THE ANTI-Show Trials demonstration in Belfast on 12 August showed once again the brutality of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Their vicious attack left Sean Downes dead and more than 20 injured. TANIA WEAR CERI EVANS were there. Here they describe what really happened.
THE MARCH was about 4,000 strong which included British Troops Out delegation, a delegaLOT the United States and people from all over curope We marched peacefulthree abreast Road to Andersonstown. There was a huge army and RUC presence along the route, with groups of Saracen tanks armoreo car. every few hundred yards When the march arrived at the Busy Bee shopping centre in Andersonstown it was met by tens of armoured cars Saracen tanks. A few stones were thrown by youths and the RUC immediately opened fire with plasuc bullels.
The crowd scattered and four people were left wounded. The crowd then held outside the Sinn Fein centre on Falls Road.
At this point the rally was surrounded by the RUC and the army, as they sealed off the crowd. As soon as the banned Noraid leader Martin Galvin appeared the RUC moved in.
They drove their tanks cars straight HOLO peaceful who DUECSICIS were sitting in the road.
Police in riot gear attacked marchers will batons and deadly plastic bullels firing crowd at close range Shots were aso tired and inside the Sinn Fein centre. Attack After this unprovoked attack had begun it seems that Sean Downes ran across the road to › aid his comrades. An RUC lhal raised his gun fired and Downes tell to the ground as the bullet hit his chest at 100 miles an hour over Marchers fled in all directions, and many ran into the Peoples bookshop around the corner from the Sinn Fein centre.
The RUC were firing on these running demonstrators, hitting the grill on the window of the bookshop dany ulc Their work over, the RUC withdrew leaving Sean Downes acau ana more than 20 others, including small children, injured This was not just a few RUC men going wild. It was planned attack, authorised at the highest levels, with the aim of arresting Martin Galvin and driving the nationalist population off the streets.
failed. Galvin got away. And the next day at least 10,000 people joined an illegal black flag march to remember sean Being in Ireland and being eyewitnesses brought home to us how the RUC and the media lie and distort events.
First the RUC claimed they were attacked by rioters and that their action was defensive. Then they claimed that they shot most of their bullets into the air. They even said inere was a witness who saw Downes being hit by a ricochet bullet.
All this was disproved bv many evewitnesses and by film taken of the event Head of the RUC Sir John Hermon C"CI said that people who demonstrate Northern Ireland can expect this sort anyone who attends legal, peaceful demonstration should be expect to be shot dead by RUC thugs.
Tiny stick The media, despite tacked, also did their bit! By Tuesdav morning Sean Downes was an ex-IRA rioter, wo was seen with a stick in his hand.
No mention that he nad probably seen Inends being beaten and shot at betore he ran across the roaT he parine of West The people Belfast didn't believe these media lies They turned out in their thousands for his funeral And workers at his youth training centre went on his memory This attack is just one in a long line of brutalities carried out by the British army and the RUC. In the Six Counties their aim is to smash the nationalist defend the position sectarian Six County state.
clear that the number task for British socialists is to build a mass campaign to ban plastic bullets and • lO get the troops out of Ireland also the more radical New Forum Committee.
The second factor is a crucal crish of the ec.
nomy, with a plunging gold rate. And third is an im pending national around wages demands by the two year old National Union of Mineworkers.