Occupation: Northern Ireland and Iraq

Did you know that British forces in occupied Iraq are outnumbered by those in Northern Ireland?

Yesterday a number of residents from South Armagh, the most heavily occupied area of Northern Ireland attended a European Union (EU) conference to discuss the continued occupation by British troops.

The conference was organized to discuss military bases in Europe.

The Southern Part of Armagh (South Armagh) located along the border with the Republic of Ireland is the most militarized region in Western Europe. South Armagh is over 90% republican and has long struggled against the British military occupation.

Representatives from the South Armagh Demilitarization Committee which was formed a number of years ago to campaign against the military occupation of the local area, said that it was important that people at the conference were able to hear first hand accounts of what life is like in South Armagh. Said a spokesperson for the group, "It was important to listen to other stories and experiences from today's conference. We will continue to campaign for the complete removal of the apparatus of repression which continues to blight the South Armagh countryside and its people."

Although ten years have passed since the beginning of the peace process and seven years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement not much has changed for those living in South Armagh.

Sinn Fein News reports that in addition to a discussion of the numerous fortifications erected in South Armagh by the British, and the massive surveillance that continues there unabated, the group also highlighted the dangers posed to the health of people and livestock by the massive concentration of low frequency microwave radiation emitted by the huge array of surveillance equipment. These concerns have been verified as quite real by numerous scientific investigations.

I mentioned Iraq back at the beginning of this article. I’ll end the article with Iraq as well.

Danny Morrison’s - Irish Political News web log reports that Ed Moloney, a veteran journalist who has been reporting on Northern Ireland for two decades, says the parallels between what is happening now and what happened in Ireland from the start of the troubles onward are sometimes so uncanny that it's weird.” He adds, “That means that you're (US) in for -- one awfully long occupation of Iraq.”


“I think,” Moloney told Amy Goodman in an interview she conducted almost two years ago, “a lot of people (in Northern Ireland) are looking at what's happening in Iraq: We have been there and we have the t-shirt. We have a wardrobe full of t-shirts, in fact, and you guys (US) are in for a very tough time there. And, of course, the lesson from Northern Ireland, the other lesson, that applies from Northern Ireland, to the Iraq situation, is that at the end of the day, the British -- all of the force that the British could bring to bear against the I.R.A., all of their intelligence resources, all the money that they could spend, all of the spooks and spies that they could recruit, at the end of the day, didn't make any difference at all, because the violence was organic.”


“At the end of the day, if there is a solution to Northern Ireland - I suspect there is a solution to Northern Ireland - it's one of compromise, but it's also essentially a political solution. It's not one that was won or secured by military victory or military defeat. It was achieved by political settlement. The same thing is going to have to happen, I suspect, at the end of the day in Iraq.” Sources: Sinn Fein News, Irish Northern Aid Committee – Michigan Unit, Danny Morrison - Irish Political News, Democracy Now