"Why don't they let them bury this poor guy?" THE MACABRE harassment of the funeral of Larry Marley over a period of a week by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) has provoked the most widespread mobilizations of the nationalist community in Belfast since the Anglo-Irish agreement was signed.
IRELAND Marley home. As the coffin was carried to the hearse, the RUC surged forward, encircling the coffin and the hearse, and hand to hand fighting broke out. The body had to be carried back to the house a second time, and once again the funeral was abandoned.
That evening, 3,000 people took part in a protest rally in Ardoyne. Omagh district council decided to halt business for a week in protest at the RUC's behaviour.
Larry Marley's funeral finally took place, at the third attempt, on April 8 The cortege was preceded by more than 30 armoured landrovers, with another 40 parked near the cemetery and a massive RUC presence. It took seven hours, under constant RUC narassment, to escort the collin irom harassment, to escort the coffin from the Marley home to the burial site. All along the route thousands of Belfast residents turned out in protest at this latest degrading harassment of the nationalist people of the North of Ireland.
The explosion of anger at the treatment of the Marley family follows a gruesome RUC campaign of harassment at Republican funerals which has steadily built up over a period of three years. Between December 1983 and April 7 this year the RUC attacked mourners at 25 funerals. This included batoning the mourners, firing plastic bullets at them, brutal police charges in order to seize the tricolours drapimg the coffins and so on.
For the nationalist people of the North of Ireland, the supposed 'benefits" of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which it was claimed would "end the nationalist nightmare", , have been sharply exposed by the grisly scenes of the past few weeks.
Not only do no-jury Diplock courts, strip-searching of women prisoners and massive discrimination against Catholics remain - but those who oppose these sectarian monstrosities cannot even bury their dead with a minimum of dignity!
What could more clearly show to the world the grotesque character of that colonial anachronism, the Orange statelet of "Northern Ireland" than the report in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper: 'The pictures went around the world: of helmeted policemen with raised truncheons attacking a funeral procession. American CBS news called the BBC Belfast office to ask, 'Why don't they let them bury this poor guy?' "
Not only are the opponents of the Orange statelet denied the most minimum standards of justice in the courts and the prisons, but even their funerals are the objects of vindictive efforts to subdue and crush them. [From the British newspaper, Socialist Action, April 24, 1987.J International Viewpoint 4 May 1987
REDMOND O NEILL
Thousands upon thousands of people lined the streets of West Belfast and followed the funeral cortege of Larry Marley on Wednesday, April 8. They braved RUC batons and a massive paramilitary police presence, including dozens of armoured cars.
The Guardian newspaper described it as the 'highest display of Republican support since the hunger strikes. In scenes reminiscent of the mid1970s, old women shook their fists at soldiers leading a column of 35 landrovers in the front of the funeral procession up the Falls Road. Patients at the Royal Victoria Hospital came out onto the streets to give support...
They were there to express their condolences for the Marley family and their outrage at the RUC's attempts to terrorise and demoralize Republican families trying to bury their dead in peace and dignity.
The nightmare for the Marley family began when Larry Marley was murdered in his home by a loyalist death squad. Gerry Adams, a leader of Sinn Fein and the local Member of Parliament, accused the RUC and the British army of collusion in the murder: "No less than two weeks ago, a British army major told him that he would make sure that Larry Marley would not lives much longer and if they couldn't do it then they could 'get others' to do it for them."
At the time of the murder the Greater Ardoyne area, where Marley lived, had been saturated by RUC and British army units - yet the junmen escaped by the only route not covered by the patrols.
Marley was murdered just after 9pm on Thursday, April 2. By the following day, RUC landrovers had surrounded all of the approaches to the Marley home. This seige was maintained throughout the weekend.
On the Monday morning, scores of armoured RUC vehicles took up positions at all of the access points around the Marley home. Large forces of RUC, in full riot gear, surrounded the hearse. Another force stood six metres from the front door. As the coffin was carried out of the house just after 10am, batonwielding cops moved in around the hearse. Explosion of anger
Just before 1pm the family announced that the funeral would be postponed and announced: "We are asking the Cardinal to intervene with Tom King [Tory secretary of state for Northern Ireland] on our behalf so that the funeral can continue tomorrow peacefully."
A statement by the Belfast brigade of the IRA explained that the IRA had already paid its last respects to Marley when three men fired a volley of shots over the Republican memorial in Ardoyne on the Sunday night. Local clergymen, on behalf of the relatives, also made clear to the RUC that the family intended only to drape the coffin in the Irish tricolour [national flag]. So the RUC's claim that its massive show of force at the funeral was to prevent an IRA salute to Marley was simply a pretext.
That evening, 2,000 people took part in a silent protest demonstration in West Belfast. Fermanagh district council adjourned its meeting in protest at the RUC's action.
The following morning, the RUC doubled its presence around the