Bernadette Devlin Mc Aliskey at Noel and Ronnie...

[Papa C.]

Bernadette Devlin Mc Aliskey speech at Noel Little and Ronnie Bunting's commemoration

"I want to thank the Prisoners Committee, Ex-Prisoners Committee for the invitation to speak at this memorial and unveiling today. Standing watching our slight mishaps, I am reminded that the IRSP was never quite as good at choreography as the big organisations but they were always sounder on the principles.
I think it's important to remember in the context of the broad Republican Movement, which is a very broad church of the Independent Republican Movement in Ireland and has many aspects to it, and the Socialist Republican Grouping within that, has always been much, much smaller and much more vulnerable than the broad church itself. It's history is as old and as honourable and as brave as any other section of the Freedom, Independence and Republican Movements. Like I've said before and repeat here today that the Irish Republican Socialist party probably made more mistakes than anybody else. I don't think even in the days when I was in it, we left a single mistake that could be made, unmade, but we learned from our experiences and as a small grouping, it certainly had a higher percentage of good people, of Uncorruptible People, of Brave People and of Socialist People than any other organisation within the Independence or Resistance Movements. And for a small organisation per head of its population, its members probably suffered more than any other organisation. Just listening to Paul (Little) speak of Noel Little, I'm reminded of how many comrades went to their graves with a Red Flag tucked quietly under their heads, under their oxsters or under the lid of their coffin while more acceptable flags fluttered over them.

I'm particularly mindful of Noel and Ronnie at the time of the Hunger Strike Movement, and many of the people here today are too young to remember that time. They were different characters as Paul has said. My memory of Noel Little is of a valued critical thinker. Noel had one of those great heads, that it didn't matter what way you set it out, he could shake it up and set it out and would come back with 6 different ways to make sure you had all the aspects of your thinking covered.

He was a keen organiser and he was older than Ronnie. Ronnie was an activist, very active in both the Political and Military movement in Belfast. So essentially in many ways, one was athinker and one was a doer. Both of them contributed to that very dedicated but smaller group of socialists within the Republican Movement at the crucial time of the Hunger Strikes. It's important to remember that the contribution that was made by people like them, who when we look back over history now, It's almost forgotten that in terms of organisatons and prisoners, the Irish Republican Socialist Movement and The INLA in comparison with its size, within the struggle, contributed volunteers and sacrificed their lives on that Hunger Strike. Their personal political idealogy and their organisational affiliation is now virtually forgotten. They are part of the 10 Hunger Strikers and by default and by remiss, people who never them assume they were simply members of the broad republican movement represented by the Irish Republican Army. It's important to make that distinction not to be politically sectarian, not to be divisive but because in the days and months and years that are coming, There will be no Irish Republican Army
We are looking at this point at the final stage of the Peace Process which is the disbandment of the main organisation of military resistance for over 100 years in this country. It has come to game set and match time in order to facilitate the development of the Good Friday Agreement and in order to facilitate the setting up of Devolved Government and the local Power Sharing Systems. It was crucially necessary and could not have been done had the British not been able to enlist within the process the Leadership of the Broad Republican Movement. Both politically and militarily. It could not have been facilitated. What has been gained could not of been gained without them.

But especially in order to maintain the British position, while it was necessary to draw them in to facilitate its creation, the maintainance of those systems and the smoothe running of those sytems mean that they now must be excluded. They were necessary to create devoved administration, they are not necessary to maitain it. It's as simple as that. That is why we had the actions the other day whch in any other country would have been described as a para-military coup. That is why the other day we had armed policemen, seemingly without the knowledge of their Chief Constable. Getting on their new hooligan gear and going up to the seat of alleged Government. Invading Government offices because the offices of Sinn Fein in Stormont are Government Offices. The offices invaded were of the party whose people are administering government. Sinn Fein has 2 ministers in the Government of the North of Ireland and it was the governmental offices of that Governing party that were raided by the police, who are all supposed to be subservient to that Government. They walked in there having set up asting opeation. No doubt, and I sincerely hope that those friends, colleagues and comrades who have been charged, arrested and imprisoned in this sting and trumped up situation, will in the very near future be released because fundementally their purpose has been served to create the ituation, to create the dilemma, to create the opportunity for right wing Unionistm to join with right wing militarism , most of which is in the police and not in the UDA. The single greatest number of Unionist Para-militaries are in the employment of Government and so the whole aim of the operation was to do what it has done. Put the Assembly in cold storage.

I didn't vote for the Good Friday Agreement. I shall shed no tears if the whole Assembly sits in cold storage forever. It will be no ski of my back but it is important to separate out those personal positions and political analysis from a realistic understanding of what is happening.

Sinn Fein as a leadership of their organisation and the single biggest organisation within the broad republican Movement is now facing some choices. 1. To stay in the assembly, by conceding to the demands of the other people who want to maintain it. Disband the army. It's as simple as that! It's not my organisation, not my choice, and not my nightmare. I didn't vote for the Good Friday Agreementand I told them this day was coming in 1994. I told them this day was coming, as did many other people here. That's their choice. Their other choice is to walk away from Government. Now I would have preferred to see the instinct of the Republican Movement demonstrated when the police invaded stormont. There was a day when Gerry Kelly would have walked out on their heel and told them where they could stick their Assembly. There was aday when barbraire de Bruin would have walked down the steps of Stormont and turned the lights out behind her and Said "When you are serious about democracy call me back." That's not to say they should have walked out of there and embarked on taking people back to war. Embarked upon some increase of violence or threats to the public peace.Those aren't the choices but the chance was to walk away from Government. Government and Democracy aren't the same thing. They could have walked away from government instead of standing, trying to explain what couldn't be explained, because there is no explaination for it. The Government set it up. there is no IRA espionage. there's no plot. No harm to 2,000 prisoners officers other than the fear of redundancy. There is no fear to the local PSNI other than fear of having to behave as police officers in a democratic Society. They didn't do that and the choice, no matter how long they take about it, the choice will simply be to Disband, to Demobilise, and to Demilitarise entirely their organisation and go as Mr. Trimble has said "Wholeheartedly into Constitutional Government and running of the State or to walk away from government.

We have always had choices and maybe part of the distinction of this small grouping and the small group of Leftists and Socialists, we have always known we have had choices and we have always taken responsibility for the choices that we make.

Nobody ever made me do anthing. I made my own choices and I stood by them. Some of them were hard choices and some of them were bad choices but I took responsibility for them, so did Noel Little and so did Ronnie Bunting. Some of the choices people took led them to an early grave. I remember this time when one after another my colleagues and comrades and those of many people standing here were brought down for no other reason than they were part of the National H-Block and Armagh Committee. That committeee was set up to create mass support for the men and women in prison. It was a very strong committee. Miriam Daly was crucial to it because of her knowledge of languages and she spent timeless hours translating documents into other languages and circulating them for consuption in Europe before there was E-Mail. Ronnie Bunting was crucial to that because he organised and maintained and contributed to the defence of local people who stood out on the streets campaigning and praying for prisoners. Noel was crucial to it for his criticalmind and his organisational ability.
John McMichael of the UDA made a public statement on television that he would take the leaders of the National H-Block Armagh Committee out one by one. That his menwould go into the areas in which we live and one by one execute the leaders and so he did and as Ronnie and Noel were appointed to take the places of people who had been killed, they too were killed in their turn. Not one loyalist was arrested. John McMichael was never arrested and questioned about the statement that he had made,
The slaughter of the leaders of the unarmed and non party political, openly democratic and peaceful organisation of the National H-Block-Armagh Committee. The leaders were taken out and executed one by one until it suited the British Government to arrest Mr. Smallwood, Mr. Watson and Mr. Graham outside my own door after the belief that I and my husband were already dead.
Ronnie Bunting was shot dead in front of his wife and children. His wife Susanne is here today. A good friend and colleague and comrade of my own. I think it has never been recognised, not simply for her loss but her attempt to defend of Ronnie Bunting and Noel Little with her own life and she suffered grieviously as a result.

These things only came to an end when the British Government had another agenda, not because anybody changed their mind not because the fundemental conditions of this country had changed. Not because the need or the principles of the struggle had changed but because the people involved in the struggle had changed. The tactics changed because the British needed them to change and many years later the same remains true.

The end of that Hunger Strike period was when the British decided a better option would be to see, since it was clear that there were people in this country who would die , hour after hour, minute after minute and second after second over a period of 75 days before they would renege on their principles. That there were thousands of people who would stand with them That as they went out and slaughtered the leaders, the people simply grew in number. It would be a better tactic to see who could be bought.

Since it appeared very few could be intimidated and we have embarked from the mid-1980s until now on a principle of separating out, those who could be bought, those who could be fooled and those who could be intimidated for the rest. People who stand round here today are small in number but there are other people like us. We constitute the soul of Socialism in this country. We constitute the spirit of Republicanism in this country. Like Noel and like Ronnie and all the other comrades we constitute the people who can't be bought, who can't be fooled, who can't be intimidated.
It is time comrades that we were organised.