BY ANN FIANDER AND DEBRA JACOBS
MANCHESTER, England - Marjorie Mowlam, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, formally called for the expulsion of Sinn Fein from talks on the future of Northern Ireland in Dublin February 16. Sinn Fein is the leading party fighting to end British rule in the north and for a united Ireland.

Mowlam cited claims by Ronald Flanagan, chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was behind two killings the previous week. This indictment was accepted by talks chairman, former U.S. senator George Mitchell.

Sinn Fein leaders responded by explaining that they are in the talks on the basis of their electoral mandate, not as representatives of the IRA. They further pointed out that the RUC has not produced forensic or any other evidence linking the killings to the IRA, or linking the IRA to Sinn Fein.

Brendan Campbell was shot by a single gunman in a busy Belfast street late at night February 9. The next day Robert Dougan, a member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was shot in his parked car. The UDA is one of several loyalist - that is pro-British - death squads.

The killings were quickly followed by demands from Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble and other senior loyalists that Sinn Fein be excluded from the talks.

Mowlam said that police chief Flanagan told her he thought the IRA was linked to the deaths of Campbell and Dougan. The IRA has stated that its cease-fire, which has been in effect since July 1997, remained intact.

"Sinn Fein does not accept that RUC boss Mr. Flanagan has the moral authority to decide whether or not we should be expelled from the talks," Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams declared at a press conference the same day. "He leads a force which is totally discredited. He covered up the killings of Catholics in recent months. He has yet to reveal the forensic history of the weapons used to kill Catholics."

Speaking February 14, Adams elaborated, "Over 100 people have been shot in the last 20 months by loyalists." In the first month of 1998, eight Catholics have been killed. Earlier this year the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) admitted to three of these killings. It was only in the wake of the UFF admission that the RUC confirmed the loyalist involvement.

The RUC has not brought forward forensic evidence nor made any assessment about who has been responsible for the other attacks and killings.

The RUC is a sectarian police force directly under the control of the British government. It systematically works to reinforce the discrimination against Catholics that is a pillar of British rule in Northern Ireland. In 1996 - 97, RUC officers forced a loyalist sectarian march down the Catholic Garvaghy Road in Portadown, beating Catholic demonstrators out of the way and unleashing volleys of plastic bullets.

Nationalists have mobilized against recent loyalist murders in their community and have won public inquiry into the 14 deaths at the hands of the British army during a civil rights march on Jan. 30, 1972, the day that became known as Bloody Sunday.

During the last 20 months the British army has continued to use plastic bullets against unarmed Catholic demonstrators. After a march of the rightist Apprentice Boys through the city center of Derry December 13, nationalist demonstrators were met with 169 rounds of plastic bullets from the RUC and British army.

Debra Jacobs is a member of the National Union of Rail, Maritime, and Transport Workers.  
 
 
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