Unionist organizations, the mainstay of the decades-long British occupation of the six counties and the oppression of the Catholic population, have carried out a bombing campaign against the homes of republican leaders. A rightist paramilitary group exploded a pipe bomb and hand grenade in Upper Ardoyne Avenue in Belfast September 5 in an attempt to force Catholic families not to use the road to take their children to school.

For 30 years Catholic school children have walked on that street in their uniforms with no trouble. But last June unionists began organizing attacks that effectively shut down Holy Cross school early for summer vacation.

"We've always been able to go up there," Louise Murray, one of the parents escorting their children to school, told a New York Times reporter. "And now I'm taking my daughter." Linda Bowes, another parent, added, "If these children can't use this road, then the generations to come won't be able to use this road."

Responsibility for terrorizing the school children has been claimed by the Red Hand Defenders, an alias used by the Ulster Defense Association (UDA), one of the largest unionist paramilitary groups that organizes violence against Catholics. It has received arms and intelligence information from the British government. The group took responsibility for a primed car bomb that was discovered August 28 in Ballycastle where thousands of people gathered to celebrate a festival. "The bomb could have created a huge fireball in a crowded area," the Financial Times reported.

Over the past few months pro-British ultrarightists have organized a paramilitary campaign of bomb attacks against nationalist homes. In the Shankill Road area one mural bears the names of Irish nationalists marked for assassination. According to the August 29 weekly An Phoblacht/Republican News, "Nationalists across the Six Counties in recent months have been driven from their homes and have had their communities placed under loyalist siege, while the UDA, responsible for the murder of hundreds of nationalist civilians both directly and in collusion with British state forces, parades thousands of men openly and in paramilitary uniform on Belfast's Shankill Road."

Washington, London, and the bourgeois press have whipped up a propaganda campaign over the August 11 arrests of three Irish men in Colombia who are accused of being Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and providing explosives training to guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Without presenting any evidence, the New York Times reported that "tests done on their clothing turned up traces of various kinds of explosives, officials said, as well as cocaine, which some government officials accuse the rebels of trafficking."  
 
'Republicans must come clean'
David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, the main pro-British party in Northern Ireland, declared August 31 that the Irish "peace process" would remain stalled "unless the republicans come clean" and Sinn Fein, the leading republican organization, gives some "satisfactory answers" about the Colombia arrests. Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster, he said the detention of the three men "calls into question the whole basis upon which we have been proceeding in the last few years."

For years the capitalist press has portrayed Sinn Fein as a front for the IRA, attempting to link the two organizations as one entity. For example, the August 23 Financial Times declared that charges against the men "has significantly undermined trust between Washington and Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing." The IRA has fought an armed campaign to end British military occupation of Northern Ireland and supports the struggle for a united, democratic Ireland. It has adhered to a cease-fire since July 1997 and is independent of Sinn Fein.

U.S. State Department official Richard Haass said Sinn Fein needs to explain the alleged IRA collaboration with the Colombia rebels. "The United States as you all know, has important interests in Colombia," he said. Haas arrived in Dublin September 11 on a trip to meet with Irish government officials, the leaders of Sinn Fein, and the Ulster Unionists. According to the Associated Press, one Ulster Unionist official in the Northern Ireland Assembly said he would appeal to Haas to recommend that Washington ban fund-raising for Sinn Fein in the United States.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams responded to the allegations around the detentions in Colombia with a statement saying, "Efforts to make Sinn Fein accountable for these three Irish men are totally unjustified and serve no good purpose. My own view is that they should be released, and the Irish government should be doing its best to secure their freedom as soon as possible." Adams stated that the men were not in Colombia "representing Sinn Fein. I would have had to authorize such a project and I did not do so."

Despite advances made by republicans in Northern Ireland, the capitalist rulers in Britain oppose a unified, independent Ireland. Washington, London, and the government in Dublin are pressing Sinn Fein to accept Westminster's plans for policing Northern Ireland and demands on the IRA to completely disarm. But, as has been historically the problem for the imperialists, working people in Ireland who oppose British rule refuse to get on their knees.

The 1998 Good Friday agreement, which established a 108-person Northern Ireland Assembly, an elected body with limited self-government, reflected the weakening of British imperialism and the fact it could not subdue the Catholic population. London sought to "devolve" some powers to parliaments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as a means to hold together an increasingly disunited realm.

In July, Ulster Unionist Party leader Trimble carried out a threat to resign from his post as first minister of the assembly, demanding that the IRA immediately begin to surrender its weapons. Trimble insisted he will not return to the post until the IRA begins "decommissioning." When the IRA offered August 1 to put its arms "completely and verifiably beyond use," the proposal was rejected by Trimble even though he "acknowledged the IRA move as a significant step forward," the Wall Street Journal reported.

London has also issued an ultimatum on the IRA decommissioning, threatening to trash the Good Friday agreement. "Take it or leave it--that is the stark message that [London and Dublin] have scrawled on the peace package they are presenting," wrote Anthony Blinken for the International Herald Tribune. On August 1 the two governments presented proposals for reforms, which include changes to the police force.

Sinn Fein rejected London's "Implementation Plan" to "reform" Northern Ireland's police force--a stipulation of the Good Friday Agreement that calls for "proposals for future policing structures and arrangements." Irish nationalists called the proposals a "repackaged RUC" (Royal Ulster Constabulary), noting that nearly 90 percent of the people killed by the RUC police in the conflict in Northern Ireland have been Catholics. Sinn Fein has also maintained that IRA disarming is linked to steps that London has failed to take--withdrawing some British troops from the area, taking down watchtowers, and creating an acceptable police force.

In a document released August 24 by Sinn Fein's national chairman, Mitchel McLaughlin, the party said it would not nominate individuals to the policing board. The UK plan allows for continued use of plastic bullets, and the Special Branch, which is authorized to suppress evidence and impede criminal prosecutions. The British secretary of state will also retain power to halt inquiries ordered by the policing board.  
 
 
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