Viscount Brookeborough once deсагес mat те кис ae ne tinest police force in Europe'. Undoubtedly from his point of view, this was and is still true.
Look how 'fine' they were in October 1968, when Lord Cameron had to report that they broke ranks and batoned their way through a Catholic demonstration in Derry. Or look at the march in Armach in November yos. when monist extrenists armed with cudgels attacked, and again in Lord Cameron's words 'the RUC failed to guarantee the physical safety of the marchers.
Even Mr Justice Scarman joined in the chorus of condemnation of the brutal, thuggish behaviour of these RUC bully boys. He commented that the invasion of the Catholic Fairmount estate in Dungannon in August 1969 "was wholly unjustified'.
This is the true story of this "fine" police force, and it is a story written in blood over the whole period from 190o. It is a story that includes une burning of Catholic homes in Bombay Street; the August 1969 shooting of four Catholics (one a nine year old child) in Belfast; the Hooker Street burnings; and the Conway Street arson attacks.
That is the record of Lord Brookeborough's 'fine' police force. The most sickening incident of all, widely publicised at the time even in the Fleet Street kept press, was the murder of Samuel Devenney, a sick man in Derry. He died after being bludgeoned by police in his own home in front of his horrified family.
Despite all the appeals of Chichester Clark, then Prime Minister, the guilty RUC men were never turned in. Those senior ornicers who nad been present at the killing did not even bother to attend the identification parades in the search for the culprits.
This is the background to the attacks that have occurred against RUC personnel throughout this month. But why have the attacks come just now? ne answer is me new role waica Rees wanted to carve out for the RUC He has been busying himself with a plan to increase the weight of the RUC. The plan was called 'RUC primacy. That is why the RUC were to get armoured personnel carriers ane new roamm seur toad me runes. In fact on the day these new toys were announced, the British army pulled out of its bunker in the Lenadoon Flats and the following weekend they were pulled out of East Belfast and replaced by patrols of RUC and red caps Rees was keen for the local forces to take on a bigger commitment. At the same time plans were afoot to estabusa run-ume units or me unramous Ulster Defence Regiment. To this end they were given special training in Cumbria. Just to tidy things up, it was also proposed that the UDR be given the same amount of English top brass to hold the reins as the RUC al ready has.
It is precisely the recent attacks against these uniformed bother boys that has shaken their morale and with it the morale of the British Government. Rees has bleated that he did not force of the RUC. His intention was still to process political opponents through the courts and call them "criminals.
Meanwhile the Ulster Defence Association has threatened that a continuation of assaults on the RUC will lead to retaliation against ReDubicans 3s win aUDA satements for Republicans you should read "Catholics'). They take this position because since their "Third Force' campaign of 1974, many members of RUC reserve. This has been proved in a whole series of recent arms trials.
of all this? First, we leave the hypoPicket of Paddington Green police station last week against arrest of Irishmen under Prevention of Terrorism Act. On the right: four Special Branch operatives who threatened to bust the head of our photographer and push the camera up his nose!
the UDA have found their way into the What are British workers to make Catholic families.
WEEKLY Photo: LAURENCE SPARHAM (IFL) crites of Fleet Street to ween thei own tears. They have supported the governments and policies which are responsible for this situation. These same gentlemen wept no tears at the brutality meted out against Irish But British workers may be concer ned that men and women from the Protestant community only Join un RUC because of the scourge of unemployment. We say that even if this were true it is no excuse. Thes have to join the fight for an Ireland that is free of British repression and able to decide its own future. That is The rem answer for mose ForesTE But in the British labour movement we have to undersand that a 1s not just the stick of unemployment that recruns Frotestants to forces such a the RUC. The fact is that the decisive sections or me trotestan working class have looked to union with Britain against the Irish Catholic population as the way to solve their problems. This union entails doing the dirty work for British imperialism.
So what can we do about it? It is a fact that Protestant murder gangs ana covalst sectarian violence nave flowered under the protective wing of the British Army and their stooges of the RUC. The greatest service the British working class can do the Irish people and the most dramatic reply to the quacks of Fleet Street is to build a movement that will force the British Government to pull its troops out of Ireland and pull them out now.
When they go and British domination of ireland ends. then the murder gangs of the Loyalists and their police force will crumble too. If Rees is worried about the prospect of a long not summer for the Koc, tel workers in Britain must give him the answer. Get the troops out and let the Irish people decide their own future TED COXHEAD