28 October 1999 Edition

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Mála Poist

Decommissioning unionist guns



A Chairde,

May I respond to Monica McWilliams's well-intentioned article in An Phoblacht (21 October).

Ms McWilliams appeals for ``voluntary decommissioning'' of IRA weapons - not a condition laid down in the Good Friday Agreement prior to the setting up of the Executive.

The arguments supporting her appeal would carry more weight if she had included the temporary surrender of all licences currently held for guns in the North of Ireland - the overwhelming majority of which are in the hands of the 50.6 per cent Protestant community (1991 Census figure), purportedly for vermin control and the activities of members of gun clubs.

For an interim period, `vermin control officers' could be appointed and the gun clubs closed down until the Executive is set up. It hardly behoves David Trimble to demand decommissioning when there are more arms dealers in his own community than exist in the whole of Greater London (there are 34 gun dealers in Greater London for a population of some 15 million, compared to 160 in the North of Ireland for less than two million people): in the North of Ireland there is approximately one gun for every eighth Protestant.

I am proceeding on the assumption that Protestants hold 110,000 firearms and the rest are held by Catholics. I have been unable to establish how the licences are distributed - a figure known to the RUC because the applicant has to state his/her religion on the licence application form.

To require the IRA to hand in a single weapon while 139,588 licensed weapons (RUC figure to March 1999) in the North remain untouched by decommissioning flies in the face of reason and logic. (Please note: These figures do not include those held by the RUC or British Army.)

In a society still at the beginning of deconstructing social and political divisions, a smoothly functioning Executive and Assembly are surely prerequisites for any `voluntary decommissioning' of IRA weapons.


Moya St Leger,
London.

Australia's motives questioned



A chairde,

In recent debates on whether or not Ireland should join NATO's so-called Partnership for Peace, Australia has been praised by the pro-NATO camp for its ``humanitarian'' military intervention in East Timor.

Such comment/appraisal surely does not make sense.

If Australia had the welfare of East Timorese people at heart it would never have continued to support Indonesia militarily by, for one, training its troops in Australia with the Australian Army over the years.

Australia did not intervene in East Timor to save the East Timorese people from being killed by Indonesian anti-independence forces. Australian troops are there to save and secure the vast mineral wealth of the region on behalf of U.S., Australian etc corporate interests.


Annette O'Riordan,
Adelaide,
South Australia

Relatives for Justice censored



A Chairde,

I was wondering why UTV Live, BBC Inside Ulster and RTE decided not to allocate space within their TV news editions about the Relatives for Justice conference held on Saturday 16 October in Dungannon.

Then I wondered why the conference had probably failed to secure interest from the above. The relatives were not threatening fire and brimstone. They didn't want to seek revenge or act out horrific forms of retribution against those who murdered their loved ones. They didn't want to wreck the Good Friday Agreement and plunge the peace process into turmoil. In short, there was no coverage because we were not using the conference as cover to propagate a particular political agenda.

It was just a gathering of nearly 350 relatives who lost their loved ones or who had been injured and who collectively wanted to make a positive contribution through their own experience, to assist us all to move towards the creation of a better society for all.


Jim McCabe,
Belfast.

Debate the hunger strike



A Chairde,

May I endorse recent articles in An Phoblacht outlining the need for all republicans to remember the 1981 Hunger Strike, the monumental effect it had on the struggle within the prisons and, more importantly, on people all over the world.

Surely 1981 is not that far away in our minds that we cannot recall the suffering endured by ten men who, when faced with British intransigence, fought with the only thing with which they had left to fight.

Surely our suit-clad politicians are capable of inspiring those who voted for them to set up local groups who could debate the influence that the hunger strikers had in moving the struggle forward. The need is there to educate our young people on the importance of remembering the hunger strikers.

As someone who remembers well the the sight of a loved one failing away and the sound of suffering endured by someone who was prepared to starve himself to death, I ask all of you genuinely interested in preserving the memory of those who died on hunger strike to get together to ensure that next year's commemorations are a true and lasting tribute to the men of 1981.

I would also ask on a personal level that the memory of Pat Beag McGeown be incorporated into any commemoration, as he too died, albeit 15 years later, as a result of the hunger strike.


Michael McGeown,
Belfast.


An Phoblacht
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