We look at the stories that were making the headlines this week back in 1982
IN TUNE: Maurice Reid at the West Belfast Drivers Club, Beechmount Avenue, social night
RUC fire plastic bullets at guests in hotel
Pandemonium broke out in the Lake Glen Hotel on Saturday night when a patrol of RUC men burst into the dance hall and began firing plastic bullets.
A number of panic-stricken patrons flung themselves under tables while others braved a fusillade of plastic ballets to seek refuge in the toilets. Eighteen-year-old Brian Armstrong from Moyard was set upon by RUC men and dragged from the hall after taking the full force of one of the 160 mph bullets in the side. He later collapsed in Andersonstown RUC Barracks and was taken to hospital where he was suffering from internal bleeding.
Manager Gerry Donnelly takes up the story: "I was called to the door at about twelve midnight where I spoke to an RUC sergeant who wanted to know where the 'trouble' was. I told him there was none but he asked for the dance doorman. The doorman came and said nothing was happening and that it was a fantastic night. He told the sergeant there were only forty or fifty left. The sergeant said that they shouldn't be there and the doorman replied: ‘Give me five minutes and I'll dear the hall.’
"Give me five seconds and I'll clear It!" said the sergeant and he raced up the stairs with his men.
As soon as they reached the dance hall they started firing plastic bullets.
At the time of the attack two parties had been winding up and about twenty-five couples remained. Half inch holes were dug out of the walls by the plastic bullets while the back door and toilet entrances to which patrons had run were pockmarked where the bullets had struck.
The RUC issued three conflicting statements on the incident. The first spoke of a fight outside the hotel and didn't mention plastic bullets. The second said one "plastic bullet round" had been fired in the air inside the hall. While the third said an RUC man had been attacked and "plastic bullet rounds were fired in the air". However, the majority of the bullet holes were at head and chest level and the manager insists the RUC were not assaulted in any way.
Said the Lake Glen caretaker, who was in the hall: "There was no way they were attacked. Everyone ran for cover or hit the ground once the shooting started."
Despite claims by the RUC that they fired bullets only into the air, there were no marks in the polyester tiled ceiling.
The Relatives for Justice committee at the fundraising disco in the Hitchin' Post
The proprietor of the Lake Glen, Mr John Morris, estimated that about fifteen plastic bullets were fired in the hall. Eleven caps were recovered by staff.
He also accused the RUC of firing the "lethal" bullets at "head and chest level", and "meaning to maim”.
"All my staff are at one as regards the unprovoked nature of the attack. It was entirely uncalled for – a criminal action," said Mr Morris.
And the Association for Legal Justice has stated that two young men were assaulted in Andersonstown Barracks after the shooting.
One was hit in the head with a plastic bullet gun and received a wound which required five stitches. The other was beaten up, had a tooth knocked out after he said he had witnessed the assault.
This youth was only in the station because the RUC alleged he was carrying a dangerous weapon, namely, a full bottle of beer which he was drinking.
No-one arrested after the hotel incident was charged.
Said an ALJ spokeswoman: “We have made complaints about the behaviour of the RUC in Andersonstown Barracks on numerous occasions, but it appears they are free to do as they like."
Steve Mooney, Vincent Nugent, Noel Cairns and Vincent McCorry enjoying the eventing at the Relatives for Justice fundraising disco in the Hitchin' Post
Editorial
THE political parties are now embarking on the last week of canvassing for the Assembly Elections. Up until now it has been a rather low key affair in the Nationalist areas of Belfast, which is not surprising given the number of elections held over the past ten years and the present state of despondency among the population. It has been said that war comes about as a direct result of political failure and if that be true then our politicians have been a monumental failure over the past sixty years and especially over the past thirteen years.
Unfortunate as it may be for them, the SDLP leaders must shoulder a lot of the blame for politics failing and are having great difficulty at the moment convincing even their own party members that they have anything to offer at the best of times. The party was only a motely collection of politically ambitious individuals who use the SDLP to project their own image in the community as political leaders and when the party had nothing further to offer them they jettisoned it. Hence the departure of Fitt and Devlin. The SDLP have, in the past, produced some articulate spokesmen for the party and a number of television personalities, but just as one swallow doesn't make a summer, neither do a few nice talkers make a party.
People are beginning to realise more and more that the SDLP as a party is a paper tiger; all talk and no clout. They have failed to make a principled stand on any of the major issues affecting the community they purport to represent. Sectarian assassinations, plastic bullet deaths, hunger strikes, imprisonment of innocents in Britain, religious discrimination, corrupt legal system and a hundred other issues about which they failed to mobilise public opinion or make a stand. In the light of their behaviour on these issues their recent election slogan ‘Stand Firm’ must be the joke of the century. Another party vieing for support in the Nationalist community is the Workers’ Party, but its pro-British reformist line should hardly gain it much support in a largely pro-Irish, anti-Stormont community.
Sinn Féin is contesting an election in West Belfast for the first time in over a decade. Largely an unknown quantity in the political arena, the only thing that can be said of them is that they have hundreds of young people working for them and have made a greater impact in the canvass than any of the other parties. The People's Democracy is in the running in two constituencies and although it is a small party its consistency in opposing all forms of oppression and the fact that its candidates are already city councillors should get them a sizable vote. Whatever happens, our readers must decide what to do on polling day but we would stress that, contrary to what some parties say, this Election is about the National Question and the National Question only. Bread and butter issues do not enter into it.
Teresa Donnelly, Anne McGettigan, Collette Gribben, Geraldine Braniff, Rita Spotswood and Marie Gallagher at the Beechmount Harriers event at the Peter Pan Social Club
