BY MARCELLA FITZGERALD

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - As the "inter-party" talks on the future of Northern Ireland were reconvened September 9, no one doubted that London's attempt to gain the initiative in developments here is nothing but a fiasco. It is less possible today than several months ago to justify the exclusion of Sinn Fein, the leading republican political force, from negotiations.

During the summer months the movement to end British colonial rule of northern Ireland registered major steps forward, intensifying the crisis that confronts London. The Unionist forces - a political bloc based on the caste-like privileges of the Protestant population here, which has been promoted over decades by British capitalism - were dealt an important setback.

Drumcree was a watershed
"Drumcree was a watershed." That was the assessment many Irish nationalists interviewed by Militant reporters, during a four-day visit here the first weekend of September, repeated over and over again. "Drumcree turned into a disaster for the Unionists," was another common comment.

These remarks were referring to the gathering of thousands of loyalists (those loyal to the British crown) at Drumcree, a Catholic neighborhood in Portadown, July 8. This action set off two months of fierce confrontations between Unionists attempting to lead sectarian marches through predominantly Catholic communities, with the help of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British army, and nationalist residents.

The Unionist marches are aimed at preserving the caste-type system of domination through which Protestants are treated preferentially to Catholics. This system is the cornerstone to British rule. Several residents said it would be like the Ku Klux Klan marching through Black neighborhoods in the South of the United States.

The campaign for the re-routing of the sectarian marches, which numbered 3,000 this summer in an area where 1.5 million people live, became the focal point of the fight for democratic rights in the six-county statelet. Thousands of people, the majority of the population in many villages, were involved for the first time in years in active resistance to the oppression by the British occupied Orange state. The military repression London unleashed in response to the nationalist revolt showed once again that this state can be maintained as part of the United Kingdom only through brute force.

Gerard Rice, one of the leaders of the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community, told a July 15 rally in Newry, "We have no rights, no state, no government and certainly no police. The rights we have are here in front of me. The people are our rights." Some 10,000 people participated in the protest after a week of bloody repression.

That week Michael McGoldrick and Dermot McShane were killed. Several more people were put on life support machines after serious injuries and thousands more were wounded from the wholesale use of plastic bullets by the British army and the RUC against unarmed civilians.

As a result, demands to end British colonial rule gained a wider hearing. The July 15 march and rally in Newry that Rice addressed were called under the banner "Dismantle the Orange State."

Rice was at the forefront of the growing campaigns by residents to prevent the abusive marches by the rightist Orange Order -an all male, all Protestant, secret society -from being forced through predominantly Catholic areas. The rally in Newry was one of many that day called in response to the events of the previous week. The most sizable actions took place in Belfast and Derry.

Addressing the July 15 Belfast rally, the largest since the 1981 hunger strikes by Irish political prisoners, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said that "recent events have validated the IRA's refusal to decommission its weapons. If anyone ever wanted a reason why the IRA said it would not surrender its weapons then look back on what happened in the last week." The British government demands the surrender, or decommissioning, of arms by the IRA as a precondition for allowing elected Sinn Fein representatives into the "all-party" talks.

Adams was referring to events since the previous Monday, July 8, at the center of which was the Unionist-organized showdown at Drumcree. The rightists planned to make Drumcree a rallying point for the Protestant caste.

How events unfold in early July
Their aim was to repeat the events of last year. That was when Unionist Members of Parliament David Trimble and Ian Paisley led some 15,000 Orangemen who descended on Garvaghy Road in Drumcree and finally, after three days, marched through it. Trimble was subsequently elected head of the Official Unionist Party (OUP) whose votes in British parliament keep John Major's government from falling.

This year, after growing protests in Belfast and elsewhere against the routing of marches through predominantly Catholic neighborhoods, the loyalist demonstration was banned by head of the RUC Hugh Annesley. A huge security operation was put in place. But as more and more Orangemen gathered on the site beginning the morning of July 8, tension mounted.

Members of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force were visibly present. William Wright - one of the most well-known members of the UVF and widely believed to be responsible for many sectarian murders with the aid of the British SAS - stewarded the affair. Wright and David Trimble were filmed meeting together. On the first night of what became a four-day siege, Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick was murdered. Responsibility was later attributed to the UVF's Portadown brigade.

Altogether, several thousand people throughout the statelet joined the protest at Portadown by blocking roads in many places, preventing people from going to work or school, in an attempt to bring the six counties to a halt. Protestant businessmen parked their company lorries (trucks) across roads under the escort of RUC officers. Aldegrove international airport was closed for several hours. Other loyalist businessmen showed their support by sending supplies to the Orangemen besieging Garvaghy Road.

Two things were demonstrated by these actions. One was the widespread identification of these entrepreneurs with the Orangemen's stand. Despite their daily dealings with many Catholics, these businessmen supported and were prepared to act to defend the Orange regime. Second, it became evident that it was impossible for the Unionists to repeat the actual shut-down of the north of Ireland with a general strike as they had done in the Ulster Workers Council strike of 1974. That strike was backed by loyalist paramilitary groups. The Drumcree showdown was rather an act of desperation than strength, and it backfired.

Loyalist gangs did attack mainly Catholic housing projects in cities and villages other than Portadown. Some 100 armed with handguns and a rifle chased youths through the Colingwood Estate on the night of July 10. They were halted when confronted by an armed defence of the estate. Elsewhere nationalist youth protested against the RUC, burning cars.

Amid mounting violence, threats and the danger of sections of the RUC openly disobeying orders and going over to the Orangemen, the Major government met with leaders of the Unionist parties. RUC chief Annesley then reversed the decision to prevent the Orangemen from marching, "because of the fear of increasing civil unrest and the likelihood that his force would have had to open fire on Orangemen." The RUC of course, an armed unionist organization, could not stomach such a prospect.

The Orangemen marched in triumph through the blockaded Catholic neighborhoods July 12. But the RUC had to viciously beat off the streets thousands of local residents to let the loyalists through.

People everywhere were stunned. The siege had not happened quietly this time as in the past. Pictures from Drumcree were beamed all over the world. Working people in Britain, many for the first time, began to see the real face of anti-Catholic violence and discrimination.

Millions watched on TV, for example, what was happening when an RUC jeep moved down the street to allow 40 rightist thugs with bricks, bottles, and sticks to come into Gavarghy Road. Then, as local resident John McKeown described it, "Six houses had their doors broken open and loyalists ran through them, smashing anything in sight and shouting, `Get out ye's Fenian Bastards'." Many journalists reported case after case of Catholics being driven out of their homes in North Belfast as loyalist gangs set them alight.

British troops join rightists
The repressive nature of the occupying British army was laid bare once again as Major sent in two extra battalions to northern Ireland. These troops were not used to restrain Unionists or maintain law and order at Drumcree or elsewhere. On the night of July 12 the British army rioted in Derry, firing 1,000 plastic bullets - six-inch-long and one-inch-wide batons that can break limbs or kill - at Catholic protesters.

What happened to Kevin McCafferty is just one example among hundreds. McCafferty, 16, left Squires disco at the centre of Derry and crossed the road to get away from the hail of plastic bullets. But he was hit in the chest, and as he fell down he was hit again in the face. His father was able to identify him only by his clothes. As McCafferty lay unconscious in a hospital bed, the RUC attacked people at the entrance of the hospital kicking and batoning them and setting the dogs on them. A week later, McCafferty had not regained consciousness. He is almost certain to lose one eye.

In the two weeks after the assault on Garvaghy Road the British army and RUC fired 6,000 plastic bullets at Drumcree and throughout the six counties to try to intimidate Catholics who responded with protests.

Turning point for resistance
The turning point for the nationalist resistance came in Derry on August 10. The rightist Apprentice Boys who were due to march along the City walls above the predominantly Catholic Bogside area of the city were compelled to negotiate with residents of the neighborhood, though no agreement was reached on the march route.

Thereafter the loyalists were pushed back in town after town, village after village. The final weekend of the main "marching season," August 30-September 1, passed off quietly. Unionist marches that weekend were in every case held back and limited in scope by the organized resistance of residents. In the course of eight weeks of struggle the nationalists gained the upper hand and definitely conquered the moral high ground in public opinion.

Events since Drumcree showed that the balance of forces has shifted further against the forces of reaction.

Every Catholic, as well as every supporter of an independent and united Ireland, could now see clearly for themselves and explain that whatever the reforms of the last 27 years - since the onset of the civil rights movement in northern Ireland -

they were still living in a sectarian "Unionist state for a Unionist people." The British government showed that not only it would not guarantee their safety against loyalist violence, but its army and police would mete out violence to defend the forces of reaction.

But the increased numbers on the nationalist demonstrations and the fact that the British government was forced to pull back from any further violence on the final weekend of the main marching season testified to the growing strength of the movement to end British domination.

Unorganized protests that would have allowed the army and RUC to continue their assaults were kept to a minimum. Disciplined mass protests that increased the organization and self- confidence of those involved were led mainly by Sinn Fein. One young woman on a march in Strabane explained that her family had never before been involved in the struggle. But after Drumcree she went to a demonstration and she is now becoming an activist.

A spontaneous boycott of the businesses of those who were identified with the Drumcree violence has spread in the six counties. The owner of Kells in Enniskillen, who is a Grand Master of the Orange Lodge in Fermanagh and was prominent in the siege of Garvaghy Road, is finding that no one who supports the national struggle will buy school uniforms for children from his shop.

In Nimoy the local grocer is appealing to those who no longer spend their money in his shop by claiming he was not involved with the Orangemen at Drumcree; he only sent them sandwiches. But his pleas are met with contempt.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party, which has been the main party Catholics supported in the past, has lost some of its appeal. The SDLP leadership acted as middlemen in negotiations between Catholic residents and loyalist groups over the rerouting of Orange marches, adopting a neutral stance between the two groups.

Sinn Fein emerged from the summer stronger. The republicans displayed cool headed leadership throughout the confrontations, which minimized the impact of British army and RUC provocations and traps. Now, explaining that the peace process is deadlocked for lack of London's willingness to seriously engage Sinn Fein in the talks, the group is calling for parties in the south of Ireland and the SDLP to join in demanding negotiations without preconditions.

The effect of the events on Garvaghy Road has had a tremendous impact in the South. Meetings and rallies have been organized to support the residents' movement in the North and members of the Dail Eirean, the Irish parliament, felt obliged to show up at several confrontations. Brenda Power made a comment in the Sunday Tribune in the Republic of Ireland that reflected the views of many. She said that in the wake of Drumcree she hoped the remark by Gerry Adams that the IRA "had not gone away" was true. Irish prime minister John Bruton publicly attacked Major's actions as giving in to pressure and failing to act impartially.

The one member of the Irish government to speak out in defence of the Unionists was minister for social welfare Proinsias De Rossa of the Democratic Left, the former pro-Moscow Workers Party.

The blows the Unionist forces suffered have accelerated their fragmentation, a process that's been at work for several years. Trimble is not leading a great new revival of the fortunes of the OUP. Several Unionists are distancing themselves from William Wright of the UVF. The Combined Loyalist Military Command, an umbrella of the paramilitary loyalist groups, has issued a death threat against Wright if he doesn't get out of northern Ireland. UVF spokespeople now claim he is an MI5 agent and has been for six years. Meanwhile, a support group for Wright has just been formed in Glasgow, Scotland. And a leading member of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, William McCrae, spoke alongside Wright at a rally of 3,000 in Tyrone.

Her Majesty's loyal opposition - the British Labour Party - has been mildly critical of the precise tactics of the Major government over Drumcree. But its leadership has stuck rigidly to its complete opposition to Irish freedom, an issue so close to the jugular vein of the British ruling class.

In an attempt to erase the image of naked imperial violence, London has appointed a new head of the RUC, Ronald Flanagan. The British media has tried its best to present Flanagan as the man to clean up the RUC. But it is hard to hide what thousands of nationalists know well: that he came up through the British Special Branch and was closely associated with London's shoot- to-kill policy.

London has a harder time now to justify its stance in the talks. How can Major explain that Trimble and Paisley and the political representatives of the UVF all adhere to the Mitchell principles of non-violence? How can the British government explain it should allow itself in the talks, but exclude Sinn Fein, after what London's army did in Derry?

That's what thousands of nationalists ask here and are better prepared to act on.  
 
 
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