Unity

From Unity, 3 February 2007

Keep your eyes on the prize

by Lynda Walker

It was the Dublin ard-fheis that delivered the decisive 90 per cent backing to the Republican leadership’s position on active engagement with policing, but it was the countless meetings around the country that won that endorsement.
     One of those took place last Wednesday night, 24 January, in Clonard Monastery in west Belfast. This was, as Gerry Adams said, just one of the “layers of meetings all over Ireland where we have met various families of the dead, and veterans, on a huge range of issues, and until a couple of weeks ago I had not made my mind up” (about whether Sinn Féin should join the policing board and become internally involved with justice issues). He went on to say that two issues had pushed him into the view that he now held. One was the strategic advancement of the republican struggle, and the other was the need to unite orange and green together: “that is what has guided me.”
     Gerry Kelly, Gerry Adams, Bairbre de Brún, and Alex Maskey, representing the leadership of Sinn Féin collectively, outlined the major changes that have taken place over the years, opening the way to a new policy. Gerry Kelly spelt out the detail of the advances Sinn Féin had made in regard to policing. Gerry Adams put those in the context of the military stalemate and the huge electoral advances of Sinn Féin. The reality was that “the republicans cannot push the British into the sea, and the British cannot beat republicans.” The way forward was the negotiating table, where republicans had to try to bring unionists, including the Democratic Unionist Party, across the line.
     Regarding the DUP and its constant shifting of the goal-posts it was said that “we can get angry, bad-tempered—okay; but we have to look at what is best for the struggle.” The point was made that if Sinn Féin did not become involved with policing, the PSNI would be left to the unionists.
     On several occasions Sinn Féin speakers made reference to the fact that they wanted a united Ireland—“not like the Free State but one that would make a difference to ordinary people.” Bairbre de Brún made similar comments when she was closing the meeting; but they all fell short of the “S word” (socialism).
     Adams accepted that reaction to Sinn Féin policy was varied. On the one hand there are those “on the Road” (the Falls Road) who are saying it is a “done deal”; there are others who totally reject Sinn Féin policing policy, those who have no interest, and those whose support for this policy ranges from lukewarm or cautious to outright endorsement. But it was the responsibility of the leadership to lead. “What did people expect when they signed up to the Belfast Agreement—that Sinn Féin should stay out of these policing issues?”
     The church hall was packed with people who held all these views, and everyone was encouraged to ask questions and contribute to the meeting. The old song, “Here, share them out among yourselves, said the men from Barry’s column,” came to mind when a number of roving microphones were distributed; but it was not guns that were being handed out on this occasion but instead a means of contributing peacefully. And many people did.
     Most people debated the issue rather than asking specific questions. One 85-year-old man said, “I have lived beside Andersonstown police barracks for sixty-three years. Some of the police were good and some were bad; some of them helped me out. Now the barracks has gone, and I am faced with anti-social behaviour. If I go out into the street in the night I could get attacked. That will be my fault. I am here to represent the pensioners. I am past my ‘sell-by date,’ Gerry, and need taking off the shelf. We need help to deal with these things.”
     Clare Riley from the Relatives for Justice spoke strongly about the Ombudsman’s report. She said: “When it came out on Monday I was not shocked at the report but I was shocked at the number of people who said that they were: Peter Hain, Tony Blair, the Irish Government . . . and when they get over the shock, what are they going to do about it? They all knew and hadn’t done a damn thing. We gave our files to Blair and to the Irish Government.”
     We in the CPI know this to be true: army and police abuse was documented and given to the governments as well as to international tribunals. Madge Davidson and others in the Civil Rights Association did this in the 1970s, as did a whole lot of other organisations and individuals. Indeed Clare Riley was part of the forty-strong delegation that went to the World Congress of Women in Moscow in 1987. Along with Emma Groves, who was blinded by a rubber bullet in her own home, she gave details to the international tribunal in Moscow.
     The question that many people wanted answered is, What is going to happen to those who colluded with the murderers, especially those who are still in the police force? In 1969 young Patrick Rooney was shot dead in his own home in Divis Flats. At the meeting his uncle said: “All my brother wants is for someone to acknowledge that his son was killed. No-one has yet done that. When his son was shot dead, no-one came to the door, and no-one has been yet. Who fired that night? We know it wasn’t the loyalists, it was the B Specials and the RUC, and my brother is still waiting for someone to admit to this murder.”
     Gerry Adams later responded to this by saying that Patrick’s father had come to a meeting and for the first time had spoken publicly about his son’s death, but that no-one in authority had ever acknowledged his death. It was at this stage that Gerry Adams told the audience that Sinn Féin was trying to give a lead; “we need your support to call these people to account.”
     Barbara Muldoon, who works with the solicitor Patricia Drinan, read out a motion that was to go to the Sinn Féin ard-fheis on Sunday. Among other things, it called for a democratic police force. She said there is nowhere in the world where that exists. She gave some very disturbing details about the PSNI and how it is “failing to deal with race crimes, not taking statements; they are working with the immigration squads.” She called on Sinn Féin members to vote against the policing motion, because of this and other abuses. Though she spoke well and gave details that need to be looked at, to some extent she defeated her own argument. It seems logical to think that these are the very reasons why Sinn Féin should go onto the police boards, to make them more accountable. MI5 and their likes will never be accountable to the people.
     At least two people in the audience said that Irish people had a right to carry guns—a continuance of the armed struggle. Gerry Adams reiterated his willingness to talk to organisations that support this view but spelt out in no uncertain terms the total political bankruptcy of those organisations.
     One young person said that they were stereotyped as hoods and joyriders when in fact the majority of young people were not like that, and that poverty was a factor in anti-social behaviour.
     At the end of the day we, as communists, know that we have to work within the framework of capitalism, that the police with always be a “tool of the state.” We know that we have been abused, spied on, and murdered, but we have to take the view that to change this situation the mass of the people must become involved in debate, class struggle, and decision-making.
     The vote at the ard-fheis on Sunday has decided the policy for Sinn Féin, and the vote in the ballot box next March will give it the mandate to become involved in policing and justice issues. The decision the Sinn Féin leadership made was a rocky one, but it is the right road. They are now looking for support from people in the community, and the elections in March will show this. But if Sinn Féin wants people’s support it must also weigh in behind the anti-water-charge campaign.
     “Done deal” or not, those who oppose Sinn Féin at this stage must provide a positive and realistic alternative that can take the political process forward.

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