| by Sandy Boyer (for the Irish People)
Whatever the merits or demerits of what is now being called the Good Friday agreement one thing is certain - the human rights emergency in the North of Ireland won't disappear any time soon. On May 23 - the day after the agreement is voted on in separate referendums in the North and South of Ireland - Nationalists in the North will still be twice as likely to be unemployed as Loyalistss. So the MacBride Principles campaign, the only thing that has forced the British government to enact even token fair employment legislation, will be just as critical as ever. If Americans decide to abandon that campaign now there is unlikely to be any meaningful progress in ending this massive discrimination. British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble his personal assurance that the RUC will not be disbanded. The agreement calls for a commission to study policing and report to the new Assembly within two years. So for the next two years at least it will be business as usual for the RUC. There will be more cases like that of Robert Hamill who was kicked to death by a Loyalist mob while the RUC looked on. Young people in Nationalist areas will continue to be harassed on a daily basis just for walking down their own streets It is a safe bet that the RUC will be forcing Orange marchers though Nationalist neighborhoods this summer, if not on the Garvaghey Road, then on the Lower Ormeau Road.. Some human rights concerns were considered so unimportant that they weren't even mentioned in the Good Friday Agreement. Castlereagh Interrogation Center will be unchanged. This is where Roisin McAliskey was interrogated for twelve hours a day, six days a week. It is where another young woman finally signed a false confession to membership in the IRA just to get a sleeping pill and be allowed to go to sleep. The British government is not even pretending that it is going to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. People will still be held for up to seven days without being charged with any crime. They will still be denied access to a lawyer for the first 48 hours. And if they refuse to answer questions, that can still be enough to convict them of a crime and send them to prison. The Prevention of Terrorism Act also gives the government the power to ban people from Britain even if they have lived there for many years. Ironically, even though the Six Counties is considered part of the United Kingdom, by the London government, people from the North can be prevented from entering Britain, even to change planes at an airport. While the IRA and the Loyalist paramilitaries are supposed to disarm, Britain will maintain a large armed force in the North of Ireland including the British army, the Royal Irish Regiment and the RUC. The most that is promised is that at some point in the future, routine RUC patrols will be unarmed. This creates the potential for more innocent children to be shot to death at British army checkpoints as has happened so tragically in the past. In many nationalist areas the British occupation forces will still be more dangerous than the Loyalist paramilitaries. Whenever there has been any progress in human rights for Irish people under British rule it has come as a result of international pressure. Whether it is discrimination in housing and employment, prison conditions, Orange marches or political prisoners, the British government has responded only when confronted by international outrage. Without this, Roisin McAliskey, the Birmingham 6 the Guildford 4 and many other innocent people would still be in prison. For decades, Britain happily ignored systematic discrimination in voting and housing until the glare of international publicity made them too embarrassing. No one should let the continuing debate over the agreement distract them from the reality that we need to keep the pressure on Britain for human rights in the North of Ireland. If we don't, the results could be more innocent people imprisoned or even killed. |