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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 8, 1992                   TAG: 9202100200
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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BRITISH CAN'T BREAK IRISH WILL TO BE FREE

IN HER RECENT speech at Virginia Military Institute, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher conveniently omitted any discussion of British atrocities in Northern Ireland. She chose not to speak of rampant repression and torture, or murder of pro-Irish elected officials.

Nor did she mention the shoot-to-kill policy, endless raids of homes, strip searching, or the deaths of innocent children by plastic bullets that are all part of the British government's policy to break the Irish will for national self-determination.

How ironic that Thatcher says, "The lesson of this century is that countries put together artificially will fall apart." How hypocritical and dishonest that Thatcher will not admit that Northern Ireland is just such an artificial state. The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as created by the British in 1920 have no historical or geographic basis. Moreover, the plan was opposed by 81 percent of the Irish people.

Mrs. Thatcher has said that "In modern times, no number of tanks or bullets or armies can overcome that spirit of a people determined to resist." It is tragic that Thatcher never learned that no amount of British repression can break the Irish determination to be free. BARBARA PRYOR AMHERST

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