04.09.1997

Imperialists ‘disturbed’

Last week The Independent reported that the government had set up a review of the use of plastic bullets in the Six Counties.

According to the report, senior ministers feel a sense of “deep unease” over the “excessive” firing of baton rounds in Ireland and have ordered the Association of Chief Police Officers to draw up new guidelines. While mainland police are empowered to use plastic bullets to prevent “serious risk of loss of life”, subject to the authorisation of a chief police officer, the Royal Ulster Constabulary has never been inhibited by such restrictions.

Since 1972, 17 Irish civilians have been killed and more than 100 “gravely” injured by these lethal weapons, which have never been used at all on the mainland. This disparity led some on the British left to place the campaign against plastic bullets at the centre of their work on Ireland, in the mistaken belief that justified humanitarian outrage would somehow develop into opposition to the British occupation itself.

Unfortunately however, such well-meaning campaigns tend to degenerate into calls for imperialism to fight its wars by less brutal methods, and for liberals to suggest alternative ways of ‘maintaining public order’. There was a kind of perversity in calling for a ban on plastic bullets only, while the much more devastating weaponry employed by the regular army was not highlighted by such movements. The viciousness of imperialism must certainly be exposed at every opportunity, but anti-imperialism must never be diverted to campaigns against the means of its oppression.

Throughout the 70s and 80s the British state took no action to curb the use of plastic bullets despite the left’s campaigning. So why is it, while today the left is quiet by comparison, imperialism’s representatives suddenly ‘discover’ that their use is unacceptably dangerous? The answer lies in the fact that negotiations with Sinn Fein are approaching. Just as the government must attempt to reassure the unionists that their interests are not being betrayed, so the IRA must convince its fighters that their sacrifice has not been in vain.

The review can be portrayed as a form of British ‘decommissioning’ and might even result in a degree of republican cooperation, however symbolic, with the international arms commission.

Alan Fox