From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
Subject: NEWS:Eire Terrorized by pro-Brit Death Squads/ww
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: The NY Transfer News Service
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 00:26:35 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


          IRELAND TERRORIZED BY PRO-BRITISH DEATH SQUADS

                           By Ed Childs

Political leaders and elected officials of the Irish Republican
party Sinn Fein are being increasingly targeted by pro-British
death squads in Occupied Ireland (Northern Ireland). Over the
last 20 years, 14 members have been assassinated--four since last
summer.

Altogether, the Irish people have suffered 3,002 political deaths
in this 20-year period. The attempt to wipe out their political
leadership is a desperate act on the part of English colonialism.

On Oct. 16, Sheena Campbell was assassinated by a masked
gunslinger of the Ulster Volunteer Force in the York Hotel near
Queens University, Belfast. Two of Sheena's friends were wounded;
all three were law students at Queens.

Sheena, 29 years old and formerly a member of Sinn Fein's
leadership, was the party's Women's Officer for Occupied Ireland.
She was a Sinn Fein candidate for British Parliament in the last
election and recently toured internationally, speaking out for
Sinn Fein and Irish independence.

Sheena had attended law school to provide legal defense for those
fighting for Irish independence.

Pat Finucane, a prominent lawyer, was also recently murdered by
death squads while defending suspected IRA members.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, describing Sheena as courageous
and articulate, said, "The killing of Sheena Campbell was part of
the on-going campaign of murder against members of Sinn Fein
which has seen many of our friends killed or wounded." Sheena is
the eighth Sinn Fein leader killed since the 1982 elections; five
elected officials have been wounded, including Adams himself.

This summer the pro-British death squads targeted relatives of
Irish Republicans. Tess and Charlie Fox, parents of Paddy Fox--a
political prisoner from County Tyrone--were killed while watching
television. A year earlier Paddy was told by police they would go
after his parents if they could not get him or his brother.

SHOT IN HOSPITAL

This reporter talked to former Belfast Sinn Fein City Councilor
Sean Keenan, who was shot in the head outside Belfast City Hall
after election ballot counting. Sean was with Gerry Adams and two
others when British troops escorting and harassing them suddenly
disappeared. A car pulled up seconds later and began raking their
car with automatic gunfire.

As Sean was being taken to the hospital, the police threatened to
finish him off. Friends then took him to a different hospital for
his safety. A short time later, a death squad knocked down his
door and shot him in the hip as he dived for cover.

In a revealing interview earlier this year with the U.S.-based
information bulletin Northern Ireland Report, a UFF (another
pro-British death squad) spokesperson admitted: "We get our
information from the security forces. I could show you computer
print-outs in the other room, Security Force print-outs, with
precise intelligence." Evidence that the English military directs
the death squads was also exposed recently on English TV Channel
4.

The 1991 census figures showed that Occupied Ireland's
Nationalist community will be in the majority within the
foreseeable future. This makes it unstable and ever more costly
to suppress for England and for countries like the U.S. that
benefit from Ireland being occupied (Wall Street is now the
largest investor in Ireland).

Sinn Fein now holds the most seats in the Nationalist community's
two biggest colonial city councils--Derry and Belfast. In the
next two elections, Sinn Fein may gain the majority of seats in
these cities. An electoral majority for a socialist Republican
Sinn Fein party is England's nightmare. The call for England out
of Ireland is growing, not only among the Irish but among English
workers as well.

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet:
"workers@mcimail.com".)


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