20,000+ Security Personnel Maintain Britain’s Occupation of Ireland

Lasair Dhearg activists yesterday carried out a new guerilla marketing strategy throughout Belfast, in line with our ‘Smash Normalisation’ and ‘End the Occupation’ campaigns.

Pádraic MacCoitir, spokesperson for the group, said, “Early morning commuters awoke to find bus stop advertisements across the city had been replaced with our campaign posters. Featuring a British soldier, they state ‘20,000+ Security Personnel Maintain Britain’s Occupation of Ireland’. This figure includes all occupation forces from Britain’s Army, Navy, Air Force, Mi5, the PSNI, administrative staff and more.”

“The largest of these forces is known as the ‘Police Service of Northern Ireland’, a locally recruited paramilitary police force, the structures of which are largely made up of former members of the ‘Royal Ulster Constabulary’. It has the same purpose and function as its predecessor; to protect the British state, and British interests, in Ireland.”

“The PSNI is a core component in Britain’s counter-insurgency strategy in Ireland; its members wear body armour, travel in armoured jeeps, are armed with an array of weaponry from deadly plastic bullets, CS gas, to high-powered sub machine guns and assault rifles. It is the eyes and ears of the British state, and the first line of defence for the British occupation in Ireland.”

“This is backed up by a permanent garrison of British soldiers, numbering in their thousands, with an array of military hardware including helicopters, armoured boats, associated missile systems and much more. These troops, along with the PSNI, have permanent and widespread powers to stop, search, arrest and seize; and are ready and waiting to deploy to a street or field near you at a moment’s notice.”

“We hope that the continued roll-out of our campaigns will smash the myth that Ireland’s Six Counties exist within a new post-Good Friday normality. There is nothing normal about Britain’s continued occupation, and there is nothing normal about it’s ‘Police Service’ either.”

ENDS