With the British Army having finally withdrawn operationally from the
streets of the north of Ireland, bringing to an end 38 years of military
intervention in the six counties (Operation Bannerman, code name of British military intervention in the
north of Ireland, 1969-2007), certain UK and Irish journalists have
been busy churning out articles that are intended not only to rewrite the
history of the conflict, but also that of the northern Statelet since its
inception in 1922. The British Army are being portrayed as a force who acted
honorable whilst carrying out their duties and who were sent in to protect
the two communities from themselves and the demons within them, i. e., the
PIRA/INLA and loyalist paramilitaries.
In reality this was never the case. The British Army were sent on to the
streets in 1969 to prop up by force of arms the rapidly disintegrating
Orange State. It really was that simple. The myth the British Prime Minister
of the day, James Callagahan, sent the Army onto the streets of the north in
August '69, after receiving a frantic telephone call asking for British
Troops to be sent in from Nationalist MP Gerry Fitt, phoning from a chip
shop on the Falls Rd, is repeated in many of the aforementioned articles. In
reality it was the Northern Ireland Unionist Prime Minister James
Chichester-Clark who requested the Troops be sent in, as the RUC and B
Specials could no longer hold the line against what he perceived as being
the enemies of the Orange State. The fact that the first troops to arrive
were sent out on to the streets of the Nationalist Bogside, Derry, and not
the Falls Rd Belfast, speaks volumes about the mission they had been tasked
with and makes a nonsense about the official claims as to why they had been
sent in.
There is much hogwash talked today about Operation Bannerman having been
part of a grand UK government political-military strategy that from day one
was designed to democratize the Orange State and pull the teeth of the
Republican Movement by drawing it into the political process, a la the Good
Friday Agreement. For the first decade of the troubles the UK State's
strategy was to decisively defeat the Republican Movement militarily and
return it to its fringe existence within the six counties.
Sadly, it was to be many years before the penny finally dropped at
Westminister and the British politicians realized that if they were to hold
on to the North and make it as British as Finchley, as Margaret Thatcher had
once boasted, they would have to put together an all inclusive program that
would be acceptable to not only the middle classes, but all communities in
the north, and their political representatives. From its inception, it was to
take two decades before this strategy came to fruition. At first it went
forward at a snails pace and in a grudgingly manner. It was only after a
secret intelligence estimate written in 1978 by General Glover, the
Commander of Land Forces in the north came into the hands of Provos and was
published in Republican News that the British gradually changed tack from
their 'grind the PIRA into the ground' postures. General Glover disputed the
government's position that the members of the IRA were thugs and hooligans
and concluded that the British could never defeat the IRA militarily and
that, "The Provisionals' campaign of violence is likely to continue while the
British remain in Northern Ireland." Thus it was a combination of the
publication of Glovers report, the climax of the Blanket protests and the
Hunger Strikes, and all that accompanied them, which convinced the British
State of the need to bring the leadership of the RM into the fold. To
achieve this, the Orange State would need to be restructured.
In the meantime the introduction in 1969 of the British Army on to the
streets of Nationalist working class communities had poured oil onto the
flames of what was up until then, at most a public order situation, which
could be compared with the public disorder that took place in 1985 at
London's Broadwater Farm Estate. Once the British Army started brutalizing
the nationalist population they had originally claimed to be protecting, and
for opportunistic reasons began standing four square with militant loyalism,
the military quickly became a core part of the problem. Not least because
for the nationalist working classes they epitomized the public presence of
the Orange State and all the injustices it had meted out to them and theirs.
The Army's presence on the streets led to the politicization of the
nationalist working classes to a level that previous generations of
Republicans had only dreamed about.
The PIRA, which had consisted prior to the arrival of the British Army of
little more than a handful of gunmen attempting to do their best to ward off
the loyalist mobs attacking Nationalist homes and Catholic church property
in exposed areas like the Short Strand, grew into the formidable fighting
force General Glover mentioned in his intelligence assessment.
It was the mistakes made by the British Army in the first years of their 38
year occupation, and the refusal of British politicians to condemn and
rectify them that set the six counties on fire. The Falls Road curfew, an
aggressive system of stop and search, internment, operation motorman,
mistreatment and torture of arrested nationalists, Bloody Sunday, Diplock
Courts: all were to play a part in rushing the north down the slippery slope
that was to lead to car bombs, shoot to kill, tit for tat murder,
Enniskillen, and countless other horrendous and totally avoidable events.
Yes, the Republican movement made some awful decisions and should have ended
their war long before they did. In their defense, the PIRA were a small
embattled organization which was up against one of the most powerful
military machines in the world. At times during the 38 year conflict the
PIRA was just able to keep its head above water. The majority of its
volunteers were hunted night and day by the security forces and their
acolytes within the loyalist para military death squads. When the British
Army turned on the nationalist working classes with such viciousness to prop
up the Orange State, young men and women from within that community reached
for the nearest vehicle to hand to defend themselves and their community. As
puny as the IRA was at the time and being such a blunt instrument, military
victory was always an impossibility. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that
history will absolve them and place the blame for the conflict squarely on
the shoulders of those who were responsible, the British government, those
Unionists politicians who made the Orange State such a cold and bleak house
for Irish catholics, and the southern political establishment who all but
abandoned their fellow nationalists in the north.
As to the British Army, despite their claims to the contrary, it is clear
that operationally they have learnt very little from their thirty eight
years of inflicting pain and hardship on the nationalist working classes.
One only has to look at Iraq and Afghanistan to understand this, where the
British Army are repeating many of the same mistakes that they made in the
north, not least: underestimating their enemies, mistreating prisoners,
aggressive stop and search, brutalizing the civilian population and
believing they can corrupt and buy their way to victory.
When will the
government of the UK understand you cannot enter another's land bayonet in
hand, and not expect to be despised and hated? Yes, there will always be the
dregs of humanity or helpless souls who will take the UK State's coin and do
their bidding, but there will also be people who will resist with every bone
in their body, and eventually, their day will come.
Read Mick Hall's blog: Organized Rage
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