Operation Demetrius

It was 4 AM on August 9, 1971. Throughout the cities in Northern Ireland, policemen and soldiers drove through the streets in armored cars “lifting” people. They interned 342 people that  day.

One of them was Oliver Kelly. Early on August 9^th, they knocked on his family’s door, demanding for his brother William, who had run away months ago to join the IRA. When he responded that William wasn’t there, they took him. After interrogating him, a British major checked to see if he name was on the list of people to be interned. It wasn’t. The major simply said, “Oh well, give him the next number in line.” Oliver Kelly was interned because his brother was in the IRA. But Kelly was just one of the many innocent men interned in the Irish concentration camps.

All of this happened, because on August 9, 1971, the Irish Stormont government reinstituted the policy of internment. This Special Powers Act allowed British soldiers and policemen to arrest anyone and intern them without trial, without knowledge of the allegations against them. Perhaps the worst part, however, is that they were interned indefinitely.

Brian Faulkner

The Northern Ireland Prime Minister at the time Brian Faulkner justified this action by claiming, “I have taken this serious step solely for the protection of life and the security of property…this is not action taken against any responsible and law-abiding section of the community.”

Clearly, however, this was not the case. Exhibit A: Oliver Kelly. The army intelligence determined who was to be interned based upon information given to them by the RUC. This organization “tended to confuse civil rights workers, radicals, socialists, and old-time republicans with the IRA.” Thus, hundreds of Catholic men (yes, almost entirely Catholic, although it was reported that there were some Protestants, and by some I mean as many as you can count on one hand; although it is interesting to note that none of the suspected Loyalist paramilitary forces were interned) were taken from their families and put in crowded compounds to sit, and sit, and sit. In many cases, they sat for years.

This policy of internment, however, backfired on almost all fronts. It led to a couple of things:

1.    A lot of angry Catholics in Ulster. Almost all of the Catholics in Ulster viewed the policy as unjust. Thus, they began to become more radical and violent.

2.    The fall of the Stormont government. With the Catholics revolting, a large wave of violence broke out. In the four months after internment, 124 people were killed. Thus, the British government felt it necessary to intervene in Northern Ireland’s affairs and replace the Stormont government with direct rule from London. Kind of ironic that in an attempt to quell the violence, the government kick-starts the bloodiest years of the conflict. (171 died in 1971, 479 in 1972, and 253 in 1973. Most of these deaths were civilian casualties.)

3.    British government looks real bad. After the policy of internment started, the reports of British interrogation methods came out, and they were not flattering to say the least. Like verging on violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights not flattering. A few of the recounts I saw included the following: beating a 70 year-old man, making a 20 year strip down to his boots and beating him with a leather belt, beating people who couldn’t answer their questions, and threatening an 18 year-old at gunpoint.  Also, the policy alone was not particularly flattering. Critics of the policy compared the camps to concentration camps, and one inmate called the British Nazis. A particularly harsh insult considering World War II had just ended 25 years before.

4.    Bloody Sunday. The march in Derry on January 30, 1972 was to protest the policy of internment. It also contributed to point #3.

5.    Larger numbers of IRA recruits. There’s the kicker, eh? Trying to reduce IRA violence by putting their leaders and ranks in jail, and what do you get? You get more of them, that’s what. It’s fairly straight-forward as to why. All the more moderate Catholics were outraged that their family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers were being arrested and detained without a trial when many of them had done nothing wrong. Thus, although you were interning many of the higher-ranking officials, you got at least 2 or 3 new recruits for every higher ranking official you interned. These younger kids were much more indiscriminate than the older leaders. Oh the irony.