The Republican Party Saoradh, take this opportunity to highlight a number of serious incidents that have taken place in South Armagh in the past few weeks.
Both incidents involved heavily armed, undercover British forces of the armed response unit which is made up of joint PSNI and British Army personnel from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment – an elite British Army unit.
The first incident occurred several weeks ago when a young man left a friend’s house on the Drumintee Rd just outside Newry.
He noticed a marked PSNI vehicle which followed him home.
Later that night the young man was travelling just outside Crossmaglen when his car was forced off the road by a number of blacked out SUV’s.
He was dragged from his car by aggressive, masked and heavily armed members of the British forces.
One of the mercenaries took the victims car and claimed it was being “seized under the Terrorism Act” before driving it away, it has yet to be returned.
Despite not being under arrest the young man was then grabbed and bundled into one of the Crown Force vehicles against his will.
He was driven for some time before being brought to a secluded area beside Camlough Lake. It was here that he was removed from the Crown Force vehicle and quizzed about whose house he was visiting on the Drumintee Rd earlier that day and why he was at that house.
He refused to answer their questions before being bundled back into the SUV which then dropped him off outside the Ardmore PSNI barracks in Newry.
The second incident occurred a fortnight ago and involved the previous victim’s friend.
He left his home on the Drumintee Rd at around 9am on the Sunday morning and after travelling a short distance he found himself forced off the road and boxed in by two blacked out SUV’s.
One of the armed state thugs decamped from the first vehicle, walked to the window of the Republican and told him “your days are numbered, your days are numbered”.
The Republican challenged the British forces to state who they were and to show identification. The response was “it doesn’t matter who we are and you’ll be getting no ID from us”.
As the undercover vehicles drove away one of the masked rear passengers put their window down and pointed an automatic weapon at the Republican activist as they drove past.
The great and the good regularly harp on about current Revolutionaries “living in the past” and call for people to “move on”.
Yet here we are faced with elite undercover British units once again terrorising people in South Armagh, issuing sinister threats, pointing rifles at them and in the first incident even kidnapped a young man at gunpoint.
The reappearance of these sinister units across the six-counties is a worrying development. It is a growing trend for them to target Republicans in this fashion in Tyrone and Derry, now they are active in South Armagh.
The silence is deafening
ENDS/CRÍOCH
CLANRYE NEWS 