WE look at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in August 1984
The Andersonstown News reports on the RUC's brutal attack outside Connolly House in Andersonstown when Noraid’s Martin Galvin appeared at a demonstration. The RUC shot dead Seán Downes with a plastic bullet...
Editorial
THE tragic thing about Sunday’s killing of Seán Downes is the fact that many RUC men will genuinely feel upset that anyone should even think that they did other than their duty in killing one of the "Republican Rabble".
The Royal Ulster Constabulary from its very inception in the 1920s is a paramilitary force whose main function has always been to uphold the institutions of the Northern Ireland State, and not to maintain law and order as people in any ordinary society would understand it.
The sectarian nature and discriminatory practices of the State itself, has meant that those who supposedly were upholding law and order, were actually protecting the interests of injustice, bigotry and public malpractice on a massive scale and this has meant that the RUC is not only unwilling to police the State as officers of peace should, but is quite incapable of policing that 40 per cent of the community which not only rejects discriminatory practices, but rejects the very legitimacy of the State itself.
Hence their pre-occupation with the symbolism of State control which makes them attack funerals, lay into demonstrators, and remove tricolours from flag poles. Given this background and the fact that the British authorities decided to send in the RUC "Young Turks" in the guise of the "mobile support units" to Andersonstown on Sunday, it is surprising indeed that more people were not killed, and unless the present "confrontation" policy is changed then another Bloody Sunday can't be far off.
Although Sunday's attack would not come as a surprise to many keen observers, it does nevertheless raise the question of policing in our community. If the RUC is not capable of ordinary decent behaviour in Nationalist areas, and it is quite obviously not, then how do we protect ourselves against their worst excesses? Can they be replaced? Because if our analysis is right, their reform which was called for so often in the past, is meaningless.
As a community, we have put up too long with a police force which doesn't understand our way of thinking and is completely out of sympathy with our beliefs and aspirations.
Maybe young Seán Downes' death will not have been in vain if it makes us institute a dialogue amongst ourselves on these questions and come up with some workable answers.
Andytown News man’s eye-witness account of RUC attack in A’town
A MEMBER of the Andersonstown News staff, Seán Mac Seaín, was an eyewitness to Sunday’s events. Here he gives his account of what happened.
During the speeches I was standing near the back of the crowd at the St Agnes’ Church side, but within the ring of RUC men. When (Martin) Galvin appeared an RUC officer on top of a Land Rover signalled to the RUC men behind us to move in.
As the Land Rovers roared in, we moved nearer to the shops facing Connolly House, and lay down. The RUC continued to fire on us as we lay down. It was like being in front of a firing squad.
veryone threw themselves behind the 12 inches of concrete left from the old subway, and were afraid to lift their heads. Every time a person moved a plastic bullet was fired. Some of the RUC men broke towards Connolly House while others continued to fire round them.
I had noticed a man in his 40s getting batoned on the head when the push started. He had fallen immediately and other RUC men walked over his body.
When we thought there was a lull, some of us rushed over to him and carried him to a house on the left hand side of St Agnes’.
ATTACK: The RUC firing indiscriminately outside Connolly House in Andersonstown
There was no-one in the house but we managed to make our way in and lay the man down in the hall. His head was bleeding badly and he was unconscious. A young man of 17 was then brought in. The back of his head was badly split. He was followed by a girl who had received an injury to her leg and couldn’t walk.
The man who had been batoned finally regained consciousness and he was able to tell us he was from Dublin. An ambulance then arrived and we got all the injured into it.
I left the house and made towards Riverdale, where people were caling for help for the injured. I witnessed a man in his 50s with a woman and a child, being beaten by the RUC beside the TSB Bank. They were beating them on the heads.
I was waved into a house in Riverdale where a woman was lying unconscious. Her friends said she had a pacemaker and had taken a fit. In the next house, a young girl of 13 or 14 had been covered by coats and was being take care of by the people of the house. She was very shocked. I could see a bone sticking out from her foot.
I went back to the ambulance for medical help but the driver said they had a packed ambulance and had to get away. However, other medical staff got oxygen for the injured woman.
Press reaction to Sunday’s events
MEDIA reaction to the RUC’s unprovoked attack was unusually fierce with detailed reports being carried in all the Irish papers and even some of the British dailies.
Press represenatives were bludgeoned by RUC men while Downtown Raidio’s Eamon Mallie was batoned and an attempt made to confiscate his tape.
Brendan Murphy of the Irish News was grapped by the throat by one RUC officer and told with an obscenity to clear the scene. While AP/RN photographer Larry O’Hara was hit behind the ear by a plastic bullet.
Below we print extracts from some of the main reports:
Mary Kelly in Irish Times:
The police charged into a peaceful crowd, mostly seated… As the speeches started, some of the policemen on rooftops opposite, trained their guns on people in the crowd and they were smiling. Twenty to 30 RUC men, some of them wearing full riot gear, stormed the building… firing plastic bullets indiscriminately and driving directly into the crowd.
About ten RUC men firing plastic bullets rushed over the railings… followed by another group who batoned anyone standing in their way.
No petrol bombs were thrown at the police or army at any time before they stormed the building.
PA staff reporter, Len Graham:
RUC men, some firing plastic bullets in all directions, only feet away, others with batons drawn, charged towards us…
The street was littered with injured people and sobbing and hysterical women and children. It is quite clear the RUC were taking no prisoners.
Letitia Fitzpatrick, Irish News:
Police all over the area began to fire round after round of plastic bullets at the screaming crowd, who crouched in terror, unable to run away. A woman’s leg was run over by a jeep and scores of men, women and children were batoned and injured.
