General Council Meeting - 30-3-97

 Reports were received from the General Secretary of the League on action taken following the League's conference in Brittany last August.

 It was noted that our opposition to proposed cuts in Irish Medium Education which had been the subject of a sustained campaign by the six League National branches had been successful. Other language campaigns over cuts in Gaelic Education units in Scotland had also been successful and the Council noted the progress made in Gaelic Education in Mannin.

 The Council unreservedly condemned the continued deployment of British Special Forces in the North East of Ireland and the General Secretary was requested to write to the N. Ireland Office calling for a full independent enquiry into events in CoaIisland, Co. Tyrone on 27th of March when an unarmed civilian was shot and seriously injured by troops in an incident in which another civilian, a Catholic Clergyman, also narrowly escaped injury.

 The decision of the U.K. to rule out the Sellafield site as the nuclear waste repository was welcomed but League Chairman, Cathal O´ Luain, warned that the Celtic political and environmental groups should not be complacent as the U.K. will now probably set their sights on alternative dump locations and invariably there will again be pressure to use areas in Scotland or Wales. The League should be prepared to initiate an opposition campaign at short notice if this danger materialises.

 The meeting also considered a report from the International branch Secretary, Alan Heusaff, concerning the ongoing repression of Bretons for providing assistance to Basque political refugees. The Council noted that in the past six years, 216 Bretons have been subjected to detention and investigation as the Spanish and French Police have co-operated in actions against "ETA - Militaire". The actions of ETA in the Spanish Basque area have been used as an excuse by the French for an assault on the fundamental human rights of Breton citizens.

 Whilst on the subject of political detainees a brief report was given by the General secretary into the actions taken by the League centrally to support the campaign to improve the detention conditions of remand prisoner Roisin McAliskey. McAliskey, currently in Holloway prison remanded pending extradition hearings, is the only pregnant Category A prisoner in the British penal system. She had been held under intolerable conditions but these had now been improved following a sustained campaign by a broad range of support groups.

 In relation to the League's military monitoring programme the General Council applauded the commitment given by the Fianna Fail opposition party to initiate a fresh enquiry into the loss of Aer Lingus Flight EI-712 near the Aberporth military testing range in March 1968. The Celtic League have been at the forefront of calls for such an enquiry and have campaigned for almost twenty years on the issue. The General Secretary also confirmed that the MOD had released to the League substantial statistical information and aircraft accidents and this is currently being assessed. The MOD however rejected concerns about one particular aircraft type (The B Ae Hawk) despite the fact that one in six of the aircraft have crashed (ironically another incident occurred just days after the reassurance on the aircraft's safety from Defence Under Secretary Earl Howe).

 A statement from Secretary of State for Scotland (issued in Nov/96) on the conclusions of the survey of Beaufort Dyke sea munitions dump was rejected by the League as vague and inconclusive and, given the recent pollution of shores in the N. Irish sea with explosives it was resolved to press the Irish government to readdress the problem of the British munitions dumps which pollute areas around the western British Isles.

 The meeting concluded with a review of financial matters and a General meeting of the League was confirmed to take place in Wales in the summer.

 J.B. Moffatt,
General Secretary