Endof internment' "I" makes little difference

From MARTIN MacMILLAN IN BELFAST
THE decision by Mr Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State, to end internment in Northern Ireland seems to have made no long-term difference to the Provisional IRA.
Indeed, Mrs Maire Drumm, Vice-President of Provisional Sinn Fein, which is the IRA's political front. reacted almost instantly by saying that "nothing had changed" and that the fight must continue.
But, as many Catholics in Northern Ireland are already asking, what is the Provisional IRA fighting for? It certainly cannot be an all-Ireland Republic since that cannot be attained while the Ulster Protestant population remains adamantly anti-republican.
The only possible reason for a continuance of the IRA campaign is to force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Fein refuse, however, to face the consequences of such withdrawal.
Indeed, Mrs Josephine Loughran, who is described as the Press Relations Officer for the McDermott branch of Provisional Sinn Fein, has publicly stated that a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland would "awaken in the people, regardless of religion, a new political realisation.'" This is typical of the Provisional IRA's benign interpretation of the consequences of British withdrawal. They persist in the view that only the British presence is preventing Catholics and Protestants from living together in peace in Ulster. When the Rev William Ariow and other clergymen met the leaders of the Provisional IRA at Feakle just over a year ago they were astonished to find that men like David O'Connell, the IRA leader who is now serving a prison sentence, did not regard Protestant militants like the members of the Ulster Volunteer Force as their enemies.
The withdrawal of the British Army is high on the list of the Provisional IRA's priorities, but their immediate aim, now that internment is ended, is to secure the release of all "political prisoners" all those people, in other words, who have been found guilty and sentenced by the courts for acts of terrorism and other crimes.
That was exactly what Mrs Drumm said when asked for her comments on the ending of internment. Apparently the IRA's terror campaign will continue until "political" prisoners are all set free.
Mr Rees had firmly refused to regard acts of terror as "political" even though they may have been committed for some political objective.
He has. in fact, said that with the ending of internment the authorities will be relentless in `pursuing and sentencing people engaged in political terrorism.
The ending of internment is a major challenge to the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Will the SDLP, as the party which mainly represents the Catholic minority, now mount a campaign of publicity and debate to isolate the IRA, or will the SDI.P now make a cautious retreat and leave the initiative once . more with the IRA?
Will the SDLP repeat the mistakes they made when the Provisional IRA first mounted its terror campaigns in 1970, remaining quietly out of the way while the gunmen took over and presumed the active leadership of the Catholics without, of course, the consent 'of any but a handful of Catholics.
One of the difficulties of politics in Northern Ireland is that few politicians are willing to lead without reward in some form or another,
The attitude of the SDLP leadership towards the question of the Royal Ulster Constabulary is an instance of this reluctance to lead.
The SDLP's attitude is that they will urge the Catholics in places like West Belfast and in the Bogside of Derry to accept the RUC, but only when there is a proper system of devolved power-sharing government in Northern Ireland,
That is how the SDLP's policy on the police problem has been put by party leaders like Mr John Hume. It sounds very much as though the SDLP has put a price on acceptance of the RUC. and that price is a power-sharing administration which includes SDLP politicians, The attitude of the Catholics towards the RUC has, however, nothing whatever to do with power-sharing or with the future of the SDLP politicians.
It has a lot to do with the past record of the RUC, with the fact that many high-ranking RUC officers have been guilty of what the Catholics consider crimes against innocent people, and with the fact that the RUC refuses to purge itself of those guilty men.
Cruse the National Organisation for Widows and their children, announces a course on Bereavement Counselling open to those who arc involved in a voluntary or part-time capacity with bereaved people. The course, arranged in conjunction with Morley College, will run for 12 weeks, from January 5, every Monday at 6,30 pm to 8.30 pm, at Morley College:61 Westminster Bridge Road, London SEI. Details from: D. Nuttall, National Organiser, Cruse House, 126 Sheen Road, Richmond, Surrey.
Dr Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has disclosed that following his October appeal on behalf of moral and spiritual values, he received no fewer than 25,000 letters from every section of society, including people in prison and hospital and in Europe, America and Australia.
The Save the Children Fund is sending £5.000 in aid to the Lebanon to help hundreds of child victims of the current fighting in Beirut. The latest estimate for the number of orphans in Beirut as a result of the fighting is, according to the fund's sources, about 2,000.
A one-day conference on Catholics and Homosexuality (organised by the Catholic Renewal Movement) will be held at Notre Dame de France Hall, 6 Leicester Place, Leicester Square, London, WC2 on Saturday, January 17, from 10.30 a.m. until 5.00 p.m.
It is estimated that more than 40,000 young people who left school in July are still without a job. To help voluntary youth workers to advise them, the Methodist Association of Youth Clubs has prepared a leaflet which lists a number of practical ways help can be offered.
A torchlight procession to commemorate the Feast of The Holy Innocents and a silent march of witness in memory of the 800,000 unborn children aborted under the 1967 Abortion Act, was held at Bury, Lancashire, on Saturday, December 27. It was led by representatives of the Women's Committee of Bury SPUC.
Martin Curran, aged 48, has been appointed administrator of St Martin of Tours House, Islington, North London. He was ordained in 1958, and worked in South Africa for 12 years. In 1968 he was dispensed from the public profession of priesthood. He then spent more than seven years teaching in Australia and Botswana, after which he was banned from entry into South Africa.
Trocaire, the Catholic Agency for World Development, which has headquarters in Dublin, has announced emergency grants totalling £13,000 for victims of the political unrest in the Lebanon, Angola and Timor. The grant is being made to Caritas Internationalis — the international Catholic relief agency.'
Two Christian peace organisations, Pax Christi and the ecumenical Fellowship of Reconciliation, have written to the Soviet Ambassador in London asking for clemency for the Soviet biologist Dr Sergei Kovalyov, who was sentenced last month to seven years in a strict regime labour camp and three years of internal exile.
The Worth Conferences, held at Worth Abbey, Crawley, Sussex, have chosen "Freedom in Christian Society" as the title of their next series. The first will be on January 23, when the speaker will be Mr Enoch Powell. On February 25 Mr Len Murray, general secretary of the TUC, will speak; and on March 17, Mr John Garnett, Director of the Industrial Society.