Republicans have fallen victim to the assassins this year.
There is little doubt who is pulling the trigger. The Ulster Defence Association, led by shop steward Andy Tyrie, is letting it be known that it is responsible.
Activists The renewed assassination campaign follows the pattern of previous Loyalist-inspired murders. These reached their peak in 1972 and 1975 when 125 and people died respectively.
Over two-thirds of these victims were Catholics, and the deaths took place when governments were discusslaunching JICW political initiatives. The aim of the terror campaigns was warn the British not to dream up any solution which attackthe privileges of the Loyalists.
no coincidence that the latest bout of assassinations coincides with a renewed attempt by the Tories to negotiate a political solution. The only new aspect is the emphasis on political activists as targets.
To be successful, such assassinations need help quarters. First a degree of assistance is required from the security forces There is evidence of this in the present paign. For example, it is unlikely that the killers of Miriam Daly could have slipped in and out of the staunch Republican area in which she lived without the OCHE SOULLCU British Army, who maintain constant surveillance of such districts.
Furthermore, a British Army officer was quoted in the Guardian earlier this year as saying that he favoured a policy of "selective assassination The seconc factor which sustains the Loyalist assassins is encouragement bourgeois politicians. Although Loyalist leader lan Paisley has condemned the killing of McCormick, saying that the murderers, will one day answer to the inescapable tribunal of Almighty God', he and Unionist Party leader James Molyneaux were whistling a different tune in June.
ORANGE demonstration (left) the respectable face of the assassination squad which murdered McCormick (above)
At a rally organised then by the Fermanagh United Protestant Actior Group, they proposed a resolution warned 'we are no longer going to idly by...we shall take steps necessary to protect ourselves'.
One of Paisley's main associales in the Democratic Unionist Par400 Kms Brazil Orura Potosi resistance THE Partido Obrero Revolucionario - Combate (Revolutionary Workers Party — Struggle), the Bolivian section of the Fourth International, has called for a 'united front of the left and workers organisations' against the new regime. The objects of such a united front, say the POR, should be:
•To reconquer democratic rights of the people; the economic defence of working popular reșistance; a political-military offensive against the fascist dictatorship; to overthrow the dictatorship; to impose respect for the popular will as expressed in the elections of 29 June; to confront the manoeuvres of imperialism and its agents; to open the revolutionary socialist road to the struggles of our people.' The part-time Ulster Defence Regiment — controlled in theory by the British Army is now receiving nearly 1,000 applications a month, while the Royal Ulster Constabulary is attracting even more potential recruits.
No figures were gover on the percentage of applications the Loyalist community. But if past trends are anything to go by, only five per cent of these recruits are likely to be Catholics.
At time when unemployment in the North of Ireland is over 15 per cent, it seems that the reaction of many Loyalist workers is to play a more active role in the repres sion of their Catholic coulicroarls BOLIVIA 400Miles • Santa Cruz • Sucre Paraguay people; to organise Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 13
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Peru Trinidad
Chile Organising Popular