From the H-Blocks to community
IRELAND have been stories that it was fairly bad.
A. Yes. It was. You're talking about break-ins on a wide scale. I would say that the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary] would be using things like this there to try to discourage people from supporting republicans. It's the same with joyriding. I would say that they actively
THE FOLLOWING interview was given to Gerry Foley in the Divis Flats in West Belfast, Northern Ireland, in late January by Fra McCann, secretary of the Divis Residents Association in Belfast.
Question. How did you become involved in community organisation in the Divis Flats?
Answer. I was in the Lower Falls is part of the area it represents. I have lived all my life in this area. Before I went into jail, although I knew that were a lot of problems facing people in Divis, I did not really understand the nature of them. It was only after being released from prison that I started getting involved in running the advice centre and building it, that I started to realise the problems that the people here face daily.
Q. Did you start this work while the H-Block campaign was going on?
A. No. Then most of people's energies were directed toward strike, there were several campaigns, in particular for the demolition of the Divis Flats. They were unsuccessful. It was about a year after the hunger strike ended, in 1982, that we really became involved in the politics of
When we opened the advice centre, we started to deal with complaints. It took a while to learn how to do this. It was a new thing for us.
We had supported the campaign for demolition. And from that I joined the Divis Residents Association. And from that I have become involved in most of the other committees that
Q. What's the relation of the Residents Association to the other committees?
A. The main aim of the Divis Residents Association (DRA) would be the full demolition of the Divis Flats. Along with the DRA, we have a few other groups, the likes of the Divis Education Project, which was started four years ago.
There was a problem here of young people being expelled from school. So, you had a lot of young kids running about here who were not getting any education. So, this education project was started up by a group of people who began taking these
International Viewpoint 24 March 1986 young kids in and teaching them. The project has developed from there.
You have the Divis Drop-In Centre, which was started up to deal with the joy-riding and glue-sniffing situation, and other petty-crime problems in Divis Flats, because the kids were either barred from the local comcentre or the local youth
You have the Divis Play Project, which is for five- to ten-year olds. It's probably one of the best of its kind anywhere.
Also, we have the Divis Environmental Health Project, which does surveys. At the moment, we are trying to get a survey of the environment and people's health to prove that living in Divis damages people's
There is an umbrella group, Divis Joint Development Committee, to which all the committees send a representative. cludes a local social probation officer, and a couple of other interested people.
Q. So, the Residents Association is just one of the committees represented?
Yes. Most of my time now is taken up by the Residents Association, whose aim is the complete demolition of this complex, and the building of decent housing for the people who live in it.
How can you agitate for both at the same time?
Once you agitate for demolition, you have to agitate for rehousing. The Housing Executive claim they can't rehouse everybody in Divis because they haven't got the land. But that is a lie.
Now we are trying to build up political contacts in England, because as far as we are concerned, the decision to demolish Divis Flats won't come from here. It will come from England. More recently we have tried to build up contacts within the Labour Party.
• What about the problem of petty crime in this complex? There encourage the likes of joy-riding, and that is probably one of the worst blights around the place, because when kids are driving about in cars, most people won't even go onto the street. And there is never an effort made by the RUC to try and stop it.
Q. But they have shot some of them.
A. Yes. But I would say that, getting the chance, the RUC would shoot as many people around here as they could.
would say that petty crime has lowered a lot. I would put that down to the Drop-In Centre, which has catered a lot to kids. When we were talking about opening the DropIn Centre in the Residents Association, we realised that we probably couldn't reach everybody. So, our concer was focused upon the younger kids, who stood at the corner and watched the cars coming in and thought it was great excitement. I think this has been fairly successful.
Q Can you control this petty crime without physical coercion of some sort?
A. The only thing you can really do, and that is what we do, is approach the people involved in it and ask them to cease it, or approach their parents. A lot of times that works. But there are some we probably never could reach.
I remember that when I first came here in July 1970, there was very little petty crime. Of course, there has been a lot of social breakdown since, but the important thing then was that people thought that things were going to change, change soon and in a big way. What sort of attitude would people have now?
A. I would say that in 1970 everybody thought that things were going to change rapidly. I imagine that a lot of people would have thought that the Brits would have been out by now, with the way everything was going then. But I think now everybody would have probably settled themselves down for a long struggle. You are right to say that there was very little crime here in 1970 and that conditions have changed a lot since. I did not really see it happening because I was in jail a lot of the time in the 1970s. But I would say now that crime is on the decline.
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organising
The mood always goes up when Sinn Fein have an election victory, then there is the period in between elections. But in general now crime is going down.One factor is community organisation.The involvement of republicans in it would add a lot. With respect to joy-riding, we initiated a Concerned Parents Committee. would be made up of women throughout the area whose kids were probably involved in it. The only people who can deal with crime are the community itself.
What about the level of political interest among Is that a factor?
I would say that 90 per cent of the people here vote for Sinn Fein. Most of the kids would support the ideals and aims of the repubmovement. I would say that would be a factor. Whenever there are marches and demonstrations, a lot of the kids who would be involved in and things like that there would always be attending marches. I say there deep down most of them would have a commitment to the involvement in community work, we try to explain things to them. I am quite open, I sit and talk to kids. Kids can come to me with problems, and I would try to point out how the RUC are trying to use joy-riding and things like that to turn people against the republican
It's a constant process of What percentage of them would want to be organised one way or another?
A. It's hard to say. There are always people wanting to join Sinn Fein. If we are organising some thing in the area, you can always get kids to give a hand.
Q. Is there much interest in studying Irish history or the Irish language, or reading republican works?
A. You would find republican posters in a lot of their homes. But for most kids here, school has nothing to offer them, just as it had nothing to offer me when I was a kid.
Q. But people can be interested in learning things that the schools don't teach.
A. Over the last two years, there has been a big increase in the number of people starting to learn Irish.
Q. What about Irish history, republican ideas?
A. No. that's all done through Sinn Fein.
Q. Does it do a lot of work of that type? 26
A. People who join Sinn are encouraged to buy material like that and to read our newspaper,
Phoblacht/Republican which has historical pieces. It's a form of self-education. And then from it's up to you individually. came here and asked me, I would recommend books, and forth. But most of our time is spent with complaints. In a place amount of in the streets, I'm always being stopped and asked about complaints.
Q. Something or other doesn't work, or there's a leak in the roof, etc?
A. Yes.
Q. It's not "A soldier broke my window, " etc.
A. Oh yes. That's always happening. Whenever there are raids, go to the people's houses and take their complaints.
Q. How much of your work is broken. We make contact with the
Executive to try to make that the doors are fixed and the windows are fixed, and things like that there, or advising people, if any damage has been done, to take
Lately there has been a increase in the amount of patrols in the area and in the number of people being stopped. Over this past number of months, quite a few people involved in the campaign for demolition have been arrested. Last Thursday, two young lads who are working for the Divis Joint Development Committee were arrested and held for in Castlereagh [which became famous internationally as a torture centre after the 1971 internment roundups]. Five weeks ago, and held for seven days. You're constantly being stopped.
What sort of things are people arrested for?
use the Prevention of Act or the Emergency Act. They can arrest whenever they like. They would probably say it's just routine questioning.
Last March when a delegation from the Residents Association were coming back from a meeting in Scotland on the dangers of asbestos, five of them were arrested and held for 28 hours. We weren't questioned or anything. We were just left in a cell. We see it as a form of harassment. Demolition Committee in 1979-1980 was smashed by the arrest of all its who were brought
Castlereagh. Some of them were charged.
Q. Why should they want to smash your committee? It doesn't threaten the state directly?
A. Back then people were given conditional discharges for causing damage [which was a tactic of the demolition committee]. But after that people became afraid to become involved in committees. Now the committees are starting to be successful. And I would say that it would be a disadvantage to the British if the community were organised.
Q Is there still a running war between the community and the patrols?
No. The last protest I saw was about eight months ago. Fifty or 60 women came out on the balconies with the bin lids. It lasted four or five hours until the patrol went out, and that was it. You don't see much active involvement of the community in such protests. The hunger strike probably burnt out a lot of people.
Q So, at the moment you are not trying to organise that sort of thing?
A. No. You have patrols in here maybe five times a day or a half an hour. And when there's patrols in here, you'd have them on the far side also.
Is there still a pattern of children stoning patrols?
Oh yes, you always get that. For three months there, the Finally, we had to go out ourselves to discourage it. Not because we stop the kids from stoning Brits, of course, but cars were getting their windows smashed, houses were getting hit. And it was not having any effect. So, we asked the kids to stop.
Q. Did you have any trouble getting the kids to stop?
A. No. But they are often back at it an hour later, when the Brits come in again.
Q. But the kids never defy you?
A. No. I get on very well with the kids. It's understandable that the kids are going to stone Brits. But it doesn't achieve anything. You have kids from about four to ten years old doing it. And then on August 9, there was a bonfire, and the Brits came in four jeeps and got out and started shooting rubber bullets, with kids around just that size [holds hand about two to three feet over the ground]. The Brits don't care who they shoot, so they don't. International Viewpoint 24 March 1986