Minimum Security

national | miscellaneous | news report

Saturday March 01, 2003 21:42

by Ciaron O'Reilly - Catholic Worker

pitstop_ploughshares at hotmail dot com

087 918 4552

After four weeks in Limerick prison I find myself back on the streets...or "minimum security" as Phil Berrigan called our lives of self-regulated accommodation with the high crimes of state and corporations. This can't be freedom - there must be much more to it than this!

PIT STOP PLOUGHSHARES - Ciaron Out: Damien, Deirdre, Karen, and Nuin Remain in Limerick Prison

Back in Minimum

After four weeks in Limerick prison I find myself back on the streets. Before I turned in last night I saw four armoured personnel carriers pass by the pub on their way to Shannon, this morning I started the day in my Limerick B & B bedroom with a detective making threats.

So we're back in "minimum security" as Phil Berrigan called our lives of self-regulated accommodation with the high crimes of state and corporations. This can't be freedom - there must be much more to it than this! More the case with restrictive bail conditions demanding I sign on daily at Pearse St. Garda Station, stay out of County Clare, a mile away from the U.S. Embassy (conveniently snuggled up against the British and Israeli Embassies) avoid getting busted. The rest of my "Pit Stop Ploughshares" community - Deirdre Clancy, Nuin Dunlop, Karen Fallon and Damien Moran - remain in Limerick prison continuing the witness against the war preparations. Following the Dan Berrigan advice of "Just don't do something - stand there!" When preparations for mass slaughter become legal and profitable - serious peacemaking becomes criminalised.

The Ennis Prosecutor (21/2) revealed that he was under orders from Dublin to oppose any bail for Karen and myself. The first Judge (7/2) ruled that I was "too passionate" to be given bail, the Judge at the second hearing relented. I have taken bail to return to my job at a Dublin homeless shelter to help provide an economic base for our community upon release. We are big on heart, but a little light on resources, finances and infrastructure.

There is also a feeling in our group that someone should come out and do some organising and explaining. Ploughshares and acts of non-violent, faith-based resistance are relatively new to the Irish scene. We have been slandered and lied about by the Taoiseach, Ministers for Transport and Defence and the U.S. emissary who claimed we "assaulted and hospitalised a Garda" during the disarmament of a U.S. navy war plane on February 3rd. at Shannon Airport. This untruth was rejected by a Garda press statement, which denied anyone was assaulted or hospitalised during our action. The Taoiseach, ministers and emissary have still not retracted their false statements four weeks later; various media have repeated the lies.

Our trial could be as far away as February 2004, so we are in this for the long haul. I hope to do some organising around the next phase - community building, outreach and kick starting a Catholic Worker hospitality house.

Community and Solidarity

Our community and resolve have deepened during our prison time together. Non-violent resistance and its consequences can be the most empowering experience of your life or the most disempowering - the determining factors are community and solidarity. The prison/judicial system is designed to isolate, separate, demoralise the resister. The only counter is community and the Spirit that facilitates it. Evident at our last bail hearing (21/2) as the detectives rushed us into Eire 'Og Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA) Club House that serves as the Ennis Court. The D's pushed us into the far corner where we couldn't communicate with the family, friends and strangers who had travelled and gathered to support us.

A suit approaches us and goes into a rap about serving Air Rianta High Court injunctions, we put our hands in our pockets and confront the suit...."I'd really like to speak to you about your corporation's complicity in the sanctions that have killed 1.5 million Iraqis over the last 13 years!" The suit goes mute, averts his eyes and scurries away. The injunctions have fallen to the floor and for the rest of the day are steadily trampled underfoot by cops, lawyers, reporters, monks, prisoners and us.

We are accompanied by six Romany prisoners who are oblivious to the implied intimidation of the setting, rituals and disapproving looks of authority - they chatter away giving a blast of humanity to a very uptight scene. Very inspiring!

In our isolated corner we are backing on to a large window, a television cameraman has set up outside to take some shots. A detective leans over and pulls down the blind, we pull it back up - a stand off interchange ensues...

"What are you embarrassed about? What have you got to hide from the light? Your complicity in this upcoming massacre?"
"Be quiet, this is a court!"
"No it's not, it's bar, it's a G.A.A. Club (The judge had yet to arrive) In democratic countries people have public trials!"
"Why don't you go back to yours?" (aimed at me).
"An aborigine told me to go back to where I came from, and here I am! We wouldn't have left this country, if we knew the independence of it would be left in hands like yours! My grandparents struggled and suffered for Irish independence....."
Another detective, "....so did mine!"
"Exactly, and this lot have sold it so quickly and cheaply to the Americans!"
.....things settle down, the dialogue with the detectives will continue as the day drags on back in the Ennis police cells and on the bus back to the jail. The same bus company that moves around the U.S. military stopping over in Shannon. What is clear to them is that we are upbeat, not intimidated and not guilty.

Prison is the Crime!

Limerick Prison is an old Victorian structure, no plumbing in B Wing cells, slopping out, not a lot going for it as an institution, but shoots of humanity breaking through. Walking on to the exercise yard is my first experience of sensory deprivation while being outdoors! I kid you not, it's 3-D 40 shades of grey - sky, ground, trousers, jumpers, security camera, wire fence, stone wall, cement wall, security grills, bars, razor wire, punctured footballs on razor wire, guard hut.......all a variant of grey. Loss of depth. Loss. Waste. A circular conveyor belt direct from poverty to prison to poverty. Prison is the crime.

Endlessly walking around in circles, the only collective hope expressed is that over ripe tomatoes with little blocks of hash thrown over the wall and resting on the security net maybe encouraged to fall. Mostly drudge, constant institutional humiliation, resignation, despair...occasionally moments of beauty and humour, sometimes violence and brutality.

One day we are thrown into a 4-a-side type of "Anawym Utd." to play some guys looking for a win. Moinga from the Congo in goal, Alex a Romany guy in a roving midfield role and making up the numbers another dreadhead Pat from Belfast. Pat's guest appearance secured by a weekend bust drinking a bottle of wine while perched on an industrial crane in downtown Limerick City Centre. He and a friend scaled the crane for perspective. I had met Pat at Ecotopia (no, not a galaxy far away...but a groovy festival in Clare over the Summer). He had provided the pedal powered amp systems for the bands. So the football game was a laugh and we didn't get thumped by too much.....

Wholesale & Retail in Stab City

The next day I come back from a visit where I have told folks I had experienced no real hostility while here. I go onto the yard and fall into step with Damien and Moinga - sharing info. and updates from the visit. A young guy has thrown something at us, he then runs up and flicks Moinga (the only African in the prison) in the face. Seeing this as racist harassment I respond with a growl "Have you got a firkin' problem?" The young guy turns on me, producing a knife replying "Have you got a fuckin' problem?" The guy is doing life for a stabbing and has little to lose. I definitely have a fuckin' problem! I make a mental note - must drop the macho one-liners when confronting Limerick youth on racist discourse. We keep doing laps, it's pretty intense. I get off the yard, Damien does some diplomacy. It emerges the knife is for someone else who has wisely locked himself in his cell. It's part of the ongoing war in Limerick (known nationally as stab city).

A lot of guys are aligned to two feuding families. The most recent expression of hostilities was the kidnapping of two sons of a previously murdered gang leader. The kidnappers then double-cross their paymaster after a rise was refused, killing him. They take another cut to free the brothers after a week. Another young guy on the yard has had his leg blown away by an AK47. He is in for possession of a Kalashnikov. So it's a war of drug fuelled microeconomics that mirrors the machinations of the macro-criminality of Bush, Blair, Ahern and Hussein. There are two types of crime in our world - wholesale and retail. Wholesale theft, killing, extortion and dealing are carried out by governments and corporations serviced by the law and the military. A lot of the lads are in this prison for mimicking the State (not resisting it), they haven't been born with the Bush birth rite to kill, deal and thieve but they've tried their luck on a retail scale.

There are signs of hope! Three U.S. corporations which have transported 23,000 troops through Shannon in the past 6 weeks have announced they are pulling out due to security issues surrounding the disarmament actions. 700 Garda and the military surrounding themselves with razor wire arrest 10 good folks at Shannon Airport today. In England, folks arrested blockading Northwood H.Q. and RAF Fairford. Two good folks arrested blockading British Commandos departing from RAF Brize Norton. News of blood pourings at the White House and Pentagon. Scores of folks sentenced for resistance at the School of the Americas (see www.soaw.org). In Brisbane, friends are busted blockading the Military Recruiting Centre.

Peace and solidarity
Ciaron O'Reilly