FROM THE ARCHIVES:The introduction of internment without trial in the North in 1971 was accompanied by so- called interrogation-in-depth techniques. In an official British report, Sir Edward Compton found some amounted to ill-treatment but not torture. James Downey was in the House of Commons for the subsequent debate.
They used to have a nonsense programme on Radio Éireann called “What are they talking about?” I can’t remember whether anyone ever guessed the subject of the obscure and boring conversations involved, but the phrase itself kept recurring to my mind again and again during yesterday’s debate on the Compton Report in the British House of Commons.
Were they arguing the moral problem involved – what methods is a democratic society (the United Kingdom) entitled to use in order to defend itself against insurrection? The Home Secretary, Mr. [Reginald] Maudling, and his opposite number, Mr. [James] Callaghan – two civilised men well qualified to talk about it – did seem at times to be addressing themselves to this question.
Or were they engaged in a traditional House of Commons exercise, praising the wonderful British Army, the most efficient (and also the most humane) armed force in the world? This certainly was the prime concern of most Conservative M.P.s: some went farther.
The chairman of the Tory backbenchers, Sir Harry Legge- Bourke (Isle of Ely) mentioned that the Black and Tans had been praised “for their gallantry”, and Mr. Robin Chichester-Clark (Unionist, Derry), who initiated the debate, remarked that there was a misbehaving one per cent in any force – why, that applied even to the B Specials.
At times the debate seemed to be concerned with censorship of the press. Some newspapers and television reports have been, well, you know, a little, shall we say, unbiased. This really is a bit much when they should be entirely on the side of the Army don’t you know.
At other times it seemed to be about the way in which papers (no prizes for guessing which ones) have from time to time become the dupes of the I.R.A. (which I.R.A.?) propaganda machine. It really does seem a shame that the British Government and Army have no propaganda machine of their own, and that newspapers never give their point of view.
How this I.R.A. machine works was not exactly revealed. The Association for Legal Justice was mentioned once or twice but no-one actually said that the association was an I.R.A. front. No-one actually said it. If you catch my meaning.
Then there was the question of the policies and affiliation of the Hon. Lady the member for Mid-Ulster [Bernadette Devlin]. Did she or didn’t she support the I.R.A.? Miss Devlin could have dodged that one, but she didn’t. “I am not,” she said, “against the Official I.R.A., its objectives or its activities”. While the faces of some of Miss Devlin’s Labour friends lengthened at this, the Tories remained curiously silent.
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