A-Infos (en) WSM.ie Ireland, Derry and the War on Drugs: An Anarchist View

News that the Red Cross, an international humanitarian organisation, have been directly 
assisting local community workers in the Rosemount area of Derryhas again heightened 
concerns of a potential “drugs epidemic” developing in the city. ---- The story first 
broke over the last few weeks prior to a BBC Spotlight programme investigating the 
vigilante group Republican Action Against Drugs or RAAD.  It revealed that the Red Cross 
has been working with the Rosemount Resource Centre over the past eight months, believed 
to be the first time ever the humanitarian group has worked with another organisation in 
the north. ---- It’s been well documented over the last number of years that community 
workers within the Rosemount Resource Centre liaise with several armed republican groups 
and a growing number of young people said to be involved in anti-social behaviour or drugs.

Workers at the centre stated that as mediators they help prevent young people falling 
victim to possible punishment beatings and shootings, being exiled from their families or 
worse, executed. Likewise it’s said that if it wasn’t for their direct intervention then 
the numbers killed or maimed locally would be excessively higher.  There’s on doubting 
that that’s true enough, recent figures show an estimated forty people have been shot in 
Derryalone as a result of paramilitary-style attacks over the past 5 years. Five in 
Strabane while another three were shot in Donegal, including a young 24 year old father of 
one, Andrew Allen, murdered by RAAD in Buncrana back in February.

RAAD themselves have been in existence since 2008, and are said to have been created by 
members and recent ex-members of the Provisional IRA.  After a pipe-bomb attack outside a 
house in the city the following year they informed a local newspaper to explain that, 
“There is absolutely no political agenda within our organisation” stating also that they 
“rank-and-file members” of Sinn Fein were “fully supportive” of it activities.

Over the past number of months news coming out of Derry at times has resembled some type 
of Mexican border town rather than a host for the forth coming ‘UK City of Culture’, hence 
the pressure is on for someone to put a lid on things as the situation spirals out 
downwards.  The PSNI and RAAD, as well as a number of other republican groups have claimed 
they too are tackling the “drugs problem”. So in turn our children have been brutality 
assaulted or beaten, terrorised in house raids, drug finds here and there, people shot by 
appointment and expelled, blast bombs thrown, elderly people traumatised, even a raid on a 
rock memorabilia shop for selling ‘legal highs’ has been the order of the day.  So the 
propaganda war escalates as to who are the rightful ‘protectors of the community’.

Amidst all the hysteria no one has so much as considered even asking the young people 
themselves as to why some feel the need to be engaged in taking drugs in the first place. 
No one has considered cutting the drugs trade out from under the dealers, through 
legalisation or decriminalisation. Nor has anyone considered asking what help or 
assistance young people themselves could be given in order to tackle the issues 
surrounding drug taking or criminality?

In what look’s to be more and more like a battle for domination and control ordinary 
working class households, housing estates and communities have been left behind.

There’s no doubt that Derry has a drugs problem, but so do most major towns and cities 
across these islands. However in saying that, Derry’s drug problem pales into 
insignificance when you consider other larger cities like Dublin, Manchester, Cardiffor 
Glasgow.

It’s true that lives have been lost in Derry as a result of young people taking a cocktail 
of ‘illegally manufactured’ drugs as well as the ‘legal’ ones. There are of course those 
who are seen as ‘career criminals’ who will offload what they can, when they can for a 
quick profit which is why the trade and availability in prescription drugs has increased. 
Alcohol and prescriptive medication, both ‘legal’ drugs are crippling the lives of 
thousands of ordinary working class people in Derry just as in the rest of Ireland, yet 
nohing is being done.

Despite all the talk, there are no ‘drug barons’ or ‘drugs cartels’ as such ‘lording it 
up’ it around town. In most cases there are those who will chance their arm from time to 
time, doing runs for ‘career criminals’ or bigger fish operating further afield. It is 
thought that majority drug dealing in the city happens among ‘low level’ dealers when they 
supply to friends or a ‘selected’ social circle.  More often than not this tends to be 
cannabis or cannabis resin, with some dabbling in ecstasy, speed and cocaine.  But does 
this constitute a drugs epidemic?

So what about those larger cities that actually do have major drug problems, why don’t 
they have armed vigilante groups ‘policing’ large sections of the community acting as 
judge, jury and executioner? Why don’t they have armed paramilitary police squads 
rampaging through their communities, ripping up homes and terrorising children?

First and foremost, despite what politicians and the media would like people to think, 
Derrylike the rest of the six counties is still far from ‘normal’.  Working class 
communities have been scared both mentally and physically by the brutality inflicted on 
them through decades of war.

For some in our communities it’s perfectly normal, when looking for answers to issues such 
as drugs or anti social behaviour, what they feel is needed is the short, sharp, shock 
treatment, which is what groups such as RAAD feel they do best.  That doesn’t mean that 
it’s the correct way in which we deal with problems facing society here.  This is what 
happens when you have organisations, such as the various strands of republicanism, which 
have no class analysis on the society in which we live.

The barbarity of punishment shootings and beatings has been proven time and time again to 
be little more than a tool to aid power and control upon a community.  To say that ‘this 
is how we have always dealt’ with anti-social behaviour in the vacuum of not having an 
‘acceptable’ police force simply doesn’t wash. Taken in an historical context, the act of 
‘punishment beatings’ as we know it today, is an entirely new phenomenon when in comes to 
the north and has got to be rejected. Similarly in many working class communities the idea 
of having an ‘acceptable’ police force is an entirely alien concept, they too are viewed 
as nothing more than a tool used by the state to ‘keep us in line’.

With PSNI clearance rates for tackling punishment attacks currently at 4% it isn’t 
surprising then that they decided to launched a new ‘high profile’ campaign. A new 
Facebook initiative aimed at young people, openly encouraging them to ‘divulge 
information’ on those thought to be involved in ‘acts of paramilitary violence’. This is 
nothing short of yet another PR exercise which it’s said to be ‘designed to restore and 
enhance community confidence’ in the PSNI. Not surprising it comes at a time when support 
for them has hit an all-time low.

Of course it received the usual TV and radio fanfare, not to mention a ringing endorsement 
from the press and the politicians alike. However what it can’t disguise is the fact that 
this is yet another attempt to deflect attention from the wider issues facing working 
class communities.

Former civil rights activist and columnist, Eamonn McCann, recently described the 
situation as a “competitive hyping of the drugs problem by the PSNI, community 
spokespersons, mainstream political groups and some local media serves no good purpose 
when it comes to dealing with drugs.”

A view also held by one of the most vocal opponents of the PSNI and RAAD, the late Brian 
McFadden, a long time community activist and former political prisoner. Brian himself was 
no stranger to the issues of Drugs and Alcohol in Derry. After loosing his son Emmet to 
drugs several years ago he called for a campaign to demand proper treatment facilities, 
highlighting the urgent need for a detox centre in the city, which he felt could have 
prevented his son’s death. He quite rightly called on the community to collectively take a 
stand against the vigilantes, to take to the streets arguing for groups like RAAD to 
stand-down and to go away.

For anarchists locally, we have participated on the streets over the past number of months 
rejecting the activities of RAAD and that of the PSNI. We like many others continue to 
insist that only an organised community response can effectively deal with issues facing 
working class communities. A start to this has got to be an end to the punishment attacks, 
the shootings, the beatings and expulsions. In order to begin any type of sincere dialogue 
on the issues involved our communities demand the space, time and freedom to organise 
without any added pressures as witnessed these last several months, free from fear and 
attacks from all quarters.

Derry Anarchists: 
http://derryanarchists.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/community-action-against-vigilante.html

Derry: fear and republican vigilantes stalk new city of culture

On Thursday 28th June there will be a panel discussion on ‘A progressive approach to the 
drugs issue’ made up of community activists and a number of families that have affected by 
‘vigilantes’.  The meeting is seen as the start of a process of dialogue and debate around 
the issues around drugs in the city.  It will take place at 7pm in the City Hotel, Derry.

Pictures at http://www.wsm.ie/c/derry-war-drugs-anarchist
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