The British Occupation of the hills of South Armagh
but not the spirit of South Armagh |
British forces re-militerise South Armagh
The people of South Armagh firmly believe that the British government, through the device of the Good Friday Agreement, has purposely, excluded their community from any benefits that they deserve from the on-going peace process and the long Cessation of Military Actions in the area. A total of 98.8% of the people of South Armagh voted 'YES' in response to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and maintain that support in the face of continueing British violations of the GFA.
Since the Cessation of 1997, the level of British Army and RUC members deployed in South Armagh has increased by 75%. Helicopter activity, the stopping and searching of the people of our community, both young and old, by the British Army/RUC/PSNI is now at an all time high.
British military activity is now so high in South Armagh that the British Army press office was forced to admit that their activity is higher now than it was before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
In the South Armagh area there are:
5 major military bases;
14 hilltop forts;
31 hilltop spy posts;
Over 3,000 British soldiers and RUC/PSNI personnel, 1 for every 8 citizens; and
Over 200 helicopter flights each month to each hilltop fort and spypost.
To illustrate this point, between July 1997 and May 1999, 4,179 flights took place to the Glassdrummond base alone.
One third of Brits in South Armagh are stationed in the towers.
There are also hundreds of surveillance and infra-red cameras scattered throughout the area and according to the South Armagh Farmers and Residents' Committee, over 40,000 livestock have been killed since 1994 as a result of low-flying helicopters.
Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, the British Government was committed to publishing a plan for the demiliterisation of this country by the year 2000. As of this date, no such plan has been forthcoming and British PM Blair has admitted that his government is in violation of the GFA.
British tokenism in South Armagh
In South Armagh, they have spent £79 million in the year 2002 alone expanding the bases that they were committed to dismantle by the GFA . Many bases have been refurbished and several have been greatly expanded while only token dismantleing has taken place. In Crossmaglen, only the small sanger on The Square has been removed while the huge fort behind it remains; and this fort was hugely expanded in 1994 while the British were meant to be talking peace.
In the beautiful Ring of Gullion, blghted by the English military from the time of Mountjoy in 1601 when he built Moyry castle, the British Army have removed towers adjacent to the Sturgan and Camloch Mountain bases. The main bases on these mountains remain untouched however and continue their oppressive presence in the area.
It appears to many that the British forces are using the peace process to strengthen their presence in an area where, during the war, their movements were severely limited, such was the strength of and support for the IRA in the area.
Anger at new spytower in South Armagh
An additional spypost on top of Slievebrack Mountain, Forkhill was erected on Tuesday evening, 13 July 2002.
A number of British Army engineers and workmen were sighted assembling the tower, after large consignments of building materials were airlifted at the weekend into the already extensive and imposing military base, constructed in the mid-1980s.
Some local people reported seeing parts of a tower being airlifted to Slievebrack just after the one on Sturgan was dismantled, so it seems that even the token dismantleing of that tower was a hoax and the situation in South Armagh remains in stalemate as it has for the past 15 years.
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