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GERRY ADAMS: The strap was worst for six of the best

I’M reading Colin Broderick’s ‘That’s That,’ an evocative account of growing up in Altnamuskin in Tyrone at the height of the conflict. Colin’s mother and her efforts to protect her brood are at the heart of this story. Her “That’s that” as she lays down the law and the final words in any dispute with young Colin gives the book its title. In one little cameo Colin tells of getting “slapped” at school. He describes the strap as “a twenty inch length of thick leather about an inch and a half wide, worn smooth from years of skin contact.” He goes on to describe how the teacher ordered him to hold his hand out, palm upwards as he struck him forcefully across the hand with the strap. By coincidence Richard and I were discussing corporal punishment a few days before I read this. I don’t recall how that came into the conversation but that’s the way with conversations between Richard and me. They are inclined to meander. When I read Colin’s account of being slapped I was back again getting called to the front of the class while the teacher fetched his strap from the drawer in his desk and ordered me to extend my hand. Whack. Whack. Two slaps was the normal punishment for messing about in class. One on each hand. Six of the best was reserved for more serious offences like giving cheek to the teacher. The first slap was always the worst. There was an initial shock as the strap met your extended palm. Sometimes the leather caught you across the fingers. After that the hand went numb except when the strap caught your thumb. That left your hand stinging and brought tears to your eyes. Some boys cried. I was stubborn. I also didn't get slapped too often. Sometimes a teacher would yank a boy to his feet by grabbing his ear lobe. Or the lock of hair alongside his ear. Some threw objects at boys they suspected of messing about. The blackboard duster with its wooden base was a favourite projectile. So were rulers. Usually made of wood. Sometimes they were used instead of straps. Corporal punishment was the norm in those days. In the home as well as schools. Although more enlightened teachers or parents would not dream of striking a child. Corporal punishment was also part of community ‘justice’ during the conflict. We are all capable of striking out in anger or pain. When we are provoked. Or under threat. When our loved ones are under threat. There are few saints among us. Or pacifists. But it’s good that corporal punishment is no longer tolerated in our schools or anywhere else. Managing a class of unruly boys or girls is a challenge. Teachers do their best. Nowadays. As well as back in the day. Most of us can name a teacher who made a positive difference in our lives. When Richard and I were discussing these matters I asked him who supplied the straps. Richard, who was a student teacher, didn't know. He says he never slapped anyone. His incarceration in Long Kesh saved young scholars from that indignity. Saved Richard also? But who made the straps. Local cobblers? There were local cobblers in those days. Or were they supplied centrally? Did the Brothers have a special supply? Was there a template? A recommended size, shape or length of strap? Was slapping part of teacher training? Were young teachers advised on what ‘offences’ warranted slaps? Was there guidance on how many slaps were appropriate? ‘That’s That’: by Colin Broderick, published by BroadwayPaperbacks.com

GERRY ADAMS: How I got a different view of Croker

LAST week I spent a day in Croke Park. I have been there many times before. Usually for GAA fixtures or the occasional concert. But last week was different. Some of the courts service in Dublin, including defamation cases, are currently being heard there. The Covid restrictions meant shifting some cases out of the Four Courts. Croke Park is an unusual setting for court business, looking out of the window on level five at the green pitch down below while lawyers, potential jurists, court officials and others were busily rushing about their business. My case had to do with an article in the Sunday World in September 2015. In May that year Jock Davison was killed as he walked to work. Several months later on August 13 Kevin McGuigan was shot dead outside his home. As a result there was a huge political storm as some politicians tried to link republicans to these events. The DUP wanted Sinn Féin expelled from the institutions and threatened to leave the Executive. On September 10 Peter Robinson announced that he was standing aside as First Minister along with other DUP Ministers and leaving Arlene Foster as their sole Ministerial representative in the Executive. He said that he had “stepped aside but technically not resigned”. Three days later the Sunday World published a story under the heading ‘Gerry’s Secret McGuigan Meeting – Adams met murdered Provo over hit-threat fears’ which claimed that I had met Kevin McGuigan in July and assured him that he was not “under any threat from Sinn Féin members.” The story was untrue. I had not met Kevin McGuigan. I said so publicly and immediately contacted my solicitor and commenced proceedings against the Sunday World. That was six years ago. Last Tuesday the Sunday World’s legal representative read out an apology in the court. It said: “Although the Sunday World reported the existence of such a meeting in good faith, we now accept Mr Adams’s position that no such meeting or conversation ever took place and have agreed to publish this apology for the record.” Outside Croke Park my solicitor Paul Tweed described the front page story and the two prominent pages inside the paper as sensationalised and “making totally false and spurious claims”. Paul Tweed said: “Not only had this allegation been totally untrue but the defendant (Sunday World) failed to come up with any evidence or basis for the unfounded story. The publishers of the Sunday World have finally and belatedly acknowledged what they have done and retracted the allegations and unreservedly apologised to Mr. Adams before the court this afternoon.” I took the opportunity to thank Paul Tweed and Johnsons and the senior counsel.I told the waiting media: “For a long time now some elements of the media have reported or published or made very false and vicious and offensive claims about me and about other republicans. I am satisfied in this case that the Sunday World has apologised for this deeply offensive and false article. I am also very conscious that at the very centre of it a man, Kevin McGuigan, was murdered and another man, Gerard Davison, was murdered also. Their families like many others are grieving.” For me this was always about asserting my own integrity and I think the case succeeded in that. It is my intention to donate the proceeds of the settlement to good causes. These will include the Irish language sector, Green Cross, the Bobby Sands Trust, the Moore Street Preservation Trust, the homeless and other projects I have a grá for.

GERRY ADAMS: Ballymurphy owes a debt to Criostóir

CRIOSTÓIR de Baróid died two weeks ago, surrounded by his family, in Marymount Hospice in Cork where his wife Máire had died in February. About 20 people from Ballymurphy travelled to Cork by car and train to participate in Criostóir’s funeral. They were there to pay their respects to a man who in the 1970s, along with his son Ciaran, became a part of the extended Ballymurphy family. I met Ciaran after I was released from internment in the summer of 1972. He had arrived in the area in March to take up the job of ‘warden’ for the Ballymurphy Tenants’ Association centre on the Whiterock Road. Pat McCarthy, who had previously held the post, had been killed during the Ballymurphy Massacre in 1971. Ciaran worked closely with Frank Cahill, who he describes as the “unofficial mayor of Ballymurphy, a man of enormous standing in the community.” Later in 1972 Criostóir came to visit his son. He was no stranger to Belfast. He was part of a voluntary group – the Association for Human Rights in the North – and was already at work here. In the summer of ’72 Criostóir’s group had provided financial and material support for a camp for young people from Ballymurphy in Glaslough, County Monaghan. Criostóir met Frank Cahill and many of those who were deeply involved in community work in the area. As a result the Cahills and the de Baróids worked closely together over many years. Criostóir helped establish the rights group BETWEEN. Initially his aim was to help those families deeply traumatised by the introduction of internment. Some had loved ones killed. Others had been forced to leave their homes as refugees and others had one or more family members interned. He became so embedded in the Ballymurphy area and in his efforts to help people that Criostóir took early retirement to work voluntarily. BETWEEN challenged the British state on its use of internment without trial, extra-judicial killings, the supergrass system, strip-searching in the prisons, the hunger strikes or the brutality of the British Army. But its work also went beyond these issues. Speaking at his father’s funeral, Ciaran de Baróid explained the work of his father and of BETWEEN. He said: “Although best known as the scheme that provided respite for the families of republican and loyalist prisoners, and others under extreme stress, BETWEEN was much more than that. It was essentially an organisation that confronted oppression and injustice throughout the span of the Troubles.” Criostóir lived and campaigned tirelessly against injustice. He was a champion for those oppressed by the British state in the North. Ciaran Cahill put it well in a letter he wrote to Criostóir last year: “Through your work people were given hope in the darkest of times. The holiday camp provided much needed respite, joy and happiness when people were at their lowest, and re-energised them for whatever lay ahead. “Not to mention your tireless efforts to highlight human rights abuses and injustices far and wide, many times falling on deaf ears, but you were never deterred, and forged ahead.

GERRY ADAMS: Courageous Alice never once flinched

ALICE Toner lived in Ballymurphy Drive, not far from our house in Divismore Park. I was deeply saddened by her death. I knew Alice and her husband Fra all of my adult life. Like my own family, they moved into Ballymurphy shortly after it was built. She and Fra were long-standing republicans.

GERRY ADAMS: Christy returns to Belfast to salute H-Block heroes

THE first time Christy Moore sang ‘Ninety Miles from Dublin’ in West Belfast – his song about the obscenity of the H-Blocks – was in the old Ballymurphy Tenants Association building on the Whiterock Road in the summer of 1980. Tom Cahill had asked Christy to come to the city and play a set. Still not sure of the words, Christy had a piece of paper on which the words were written taped to the microphone. The H-Block LP which had been recorded over the previous two years was also released that summer a few months before the first hunger strike commenced and at the height of the public campaign in support of political status. It has ten tracks and the wealth of talent on display is formidable: Christy Moore, Francie Brolly, Dan Dowd, Mick Hanly, Noel Hill, Tone Linnane, Donal Lunny, Matt Molloy and Declan Sinnott. Actor Stephen Rea reads three poems, two of them written by prisoners in the H Blocks and smuggled out from the prison.

GERRY ADAMS: Dublin battle site plans are drawn up

LAST Thursday the relatives of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic and the Moore Street Preservation Trust launched their detailed plan for the protection of the 1916 Moore Street battlefield site and for its development as a historic cultural quarter. The commercial plan which would see much of the iconic 1916 architecture of the area demolished has the support of An Taoiseach Micheál Martin and his government. Mr Martin, who met developers Hammerson and endorsed their plan before the developer published its proposal, has refused, thus far, to meet the relatives. To their shame successive Irish governments have supported the private development of Moore Street and allowed the national monument at 14-17 Moore Street, the lasting meeting place of the 1916 leaders, to fall into decay. The Moore Street Preservation Trust, the 1916 relatives and other Moore Street activists have fought a long, difficult public and legal campaign to protect and preserve this site which the National Museum of Ireland has described as “The most important site in modern Irish history.” And on Thursday the latest phase of that battle was launched with the unveiling of the scale model of Moore Street and its environs. Appropriately, the Moore Street plan was unveiled in Ionad an Phiarsaigh, the Pearse Centre, former home of the Pearse family in Dublin. James Connolly Heron, the great grandson of James Connolly, described Thursday as “A red letter day for the campaign... Today the 1916 relatives salute architects Seán Ó Muirí and James Kelly and the Trust team for the realisation of a plan that we can enthusiastically endorse and adopt as the way forward for the development of an area so close to our hearts.” Among those in attendance were Proinsias Ó Rathaille, grandson of Michael Joseph O’Rahilly – The O’Rahilly; Harry Coyle, grandson of Henry Coyle; and Brendan Mulvihill, grandson of Michael Mulvihill. Their grandfathers were killed in the Battle of Moore Street.

GERRY ADAMS: Here’s your chance to reach out, Jeffrey

IS the Union the only reason why some working class unionist voters persist in voting for parties like the DUP when that party clearly doesn’t represent them on social and economic issues? In fact, the DUP often acts against the class interests of working class Protestants, Unionists and Loyalists, especially those from deprived communities, suffering from the effects of Tory policies. The failure, thus far, of parties like the PUP and other smaller parties to organise and to win more significant electoral support compounds this anomaly. So does sectarianism. I don’t buy into the current popular notion, based on recent opinion polls, that the DUP vote is in terminal decline. Unionism has lost its electoral majority but that could be turned around if its leaders got their act together. The scandals involving some of the DUP’s Assembly Ministers had a negative influence in the last election, but the DUP still emerged as the largest party. Its difficulties have increased since then. Its handling of the Brexit project was shambolic. The way its Assembly team treated Arlene Foster was cowardly, but then let’s not forget that Ian Paisley also was dumped, both by the Free Presbyterian Church and the party that he founded. Edwin Poots’ leadership tenure was notable only for its brevity. Jeffrey Donaldson is now leader with a First Minister who he cannot change and whose office he cannot occupy at this time, despite his desire and stated intention to do so. Of course the DUP could get over all these problems and its electorate may forgive them when it comes to the Assembly election. But for the first time in a long time the UUP, with its new leader Doug Beattie, is now standing on a platform which is different from the DUP, particularly on its approach to the Assembly and the Irish Protocol. The UUP have a lot of catching up to do, but its leader certainly has articulated more positive attitudes to social rights issues than the DUP. How that will play out remains to be seen. Certainly a gay unionist voter denied his or her right to marriage equality may have an electoral choice beyond Jim Wells’ dangerous silliness. But the UUP will also not represent the economic or social interests of deprived PUL working class communities, even if it improves its mandate. The fact is, Sinn Féin policies are more advantageous to these communities than those of any of the unionist parties, but the majority of these folks would not countenance voting republican in any significant numbers at this time. It’s all about the Union and perceptions about Sinn Féin. Those perceptions won’t change in the short term. And the Union? The DUP say it is being undermined by the Protocol. Everyone knows the Protocol is a result of Brexit and everyone also knows that Brexit is a child of the DUP. But will that affect their vote? Jeffrey leads a party at the crossroads. So what of Jeffrey? I won’t spend too much space here recounting his career highs and lows or take us through the twists and turns of his contorted narrative on all these matters. Or on his threat to pull his Ministers out of the Executive. Or the DUP’s absence from cross-border meetings, almost certainly in breach of the ministerial code. Jeffrey knows the game is up for old unionism. But he also knows it’s not over. So he is playing for time. He recently did an interview with Freya McClements of The Irish Times. In it he gave some interesting insights into his view of the country he lives in. That’s the same place we live in. In response to a question of whether he would move if there was a United Ireland he said no.

GERRY ADAMS: Biden tells Johnson a few home truths

FOR centuries the twin goals of the emigrant Irish in North America were to build a new future for their families in An tOileán Úir (the new world – America) and to free their native land from the centuries of colonisation and occupation. Having successfully secured the independence of the American Colonies from England, George Washington praised the role of the Irish in helping to achieve that goal. In the language of his day Washington said: “When our friendless standards were first unfurled, who were the strangers who first mustered around our staff? And when it reeled in the light, who more brilliantly sustained it than Erin’s generous sons?... May the God of Heaven, in His justice and mercy, grant thee more prosperous fortunes, and in His own time, cause the sun of Freedom to shed its benign radiance on the Emerald Isle.” In more recent years Irish-America played a standout role in opposing sectarian discrimination through the MacBride principles campaign and in challenging British miscarriages of justice. Irish America stood with the hunger strikers. It was key to building the peace and has steadfastly defended the Good Friday Agreement. Evidence of this was on display in Washington during the visit last week of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. President Joe Biden and his administration, as well as Congressional leaders, were forthright in their support for the Irish Protocol and the Good Friday Agreement. While sitting beside Johnson at a press conference in the White House President Biden told the media that neither he, “nor I might add would many of my Republican colleagues like to see a change in the Irish accords, the end result having a closed border in Ireland.” Many other US leaders were equally resolute in their rejection of any suggestion that there could be a US – British trade deal if the Good Friday Agreement was threatened. A few days earlier the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, had warned the British that there could be no trade deal “if there is destruction of the Good Friday Accords.” Congressman Richard Neal, who is the chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, met Boris Johnson and said afterward that “any agreement reached between the UK and the EU on the future of the Protocol must not undermine the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement nor threaten the institutions it created.” Some in the British media realised quite quickly that things were not going Johnson’s way. The London Times headlined one of its reports on the meeting between the two leaders: ‘Keep your hands to yourself, Irish Joe Biden tells Boris Johnson’. However, it was one of Johnson’s Cabinet Ministers, George Eustice, who with typical arrogance and in a patronising tone dismissed President Biden’s comments on the grounds that the Protocol is “very complicated” and consequently “I’m not sure he (Biden) does fully appreciate all of that.” Eustice added: “He is probably at the moment just reading the headlines, reading what the EU is saying, reading what Ireland might be saying which is that they would like the Northern Ireland Protocol to work in the way the EU envisage.” This insulting nonsense from a senior Conservative Minister ignores the real offender in the Brexit debacle. According to Michel Barnier in his just published book ‘My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion’, the British Government was ill-prepared for the Brexit negotiations and adopted a “nonchalant” approach to the talks. According to Barnier, the British Government knew exactly what it was doing when it signed up to a border in the Irish Sea. It also understood that it could not claim there would be no controls on goods between Britain and the North. That was before it went on to claim exactly that. Brexit has been a disaster. While the Protocol protects jobs and business, food supplies and fuel deliveries in the North, in Britain there is a shortage of CO2, the pubs are running short of beer, long lines of vehicles queue for fuel and there is a scarcity of foreign labour in agriculture and a shortage of lorry drivers. Into this chaotic farce then stepped the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson. He wrote to Nancy Pelosi warning her that the Protocol “is the altar upon which the Belfast Agreement is being sacrificed”. According to Donaldson, it is the actions of the EU that are “endangering” the Good Friday Agreement and risk “taking Northern Ireland backwards.” Of course, he disregards his own role and that of his party in promoting Brexit and then supporting the Conservatives in power as they negotiated the withdrawal agreement. The reality is that Jeffrey’s deliberate ramping up of the rhetoric that threatens the Good Friday Agreement and its institutions has little to do with the Protocol or Brexit. His real agenda is clear from his interview in the Belfast Telegraph at the weekend. He wants a unionist pact to stop Sinn Féin. He wants the DUP to be the largest party and for him to be First Minister. “Unionism,” he said, “cannot afford for the vote to be fragmented and Sinn Féin come through the middle to emerge as the largest party.” So, a Sinn Féin First Minister must be stopped – at all costs.

GERRY ADAMS: Stories from the heart of the Blocks

NEXT week will mark 40 years from the end of the 1981 hunger strike. Much has been written this year and many events have taken place to remember those who died. For me Ten Men Dead by David Beresford and Nor Meekly Serve My Time, compiled by Brian Campbell, remain two of the outstanding books of that period. Jim McCann’s 6000 Days is a very welcome and amazing recent addition to these publications. A must read book. So too with another new book – The Comrades – just published by An Fhuiseog as part of the work of the ‘81/21 Committee’. This collection of reflections provides a rare insight into the 12 republican prisoners who died on hunger strike during the most recent phase of the long struggle for Irish freedom. Pádraic Wilson was the dynamo behind its publication and Danny Morrison edited it. 1981 was a watershed year in our history: the heroic resistance of the women in Armagh Gaol and the men on the blanket in the H-Blocks; and the support of families and communities across this island and internationally who rallied in support of the hunger strikers.

GERRY ADAMS: Sam so special for Northern Gaels

MARTIN McGuinness had a great saying. Well, he had lots of great sayings. This one has to do with hindsight. “Hindsight,” Martin would say, “is a great man to have at a meeting.” I thought of this as I was watching the All Ireland Football Final as Tyrone swept Mayo to one side to bring Sam Maguire back to the Lamh Dearg county. In the run into the game I thought there was little to choose between the teams. I might not have made Mayo favourites, although like most Gaels I would not begrudge them a win given that they have been nearly there so often. But now with the benefit of hindsight it is clear to me that Tyrone should have been the favourites. They are, after all, the Ulster Champions. I am not being parochial here. Being the provincial champions in any of our provinces is no mean feat and a great achievement for the teams involved, but coming out of Ulster is a much tougher challenge than coming out of Connaught. So Mayo’s woes have little to do with a curse. It has all to do with meeting a team which was tried and tested in the playing fields of Ulster and well prepared to create and take every chance which came their way in Croke Park. I have a great grá for Mayo. I have many friends there and in the USA where Mayo people are the backbone of Irish America. I have hiked, walked, camped, listened to music and made politics in Mayo for many years. And I have supported their footballers, especially when Ulster teams were uninvolved. So too with Tyrone. It also is one of our historic, unbroken, proud Irish counties. It too has kept the faith and I have many friends there also and in the USA where Tyrone exiles have played and continue to play a historic leadership role in the cause of Ireland. So I am delighted that they succeeded.

GERRY ADAMS: Jeffrey needs to face up to some Brexit truths

Unionism, especially its DUP component, has been talking up unionist and loyalist resistance to the Irish Protocol since before Boris Johnson dirty-Joed them, broke his commitments to them, negotiated and then signed up to the Protocol. There is some evidence of this in the loyalist street disturbances earlier this year and the sacking of Arlene Foster and of Edwin Poots. The dramatic decline in the polling fortunes of the DUP, as it flounders about trying to assert its former role as the undisputed leader of unionism, is also linked to its stance on Brexit and its transparent efforts to blame everyone else for a debacle they helped create. Jeffrey Donaldson was in Dublin two weeks ago meeting An Taoiseach Micheál Martin. The Protocol was top of his agenda. The arrogance and rhetoric were loud – the politics insipid. He was at it again last week when he met the Tánaiste in Belfast. “The Protocol, the Irish Sea border, has to go,” he told Leo Varadkar.

GERRY ADAMS: Planting a seed for the future (and the past)

FOR years I used to gather up acorns and chestnuts and hazelnuts and little sycamore seeds and all manner of other seeds. My growing methods are fairly basic. I collected as many as I could and then planted them out in pots or growbags and let nature do the rest. I worked on the general assumption that if I planted a lot there was a greater chance that I would harvest a lot. I’m not talking of hundreds of seeds, by the way. Pocketfuls picked up on walks. The Falls Park has plenty of oak and chestnut trees. There are native trees also in the Waterworks, Colin Glen and Woodvale. Acres of broadleafs. And in all of our forests. The British Prime Minister’s country residence at Chequers has great rowan trees. I got heaps of towan berries there. They are always a wee bit trickier – like the tenant in Chequers. The seeds are contained in the little red berries but well worth the trouble. Unlike the tenant in Chequers. Rowans are favourite smaller trees. And blackthorn. Chestnuts are straightforward. In fact chestnuts are probably the easiest to grow. Once they take, these trees will be very content in pots for as long as ten or even twenty years. They are unique presents and great living memorials for friends who have died. I have a wonderful tall oak, grown from a tiny acorn, in memory of the late Eileen Howell. Another for Siobhan O’Hanlon. Others for Colette’s sisters Marie and Leah. A special chestnut for Joe Floorboards and a gingerish leaved acer for Cleaky. And it’s not just for deaths. Babies too deserve their own trees. This last few years I haven’t been as diligent as I used to be with my seed gathering. It’s too easy to be too busy. I didn’t give it up completely but I’m glad to say I am now refocused again. Why am I telling you this? Because now is the season for seed gathering. Most of the tree seeds won’t be ready for a few months but now is the time to spot the parent tree or trees. Then it is a simple matter of gathering up your seeds when they fall to earth. Even a few chestnuts planted in wee pots and left to their own devices will make a difference. And give you great pleasure. But while you’re waiting on the trees to reward you there are lots of wild flowers coming into seed at this time. Basically anything with a seed pod. Or a flower head. Foxgloves, or lus mór, are an old favourite of mine. Just cut off the seed pods and let them air-dry then store the seeds in envelopes until you are ready for planting. Some people grow them on little trays before planting out, but I’m a lazy gardener. I just sprinkle the seeds where I want them to grow and let nature do the rest. It’s always a good tip to wash your hands after handling seeds. Some can be picked directly from the flower heads. Flowers will drop seeds themselves when they are ready so it’s easy to know the best time to gather your share. Incidentally, there are social media sites to guide you. Just Google seed gathering. And don’t confine yourself to wild flowers. Many garden blooms can also be procreated. From seed. Or cuttings. Apart from flowers themselves and your own enjoyment, the bees and butterflies will be most grateful.

GERRY ADAMS: Moving account casts historical light on current Afghanistan plight

SUMMER s a time for catching up on reading some of the books which have been patiently waiting to be opened. ‘Inglorious Empire’ by Shashi Tharoor is one such. It is particularly relevant as the current crisis in Afghanistan unfolds amid the chaotic and shambolic disengagement of the British and the USA from a country they should never have invaded. It is a story of empire and colonialism and of its legacy as told through the experience of India. It is a scathing indictment of British rule in that region – an India which up to 1947 included Bangladesh and Pakistan. That year Britain, as in Ireland just three decades earlier, imposed an arbitrary partition of the sub-continent. Between one and two million died in the conflict that followed and many millions more were uprooted from their homes. Inglorious Empire is a detailed and devastating critique of British policy in India and of its impact on the people who live there. It’s a lengthy, well written at times moving account of a people robbed of their livelihood by an amoral imperialist regime. Tharoor begins his examination of the impact of Britain’s Imperial policies in India with a quote from a young American historian, Will Durant, who visited the country in 1930. Durant summed up in one short paragraph the Indian experience to that point: “The British conquest of India was the invasion and destruction of a high civilisation by a trading company (the British East India Company) utterly without scruple or principle, careless of art and greedy of gain, overrunning with fire and sword a country temporarily disordered and helpless, bribing and murdering, annexing and stealing, and beginning that career of illegal and ‘legal’ plunder which has now [1930] gone on ruthlessly for one hundred and seventy three years.”

GERRY ADAMS: Afghanistan tragedy a familiar one to students of imperial history

ALMOST exactly 20 years ago, the USA and Britain invaded Afghanistan. On Monday past the Taliban returned to Kabul amid scenes of chaos as thousands tried to flee. The British pulled their Army out of Afghanistan in 2014 after losing 457 soldiers and spending some £37 billion there. This week, like the fall of Saigon in another era, they are pulling out their citizens and Embassy staff. The future for the people of Afghanistan is less certain. But a look at the Iraqi situation gives a sense of the stupidity of these adventures. Like the decision to go to war in Iraq the human consequences of the political/military strategy of western states in that region have proven to be catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands have died, millions have been displaced, and the political and economic instability created by the western wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been disastrous. Under the grand title of ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ British and US forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. Sinn Féin spoke out against the decision. While we opposed the policies of the Taliban government we were convinced that a military invasion would only make a bad situation worse.

GERRY ADAMS: Internment greeted with the screams of children

Imagine lying in your bed as the sun begins to rise above the horizon. You are awakened by loud banging on your front door. The sound of breaking glass and the splitting of wood as the door finally surrenders to the sledgehammer. Sitting up half asleep as the noise of booted feet come charging up your stairs and your bedroom door is kicked in. The screams of your children, or wife or partner or your parents, as uniformed soldiers in blackened faces grab you and drag you from your bed, demand your name, and haul you out of the bedroom. Baton blows rain down on you. Heaved down the stairs to the street outside where you are roughly thrown into the back of an armoured vehicle and forced to lie on the floor. Shouted abuse and threats in English accents ringing in your ears. Fists and boots hammering against your head and body. Rifle butts and batons thumping into you. The noise and clatter of metal doors being opened and closed. The smell of diesel. Of people screaming in the street. Of not knowing what is happening, where you are going or what has happened to the family you have just been yanked from.

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Gerry Adams

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