I would like to thank the committee for inviting us here today and I think it both ironic but poetic that the organization which started the struggle for civil rights in Northern Ireland-that being the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association-will be one of the last organizations to be brought before this committee. Mr. MURPHY. Thank you very much. This is Kevin McCorry? Mr. McCORRY. Yes. Mr. MURPHY. You are the organizer of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Is that correct? Mr. McCORRY. Yes. STATEMENT OF KEVIN MCCORRY, EXECUTIVE MEMBER AND CAMPAIGN ORGANIZER, NORTHERN IRELAND CIVIL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION Mr. McCORRY. It may seem from the history of Northern Ireland from 1920 onward that it poses an insoluble problem for those who want to bring normal politics to the area. But an understanding of the historical developments of government in Northern Ireland will show that the present trouble is not the result of some particular quirk in the Irish character, but the result of some historical development. Home rule for Northern Ireland was not wanted by the official Unionist or the Sinn Fein Parties in Ireland. The grand design of the British Government under the Government of Ireland Act was to establish two subordinate parliaments in Ireland, cooperating within a council of Ireland, but with the important powers "reserved" to Westminster protecting the "supreme authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom." The statelet of Northern Ireland was set up under the threat of armed rebellion against the wishes of the large majority of the population of Ireland, and a very large minority of the population of those six counties. This historical background to the establishment of the Parliament. and Government of Northern Ireland explains the subsequent history of the next 50 years and provides a valuable insight into the extraordinary events and legal developments of an integral part of Great Britain, but whose standard and code of behavior have been fundamentally different. A ONE PARTY STATE For 50 years political power in Northern Ireland has been in the hands of one party, the Unionist Party, which commands the largest number of votes from the electorate. From the time that this party came into power, it has institutionalized sectarian difference by sophisticated and intelligent devices. First it successfully challenged in 1922, the attempt by the British Government to withhold the royal assent to bills passed by the Senate and the Northern Ireland House of Commons. Then a vast apparatus was created by Stormont, often attaining byzantine grotesqueness, for stirring up and maintaining sectarian animosities, myths, mummery, marches, and provocations. Through every aspect of life in Northern Ireland runs the policy divide et impera. It is only necessary to mention in passing the alteration that was made in local government boundaries and electoral divisions and the imposition of an obligation on members of local authorities to make a declaration of allegiance to Stormont. Also the array of repressive legislation in which the Special Powers Act (abrogating two-thirds of the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) has the effect of preventing the development of peaceful politics in the North. NO DEVELOPED POLITICAL SYSTEM Northern Ireland has never been allowed by the Unionists to develop as an area where ordinary political and ideological differences are settled by political means. The deprivation of civil and human rights for a large and settle minority has been indicated by such reports as drawn up by the Hunt and Cameron Commissions and direct intervention by the British Government as a result of civil rights initiatives forced the Stormont government to introduce minimum reforms. But it is a tragedy that successive British Governments have given higher priority to maintaining the constitutional status quo against encroachments than to rectifying the justifiable grievances of the civil rights movement. London could do this because section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act reserves Westminster control over every person and thing within its boundaries. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association does not believe that the suspension of Stormont or direct rule from Westminster would head to an improvement in the civil rights position. Direct rule or any variation on direct rule would mean less democracy for the North, not more. DIRECT RULE NO SOLUTION Instead of one man/one vote, it would mean one man/no vote. If Westminster ruled the North directly there would be only three nonUnionists from Northern Ireland among the 600 M.P.'s who would be making laws for the area. The people of the North, whether Catholic or Protestant, would not have a say on what was being done. Furthermore, direct rule would be using the proverbial sledgehammer to crack a nut, for reforms in civil rights can be legislated at Westminster without the need to suspend the Stormont Parliament. We believe that the Westminster Parliament, whose creature Northern Ireland is, has a responsibility and the power to see that as a minimum British standards of democracy apply there. Already enlightened efforts have been made to introduce this fort of legislation into the Westminster Parliament. In May, 1971, to mention only the most recent, Mr. Arthur Latham, M.P., sought leave to introduce a bill under those provisions the Parliament of Westminster would use its reserve powers to intervene on behalf of the minority with the object of establishing a modus vivendi based on equality rights for all citizens, under which conditions sectarian animosity could be expected to die out over a period of time. BUILDING THE POLITICAL PROCESSES This bill, which NICRA believes constitutes an important element in any solution to the present violence, proposes the application to Northern Ireland of the provisions of the Race Relations Act; protection of the right of dissemination of their political views to all those prepared to work within the law; safeguarding them from provocation and insult; restoring proportional representation in all elections. It would have made ultra vires any enactment which countervened the generally accepted principles of human rights subscribed to by the British Government. It also gives encouragement to initiatives designed to improve relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic across the border. Had this bill of rights been passed in May 1971, the recent and continuing violence in Northern Ireland could have been avoided. Instead of being compelled to enforce the ill-devised and one-sided enactments of the Stormont regime any British soldiers it might have been agreed were desirable in Northern Ireland would have had the duty of enforcing the bill of rights, a duty in which they would have enjoyed the cooperation of the anti-Unionist minority as well as a substantial proportion of the working class Unionist voters who, under different leadership, and with the benefits of a different overall policy from the British Government would be expected to see the advantages of ordered social, political, and economic progress in the interests of all. REAL RECONCILIATION POSSIBLE We ask you not to accept the proposition that the Protestant community in Northern Ireland is congenitally incapable of cooperation with the Catholics, but instead that wise laws and good government can effect a total reconciliation. But in the absence of the legislation which NICRA recommends unemployment has risen to its highest level in well over two decades. The fires of destruction have spread ever wider as two artificially estranged communities composed of men and women, like you all here today, lurch blindly toward a disastrous civil war. But when the situation was already sufficiently dangerous Mr. Faulkner, instead of listening to the voice of reason and forebearance, consulted the extremists within his party, and sought to blot out opposition by wholesale internment of people he seems to have fancied were its leaders. The employment of British Military Forces to support this action has opened a wound which will remain with us for many years. Community relations in Northern Ireland have worsened. Relations between Britain and the Irish Republic have almost broken down, and suspicion and resentment have developed between the British and Irish people where a mutual understanding should be. RESTORING THE MINORITY'S CONFIDENCE Any solution at the present time must have a clear timetable. The first necessity is to restore confidence to the minority in Northern Ireland. The British Government must instruct the Government of Northern Ireland under pain of immediate legislation to release all internees and detainees. Secondly, troops must be progressively withdrawn, first from antiUnionist areas, then back to barracks pending their ultimate withdrawal from Northern Ireland. The next requirement is the immediate introduction of a bill of rights for Northern Ireland along the lines which we have outlined subject to such modification as may arise from discussions with interested parties. The next requirement is the convening at the earliest possible moment of a conference of interested parties without prior conditions on the part of the British Government, with the purpose of agreeing upon the best and broadest basis of cooperation in carrying out the general policy envisaged in the Bill of Rights namely, of equality between citizens and progress toward social reconciliation. We respect fully recommend these observations to your consideration. Mr. ROSENTHAL. Thank you very much, Mr. McCorry. Without objection, your statement may be printed in the record. The hour is getting late. We have a statement submitted by Dr. Maire Bradshaw, on behalf of the Irish-Republican Clubs of the United States and Canada.25 Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Anthony J. Hederman, senior counsel, member of the Irish Inner Bar, Dublin, Ireland. STATEMENT OF ANTHONY J. HEDERMAN, SENIOR COUNSEL, MEMBER OF THE IRISH INNER BAR, DUBLIN, IRELAND Mr. HEDERMAN. I would like the written statement made part of the record. STATEMENT My name is Anthony Hederman. I am a Senior Counsel and a member of the Irish Inner Bar and as such a practising lawyer in the Republic of Ireland. As a lawyer and as a citizen I am concerned with the establishment and the maintenance of the rule of law, not only in the area under the jurisdiction of my Government but in the contiguous area of Northern Ireland where a continuing and deepening crisis has not only vitiated the rule of law there but threatens to erode the foundations of democracy in my own part of the country as well. From the testimony which this Committee has already heard and from their awareness of the origins and genesis of the crisis in Northern Ireland I am convinced that this Committee, representative as it is of the legislators of this country, will be deeply concerned about the course of events in Ireland which, if they continue, will result in the rending and destruction of the fabric of civilized society and of the rule of law which is the final guarantee of the freedom to which we in Ireland, our neighbours in Britain and you in America are committed. U.S. RELUCTANT TO INTERVENE We have heard testimony here in particular yesterday from Assistant Secretary of State Hillenbrand which purported to demonstrate that it would be entirely inappropriate for the United States to interest itself or to intervene in a situation involving the denial of human rights or other infractions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Freedom in the United Kingdom or in Northern Ireland which is as you know an area ultimately subject to the jurisdiction of the Parliament at Westminster. The ostensible ground for this reticence and 25 See p. 370. reluctance on the part of the United States according to Mr. Hillenbrand, is the contention that whereas it was appropriate for the United States Government to comment upon or intervene in one way or another in situations involving denials of human rights in countries which were less than democratic or were in short totalitarian in character, such comment or intervention would not be appropriate where the democratic forms of Government survived and thereby and consequentially afforded machinery for redress. The tragedy is that Northern Ireland is an example of what happens when a society like Great Britain, committed to democracy, betrays its trust either through political expediency, intimidation or indolence, and allows conditions which are the negation of democracy in an area which it insists is ultimately and absolutely within the sovereign control of its Parliament. The facts are these: NORTHERN IRELAND NOT A STATE The present political entity known as Northern Ireland-which is not a sovereign state since it lacks the essential characteristics and powers of a statewas established through an unimaginative political compromise which, in essence, represented the capitulation by Britain to the threat of force from the Ulster Volunteer Force-the militant wing of the Orange Order. In 1920 Britain capitulated to the threat of force from this group and in so doing created a situation which, far from solving the political conflict in Ireland, ensured that this conflict in time would be exacerbated, intensified and perpetuated. The British compromise was to divide Ireland, a division which was accomplished by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, passed without one single Irish vote, by the British Parliament. The immediate political consequences of the Government of Ireland Act and of Partition were to create a situation in which communal discord would be perpetuated and, the democratic process would not only be unlikely to be respected but virtually certain to be made impossible. Democracy, as this country well knows, is not simply the promulgation of formal rules and norms, but the creation of conditions in which these formal rules and norms become living social realities. In Northern Ireland the powers vested in the Stormont Government by Great Britain through a gradual relinquishing of its authority over Northern Ireland gave to the Orange Unionist hegemony sufficient power in which to perpetuate that hegemony through the creation and maintenance of institutions which were divisive, discriminatory and disruptive in their essence of the standards and values of British and indeed Irish democracy. Since 1920, as any objective evaluation of the situation in Northern Ireland will show, the regime there has never enjoyed that degree of consent or compliance with its basic laws which are the hallmarks of a democracy. At the present time, behind the confusions and alarms of the violence in Northern Ireland, one simple fact is stark and clear. Virtually 40% of the population of Northern Ireland have withdrawn all consent and compliance from a regime which has repressed them economically, socially and politically for 50 years. The House has before it a resolution (No. 653) which, in my opinion, goes to the heart of the problem in Northern Ireland. In his statement before the Committee on Monday, Senator Kennedy dealt with four principal points which reflect four of the most important proposals both of the Kennedy and Ribicoff Resolution and of the Carey Resolution. These are in order the necessity for an end to internment, the question of the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland, the question of the dissolution of Stormont, and finally the question of the unification of Ireland. These four issues, in my opinion, lie at the heart of the political problem and an understanding of these issues and resolution of them is vital to the resolution of the present conflict in Northern Ireland and to the establishment of peace and justice through the rule of law in that area. I propose to deal with these four points in sequence: AN END TO INTERNMENT The Special Powers Act (Northern Ireland) of 1922 and its subsequent amendments are a clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on the 10th day of December, 1948. They are also a violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms-a Convention of |