Issue 184, Saoirse: Irish Freedom (August, 2002)

              uimh184 lunasa — august 2002 http://saoirse.rr.nu 1 70p stg usa 30 p.a gerard lawlor 19 belfast nationalist shot dead m uda/uff • see page 8-11 insidl 5^331 w r m : m fld sh britain prepares plan b trimble under siege • orangemen battle ruc/psni at drumcree july 7 2002 continuing conflict is like ly as uncertainty about the future affects everybody in the six counties the lesson of recent weeks in the six occupied counties is that continuing insta bility results from partition continued english rule and the failure of the 1998 stormont agreement the agreement was bound to fail because of its inherent contradictions as it promised a continuance of the union with britain to unionists and a step towards a united ireland to nationalists this has caused fear and tension the sort of difficulties that bertie ahern said in the irish times july 20 will be there for a generation and need to be man aged the next day a nationalist youth gerard lawlor 19 was assassi nated in belfast by the uda/uff in the face of bertie ahern's difficulties and tensions we should remind him that in the last three months alone there have been 363 attacks on nationalists where is the peace sources on the nation alist side said that 90 of the present street violence in belfast and other cen tres was instigated by loyalists that doughty revisionist david trimble tried to pretend that it was the provisionals who were responsible for all the trouble no one on the ground believes that for a moment not least the nationalists of ardoyne who witnessed the provisionals policing the orange march through their area on july 12 last trimble is of course moving to the right at present in order to make himself less of a target for the dup the dissidents in the ulster unionist party the uda/uff uvf lvf rhc etc the state ments from tony blair and john reid on july 24 did not support trimble and amounted to the damp squib1 he had feared they would be all of this is under mining the brits will to govern in the six counties and it appears they are preparing plan b — joint authority imposed by london and dublin and called some thing else as imperialists with hundreds of years of experience behind them they are never to be found short of such initiatives and this would certainly supersede the stormont agreement postponing the expected census results for the six counties from the autumn to january 2003 could be part of this plan too britain could and would also postpone the stormont elections due in may next year as the ultimate responsibili ty for the six counties rests with westminster britain can continue to make a mess of irish affairs as she wishes david trimble has remarked that august could be bloody and september a political dis aster while he is on his holidays now the conspir ators within his party will not remain quiet while he is away he resigned before as stormont first minister and came back again into the office how many more times can he perform such gymnas tics republican sinn fein believes there is an alter native and that neither dublin nor london can speak for the people of ulster it is for the people of ulster to decide in con junction with the people of the rest of ireland as conflict continues hand-in-hand with the uncertainty about the future position of the six counties both unionists and nationalists can secure their future in the eire nua programme for a four-province feder al ireland republican sinn fein has consistently sought a new ireland — rather than any takeover of the six counties by the 26 county state — created by the elected representa tives of all the irish peo ple in a constituent assembly which would draft a 32-county constitution england has nothing to offer except its with drawal 21st anniversary 1981-2oo2 hunger strike commemoration * east end bundoran co donegal 3pm saturday august 31 hunger strike families will attend prominent speakers and marching bands