Diplock court victim: wife's appeal for support

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Troops out now! Dear Friend, My name is Monica Culbert and for the past three years and three months my husband Michael has been in a Northern Ireland prison.

I am thirty-one years of age. I think I can describe myself as a sensible, practical woman who for the last three years has learnt to cope alone: to adjust to bringing up our two sons, Roy and Michael; to be able to do my teaching job properly; and to visit my husband and work on his behalf. Yet again today I cried after speaking to Michael on a visit.

Maybe it was his sickly pale complexion or his lifelessness or perhaps it was the fact that I sensed he was so upset at more of his friends dying, but seeing him like that today brought back so clearly into my mind all the reasons for the blanket protest and, now, the hunger strike.

Brutality

There,are times especially now during the sorrow and trauma of the hunger strike that one forgets why these men took this drastic step. One forgets the brutality, the beatings, the degradation and the humiliation which started from the first moment they were arrested.

These men, including my husband, never received what is commonly recognised as the due process of law. They were denied trial by jury and most of the normal protections enjoyed by the accused in an American or English court. -- Derlich noart Michael was sentenced to life imprisonment on the basis of a single policeman's testimony in a special court known as a Diplock Court. 'Diplock Courts' were set up in the wake of the British government's decision to abandon internment without trial a decision that was forced by the immense weight of international and internal pressure.

Veneer Diplock Courts are simply a veneer of jurisprudence to achieve the results of internment by more subtle means. That is, their function is to ensure the imprisoning of political suspects who otherwise under the normal conditions of a jury and rights to evidence - would not be convicted.

These courts achieve this result by setting aside the right to jury and depending almost completely on the testimony of policemen or soldiers to sympathetic judges. Not only are these courts allowed to accept signed confessions of dubious status (extracted after 72 hours of uninterrupted interrogation at the infamous Castlereagh centre - where torture has been officially admitted in the past), but in some cases police officers.

My husband has been condemned to life imprisonment exclusively on the basis of such verbal testimony from a policeman.

After months of periodic harassment for his outspoken republican and socialist sympathies, Michael was arrested in May 1978 and convicted of alleged involvement in the murder of a policeman.

It was never maintained that he was actually present at the time (indeed, he was teaching a school class at the time!), but that he had somehow been involved in its planning.

The government in its prosecution, however, did not produce one, single shred of evidence: not a single witness nor even the slightest bit of physical substantiation for their charges.

Rather what the judge found so compelling was the Police acusat interrogatien TWe davs and physical abuse, Michael made a verbal confession.

Farce

Michael denies this vehemently, and in the absence of any written confession it became a matter of his word versus that of one of his interrogators.

Watching all this in the LONG KESH courtroom, | remember thinking that it was just a farce, that there was no possibility that any judge -no matter how prejudiced or sympathetic to the police and army - could convict a man on the basis of such an allegation without evidence. I was wrong ...

When Michael was convicted he immediately lodged an appeal. This appeal will at last be heard on October 5 - after more than three years. After his conviction Michael also immediately went on the LONG KESH blanket and joined the so-called 'dirty protest' Why? you may ask. Basically it was because he and the rest of the men in the H-blocks and the women in Armagh Prison are not ordinary criminals and refuse to be treated as such.

The English government says that it will never grant 'special status' to the hunger strikers, yet all Irish political prisoners have been treated with special status throughout the course of their prosecution.

They alone have been singled out for the special status of Diplock jury-less trials; they alone are prose-: cuted under special laws; and they alone undergo the 'special interrogation' reserved for political from him.

It is a fact that 80% of convictions at the Diplock Courts are secured by "confessions? obtained under "inhuman and degrading' interrogation, and that the courts boast : a 94% conviction rate!

If this figure seems a little high, it is only testimony to the efficiency of a jury-less court system operated by the police.

Mirror search

Because these men and women refuse to be classified as criminals, they have been for the last four years locked up 24 hours a day, denied physical exercise, fresh air, recreational facilities, association with other prisoners, and are subjected to constant humiliation and brutality.

Because Michael is on appeal, he is allowed a 15 minute visit each day for the sole purpose of discussing the appeal. Until very recently he had to undergo the brutal and degrading "mirror search' of his body cavities. He is always harassed coming and going from visits, forced to submit to constant searches and questioning.

After several years of the blanket protest the prisoners turned toward their ultimate weapon: the hunger strike.

They took this awesome step because all other roads were closed to them, and because the English government reneged on previous negotiations and refused the Mici due been date Monica Culbert appeals to the Briti labour movement fi her husband - sent ced to jail for life o the basis of a single policeman's word reasonable demands wl the men and women 1 made for the rights of as iation, civilian uniforms non-penal work.

'Special status' Michael's appeal is important opportunity demonstrate to the Nort Ireland Office your a over a special sti criminal system that convict a political disse to a life term withor jury, a confession or a s of evidence.

Michael's appeal is the conclusion of a long terrifying struggle by family - it is our chance to save him and, your help, bring him hi Therefore I urgently ask to send a telgram of pr and concern to: Mr Mir Allison, Minister for Pri Northern Ireland 01 Stormont Castle, Belfast Heard Please drop me a after sending the telegri would be happy to an any of your queries, pir more details about Mici appeal or, in general, ex why we - the priso families - feel the str inside the H-blocks st be of great concern to one who cares about freedom of Ireland an‹ state of democracy Britain. But, please, ! your voice heard to Mi Allison.

Thank Monica Cul 73 Willowvale Avi Stewartstown F Belfa: ael Culbert's appea October 5, bu postponed withc being set.

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Socialist Organiser, Thursday 8 Oetober 1981 Page 4 •Word news Fronch tranne to Mohutu's rescue in 1978 PLANTATIONS CONGO IN 1979, the 29 million people of Zaire 'owed' total of $4.5 billion in loans and 'aid' from the imperialist bankers and governments. Then in May this year, the IMF lent a further $1 billion.

So Zaire's debts are bigger in relation to income than for any other country in the world. It eats up 40 per cent of the exports produced by working people in the mines, factories and farms, just to pay the interest charges.

Huge profits

The interest payments are part of the huge profits squeezed from workers' and poor peasants by the imperialists, who totally dominate the backward economy of Zaire. Zaire Is completely dependent on loans • to pay for vital imports of food, oil, and manufactured goods -which raw material exports (overwhelmingly dominated by copper) cannot pay for.

As the world capitalist crisis deepens, exports are being severely hit while import costs are rocketing.

So the dependence on loans tightens. And the rise in bank rates adds even more weight to the burden of repayment. To meet these repayments, the puppet regime of Mobutu must carry through greater and greater attacks on the living standards of the masses.

The Zairean masses have always faced crushing poverty under capitalism both in its old colonial and new neo-colonial forms.

The average annual income of those economically active is less than the weekly wage of many workers in Britain - £100.

Only 15 per cent Mobutu witli troops UNILEVER IN THE CONGO BULKING PLANTE PLANTATIONS DANCEDS -adults can read, or write their names. Nearly 60 per cent of Zaireans will never reach the age of 50. For 29 million people, there are 600 doctors.

And the savage reality of daily life for working people is growing even worse. Over the last few years, the number of jobs in mining and large-scale agriculture has fallen drastically. Food production has been steadily declining -along with food consunnytion. This year's wage rises for workers have been kept at 35 per cent, below even the official inflation rate -thus protecting the profits of the imperialist monopolies who (directly or indirACTION SAG. ectly) control mining, agriculture, and processing industry.

The Mobutu dictatorship, and the bureaucrats and capitalists in Zaire who rely on it, receive handsome rewards from their imperialist masters. Mobutu came to power thanks to the Belgian and UN troops that were sent in to crush the mass anti-colonial movement which had already forced Belgium to grant formal independence. Today this butcher is one of the richest men in the world.

But the regime's terror and the crushing poverty have been unable to smash the courageous resistance of the working people. Militancy and struggle are growing, as shown for example by the mass strikes in January this year.

The strikes themselves were defeated by mass arrests ana execuuuu u _-J _annesting militants. But the underlying movement of struggle, with the proletariat in the forefront, has not been defeated. The imperialists recognise the dangerous instability of the regime in the face of mass anger and action. They see the threat to their control, and therefore to their profits, and they are looking for ways of ending this threat.

by Jim Farnham Already in 1978, they were forced to send troops in in roonna Mohutu from a developing uprising. Now there are signs that they may prepare for the replacement of Mobutu by a new puppet, in a desperate move to head off mass resistance.

Two possible candidates are the exiled ex-prime minister Nguza, and the current foreign minister, Lokumba. For the workers and poor peasants, such a rs change of dictators would not alter the daily reality of hardship and repression, would not lessen the burden of repayments, and would not remove the threat of another imperialist military intervention.

The Zairean working people face not only the puppet bosses' government, but the economic and military power of the international capitalist class. They need the support and strength of the international working class to help them in their struggle to overthrow exploitation and The labour movements in France, Belgium and Morocco have a special responsibility to prepare and mobilise against any moves by their governments towards military intervention.

And the labour movements in all the imperialist countries need to build links with the Zairean workers, to take action in support of strikes and other struggles, and to take up the question of loans and aid.

The money which the imperialists channel into Zaire is part of the profits stolen by them from the labour of working people throughout the world. That money must be used to help meet the needs of the people - not the greed of the bankers and their lackeys.

by Marti Thomas figure as the "defenders of

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Crushing poverty in imperialism's mineral treasure-house mineral treasure-house