Longworth sell-out rejected

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The Catholic minority trapped under British rule in the six counties of Northern Ireland face a formidable barrage of repression.

There is the British army on the streets. There are the SAS and undercover intelligence services, snooping, sabotaging and murdering.

Notorious

There is the sectarian RUC whose brutality, torture and intimidation are internationally notorious. There are their gangmates in the UDR-many of whom engage in "moonlighting for murder squads such as ti "Shankhill Butchers" and oth forms of sectarian violence.

Paramilitary

And as if this weight of armed state terror were not enough, there is also the ever-present threat posed by the para-military Ulster , Defence Association.

The UDA is a legal organisation. British torture chief Humphrey Atkins only last weekend once again decided that it should continue legally to carry out what its leader Andy Tyrie publicly describes as UDA gunmen on the streets "terrorism" against anti-imperialists and Catholics.

As Ian Paisley's mountaintop press conference showed last week, Loyalist thugs tote their guns and carry out their political violence with the connivance and support of the British state.

His 500 supporters brandished firearms certificates-while Paisley remained silent on how many of them are actually members of the "security forces" of the sectarian Orange statelet.

Yet one reason Loyalist gunmen were nearly able to assassinate Bernadette M and Michael McAliskey is because they are denied a firearms certificate for self protection.

While Loyalist murder squads operate with British approval, the republican militants who seek to protect the Catholic ghettoes are proscribed and viciously persecuted: one side is licensed to killthe other subject to political trial and prolonged jail sentences for so much as possessing a weapon.

Paisley's theatrical display of strength last week however is only in part a prelude to the forthcoming local elections.

It is far more an attempt to Drevent the Thatcher government developing any further its political links with the Haughey government in the 26 counties-which Paisley feels offer the danger of a deal in which the Loyalist monopoly of power in the North could 77, London WCIN 3XX, Printed / essarily represent the views of the eroded.

And it is a threat to those Catholic workers who are nreparing once more to mobilise behind the struggle of the republican prisoners of Long Kesh demanding political prisoner status.

The Thatcher government has cynically retreated from the agreements which brought an end to the 53-day Long Kesh hunger strike just before Christmas.

Hunger strike Angered by this and by the collapse of various steps towards de-escalation of the five-year "blanket' protest, Long, Kesh prisoners have declared that they will commence a further fast on March 1-to the death if necessary.

Their supporters have been given three weeks to mobilise the mass body of solidarity North and South which forced the Tories to conduct direct negotiations with the prisoners.

A gauge of how much of that support has ebbed in the confusion of republican policies in the last few weeks and the commencement of a new campaign of bombings and military action will be demonstrations this weekend in Belfast and Dublin called by the National H Block/Armagh Committee.

British socialists in the trade unions and Labour Party must redouble their efforts for practical solidarity with the H Block prisoners in their struggle against imperialist rule.

Morning Litho Printers irkers Sócialist Learue țı l A renewed effort by COHSE officials to wind up the 11-week old work-in at Longworth Hospital, Oxfordshire, bit the dust on Monday as staff voted unanimously to reject a new sell-out deal.

A national official had been dispatched by COHSE leader Albert Spanswick following requests from the union's regional conference for the question of industrial action in support of the occupation to be investigated.

Without troubling to visit the hospital or meet with the occupation committee who have led the fight to save the top floor of the hospital: from closure, he took Longworth members into twelve harrowing hours of negotiations-at the end of which the AHA secured his support for a "deal" in which:

*Extra geriatric beds would supposedly be made available at Oxford's Churchill Hospital.

*The new Witney Community Hospital would at last be opened: this has been delayed as a propaganda ploy by the AHA.

* A joint inquiry into NHS provision for the elderly, to dis cuss the vague possibility of a new hospital.

*Top floor patients at Longworth would be moved downstairs-bringing overcrowding and safety hazards.

But even before this package could be presented to the Longworth COHSE members it had become clear that the "extra beds" at the Churchill Hospital were only a temporary measure-and that the AHA's "offer"' was therefore completely spurious.

The plan was rejected. No further negotiations are Help on the picket line continues to be urgently needed as supporters maintain a 24hour guard on the occupied hospital.

Messages of support and donations should be sent to:

Barbara Russell, Whitebread Cottage, Farringdon Rd., Longworth, Oxon.