Conference tallis::celt

    
    It seems the IRA don't want peace. Major says terrorists of both sides
    have killed 80 or so people this year, the security forces 0. Says
    if IRA and other terrorist outfits renounced violence for good, no need
    for Brit troops. Of couese that would leave the RUC. The IRA don't just
    want the British to leave. They want the Irish Protestants to leave.
    What other conclusion can be drawn from their conduct.
    

     The Security forces must have killed someone.I mean,if we were
    to takeHolohans notes as fact,you would think that Innocent Catholics 
    were being dragged onto the street and shot on a near daily basis.
    
    
        
     SCott

re. .1
"What other conclusion can be drawn from their conduct."

 That they don't want foreign British troops occupying
 their home, duh.  That they want an end to censorship
 of legal political opposition.  That they want an 
 end to jury-less trials.  I could go on...

 It has been established that the security forces
 work in close collusion with the loyalist terror
 gangs. I'd say we can attribute the recent deaths,
 and murder attempts directed towards the nationalist
 population, as joint effort by the British forces
 and their loyalist terror gangs.

                    Mark

> It has been established that the security forces
> work in close collusion with the loyalist terror
> gangs. I'd say we can attribute the recent deaths,
> and murder attempts directed towards the nationalist
> population, as joint effort by the British forces
> and their loyalist terror gangs.


     Lets get realistic about this,There were a few individuals who
    passed on names and address of IRA members.

     There is not a full scale sponsorship of Loyalist terrorists as you
    would have us believe.If there was such a packet do you honestly 
    believe they would target innocent Catholics,Of course they wouldn't.
    They would take out the IRA's Top men, eg McGuiness.
    
    
    SCott

    
    re .4, see 1336.24
    

 re. .5

 Amnesty International believes that their is collusion
 between the British forces, and the loyalist death
 squads at a high level.  I've spoken with other 
 human rights activists from north east Ireland, who
 have also confirmed what Amnesty International believes.

                       Mark

 Amnesty International believes that their is collusion
                       ^^^^^^^^
    between the British forces, and the loyalist death
 squads at a high level.  
    
    But has no proof to back it up.
    
    
    SCott

    Re .3  


    Yes Scott.... Mark probably thinks they get dragged out of there homes
    by the "Red Coats" and shot by the Loyalist Fascist death squads that
    he keeps on going on about...... And the IRA good guys just bomb
    Military Posts and the "Red Coats" HQ's........  Of coarse this is
    Planet Bongo were talking about.. arnt we...??

from the Irish People (3/19/94)

FOR BRITISH WITHDRAWAL: 20 years of the Troops Out Movement


It is not often that a British anti-imperialist organization has its name
borrowed for a TV programme.  The Troops Out Movement (TOM) has just rounded
off its 20th year with a birthday surprise--Channel Four is commissioning a
documentary-drama about British withdrawal from Ireland entitled..."Troops
Out!"

There is an irony about this sideways tribute from a big British broadcasting
company.  In 1988, when the Thatcher government imposed its broadcasting ban,
the first British person to fall victim to it was attempting to speak for the
Troops Out Movement.

Ironic, but not unexpected.  Many within the British establishment are surpris-
ingly well aware of what TOM says.  And that voice is one they would prefer
to silence.

The Troops Out Movement was born at a packed meeting on 2 November 1973 at
Fulham Town Hall where over 300 people heard a succession of speakers call for
British withdrawal from Ireland.  A speaker from the then National Council for
Civil Liberties, an ex-British soldier and trade unionist reported on the
systematic human rights abuses and censorship that accompanied Britain's war in
Ireland.

A leading CND peace campaigner, Pat Arrowsmith, put all this into a broader
context, arguing that Britain's presence was the root cause of the "troubles"
in Ireland.  Echoing her view, Eamonn McCann pointed out that "what was
happening on the streets of Derry today will happen in London tomorrow".

Twenty years on, the British remain in Ireland and the Troops Out Movement
is campaigning as hard as ever to help get them out.  It remains the most
consistent voice in Britain against British rule.  A key reason for this is
that it has always been a democratic organisation, not aligned with any
political party or faction, with its membership open to anyone agreeing with
its two demands--troops out now, and self-determination for the Irish people
as a whole.  It is British-based, made up of people living in Britian who--
whilst recognising that the issue of Ireland's national independence will
finally be decided by its own people--believe those in Britain also have a
crucial rolr to play in shifting British government policy.

Centrally, TOM aims to make the British public more aware of what the govern-
ment is doing in their name and to point out their responsibility to challenge
this--whether as electors, trade unionists or community activists.  In short,
TOM is not an Irish solidarity group as such, but a broad-based organisation
campaigning for British withdrawal from Ireland.

The movement's backbone is its local branches, organised in many parts of
Britain, including most of the major cities.  Locally, they are responsible
for a vast array of events including meetings, demonstrations and pickets,
keeping the issue of British withdrawal on the political agenda.  It is
through the branches that national demonstrations, speaking tours and
delegations to Ireland have been organised.

The Troops Out Movement has been centrally involved in two annual events.
The first is the annual march in London, commemorating Bloody Sunday and
calling for British withdrawal.  Over the years, this has attracted from
5,000 to 20,000 supporters and continues to provide a highly-visible display
of the opposition to Britain's presence in Ireland by people living in Britain.
TOM has played a key role organising and stewarding this in conjunction with
other groups in the Bloody Sunday march organisation committee.

Since the 1970s, TOM has also jointly organised, with Sinn Fein, an annual
national delegation to the Six Counties, each taking 100 people from across
Britain to see for themselves what Britain is doing "in their name".  Most
have not been members of the Troops Out Movement, but ordinary men and women
simply wanting to know more about the war.  TOM has also organised more
specific delegations aimed, for example, at Black organisations, women and
trade unionists (the first in 1976 when a 60-strong Labour delegation visited
Dublin, Crossmaglen and Belfast).  Building on this experience, TOM plans,
as from 1994, to organise more specialised delegations throughout the year.

TOM's bimonthly magazine, "Troops Out", has been in publication since the 1970s
and offers the most comprehensive coverage and analysis in Britain of events
and developments associated with the conflict in the Six Counties.  It regular-
ly features interviews with campaign representatives, MP's, and victims of
injustice, plus "prison news" on campaigns for Irish political prisoners in
British jails and framed prisoners.

The first edition of "Troops Out" in 1976 reported how:
   *Use of Trafalgar Square in London was forbidden for Irish demonstrations;
   *Police had recommended bodies controlling public meeting rooms, such as
    councils and breweries, to ban meetings on Ireland because of "security
    risks";
   *TOM had face violent attacks from far-right groups;
   *TOM members had been arrested and subjected to searches, threats and
    repeated interrogations.

Twenty years on, TOM's struggle against such censorship continues.  Since the
1988 broadcasting ban, no TOM representative has been interviewed live on
mainstream media.  In 1988, a TOM member, who was at the time a Labour council-
lor in Brighton, became the first elected representative in Britain to be
subjected to it--on the grounds that, by explaining why his TOM branch had
helped organise a public meeting with a Sinn Fein speaker, he had supported a
banned organisation!

Other TOM members have since been banned by local and regional broadcasting
stations.  Media self-censorship helped ensure that, despite strenuous efforts
by TOM both locally and nationally, Ireland was kept strictly off the agenda
in the 1992 general elections.

Many TOM branches have had problems finding venues for meetings and others have
had meetings banned.  And, as in the early 1970s, meetings and demonstrations
are still attacked by racist groups--most recently, the 1993 Bloody Sunday
demonstration in London, where far-right groups mobilised nationally to stop
the march.

The many campaigns which the movement has mounted over the years have recently
been brought together under two basic themes--human rights and war, and peace
and self-determination.

Britain's continual abuse of human rights has been a focus for TOM's campaigns
over the years.  TOM was the first campaigning group to take up the case of
the Birmingham Six.  It has consistantly protested against other miscarriages
of justice, against the PTA and the treatment of the Irish community in Britain
,as well as in the north of Ireland, such as plastic bullets, shoot-to-kill
and British collusion with loyalist death squads.

A persistant feature of such campaigns has been to draw parallels with other
cases of human rights abuse in Britain and internationally.  Human rights
tour meetings have been organised with groups like South Asia Solidarity and
Newham Monitoring Project.  The consequences for the Black and working-class
communities in Britain of Britain's resulting human rights abuse has been
highlighted ever since that 1973 meeting in Fulham.  The transposition of
"public order" techniques from the Six Counties to British streets was
specifically emphasised during the inner-city rebellions of 1980/81 and 1985
and the Miner's Strike of 1984/5.

These issues were drawn together in 1990 within TOM's campaign based on their
booklet "Without Consent: Britain's Abuse of Human Rights in Ireland".  It
aims not only to challenge specific abuses but also to help people in Britain
understand why they happen.  Since then, TOM has organised speaking tours for
the Voice of the Innocent Campaign and Relatives for Justice and, through
the "Troops Out" magazine, has highlighted cases such as the Casement Accused,
the Ballymurphy Seven, Kate Magee and Patrick McLaughlin.

Nineteen ninety one saw the launch of a new campaign, War, Peace and Self-
Determination, to run side-by-side with the human rights campaign and develop
the issues raised by "Without Consent"--adressing the underlying reasons for
Britain's war in Ireland, possibilities for peace, and the central role of
national self-determination in resolving the conflict.

The War, Peace and Self-Determination campaign is based on the TOM booklet,
"In Whose Name?  Britain's Denial of Peace in Ireland".  This places the
present conflict within the international context of people struggling for
self-determination against oppressor states, in particular imperialist powers
since 1945.  It goes on to look at key consequences of colonial intervention
in Ireland--partition, Britain's continued defence of the Orange statelet,
sectarianism, the denial of democracy--and argues that self-determination is
the only answer to the conflict.

One of this campaign's key themes, directly confronting the real barriers to
peace in Ireland, has been the the issue of democracy and the unionist veto.
During 1992-93, TOM held regional and local meetings across the country on this
issue.  It has also been central to the work of TULINK (Trade Union and Labour
Ireland Network) set up in 1991, with TOM support, by Labour Movement activists
to build links between those in the organised Labour Movement--trade unions
and the Labour Party--committed to British withdrawal and to the Irish people's
right to self-determination.  Necessarily, this has meant challenging the veto
effectively exercised by pro-unionists in many sections of the Labour Move-
ment.  Taking this challenge directly to the Labour Party, 1993 saw TOM's
first Labour Party Conference fringe meeting in Brighton with speakers
including MP's Tony Benn, Bill Etherington and Jeremy Corbyn.

Nineteen ninety four is the 25th year of British troops being redeployed on
the streets of Ireland and TOM is marking the sombre anniversary with a
range of  campaigning and protest events.  In drawing up these plans it has
worked to encourage broad cooperation between groups calling for British
withdrawal with a shared 25th anniversary logo and slogan.

The first main event of the year was the Bloody Sunday demonstration held in
London last month.  The Troops Out Movement is also calling a major demonstra-
tion in August to commemorate the redeployment of British troops and plans
have been agreed for a major conference in early autumn.  This will be compli-
mented by a high-profile media campaign, regional speaking tours and local
weeks of action.

But 1994 now offers not only the anniversary of the start of the longest war
in the history of the British army--but also, potentially, an opening towards
peace.  A TOM Steering Committee spokesperson commented:

"The Adams/Hume Initiative and the political sea change that has followed it,
make it even more important to build the momentum of the withdrawal campaign."

"Support for Britain's rule in the Six Counties has shrunk to a smaller
minority of British public opinion than ever.  The London establishment has
of course responded by recycling the old myths--the myth that partition really
means self-determination, that the unionist veto is really democratic, that
violent military occupation is really a self-less attempt to promote peace."

"It's our job to expose the reality behind those myths--the reality that it is
British rule which generates violence, negates democracy and denies Ireland
the basic right to national self-determination.  The more widely that message
gets across, the sooner the sun will set on Britain's imperial rule in Ireland.

"We hope everyone in Britain who is sick of the establishment's war in Ireland,
and sick of their hypocrisy, will join us in this crucial task."

For 20 years, the Troops Out Movement, in giving a voice to people in Britain
who oppose that war, has faced abuse and censorship.  Today, however, it is
saying, more strongly and confidently than ever, that the key to peace in
Ireland is to get Britain out.

------------------------------
For Further Info Please Contact:
     The Troops Out Movement
     BM TOM
     London, WC1N 3XX
     Tel:071-609-1743
     or Fax 071-607-4463

>who oppose that war, has faced abuse and censorship.  Today, however, it is

    
    I'm not surprised that they face abuse.  One of them called me a "Dirty
    Orange Bastard" because I didn't want to join them at Uni.  Apart from
    the obvious insult, it is a strange thing to call a Roman Catholic (as
    I was at that time).  
    
    You can keep posting thins about these abusive cretins if you like
    Mark, their pathetic rantings are matched only by you.
    
    
    MArk R.

 re. .11

 Two questions, were you wearing orange at the time?
 and did you have on your Paisley tie? :-)

 If you go around in life, closing your eyes to what
 people have to say, because one member of a group
 called you a nasty name, then you are going to miss
 quite a bit in life.

                   Mark

    
    Yes, Orange to you means non-Irish doesn't it? You're the non-Irishman. 
    

 re. .13
 "Orange to you means non-Irish"

  Nope orange is a color.
  
 "You're the non-Irishman"

 That's right, I'm an American.  You got one right for
 once.

    re .10 (Mark)
    
    a zillion lines and not one mention of Warrington !
    
    John
    

> Two questions, were you wearing orange at the time?
    
    Nope.  I think the "orange" was to imply some sort of alleigance to
    hard-line protestantism as displayed by the Orange Order. You know,
    King Billy of Orange, 1690, Battle of the Boyne nonsense.
    
    
> and did you have on your Paisley tie? :-)
    
    I was a student at the time.  I wouldn't have been seen dead wearing
    any type of tie.
    
> If you go around in life, closing your eyes to what
> people have to say, because one member of a group
> called you a nasty name, then you are going to miss
> quite a bit in life.
    
    Close my eyes to what they have to say ?  You must have some weird
    ideas about my anatomy ;-)   
    
    The point is, they shouldn't girn about being given abuse when their
    own members dish it out.  
    
    
    Mark