REPRESSIVE ARSENAL by STEVE MaDONOGH In 1969, following pogroms against Catholic areas in Northern Ireland by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and pro-imperialist Protestant mobs, Jack Lynch, then Taoiseach (prime minister) of the Dublin government, moved troops to the border and announced: "We shall not stand idly by." It was a gesture forced on him by overwhelming moss solidarity in the southern, twenty-six county state with the struggle in the North. But as a song of the time recorded:
Well, Jack Lynch came out from Dublin And he had ten thousand men He marched them up to the border And he marched them home again. ... He sits on His ass in Dublin And I hope he does enjoy Selling out his country For he's England's little boy. In a serse, Jack Lynch and his Fianna Fail government did not stand idly by; they embarked on a campaign of arrests and harassment of the defender of the Catholic ghettoes in the North, the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Not content with the wide-ranging powers of a revived war-time emergency law (which had been passed in 1939), the regime in the Irish Republic enacted further repressive legislation. But because of the importance of Republican rhetoric in Fianna Fail's electoral base and because of the Republican sympathies not only of its supporters but also of elements among its public representatives, the comprador bourgeoisie did not regard Fianna Fail as the most reliable force in carrying out a policy of full col-
laboration with British imperialism. In the general election of 1973 Fianna Fail was defeated by a Fine-Gael/ Labour coalition. Since then, the use of non-jury courts to sentence Republicans to jail terms for alleged IRA membership has continued steadily, the budget and manpower of the armed forces have been increased massively, and the police force, especially the Special Branch, has been expanded. More and more, the Free State Army has been used to back up the Garda Siochana (police force), and regular collaboration between the "security forces" of the Irish Republic and those of British imperialism has been developed. But one of the demands of the British government and in particular of its generals has proved difficult for the Dublin government to grant, Essentially, the demand is for the jailing of Republicans who are alleged to have escaped to the South after guerrilla actions in the North. At first, the answer was seen in the extradition of these militants to the North; but the laws of the twenty-six counties prohibit extradition for "crimes" of a political nature. In addition, any attempt to alter the extradition laws could have fallen afoul of the state's constitution, which claims jurisdiction over the northern, six-county state. Thus, the British government launched a carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign around its demands and insisted that they be incorporated into the "Sunningdale Agreement. " (The main provision of this agreement was a form of "power-sharing" befween Protestants and Catholics in a northern executive.) Although all the other provisions of the Sunningdale Agreement were scrapped after the May 1974 reactionary "strike" of the loyalist Ulster Workers' Council, the D. blin government nonetheless announced in November 1974 that it would press ahead with legislation against "fugitive offenders" (that is, Republicans). In January 1976 the Senate passed the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill. The bill has not yer been passed by the Dail (parliament), and in any case, if it does pass it is expected to be referred to the Supreme Court in view of the widespread contention that the bill is unconstitutional. The provisions of the bill are remarkably extensive. Any persons who flee to the South after escaping from a prison camp in the North - including persons held on remand - can be charged in the South and sentenced by a non-jury Special Criminal Court to up to seven years' imprisonment. Under the bill's terms, all cases would be taken before the Special Criminal Court, but evidence from witnesses in the North (such as the RUC and the British army) could be taken in the North by similar non-jury courts. The accused would have the right to be present in the North when evidence is given, but would remain in the custody of the RUC throughout the taking of evidence. Here it must be borne in mind that members of the minority ("Catholic") community in the North are heavily discriminated against in the judicial system in the North and that torture has been and still is regularly practiced in RUC detention centers. As the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) observed in a resolution calling for the scrapping of the bill passed at their Annual Delegate Conference last summer, "It is highly unlikely that the accused will go into the North to examine the witnesses against him and equally unlikely that the witnesses will come into the South to give evidence. In fact, therefore, written evidence would be produced at a trial which cannot be subjected to appropriate scrutiny." The bill also authorizes any civilian in the South to arrest anyone believed to have committed an offense in the North. The effect of this provision would be to legalize actions by loyalist gangs aimed at kidnapping Republicans in the South. This possibility is not at all far-fetched. At the moment, three loyalists are in jail in the South on charges of trying to kidnap Seamus Frew, an Armagh man, in Monaghan last year. (Frew was later shot by the RUC in Armagh.) Under the bill (section 19), these loyalists could be congratulated for performing a public service. Another sinister aspect of this vicious piece of legislation is that it drastically increases penalties for many offenses in the South, which does not even have anything to do with the declared purpose of the bill. Seven sections of the bill redefine existing laws and extend their application; in so doing they go well beyond the scope of "terrorist-type" offenses. Section 6 of the bill, for example, amends the definition of burglary to include, among other things, entering a building as a trespasser with intent to steal or do damage to the building. The bill provides for sentences of up to fourteen years' imprisonment for these offenses. Section 10 states that hijacking a vehicle is punishable by fifteen years'
IRELAND imprisonment. The term "vehicle" includes everything from a bicycle to a hovercraft. A recurring feature of the bill's provisions is its greater concern for property than for human rights. One example: precisely the same penalty is provided for doing "unlawful damage" to a building and for "raping a woman therein. " Again, section 6 defines aggravated burglary as burglary with a firearm, an imitation of a firearm, or anything that could be used as a weapon and makes the offense punishable by life imprisonment, which is the penalty for most types of murder. Opposition to the bill Since the defeat of the campaign against the "forcible entry bill" in 1470 (a campaign that brought thousands of trade unionists into the streets), the trade-union movement has done little to fight repressive laws. True, most trade unions and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have voted resolutions placing their opposition to repressive legislation on record. But little action has arisen from these resolutions. Further, ever since the rise of the struggle in the North, the Republican Movement has been reluctant to take on the Southern state. The opposition of the Provisionals to the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill has been almost exclusively restricted to articles in An Phoblacht, their newspaper, In particular, the Provos have never organized their base within the trade unions, which is considerable numerically. As one member of the Provos - a shop steward who led 150 men off a construction site in solidarity with Frank Stagg before his death in a British jail — remarked in an interview with the newspaper of the Revolutionary Marxist Group, Irish section of the Fourth International: "It's no good expecting an immediate response from people in a crisis situation unless you've worked for it before. I feel that this is something that the Republican Movement isn't really aware of. They were, for instance, impressed by the march and realised its worth, but only afterwaids. And this hasn't pushed them, so far, to reconsider their attitude to work in the working class." Thus, the Provos have been unable to exploit the fact that many unions have formally come out against the bill to transform this formal opposition into positive acThe Official Sinn Fein, on the other hand, does have a form of trade-union intervention, but it is geared to economic questions and the Official militants tend to avoid such questions as repression. Similarly, the Communist party of Ireland has never shown any inclination to fight on the question of repression. The orientation of the Revolutionary Marxist Group is twofold. Since they regard the mobilization of trade unionists as the most important factor, the RMG militants tried to get trade-union bodies to sponsor a march against the CLJB. This was successful, despite the very strong tendency of the trade-union movement (shared by the Stalinist parties) to stick purely to economic questions. The Dublin District Council of the Irish Trans42 port and General Workers Union (by far the largest Irish trade union) passed a resolution calling for a demonstration at Leinster House (the parliament building), a mass lobby of the Dail on the day of the vote on the bill, and similar action by all unions affiliated to the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. This resolution was also passed by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. From the start, it has been clear that the trade-union bureaucrats had little enthusiasm for the march, and even up to the last minute it looked like they might call it off. But as it turned out, a sufficient number of people had been mobilized (not by the bureaucrats, of course) to make the demonstration a success of some significance. Additional moves within the trade-union movement were made by the Socialist Workers Movement (which is linked to the International Socialists in Britain) and the League For a Workers Republic (Lambertists), each of which organized a separate petition calling upon Labour representatives to oppose the bill. The second aspect of the RMG's orientation has been to try to forge unity in action between the Republican and Socialist organizations. The emergence of the Irish Republican Socialist party (IRSP) in December 1974 as a split from the Officials offered the potential of increasing the possibilities for united action both North and South. But the IRSP quickly retreated into a defensive attitude toward the far-left groups and rejected proposals for united action in favor of a series of very small street meetings of their own. Nonetheless, a United Campaign Against the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill has been formed; it includes the Irish Civil Rights Association, People's Democracy, the RevoluHonary Marxist Group, the Socialist Workers Movement, the League for a Workers Republic, and others; a pamphlet has been produced and pickets and a public meeting have been held. The fact that trade unionists have marched against the bill in Dublin provides a basis for building further opposition. Revolutionary Marxists will work to exert pressure on trades councils and other trade-union bodies to take action and to educate their memberships about the importance and dangers of repressive legislation. The wave of revulsion that has swept all of Ireland after the death of Frank Stagg in a British prison was yet another sharp demonstration of the continuing determination of the Irish masses to expel British imperialism from the island; one of the important aspects of this struggle is precisely the fight against the southern Irish bourgeoisie's collaboration with British imperialism, collaboration that extends to aiding the imperialists in the physical and political repression of the anti-imperialist movement. The southern state already has one of the toughest penal codes in Europe, and the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Bill is on attempt to make it even tougher. International opposition to the Dublin government's violation of basic civil rights can provide valuable support to socialists and Republicans in their struggle in Ireland itself.O