Editorial from An Phoblacht/ in the ongoing struggle to end injustice and bring about a free, peacedl reland will 5 carry it their hearts and minds forever. *
December 7, 1987 • International Viewpoint
Republican News November 12
ENNISKILLEN
The terrible price of
British rule
WHAT THE
"Republicans will never forget it, and in the ongoing struggle to end injustice
I.R.A. SAID and bring about a free, peaceful
Ireland, will carry it in their hearts and minds forever"
HE REPUBLICAN MOVEleast of all the injustice which is the root
T
MENT, its members and supcause cause of violence.
porters everywhere have been shocked and shaken by what one of the most dishonest that has ever emanated from the Catholic Hierarchy. It happened in Enniskillen last Sunday [Norefers to the "present campaigns of republivember 8]. We do not try to excuse or decan violence" and implicitly lays the blame fend the action which caused the deaths and injuries inflicted by the IRA bomb.
for the violence and deaths in the Six Coun-
The most telling criticism of this disasties on republicans. It links the Republican trous IRA action has come from republi-
Movement with the renegade criminal elements responsible for the kidnapping and cans themselves.
maiming of John O'Grady. This is a lie and
To the families and friends of the dead, the Catholic hierarchy knows it as well as and to the injured, the sympathy of republicans goes out. It will be no consolation to everybody else.
them, and will be scorned or ignored by those who do not wish to understand the suffering of all of our people.
But bereavement and injury are things republicans deeply understand because they have experienced them at first-hand so nationalist or unionist, are not to blame for that war, no more than they are responsible ultimately for the death and suffering which foreign interference has brought to our land over hundreds of years. Generations of Irish people have tried to end injustice and bring about change by peaceful means and have been met with British violence.
Twenty years ago, the present phase of nationalist resistance to British-sponsored injustice began with the campaign for civil rights. It did not begin with the IRA going out to shoot RUC men or British soldiers, but with ordinary Catholics demanding simple reforms within the Northern state — votes and houses and jobs. The guns and batons which were used against them by the forces of the state are now part of history. Many people have died since, but the
The statement which will be read out is
Double standards about
In attempting to morally blackmail peomany times. ple, the hierarchy is showing its doublestandards about peace. It says that it "sympathizes" with the "police force" in the Six "The consequences will be Counties, but that it is "sinful to join organwith us for a long time" izations committed to violence or to remain in them". They are clearly saying that Brit-
After the dead, the injured and their rela- ish violence is not sinful. We strongly contives, it is republicans who have directly to test that view. The bishops have not tried to lose from this action. Its consequences will end the war but have taken sides in it - the be with us for a long time to come because side of the powerful, the establishment. of our sorrow and because our enemies — the enemies of the Irish people — are so changed. But not because we want this war. strong and have been strengthened by it. Our people have suffered bereavement,
Those enemies who have inflicted so physical and mental injury and long years much suffering on our people for centuries of imprisonment. We go on because the — and in particular in the last 20 years — state of our country demands it and because have been quick to use the grief of the vic- we know that peace with justice cannot tims of the reaction of people generally to come short of a free Ireland. Armed resisfurther their political ends. The British tance to British rule will bring that freedom government has secretly revelled in the op- because it is ultimately the most necessary portunity this has given them to justify political weapon against an armed aggrestheir occupation of our country. When the sor and the only one the aggressor will emotions of this week have eased, the vast heed. The experience of oppressed peoples majority of the Irish people will will recog- all over the world and, most of all, in our nize the talk of Margaret Thatcher and Tom history, proves that. That is the tragic conKing [British secretary of state for North- text in which the Enniskillen bombing took ern Ireland] for the hypocrisy that it is. place. Republicans will never forget it, and
The current phase of the war in the Six Counties, which enters its 20th year in 1988, has wrecked many lives. Our people, basic injustices which existed then - the denial of civil and national rights — are still maintained and defended with British
If that was not the case, there would be no IRA. There would be no support for the IRA or any reason for the IRA to exist. But the support and the reason are facts and will remain so as long as Britain continues to deny our people the right to national self-determination. Where there is oppression, there will always be resistance; where there is armed oppression, there will always be armed resistance.
Those who this week have hypocritically hidden behind the bereaved and blamed the IRA for the entire war are not interested in peace. They have thrown in their lot with the British government, which holds the key to peace, but which, by enforcing its unjust rule here, withholds it. There can be no peace without justice. If the IRA laid down its arms tomorrow, it will not bring peace.
Next Sunday the Catholic pulpits of Ireland will thunder with denunciations of the Republican Movement and the bishops will brand as sinful anyone who supports the republican cause. It has happened many times before, and has changed nothing,
The position of republicans has not
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PHOBLACHT IRELAND Republican News injustice and bring about a free. peaceful Ireiand will carry it in and in the ongoing struggle to end Republicans will never forget !! their hearts and minds forever. SEE OFINION TRAGEDY
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