WE look back at the stories that were making the headlines this week in the Andersonstown News in 1982
Ulster Bank staff celebrate one on from their return to Andersonstown with manager Fonsie Corr, Teresa and Patricia
Editorial: Hypocrisy over the Falklands Islands
THE hypocrisy of the British will never cease to amaze all rational thinking people. They insist that the wishes of the Falkland Islanders are paramount in their territorial dispute with Argentina, and insist that self-determination is a basic principle that cannot be broken. Yet for hundreds of years they have ignored the wish for freedom of the Irish people and denied them self-determination.
Mrs Thatcher speaks in all sincerity of the soldiers assembled at Portsmouth as being “the gallant and most brave of men”. Yet the Nationalist people of the Six Counties look on the same soldiers as being the psychological torturers of innocent people in Holywood Barracks and Ballykelly in 1971. Torture that far exceeded anything carried out by the present fascist junta in Argentina. We see these “gallant” soldiers as the mass murderers of civilians on Bloody Sunday in 1972, and the plastic bullet killers of small children in 1981.
The British double think manifests itself once again when MPs who continually lecture us on the futility and evilness of violence, call for all out war on Argentina over a few windswept isles in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Churches who were so vehement in their condemnation of the hunger strikers last summer and who brought down the wrath of God on anyone who would event contemplate support for such a “violent” protest, have not opened their mouths about the voyage of mass destruction now underway in the South Atlantic.
These contradictions in British mentality come as no surprise to seasoned British observers and especially close observers like ourselves. But what does amaze us is the continued dependence in the schizophrenic British by our very own Falkland Islanders – the Ulster Loyalists. They insist on running for cover behind the British lion, even though it has had its teeth pulled out and has just received a kick up the rear end from an Argentinian gaucho. Surely even Hookey Charlie Haughey must be better than that.
Before we leave the Falkland Islands to the penguins, and surely that must be the final solution to the whole farcical exercise, the ultimate in British duplicity must have been the press conference where the ex-governor of the Islands, who deserted his people in their hour of need, and a pugilistic looking British major, who surrendered to the Argentinians and was disarmed, talked about their “gallant defence of the island”.
St Rose's ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, wih Michelle, Kathleen, Martina, Kathleen, Siobhan, Alison and Valerie
The truth behind 1981 Census results
A REPORT in this paper in January which alleged the Government had instigated a cover-up to conceal the politically explosive facts revealed by the 1981 Census, has received apparent verification from a surprising source. Speaking in the British House of Commons on March 1, Mr Nicholas Scott, the Under Secretary of State for the Six Counties, said that 46 per cent of the population in the North are Catholic.
Mr Scott’s controversial and for British and Loyalist politicians alike, embarrassing admission, was made during a speech on the Chilver Report in which he said, as reported in Hansard: “In Great Britain the number of Catholics in the population represent about 10 per cent and 10 per cent of the places are therefore reserved for students to go to the Catholic training colleges. In Northern Ireland with about 46 per cent of the population being Catholic it does not follow that something like that percentage should be reserved.”
In our January 30th addition our reporter outlined four key facts revealed by the census which the government is now trying to cover-up by delaying the release of results.
These facts still stand uncontradicted by the Census Office, and to a large degree vindicated Scott’s speech.
They were:
1 There has been a massive decline in the total population of the Six Counties due mainly to Protestant emigration.
2 In the last ten years the Catholic population has grown substantially.
3 The ratio of Protestants to Catholics has now decisively and permanently altered – projections indicating that within ten years Catholics will form a majority of the population.
4 The figures prove the fallacy of the claim that there are “a million Protestants” in the Six Counties.
A spokesperson at the Census Department’s Press Office would not confirm Mr Scott’s figure and could give no more definite date for the release of the results, than “a number of months yet”.
Other than a short statement issued one week after the Andersonstown News article, the Census Office remains tight-lipped about the cover-up allegations and claimed that the lengthy delay is due to last year’s campaign against the returning of census forms.
It is believed that the British Government are reluctant to release the census results for fear that they would scuttle their attempts to establish an assembly here. The Government’s thinking is that the results will strengthen the hand of Nationalist politicians and increase their demands for an ‘Irish Dimension’ in any settlement, at a time when Prior is urging them to drop such demands.
Speech and Drama awards to E Costello's pupils Tara Green, Kerry Green, George O'Neill, Conor McCrory, Kelly McCrory, Claire Beggs, Michelle Doherty, Caoire O'Neill, Orla Beggs and John McCrory
No transfer of prisoners
BRITISH Home Secretary William Whitelaw has admitted that Irish political prisoners are not being transferred to the Six Counties as a punitive measure.
In a letter to a Labour MP Whitelaw stated that the repatriation of prisoners might “well diminish, and be seen to do so, the deterrent value of the punishment imposed for the offences”.
Whitelaw was the first Secretary of State to serve in the North, and he became knowns as Willie Whitewash after the Bloody Sunday cover-up.
It is a principle of the British penal code, that a prisoner be gaoled near his relatives. Prisoners to benefit from this ruling include two members of the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders sentenced to life imprisonment last year for the Fermanagh ‘pitchfork murders’.
In his letter, Whitelaw claims that if a prisoner was returned to the North, the chances of him severing his links with the IRA would be reduced. However, a report published in 1980 by a welfare officer at Long Kesh, proved that were a political prisoner is subjected to a punitive and harsh regime (as in the H-Blocks or an English prisoner) rather than a relaxed one (the Cages) then the chances of him returning to active service are greater.
Owen Carron, the MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, recently visited 30 Irish prisoners during a tour of British jails. During his tour Mr Carron met prisoners who had not seen their relatives for several years because of the inconvenience and cost of travel involved in a visit.
One such case is that of the father of Coventry priest Fr Fell, who has not seen his son for several years because he is unable to travel long distances. Fr Fell is to be released this summer. There are about 80 Irish political prisoners in jails in Britain, and at least 14 of this number are completely innocent.
Paddy Conlon (Grosvenor Pigeon Club) presents Sean Canavan of St Agnes' ABC with money raised from bird sales. Also pictured are Jim McCourt, John Patterson, Gerry O'Prey, Mickey Smith, Geordie Devine, Billy Carson, Charlie McEvoy, Ken Rosbotham, Ronnie Malone and Mickey Short
