WE look at the stories that made the headlines this week in 1984
Alex Maskey confronts George Seawright in Council chamber
DUP councillor George Seawright, who last year spearheaded the City Hall move to ban Leisure Centre advertising in this paper, has refused to retract his controversial “burn Catholics” remark.
Mr Seawright, who attended the funeral of ‘Shankill Butcher’ Lenny Murphy, and who describes himself as “an honest bigot” said last week that parents who objected to the playing of the British national anthem at inter-school concerts were “Fenian scum who are being indoctrinated by the Catholic Church”.
“Taxpayers’ money would be better spent on an incinerator and buring the lot of them. The priests should be thrown in and burnt as well,” he said.
Two days after he made his remarks, Councillor Seawright carried out a canvass on the Shankill Road with his party leader Ian Paisley.
And on Monday night, in a further outburst, the Scottish born loyalist again reiterated that “vermin scum in West Belfast… who should be buried in Milltown Cemetery.”
Mr Seawright was speaking against a motion that all councillors, including Sinn Féin and People’s Democracy representatives, should be allowed to sit on external council committees. Earlier this year both Alex Maskey (Sinn Féin) and John McAnulty (PD) were ousted from such committee by their fellow councillors. Councillor Seawright, who has publicly stated that he has “a soft spot in Milltown Cemetery for Councillor McAnulty”, spoke against the proposal. He said democratic rights couldn’t be extended to certain Nationalist representatives.
Mr Maskey crossed the chamber after Mr Seawright’s remarks and spoke to him in private. Afterwards, Mr Seawright claimed he had been threatened by the Sinn Féin councillor. Mr Maskey denied this, however, and said that he had not made any threats. On a recorded vote the motion proposed by John McAnulty and Alex Maskey was defeated by 14 votes to seven with six of those in attendance abstaining.
Mr Maskey told the Andersonstown News that the vote means council policy now is to discriminate against certain councillors.
“Coming on the day when Mr Seawright was reported to have been rebuked by the DUP for his remarks earlier in the week, no-one in the unionist camp, including Mayor Alfie Ferguson, attempted to condemn his renewed attack on the people of West Belfast.
Taking part in the Unity Flats Disco Dancing contest were Mary Meehan, Shauna O’Rourke and Joanna Stitt
Editorial
IN the closing stages of the Vietnam War, the picture of a South Vietnamese army officer summarily executing a Vietcong suspect in the streets of Downtown Saigon, was flashed throughout the world.
The world's press portrayed the scene as the most significant evidence to date that the established authority in Vietnam was losing its grip and they speculated that defeat couldn't be far off. They were right, of course, and before long the South Vietnamese were routed and the Americans forced to flee the country.
Even though thousands of people were being killed every week in Vietnam in ambushes, booby traps, in bars, restaurants and cinemas, as well as on the battlefield, that one summary execution symbolised the decline in moral discipline of the ruling authority and heralded its downfall.
Therefore, the decision this week by Judge Gibson to acquit three R.U.C. men of murder and commend them for summarily executing three suspected I.R.A. members, will be seen by many people as a sure sign that the established authority here is losing control.
Summary executions, ambushes and shoot-on-sight tactics are all hallmarks of guerrilla or insurgency movements operating from a weak power base and compelled through lack of logistical support into hit-and-run exploitations. But it has been clearly shown in many parts of the world that whenever the established authority adopts the same tactics it inevitably makes things worse for itself. The British Government and the R.U.C. with their "Headquarters Mobile Support Units" would seem to be falling into the same trap that has brought disaster to many seemingly unassailable establishments throughout the world.
So, although we have no doubt that Judge Gibson feels he has just struck a blow for "freedom" and removed some of the constraints that make a soldier or R.U.C. man hesitate before killing suspects, his verdict may have just the opposite effect to the one he intended.
