[THE daily toll of violence meted out to…]

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THE daily toll of violence meted out to the Catholic community in the North of Ireland by the forces of the British state has been supplemented by a vicious Loyalist murder campaign.

The month of October saw a machine gun attack on TWO Anti-Nazi League members in Rochdale were taken to hospital with cuts and injuries last Saturday, 7th, after fascist attacks.

60 thugs, some with swastika armbands, turned up despite an official police ban on a planned British Movement march. And for several hours they roamed the area, attacking ANL members who had been leaffetting earlier in the day. The police did nothing.

The uselessness of police bans was confirmed: not only are such bans a danger to the Left, they are not enforced against the fascists.

But the ANL is becoming more active, with increased support from the local Asian community.

SUE ARNALI a crowded Catholic club in the Ardoyne-leaving Larry Kennedy dead and Michael Lagan wounded-and the cold blooded murder of a Catholic worker and an elderly Catholic woman.

Loyalist firebomb attacks have been aimed at a Catholic chapel in Derry and also at the home of a Catholic family in West Belfast-leaving 28 year old Helen Smith severely burned.

The violence has been stepped up in the wake of what Loyalists regard as Tory concessions to the 'H' Block hunger strikes.

And it has been fanned in particular by the ranting of lan Paisley, who recently had delegates at the 'conference' of his Democratic Unionist Party roaring their support for a 45 minute speech threatening armed resistance if the Tories did not toe the line of the Loyalist leaders.

"When I say fight, I mean fight." he thundered. And, on the streets, the legal paramilitary thugs of the UDA were already eagerly putting Paisley's views into a savage practice.

Withdrawal

The freelance violence of these defenders of Protestant privilege comes on top of the regular doses of plastic bullets, street searches, beatings and harassment administered to the Catholic minority by the British army, RUC and UDR.

Such violence intimidation cannot be ended within the framework of the sectarian six county statelet of "Northern Ireland"

It can olny be ended by the forced withdrawal of British troops and the struggle for aunited workers' republic in which the rights of both Catholic workers and protestants are secured.

In the absence of such a settlement, British workers must lend their solidarity to the struggle of the oppressed minority to defend their communities against attack.

*The Loyalist murder gangs have also undertaken their first internal killing for several years, with the shooting of UDA activist Artie Bettice. Bettice was accused of being a 'police informer' by the UDA's illegal death squad, the Ulster Freedom Fighters. He had apparently fallen out with fellow UDA leaders over the question of further sectarian killings.

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acialist Organiser, TI irsday 13 November 198/ Page 4

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