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As the fanfare for Europe began to sound in the New Year, 19 year-old Liz McKee from Andersonstown, Belfast was arrested by the British Army. She later achieved the unen viable distinction of being the first woman to be interned in Ireland during the present struggle.
Liz McKee has been charged with no crime for which she could be convicted in an open court. Instead, the paraphenalia of Whitelaw's Gauleiter Courts, with Special Branch men and police spies hidden behind curtains, giving hearsay evidence on which they they cannot be cross-questioned, will be used to get her behind bars.
Liz McKee was an active member of the Anderstonstown community helping victims of Loyalist pogroms and British Army raids, leading the women 'sisters' who warn the community of an impending British Army attack - she was once threatened with shooting by a mamber of the Royal Artillary Regiment for this. The British tactic of killing the IRA by kindness to the Catholics, as part of their overall strategy of imposing a British solution on Ireland, is in shambles. Repression has been mounting steadily against those sections of the population who want to break from British imperialism, and especially in Andersonstown, which as Bernadette Devlin has said, is as brutally occupied as was Warsaw during the second World War. Its aim is to crush the will of the people to resist. That this has failed, that people are still prepared to confront the Army on the streets, to refuse to pay rents, and to support the IRA in its military campaign, continues to prevent British imperialism from imposing its solution on Ireland.
Liz McKee's crime' against British imperilaism was that her activity was contributing to maintain the morale of the nationalist population.
Her arrest has been condemned by the whole anti-Unionist population in the North, and has brought a stream of protests from local people and organisations, including a 1,000 strong march by women from Anderstown.
The support shown by British supporters of the Irish struggle is crucial to the outcome of that struggle, for it has a direct effect on the morale of the anti-imperialist population. The arrest of Liz McKee must be condemned. But this can only be effective as part of an on-going solidarity campaign against British imperailism, which takes as its starting point the right of the Irish people to self-determination.
Such a movement, the Anti-Internment League, exists in Britain, to mobilise the maximum number of forces in solidarity with the Irish struggle. It has branches throughout Scotland, Wales and England, and can be contacted at, 37, Gordon Mansions, Torrington Place, London W.C.I.