British Demilitarisation Demanded!

tyrone | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday October 26, 2005 19:46 by Ógra B - Ógra Shinn Féin osf6county at yahoo dot com www.osfbf.pro.ie

Onwards to Victory!

A successful National Demilitarisation Weekend was held in Omagh from 21-23 October!

British Demilitarisation Demanded

The issue of British Demilitarisation was top of the agenda at the annual West Tyrone Ógra Shinn Féin Demilitarisation weekend recently. (21st – 23rd October) It was the fourth weekend highlighting the issue of Demilitarisation in the West Tyrone area.

A large crowd gathered in the Sinn Féin offices on the Friday night to hear of the prison struggle by ex POW, Brian McMahon who is currently Sinn Féin mayor of Strabane District Council. Brian spoke of how he moved through the ranks of the republican movement and reminisced of his time imprisoned. He recalled tales of digging tunnels in Long Kesh and how, after entering Long Kesh he found himself covered in boot polish and singing ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ to the laughter of his comrades, who welcomed him to ‘the Kesh’.

Saturday kicked off, after registration with a presentation by the (ORDC), Omagh Residents Demilitarisation Committee. The presentation began with Councillor Martin McColgan outlining the unacceptable level of interference to everyday life that people living in close proximity to the Lisanelly Base have endured over the past thirty or more years. He talked about the noise levels from helicopter flights, the noise from the shooting range and the possible risk to health and intrusion of privacy caused by the various cameras and other devices dotted around the perimeter of the Lisanelly British Army Base. The presentation was the same shown to the Omagh District Council a number of months previous. This led to the Omagh District Council calling on both the Dublin and London Governments to close the camp down. The ORDC presentation was given by chairman Martin McColgan and committee member, Jim Falconer.

Following this Ógra members were divided up to workshops and had different discussions on how best Ógra could play their part to Demilitarise the British War Machine in Ireland. Feedback was given on the workshops, which will now be formulated into a national Demilitarisation strategy for Ógra. Following this everyone broke for lunch.

Shortly after 3:00pm, with everyone rejuvenated for the evening session, Danny Morrison entered the room.

Danny was there to give a talk on ‘A Life in Struggle’. No better man was there to speak, Danny had seen a lot from the period of 1969 – to the present day. Danny gave a detailed talk on his life in the Irish republican struggle and told us on the influences which led him to join the ranks of the republican movement at an early age. In later Years he was the editor of An Phoblacht / Republican news, wrote several books and plays, was a former abstentionist MLA and was the man who caped the famous phrase of ‘The Armalite and the Ballot Box’. Danny related his stories to us and gave us his knowledge on how young republicans can play their part in securing freedom for our country. Following Danny’s Talk there was a question / answer session with him.

Jim ‘Flash’ McVeigh; was next on the agenda to give a leadership briefing. Jim spoke of the future of our struggle and how he believed, by recent developments, we were on course for a Re-Unified Ireland of Equals, and he also warned of the dangers of complacency stressing that this was ‘not a time for retreat or to do less but rather a time to do more ensuring the struggle is successfully concluded.’

Following Flash, came the final item on the agenda for Saturday; it was a showing of a DVD of the revolutionary life of Ernesto Ché Guevara.

Following this delegates returned to the Hostel and donned their glad rags to dance the night away to the Irish Brigade. Everyone let their hair down in the resident county of Sam Maguire.

Sunday morning came early for some Ógra members and before they knew it they were informed of the next item on the agenda –a Sponsored Walk 4 Irish Unity!

Following the sponsored walk, came the one of the major highlights of the weekend – the Demilitarisation protest at Omagh British Army Camp. Before the procession had commenced towards the camp a few eagled eyed activists spotted the Special branch filming Ógra as we met at a pre designated spot.

The procession towards the British army camp started shortly after 2:30pm. Ógra marched from a local car park to the British Army a short distance away. The front of the British army camp was lined thick with PSNI / RUC personal. Shortly after assembling a PSNI / RUC car pulled up alongside protestors and two well known anti republican members of the PSNI / RUC got out and began taunting protestors & threatened a few members with arrest. The protestors got a lot of attention and many well-wishers touted their horns in support. There was a large crowd passing the camp on their way to see Carrickmore GAC lift their fifteenth Tyrone senior county championship.

The protest finished at 3:00pm and Ógra returned to a local restaurant to be welcomed with a Sunday lunch.

Following this, Ógra comrades who travelled form throughout Ireland to be in Omagh for the Demilitarisation weekend 2005, left for the long journey home. On their way home, Ógra Shinn Féin National Organiser and Waterford comrades, among them the Munster ÓSF organiser were detained by the PSNI / RUC, who interrogated them and demanded their details. Hitting out at the huge presence of Crown Forces and the detention of Ógra activists, Barry McColgan said,
‘The RUC/PSNI were out in force at the Demilitarisation Protest, many operating hand held video cameras. Given the history of State Collusion between the RUC and Unionist paramilitaries it is of deep concern to many activists present at the protest that there faces may now be in the hands of a Unionist Death Squad. On a more determined note though, if the Branch and RUC/PSNI think that by their insults, their intelligence gathering and detentions that they will in some way deter us, they are wrong. They are only resorting to this harassment because they fear us, they fear us because they fear the future.’

Speaking to An Phoblacht following the weekend Barry McColgan said,
‘A very inspiring Demilitarisation Weekend has been held, with many radical, innovative and positive ideas being discussed throughout the workshops. We are sure that through events like these we have massively raised public awareness on the issue of British Demilitarisation, strengthening our negotiators hands when they are demanding the closure of such bases. Omagh Brit Camp now looks set to close in August ’06, and although there are many other outstanding issues of Demilitarisation, from the energy and determination demonstrated by activists leaving Omagh we are sure that it will only be a matter of time before Britain’s War Machine in Ireland becomes a thing of the past!’
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