The Forgotton Victims

TWENTY-FNE YEARS AGO on the afternoon of Tuesday November 8 1960, an Irish patrol serving with the UN in the Congo was attacked by over 100 Baluba tribessmen in an am bush the army would prefer to forget. Eight Irish troops died. Confidenntial army reports now availlable to Magill reveal that a number of factors contribuuted to the massacre taking place: strict UN orders meant that the Irish could only deefend themselves after being fired-on, vague orders from HQ to carry out the patrol were open to different interrpretations, and the platoon at Niemba was particularly vulnerable without the possiibility of reinforcement and with no air cover. These factors made it almost ineviitable that the troops staationed at Niemba would be attacked. They were victims as much of bad organisation by the army as of the Balubas. For reasons best known to the Department of Defence, only one medal was awarded to those who died in the ammbush although others during the ambush and before it showed what could be desscribed as conspicuous galllantry .

WE ARE most disturbed at the consequences (or lack of them) of the 'finding of a heroin cache at the offices of a magazine called "Phoenix". This magazine, produced by a number of ex-students and styling itself "For Men Who Dare", was set up some time ago by a Mr John Mulcahy, a former journalist, as a work experience proogramme for his otherwise unemployable son, Nicholas.

A Sense Of Community

THE PEOPLE WHO RUN UCD earlier this year took a cleaning contract away from one company and gave it to another, causing a number of existing cleaners to lose work. The cleaners objected to this and went on strike.

JIM MITCHELL decided to award the rights to Ireland's first broadcasting satellite to a private firm rather than to RTE. Fair enough. We would like to suggest, however, that there was a far worthier candidate for the satellite than James Stafford of Atlantic. Chris Carey, bossman of Radio Nova is not only a man of enormous culture and civilisation, a scholar and a patron of the arts, he also has more than a passing affinity with outer space.

WHILE RESEARCHING our cover story we were led to make compariisons between the pension rights of various employments.

Apartheid: AT 11AM ON THURSDAY August 22, people were walkking in and out of Gardiner Street employment exchange to get their dole money. About twelve people who looked as if they were going to go in stopped at the gate and waited. Another eight stood about twenty yards from the gate.

THOSE WHO seek an insight into the acceptance of Section 31 out in RTE might have a look at the March 18 issue of Fortnight. There, one of RTE's most respected and responsible prooducers, Peter Feeney, published a letter which defined the limits of what is "politically acceptable" in RTE.

The Boys of Wexford

THERE WERE THIRTY eight members of the Wexxford Labour Party present at the first meeting after the local elections to discuss the upcoming Mayoral election. The usual congratulations were expressed and each of the three Corporation memmbers, Senator Brendan Howlin, Peter Roche and newcomer Helen Corish made short speeches. The meeting took place in the Corish Memorial Hall.

THE DEPARTMENT OF Foreign Affairs has remained conspicuously silent about a number of aspects of the abortive trip to South Africa by the Dunnes Stores strikers.

SINCE SEPTEMBER OF last year, eight regular visitors to the Marist night shelter in Athlone have died. All were between the ages of thirty and forty years old. These "Men of the Road" as they are called, died alone and unwanted, their bodies often found days later in hay barns, derelict buildings, and in one recent case, an old caravan.

TROUBLES CROWD in on the decrepit Gorbachev regime in the USSR. Hooliganism, alcoholism, petty theft and joy riding in official cars are widespread as the working class expresses its discontent with its corrupt state-capitalist rules. A .thoroughgoing revolution which will sweep this collection of vodka-soaked gangsters into oblivion is, of course, the only ultimate answer. In the meantime, Ulick O'Connor and the National Union of Jourrnalists will do their best.

TROUBLES CROWD in on the decrepit Gorbachev regime in the USSR. Hooliganism, alcoholism, petty theft and joy riding in official cars are widespread as the working class expresses its discontent with its corrupt state-capitalist rules. A .thoroughgoing revolution which will sweep this collection of vodka-soaked gangsters into oblivion is, of course, the only ultimate answer. In the meantime, Ulick O'Connor and the National Union of Jourrnalists will do their best.

Tension rises at Arbour Hill

ON 28 MAY A RIOT BROKE out in Arbour Hill prison. One prisoner and four prison officers were badly injured in the fighting. The following day the Department of Jusstice stated that the fighting was between "ordinary" criminals and sex offenders.

IT IS PLEASANT to record that not everyone has collapsed into Evening Herald/Irish Times-style hyssteria over the supposed "crime crisis": pleasant not only because the heighhtened emotion of recent times has militated against rational consideration of the issues involved and obstructed sober assessment of the measures which do need to be taken, but also - and more importantly - because this style of reportage has significantly hindered the work of probation offiicers and of the welfare services geneerally in their efforts to break down the barriers of prejudice against those _ who, for whatever reason, have found; themselves on the wrong side of the law and for whose rehabilitation a supportive environment and accepptance by other members of society is quite crucial.

Modest Input

SINN FEIN LAUNCHED ITS campaign for the local elecctions at a press conference in Dublin on 22 May attended by Gerry Adams MP, Danny Morrison, member of the Northern Assembly, and 16 candidates from the Dublin area.

WHOOPS, HOLLERS and rousing choruses of "The Boys of the Old Brigade" heard in the vicinity of Downey's Pub in Ballyfermot last Monday week did not, after all, emanate from local Sinn Feiners celebrating the party's showing in the North's local elections. The cause of the Republican joy was much closer to home.

Reform School Closes

THE DEPARTMENT OF Education seems determined to follow the Department of Justice in repeating the mistakes made in the treatment of young offenders in the sixties and seventies.

PLEASANT TO note that the recently-declared support of odd-soxed sex-symbol Henry Mountcharles for an O'Malley-led mould-breaking SDP-type party has not prevented the Lord of Slane making generous, ecumenical gestures to ra-ra members of CJH's inner circle.

The Press Gang: THE RATHER UNKIND observation by a Burgh Quay union officer that trying to put new life into the Irish Press Group was "like putting lipstick on a corpse," has finally been refuted. Management there have let it be known that they intend to switch over to new technology on their three national papers from May 13.

NICKY KELLY'S case for damages finally comes before the High Court this month. This is the case which he was explicitly invited by Justice Minister Michael Noonan to bring. Mr Noonan drew Kelly's attention to this option in a statement issued on June 7 1983 in which he added that Kelly could expect speedy treatment from the courts and that a "favourable outcome could be adduced as relevant, even only indirectly, to the question of his imprisonment. "