For several weeks nationalist mobilizations have taken place most weekends in British-occupied Northern Ireland, with their focus on commemorations of the 1981 hunger strike in which 10 Irish republican prisoners died fighting for political status. Mass actions in support of the hunger strikers were a turning point to the deepening mobilizations and self-confidence of those fighting to end British rule and for a united Ireland.

In Belfast momentum is building for a nationwide commemorative march of the hunger strike on August 12. That date is also the deadline for the conclusion of talks on the next stage in the "Good Friday Agreement." This 1998 agreement registered a weakening of British rule and of the unionists, as those who favor the continued "union" of Northern Ireland and Britain are called. Five days of talks between signatories of the agreement--the major nationalist and unionist political parties in Northern Ireland as well as the British and Irish governments--ended without resolution July 14.  
 
'Resistance to change'
"There is resistance to change in the north of Ireland, not only within unionism but from within the British system," Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, told a public meeting in London July 10. Sinn Fein is the party leading the fight against British rule in Ireland. Adams was speaking during a break from the talks. Speaking alongside Adams was Michelle Gildernew, Member of Parliament (MP) for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. Gildernew was elected June 7 in a poll where Sinn Fein raised its vote from 15 percent to 20.7 percent and doubled its number of MPs to four.

London's insistence on "making all other issues secondary to the issue of IRA arms" is the source of the crisis facing the talks, Adams said. London's focus on this was spurred by the resignation in early July of Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble from his post as First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a body set up under the Good Friday Agreement. Trimble has said he will only retake his post if the Irish Republican Army (IRA) unilaterally disarms. If Trimble does not back down by August 12, London could dissolve the assembly.

Adams responded to this threat by saying the issue of IRA arms will not be "resolved on British government or unionist terms, or on the basis of threat, veto, or ultimatum." He pointed to how the north of Ireland is "still dominated by the paraphernalia of a British war machine." According to Sinn Fein, London has 27,500 armed troops in the north of Ireland, a region with a population of just 1.5 million. "Who has a responsibility to deal with British arms?" he demanded. "Are they not also part of the Good Friday Agreement? Or do they represent the acceptable face of terrorism, the acceptable guns in our society?"

Adams noted that behind London's smoke screen on the IRA arms there has been "delay and dilution" on creating the "level playing field the Good Friday Agreement was designed to provide." He pointed to the resistance to change of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the pro-British police. "The old repressive laws and no jury courts remain in place," he said, along with little progress on equality for Catholics.

Adams pointed out that "progress has been made on the issue of IRA arms, while loyalist and British state forces continue to use their weapons." He added, "This year alone loyalists have carried out over 100 bomb attacks on Catholic homes, businesses, and churches, and shot dead two Catholics in recent days. Loyalists also erected a blockade to prevent Catholic primary school children from going to school in North Belfast."

Two days after his talk the RUC police fired 40 plastic bullets at nationalists trying to resist an Orange Order feeder march going through the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast. The Orange Order march was one of many such annual "triumphalist" parades held July 12 throughout the north by pro-British unionists who seek to hold onto the system of entrenched discrimination and violence against Catholics imposed under British rule.

Speaking after the July 12 parades, Sinn Fein national chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin declared that the shootings "revealed the double standards" of London. McLaughlin recalled that two weeks earlier the RUC had refused to prevent loyalists from blockading the Catholic primary school, yet had no hesitation in clearing away nationalists to allow these parades through.

Although the daily terror against Catholics has accelerated, the size of the unionist mobilizations has once again declined. This year's Orange Order parade to Drumcree church in Portadown, which passes the Garvaghy Road--a majority Catholic community--was attended by just 1,000 people, according to The Times of London, half the number from the previous year.

In the face of nationalist protests, the British rulers have since 1998 prevented the march from going down the Garvaghy Road itself. This year these rightist forces have also failed to mobilize road blockades in support of their marches.

Pete Clifford is a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union.  
 
 
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