislation. GOVERNMENT BY REPRESSION The provisions and effect of these and other pieces of repressive legislation has meant that: Anyone can be stopped by British forces, anywhere and anytime. They must give their name, address, where they are coming from, where they are going to. Anyone can be arrested anywhere, at any time. A detainee can be held for up to seven days for interrogation. More than 60,000 arrests have thus taken place. No further legal action was taken against the overwhelming majority of those arrested. Powers of arrest, therefore, are used largely for purposes of gathering information. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that seven-day detections are in contravention of the European Convention. Britain accordingly derogated from the Convention. This represents the eighth occasion that such a derogation from the Convention by the British government has occurred. In almost all cases, the offenses related to human rights violations in Ireland. Some 7,000 people have been charged with politically motivates offenses. A substantial percentage were charged solely on the basis of statements of admission extracted through torture and maltreatment. The British government has been found guilty of "inhuman and degrading" treatment by the European Court of Human Rights. It is regularly criticized over treatment of detainees in interrogation centres by Amnesty International. The Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven cases are only the tip of the iceberg. More than 2,000 people were interned without charge or trial between 1971 and 1975. The power to intern remains on the statute books and can be reactivated at any time. Torture and maltreatment of detainees during interrogation replaced internment as the chief means of removing opponents from the streets. In one three-year period in the late 70's, 94 percent of all charges were brought on the basis of statements of admission thus extracted, while 80 percent of all convictions were similarly based. Widespread torture was replaced as a policy, as the result of a national and international outcry, by the use of paid-perjurers. This in turn had to be abandoned because of public outrage and discredited prosecution witnesses, but can be reactivated at any time. With the ending of internment, the securing of convictions was facilitated by the use of juryless, single-judge Diplock courts. Many of the judges have direct links with the Unionist Party. Diplock judges can now draw a negative legal inference from the detainees exercise of their right to silence during interrogation. In effect, the right to silence now ceases to exist. Changes in the Judges' Rules of Evidence have meant that in firearms and explosives cases the onus of proof lies with the defendants. Defendants are deemed guilty until they can prove their innocence. Extensive powers to search have led to the searching of almost 300,000 premises. Any property can be seized for the use of the military. Residences, schools, industrial premises, sports grounds and farmland have been seized for use as military installations. The British government has now vested itself with the powers to seize the homes of political opponents. Spontaneous anti-government demonstrations are prohibited by the Public Order (NI) Order 1987, which demands seven days notice of any demonstration and contains intimidatory clauses which require that the organizers provide their names and addresses to the authorities. Legislation introduced in 1988 means that the broadcast media are banned from interviewing republican spokespersons. Effectively, the British government can carry out its undemocratic policies in Ireland with impunity. The Payment of Debt Act effectively removed from the nationalist population the only limited economic muscle it possessed in its ability to withhold monies due to public bodies. Other gross violations of human rights have been carried out by both the British army and RUC, witht the perpetrators being given the full support of the legal and judicial system to act with impunity. Rubber and plastic bullets have been used as a means of intimidation and deterring demonstrations. Since 1973, more than 54,000 of these lethal projectiles have been fired at the civilian population. Seventeen people, eight of them young children, have been killed, most in circumstances that amount to murder. Hundreds have been seriously injured. Injuries include serious mental and physical disablement. Over 300, many unarmed, nationalists have been killed by members of the various security agencies--the British army and the RUC. Over 160 people have been killed in disputed circumstances. British forces have been given virtual immunity from conviction by the Diplock courts for offenses committed while on duty. In 20 years, only one British soldier has been convicted in the Diplock courts for murder while on duty. Despite receiving a life sentence, the soldier was released after serving only two years and three month, and was immediately reinstated in the army. Since the early 1970's, the British government has periodically engaged in a policy of eliminating political opponents. Initially, this policy was restricted to attempt to kill opponents in 'credible circumstances'--in possession of or in proximity to weapons or explosives. Since the early 80's, however, it has been the general rule that the killing takes place first and 'credible circumstances' are manufactured afterwards. This was the case in the series of killings carried out in Armagh in 1982 and again in Gibralater in 1988. Amnesty International has called these 'extra-judicial killings" and has demanded a judicial inquiry into all disputed killings. The British government has refused. In addition to the oppression meted out by British government forces, the nationalist population has suffered the onslaught of attacks from the extremes of unionism. Almost 700 people, 90.5 nationalists, have been victims of sectarian assassinations perpetrated by loyalist paramilitaries. many of these killings have been carried out with the collusion of members of the British army and RUC. In August 1969, internment week 1972 and in the wake of the signing of the Hillsbourgh Treaty in 1985, thousands of nationalists were fire-bombed out of their homes by loyalist extremists. Sporadic attacks on nationalist homes and individuals have been a constant feature of the past 20 years. THE HUNGER STRIKES As well as the trauma and suffering on the streets, nationalist opponents of British rule in Ireland were selected for vert special treatment inside British prisons. The struggle for decent conditions, dignity and recognition as political prisoners has been constant throughout the past 20 years and continues today. Of all the prison campaigns the most publicized, because of the numbers involved and because of the toll of lives extracted, was the 'blanket protest' which culminated in the hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981. Deprived of political status in 1975, republican prisoners refused to don prison uniforms and clad themselves in blankets. Within a short period, the punitive actions of the regime forced them to live in cells surrounded by their own excrement. Beatings and degradation were used in an attempt to break the prisoners will. For four years, the prisoners persevered in the most awful conditions. On October 27 1980, a hunger strike began which was to last 53 days. It extracted sufficient concessions from the British to make a settlement possible. Having secured the end of the hunger strike, the British government reneged. A second hunger strike was initiated on March 1, 1981. It lasted 217 days, ending on October 3rd. International censure of the British, and with it the irrefutable recognition of political status, which the British had so vainly and bloody-mindedly attempted to deny, was the formal outcome. In the interim, ten young Irishmen--Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Ray McCreesh, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kiernan Doherty and Micky Devine--had given their lives. Mairead Farrell, who participated in the first hunger strike, was later to be killed in Gibraltar by the British army's Special Air Services. On the streets, Paul Whitters (15), Julie Livingstone (14), Carol Anne Kelly (12), Harry Duffy (45), Nora McCabe (29), Peter Doherty (40) and Peter Magennis (40) were killed by plastic bullets. SOCIAL ISSUES Structural discrimination in employment has remained a feature of British government rule in the Six Counties. Direct responsibility for that lies with the British government. Discrimination has, in fact, been synonymous with British rule. Unionist loyalty--the rockbed of the British presence--is, in part, conditional on the maintenance of the economic privilege, often marginal, which employment discrimination has conferred on unionists. Patterns of discrimination which existed throughout the period of the Stormont regime have remained intact since Westminster assumed direct responsibility for the governance of the Six Counties. In one aspect, unemployment, the situation of nationalists has actually deteriorated. Unemployment in the Six COunties in April 1989 officially stood at 107,623, representing 15.6 percent of the workforce. Trade union estimates place the figures at least 40,000 higher. Areas which suffer most unemployment are in the nationalist areas west of the River Bann--Dungannon, Strabane and Derry- -and West Belfast, which contains 10 percent of all the unemployment in the Six Counties. In 1970, nationalists (40 percent of the population) were twice as likely to be unemployed as unionists. By the 1980's, nationalists were 2.5. to 3 times likely to be unemployed. This despite an annual turnover in the jobs market of 100,000 and the introduction 13 years ago of legislation which had the alleged aim of eradicating discrimination. Newly enacted anti-discrimination legislation has failed to get the full support of either the British Labour Party of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. It has ignored the recommendations most likely to produce positive effect, which were presented to the British government by its own Standing Advisory Commission of Human Rights (SCHR). It appears that the British government's objective in introducing the new legislation is to attempt to relive itself of the political pressure it has been subjected to on the issue as a result of the MacBride Principles campaign in the United States. EXERCISE OF FRANCHISE? While the obvious and untenable abuses in the exercise of franchise under the Stormont regime, which led to the demand for 'one person, one vote' had to be removed, and could be removed without posing any threat to the state, the British government has, in the 80's, introduced legislation specifically to hamper the exercise of franchise by Sinn Fein supporters. Identification requirements at the polling booths are directed at disenfranchising the overwhelmingly working class Sinn Fein voter. Prisoners can no longer stand as candidates. Ex-prisoner candidates for local government seats must have completed their sentence five years in advance of their candidacy. An anti-violence declaration for local government candidates was introduced in an attempt to deter Sinn Fein candidates from standing in the hope of disqualifying successful Sinn Fein candidates at a future date. Censorship in the broadcast media denies Sinn Fein the ability to address the electorate on relevant issues. "Britain cannot solve the Irish problem because we caused it with partition in 1920 and we are still part of it. A settlement can not be reached until Britain has withdrawn, totally, from Ireland...That is th only way out of the continuing bigotry, hatred, anarchy and murder...It wouldn't be weakness for Britain to leave. It would be strength. It is the only path to permanent peace." Robert Maxwell (proprietor) in an editorial in the largest circulation British daily newspaper, the Daily Mirror, August 10, 1989. PEACE WITH JUSTICE? The following is an extract from "Pathway to Peace" by Gerry Adams MP, president of Sinn Fein. ***** "Peace is not simply the absences of war or conflict. It is the existence of conditions of justice and equality which eradicate the causes of war or conflict. It is the existence of conditions in which the absence of war or conflict is self- sustaining. The Irish people have never known peace. Despite protracted periods of an absence of war, the conditions fostered and imposed on them have ensured perennial conflict. The Irish people have a right to peace. They have a right to political structures which are capable of sustaining peace, of making peace permanent. They have a right to decide for themselves what those structures should be. They have an obligation to ensure that the ethos and practice of those structures guarantee equality for all Irish people and serve the best interests of all the Irish people. Those who claim to seek permanent peace, justice, democracy, equality of opportunity, and stability cannot refute that the abiding and universally accepted principle of national self-determination, in which is enshrined the principle of democracy, is the surest means within which to further those political and social aims and, once having achieved them, of maintaining them. The refusal by successive British governments to allow the Irish nation to exercise its right to self-determination has been, and is, British government policy. That policy is the root cause of the conflict. That policy, in conjunction with the measures taken to maintain it, is the cause of the ruptures in the relationships between the Irish people themselves and between Ireland and Britain. Division and coercion have always been, and are, the basic tenents of that policy. Division obtains not only in the physical division of the country through partition but in the British government-sponsored division which spawned the Civil War in 1922 and which has molded politics in the 26-County state ever since; in the divisions between nationalists and unionists which were cultivated by an inequitable system of privilege and sustained by the British government- bestowed unionist veto which, as designed, guarantees partition; and finally, but not least, in the very real divisions among nationalists themselves. Self-determination is universally accepted to mean a nation's right to exercise the political freedom to determine its own social, economic and cultural development without external influence and without partial or total disruption of the national unity or territorial integrity. Those criteria are not observed in Ireland. British government involvement in Ireland has been in contravention of all the long-established international norms which give reign to conditions conducive to the establishment of internal peace, democracy, justice, stability and national freedom, and, by extension, to the development of good relations between Ireland and Britain. The right of the Irish people, as a whole, to self-determination is supported by universally-recognized principles of international law enshrined in the two United Nations' Covenants of 1966. Articles 1 of each Covenant states: "1. All peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they determine their economic, social and cultural development. Also ...all people have the right freely to determine, without external influence, their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development and every state has the duty to respect this right in accordance with the provisions of the charter." Partition is also in contravention of the United Nations' Declaration of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Article 6 of which states: "Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposed and principles of the Charter of the United Nations." The national territory of Ireland has been physically divided by partition with the British government assuming sovereignty over the Six Counties. The Irish people are divided within the Six Counties and between the Six and 26 Counties. National unity, far from being allowed to develop, has been consciously and deliberately fractured in the interests of the British government. The social, economic and cultural development of Ireland has been variously disrupted, stultified or eroded. The responsibility for partition--for conceiving, enforcing and maintaining it-- lies with the British government. The pretext for partition--the wishes of a national minority to maintain British rule--holds no validity against the express wishes of a clear national majority. Nevertheless, British government interests have dictated that the opposite should be the case" ***** THE CONDITIONS FOR PEACE IN IRELAND The root cause of the conflict in Ireland is the denial of democracy, the refusal by the British government to allow the Irish people to exercise their right to national self-determination. The solution to the conflict in Ireland lies in the democratic exercise of that right in the form of national re-unification, national independence and sovereignty. In the words of the late Sean MacBride, Irish recipient of both the Nobel and Lenin peace prizes: "Ireland's right to sovereignty, independence and unity are inalienable and indefeasible. It is for the Irish people as a whole to determine the future status of Ireland. Neither Britain nor a small minority determined by Britain has any right to partition the ancient island of Ireland, nor to determine its future as a sovereign nation." A true and lasting peace in Ireland can only be achieved by the creation of the necessary political conditions. These conditions are: *The ending of the British government-imposed partition. *British disengagement and disbandment of indigenous British troops. *The calling of free elections to an all-Ireland Constitutional Conference to agree upon a new constitution and national system of government *The unconditional release of all political prisoners. It is only through the process of decolonization and dialogue that a peaceful, stable Ireland will emerge. Only when independence is restored can Ireland hope to prosper and take her place among the nations of the world. The onus on the British government to ensure a peaceful transition to a united and independent Ireland. The shape of that society is a matter for the Irish people. Only when Britain recognizes that right and initiates a strategy of decolonization along these lines will peace and reconciliation between the Irish people and between Britain and Ireland be established. ****** Useful address: Sinn Fein Head Office 44 Parnell Square Dublin 1, Ireland Sinn Fein Foreign Affairs Bureau 51/55 Falls Road Belfast BT12 Ireland Irish Northern Aid Committee 363 Seventh Ave New York, NY 10001 tel 212-736-1916 fax 212-279-1916 for further information on Ireland in Peacenet, see 'reg.ireland'.