BY STUART ROSS

“How many days of normality have you gained because the checkpoints on the border aren't there anymore, because honest people can go to a pub or a school or a church without the burden of a search.” So said US President Bill Clinton when he delivered his keynote address at Belfast's Odyssey Arena last December. It was part of his last public address to the people of Ireland as president of the United States.

Clinton's emotional speech may have gone over well with the 8000 or so spectators in the new Belfast arena, but it left the people in South Armagh scratching their heads.

“This is [simply] not the case in South Armagh”, said Toni Carragher of Crossmaglen. Carragher is the secretary and public relations officer for the South Armagh Farmers and Residents Committee. The committee, which formed in September of 1997, speaks out against the high levels of British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) activity in the South Armagh area.

In a letter dated December 21, Carragher corrected Clinton by noting that: “Since the resumption of the IRA cease fire ... and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement ... we have witnessed higher levels of British troops and RUC personnel being deployed into our area....

“The stopping and searching and helicopter activity is at an all time high. The British government has spent millions of pounds building and refurbishing their 30 watch towers on lands confiscated from local farmers and landowners and this is in addition to the five joint British army/RUC barracks that suffocate South Armagh.”

All of this exists in a tiny border region that is just 24 km by 16 km — a small rural community with virtually no crime. Still, it has the dubious distinction of being the most militarised area in all of western Europe.

The people in South Armagh are angry and they have every right to be.

“The peace process has meant nothing to South Armagh”, said Carragher. In fact, for some the harassment has gotten worse.

According to the British, the “continuing threat to peace” in Ireland prevents more than their token demilitarisation. Republican “dissidents” have become the new “menace”.

Meanwhile, Catholics in counties Derry and Antrim have been targeted in a wave of sectarian pipe bomb attacks. In towns like Coleraine and Larne, the RUC seem unable to combat this on-going loyalist violence.

In recent months the South Armagh Farmers' and Residents' Committee have stepped up its activities. In December there were two peaceful demonstrations which lead to the temporary occupation of British Army bases at Glassdrummond and Crievekeernan.

These demonstrations, according to the SAFRC, “demonstrate[d] the futility of the British military occupation in South Armagh”. They were also an embarrassment to the British government and its ministry of defence.

More demonstrations are planned in 2001.

For more information on the South Armagh Farmers' and Residents' Committee, visit their web site at <http://www.freespeech.org/safrc>.

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