International News Internationa Fraser blows off his foot

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or's gamb THE British press assessment of the Commonwealth Games, held in Brisbane last month, seems to be: "OK, Australia have a bum deal! but the Games were good fun and we won a lot of medals"

It isn't quite what Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser wanted; but it'll do.

Many reporters revolted by or perhaps just bored with, Rolf Harris trying to remember the words to Waltzing Matilda, or giant kangaroos spewing out Australian athletes from a detachable pouch, wandered off and discovered the Aboriginal Land Rights Campaign.

They noticed a few hundred arrests during the Games, as a few Aborigines were refused entry even though they had tickets, and the Governor General's daughter got arrested, which was a nice story. But apart from that the Press obviously spent most of their time drowning their sorrows.

But the Black Protest Campaign, set up to bring the issue of Aboriginal Land Rights to the attention of the world during the Games, are pleased with their success.

They declared long before the Games began that AS WE go to press, polling is taking place in Northern Ireland for a new Six County Assembly.

It has been accompanied by an upsurge of sectarian carnage, and the so-called security forces are on full alert, Over a dozen sectarian killings have occurred in the month before the election, some of them of Protestants. The sectarian bitterness unleashed by the campaign was most terribly expressed two days before polling, when a 61 year old man was gunned down with both barrels of a shotgun in front of a classroom of 10 year old children. A former lieutenant in the part-time British Army local force, the UDR, he retired six years ago.

The Irish National Liberation Army, which continues despite this to call itself republican and even socialist, immediately claimed responsibility and promised more of the same.

The elections are the first attempt in seven years to set up a new political superstructure in Northern Ireland. At the end of 1975 the Convention, created by elections such as the present ones, produced a majority report demanding a return to "majority sule' for Northern Ireland, and the British gor'ernment, refusing to comply, scrapped it and settled into the last 7 years of direct rule.

'Majority rule' means Protestant rule such as existed for 50 years until the Northern Ireland parliament was suspended in March 1972..

The British government recognises that no Northern Ireland assembly wil agree on a constitution acceptable they wanted a peaceful protest. The Queensland Government responded to this by rushing the Commonwealth Games Act through Parliament. This Act gave the police immense powers to deal with any demonstration or protest within a notified area around the Games stadium.

Police could declare noti-. fied areas within which anyone creating a disturbance, or thought by police to be doing so could be immed¡ately arrested."

Also, if anyone saw such a disturbance, it would be their duty to perform a "citizen's arrest" and if bystanders didn't help the police they could also be arrested. Jail terms were to be the order of the day for those arrested, or huge fines.

While several hundred people were arrested, the police were obviously relucto both Protestants and Catholics. The October 20 elections are to produce an assembly which will be a talking shop, but have the possibility of getting control of departments of government in Northern Ireland as and when a sufficient proportion of the Assembly can reach agreement.

This is called rolling devolution' . It is 'open ended' and 'flexible'. It is also foredoomed.

For it is a foregone conclusion that there will be a Protestant majority unwilling to share power with the Catholics.

As always there will be two parallel elections, one for each of the communities. On the Protestant side there are now two big blocks - the Official Unionists and lan Paisley's Democratic Unionists. In the May local elections the OUP got just slightly more votes than the DUP. The O UP wants integration of Northern Ireland with Britain, and the DUP wants majority rule - i.e. restoration of Protestant ascendancy.

On the Catholic side, the SDLP, now a 'green' nationalist party which has shed most of its 'social' element, is standing but pledges to boycott the Assembly. They want London and Dublin gorernment talks to agree a new broad framework for a federated Ireland, and a council for a new Ireland'.

Probably rightly, Republicans say that the SDLP will take the first chance to go into the Assembly.

There are 12 Provisional Republicans standing, some of them relatives of dead hunger-strikers. If elected tant to use the full powers of this Act, hampered as they were by the presence of the world's press.

The Fraser government is clearly embarrassed by the number of arrests. Due to pressure from Charles Perkins (an advisor to the government ón Aboriginal Affairs appointed during the Whitlam [Labour]. government, and still there despite almost monthly attempts by Fraser's Liberals to get rid of him), it seems likely that the Fraser government will grant some sort of amnesty for the arrested protestors.

Charles Perkins had threaténed to present a petition to the Queen white she was: there, demanding that she did sómething about the amnesty in order to avoid embarrassing the Queen. and himself.

Another success claimed by the Black Protest Committee is the resignation of the Queensland Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. This character had said on New Zealand radio that even if Aboriginals did have land they wouldn't be able to keep it or run it as they were incapable. He was forced to resign. i Much of the potential publicity the Aboriginal John O'Mahony looks at the Northern Ireland Assembly elections - and why the Catholics see them as a threat.

they will not take their seats.:

Enoch Powell, a Westminster MP for the Official Unionists, hàs claimed that their DUP rivals will use the Assem bly as a launching pad 'for illegality and rebellion' if they are strong there. This raises a question that the Catholic population will have very much in mind.

A Protestant majority parliament is being elected. The Protestants are, however, being told that they can only exercise power if they get the agreement of the Catholics. They raise the cry: majority rule.

If ther is democratic validity in the Northern Ireland state, they should have majority rule. But it is an artificial sectarian state carved out by British imperialist viol ence against the will of the majority of the Irish people. Majority rule would mean restoring Protestant ascendancy over the 35% Catholic minority - whose revolt smashed the old system, and who won't take it lying down.

but what if a Protestant Assembly majority should constituțe a government and attempt to seize power? -rather as was done in Dublin in 1919 after the 1918 election Land Right campaigners should have got was overshadowed by the corruption scandal rocking the Liberal government. Hardly a day passes without some minister or other High up' resigning due to 'bad health' or 'pressure of work' At the root of it all is an inquiry which Fraser ordered be made into corruption in the Påinter and Docker's Union, the purpose being to embarrass the Australian Labour Party. Unhappily for Fraser it has back-fired badly, many compare it to firing a gun and blowing off your own foot.

The union corruption was found to be small fry compared to the people who were using them higher up. These bigger fish appear to be almost all of Fraser's government.

Incredible: stories

coming out = the Western Australia 'state government phone number was in Playboy, apparently someone -high up was operating a callgirl racket from a government office.

So Fraser's attempt to shove the ALP down a few points in the opinion polls have resulted in quite the opposite - the Liberals are losing ground by the hour •as Australians wait for the 'next 'health' casualty from Canberra. VIED A JOINT initiative by tr presidents of Mexico ar

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Jo Thwaites reports on ti Aborigine Land Rights campaign in Australia

arrests: He was dissuaded anate is generally thought