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Brits Planned Genocide of Irish—in 1972!
FOR CENTURIES THE BRITISH have tried to suppress and exterminate their neighbors the Irish. But that’s all ancient history, isn’t it? Unfortunately, no. A formerly secret document outlines a brazen plan by the British government to commit what can only be described, in international legal context, as genocide against the Protestant and Catholic populations of the British mini-statelet of Northern Ireland, created in 1921.
BY MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER
Admirers of Britain’s ruling class will have a tough time explaining away a shocking top-secret document from July 1972,1 released in 2003 by Britain’s Public Records Office. The 21-page document, or appendix—of which there were only 10 copies produced—was a closely held “contingency plan” by the then-government of “Conservative” British Prime Minister Edward Heath (PM from June 19,
1970 to March 4, 1974).
The plan would have ordered the forcible removal of 200,000 to 300,000 Irish Catholics out of Northern Ireland and into the Republic of Ireland. Protestants would also be forced to migrate. A total of one-third of Northern Ireland’s population would be shuffled around.
The appendix states categorically that such a plan could not be accomplished peacefully and would require complete ruthlessness “in the use of force.”
The document, Redrawing the Border and Population
Transfer, was signed by Sir Burke Trend, Heath’s cabinet secretary (in office from 1963 to 1973). It was written jointly by representatives of the foreign secretary, the defense secretary and the British secretary for Northern Ireland, among others.
Evidently, the British rulers did not bother consulting with Ireland’s prime minister, Jack Lynch (served 1966-1977), about the drastic measure, nor with Catholic or Protestant leaders.
The officials advised Heath: “We have, as requested, considered the possibility of redrawing the border with the republic and effecting compulsory transfers of population within Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland to the republic.”
Under the terms of this scheme, which the drafters said should be considered only in case of an “extremely grave emergency,” London’s ruling class intended to cede some territory on the border to the Irish Republic, from which land some 200,000 Protestants would then be moved into what remained of British Northern Ireland. At the same time, some 300,000 Catholics would be forced into the Republic of Ireland.
British officials noted that “military planning [was]well in hand” for the purpose of effecting the dual transfers, but recognized that there was the possibility of “outrage from the United States and other British allies” and that the scheme would be problematic in terms of implementation.
However, the fact remains that the so-called “democratic” government of Britain was actually considering such a plan. The only reason the plan was rejected was due to practical grounds, rather than any principled objection to the forced resettlement of half a million people.
Had the plan been carried out, both the Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants could have charged the British government with genocide under the terms of the international Genocide Convention.
Genocide is defined in the convention as the commission of any of a number of enumerated acts “with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.”
The acts specifically cited in implementing legislation for the convention include killing, inflicting serious bodily injury, or causing mental impairment through torture or drugs of members of the group.
Also cited is the subjection of the victimized group to conditions of life designed to bring about its demise, restricting births within the group or transferring, by force, children of the group to another group.
Certainly, the forced and forced transfer of the Irish people would therefore constitute the crime of genocide.
It is interesting to note that in 1999, the Tony Blair government of Britain faked “outrage” over allegations that the Yugoslavian government of Slobodan Milosevic had drawn up a plan to forcibly relocate Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian population.
No evidence of this claimed plan, designated “Operation Horseshoe,” was ever presented.
Yet the British ruling class asserted that the very possibility of the existence of such a plan justified NATO’s ensuing bombardment of Yugoslavia, which inevitably killed at least 500 civilians (some sources say 1,200 to 5,700).
There has been no call by the present British government for the 1972 British genociders to be held to account.
ENDNOTE:
1. Incidentally, 1972 was the bloodiest year of Northern Ireland’s 25-year civil war. On “Bloody Sunday,” January 30, British troops shot 27 unarmed civil rights protesters in Derry, 14 of whom died.
MICHAEL COLLINS PIPER is a prolific author, journalist, media critic, talk show host and marketing professional residing in Washington, D.C. He has been active in the Revisionist movement for 28 years.
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