Troops OUT
Troops to go in 14 months
by ZoË Tunney
z.tunney@dailyireland.com
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Nationalists have reacted with consternation to the British army’s announcement that it plans to withdraw 550 troops from the North next year.
The Ministry of Defence said the soldiers at Lisanelly Barracks in Omagh, Co Tyrone, would leave the North in 14 months.
The King’s Own Scottish Borderers will be deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other world conflict zones when they leave Ireland in August 2006.
They will leave behind the soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment’s 4th Battalion in the St Lucia barracks next door to Lisanelly in Omagh town centre.
General-service infantry units, such as the Scottish Borderers, were sent in to support the police in operations deemed to be in the interests of state security.
Since 1969, over 300,000 British army personnel have served in the North. By 1972, there were nearly 26,000 army personnel in the region. Today, 10,000 soldiers remain in 64 military bases.
Republicans have raised questions about why the soldiers are continuing to sit out the remaining 14 months of their tour of duty when it has already been established they are not required.
Nationalists are also interested to know what will become of the 64 army bases, which have been an eyesore and permanent monument to British occupation in the North for more than 30 years.
A defence ministry spokesperson said: “Normally we replace soldiers at the end of their tour of duty.
“In this case, the Scottish Borderers will not be replaced but will be deployed back to land command.
“We were able to make this decision because the security situation in Northern Ireland allowed us.”
Dominic Bradley, the SDLP spokesman on normalisation, said: “This is too little too late. It is simply not good enough.”
Mr Bradley said his party had drafted proposals to help reduce the number of troops in the North to 5,000 by Christmas 2006.
He said: “Reducing soldiers by 550 next summer just doesn’t wash.”
Omagh Sinn Féin councillor Sean Begley said: “We would welcome the withdrawal of any troops and there are a number of reasons why we welcome it in Omagh.
“Firstly, the local nationalist/republican community of Lisanelly have suffered enough by living beside the eyesore and alongside British soldiers.
“They had to endure watchtowers, surveillance on their homes and overflights from helicopters, among other things, throughout the Troubles.
“Secondly, the base is on prime land, which could be used for economic development, which we could develop for sports, education, housing and tourism opportunities.”
Davy Hyland, Sinn Féin’s spokesman on demilitarisation, said: “The British government have not produced a blueprint for the removal of the guns of the British army from the political equation.
“Their approach to date has been piecemeal.
“It is about time the British government began to live up to their own committments in regard of removing British guns which have killed hundreds of people and often mysteriously found their way into the hands of loyalist paramilitaries.”
