GET THE BRITS OUT! "A new mood of political optimism and determination to apply lessons"

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WHEN someone painted '"'H.M.P. Rossville" on one of the few bits of the Rossville Flats not already covered with a mural, they obviously struck a sore point with the Housing Executive.

In Bogside there have been changes It was immediately painted out. = You would have thought the Executive would have known better. It was promptly painted in again - this time in bigger letters.

When we left the tit-for-tat painting was still going on. The local paper, the Derry Journal, quoted one Rossville tenant as explaining the similarity with a prison: all the residents want out.

The- Housing Executive's determination to remove the slogan was curious, because they left untouched all the other murals which are painted the length of the flats, and on virtually every other piece of available wall in the Bogside.

The murals, often painted a ith considerable skill, are, for visitors, the most immediate symbol of the war which has been waged in the North for Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine: recalled first national conference. Saturday May 21, 1lam, County Hail, London SE1.

Details: c/o 28 Carlton Mansions, Hotmleigh Rd, London N16. the past thirteen years.

Portraits of the hunger strikers, and memorials to the dead volunteers of the Derry Brigade, are painted side by side with warnings to the RUC to 'keep out' and appeals to youth to join Na Fianna Eireann (the Republican youth movement).

Above all, however, the theme is support for the Provisionals and (not as often) the Irish National Liberation Army.

Above the Bogside the old city walls still dominate the skyline.. Down in the Bogside, however, there have been dramatic changes.

Whole streets have been demolished, many of them burnt out during the battle of the Bogside. Free Derry Corner, where the words were painted, "You are now entering Free Derry", is still there, but the street has gone. The gable end now stands between the sides of a dual carriageway."

The significance of the monument is not lost on British soldiers. It has recently survived both pots of paint thrown from passing army trucks, and a presumably drunk British soldier who rammed it in a Saracen.

There have been many other changes in the past thirteen years. The increasing sophistication of the methods of repression has been expressed not just in technology, but also a realisation by the British Army that some of the original methods - like frequent foot patrols and permanent road blocks — were costly, dangerous, and in many ways counterproductive.

Nowadays it is perfectly possible to walk freely about the centre of Derry without being stopped and searched every few hundred yards at a checkpoint.

This apparent lessening of repressive activity is deceptive. Permanent surveillance by hidden cameras is more effective. The raids in Republican areas and the random checkpoints have the advantage of surprise.

All of this, of course, is backed up by the criminal charade which is called justice in the North. So farcical is this system that you can see why a whole generation believes that, since innocence is no defence in a no-jury court, you might as well make sure you really are guilty.

The most effective weapon recently in the security forces' arsenal of repression has undoubtedly been the 'supergrass'. In Derry, Raymond Gilmour has been a serious problem for the Provos. Nevertheless the Provos were able to supply an impressive colour party (which included a women's section) on the recent Easter commemoration march in Derry.

The march was eloquent testimony to the popular support enjoyed by the Provisional IRA. Held simultaneously in many areas throughout Ireland to commemorate the 1916 Rising — when James Connolly and Patrick Pearse proclaimed the Irish Republic, in Dublin — and to honour the Republican dead, the Easter marches are in unequivocal support of the armed struggle. As one Bogsider told us, "This is the Army's day"

This year's Easter Sunday was a bitterly cold day, and the two or three thousand who gathered at Free Derry Corner were soaked by driving sleet as they waited for the colour party to arrive.

After a whole, to applause from the crowd, they marched in formation from a side street. Another loca, a socialist, critical of many of the reactionary traditions in the Republican movement, turned to me and army, - this is a people's said, "One thing they cannot ally At ane point, as we marched trom tre Bogside towards the Republican plot in the cemetery, an armed unit of two men and a woman materialised from the Brandywell estate. They stood in armed salute to the march as it passed by.

All the time the Army helicopters hovered above, unable to do anything but film the scene below.

At the cemetery wreaths were laid in honour of the Republican dead, and the proclamation of the 1916 Rising was read by Mary Nelis (the first time it has been read by a women in Derry).

Mary Nelis was one of the founders of the Relatives' Action Committees and has a son still in prison. Her house was one of the dozens raided yet again in the Creggan and Bogside in the week before the march.

Until just before the end of the ceremony there was always one, and sometimes two helicopters, hovering above the platform.

Mary Nelis had told us before the march began not to expect to hear much of the speakers. "You watch the speakers today" , she said. "You'll have to wait for next week's Republican News to find out what they said"

Roar The continuous roar of helicopters is so much a part of life in the republican areas that locals seldom comment on it. It is nonetheless yet another side to the harassment and intimidation of the British system of repression.

That was probably most poignantly clear when the people defiantly observed a minute's silence in honour of the dead, while overhead the PHOTOGRAPHS BY CALLUM MACRAE deafening roar of the helicopter continued unabated.

During the time we spent in Derry, we were able to speak informally to a few members'of Sinn Fein, and were impressed by the left turn that seems to be taking place.

We spoke to members of Sinn Fein's trade union department, who have taken the organisation into Derry Trades Council for the first time. The Trades Council until now has been a small body dominated by Militant supporters. When they organised a demonstration a few weeks before Easter less than one hundred turned out, and that included Militant supporters bussed in from all over the North.

A couple of weeks ago; at the Trades Council AGM, Sinn Fein stood for election for the first time. Two Sinn Fein members were elected to positions on the executive, along with a few other supporters. As for the mood in the movement generally, we felt it was significant that in spite of military setbacks caused by Raymond Gilmour's 'evidence we detected a real feeling of political optimism and a determination to apply the political lessons that, as one Sinn Fein member put it, "we have been learning for the past ten years"

A fading slogan painted on the old city walls reads, "God made the Catholics - the Armalite made us equal". As a piece of black humour it stands the test of time. As a description of the politics of the Republican movement, it is increasingly inadequate.

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TR OUT BOBBMSANDS 1 RT HON IRA. RUC KEEP

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