The Hindu : 'U.K. planned partition of Northern Ireland'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 02, 2003

International

International

'U.K. planned partition of Northern Ireland'

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JAN. 1. A secret plan to partition Northern Ireland, involving forced repatriation of nearly half a million people, was seriously considered by the Conservative Government of Edward Heath at the height of sectarian tensions in the province in the seventies, it was revealed today.

The sensational disclosure, contained in the British Government's declassified documents, has been greeted with incredulity. Analysts expressed shock at the plan which, they said, would have amounted to "ethnic-cleansing'' with Catholics being moved out to create an exclusive Protestant Northern Ireland. They said the revelation confirmed fears that the Heath Government had no clue how to deal with the Northern Ireland crisis as it threatened to descend into a virtual civil war in 1972 claiming nearly 500 lives.

The scheme was dropped after officials pointed out that it was likely to meet with resistance and lead to widespread bloodshed.

The proposal, which was accompanied by rough maps of a `new' Northern Ireland, envisaged redrawing the boundaries in order to physically separate the Protestant and Catholic communities in a replay of what had happened on the Indian subcontinent in 1947.

The Catholic areas, after being purged of the Protestants, would have been merged with the Irish Republic; and Protestant areas would have been `cleansed' of Catholics in what amounted to a division of Northern Ireland on the basis of religion. Upto 300,000 Catholics would have had to be moved to the Irish Republic and nearly 200,000 Protestants would have been forced to move out of their homes in Northern Ireland so that the territories vacated by them could be ceded to Ireland to accommodate Catholic refugees.

A major `flaw' in the plan was that it would have still left some Catholic enclaves within Northern Ireland, and some Protestant areas would have gone to the Irish Republic. But it was the political argument against dividing the province on communal basis and fears about violence that led the Heath government to drop the plan.

``Such a massive movement would not be peacefully accomplished,'' one document warned and added that it was doubtful "whether it would produce any worthwhile dividends.'' It also said that such a plan would create a negative impression worldwide that the "HMF (Her Majesty's Government) was unable to bring about the peaceful solution of problems save by expelling large numbers of its own citizens and doing so on a religious basis''.

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