14 arrests as 3000 gather for hunger strike march ================================= By Jeanette Oldham Fourteen people were arrested yesterday during a volatile march through Glasgow in memory of IRA hunger-strikers. Police said up to 3,000 people took part in the march, which got the go-ahead despite widespread objection from politicians and anti-sectarian groups. Organisers want to see it become an annual event, a suggestion which drew immediate condemnation from the Conservatives. While police said the event passed off without major incident, several people needed hospital treatment for cuts and bruises after sporadic outbreaks of violence between republicans and loyalist counter-demonstrators. One man was injured when a bottle was thrown at the marchers. As tempers flared, mounted police helped keep the two sides apart. Despite the size of the operation, police refused to say how much it cost. Hundreds of officers from at least two of Strathclyde's divisions were deployed. Glasgow Tory MSP Bill Aitken yesterday attacked the idea of the march being held every year. He said: "It's simply not on. If they want it to be an annual event why don't they stay in Northern Ireland and hold it there? "The people of Glasgow want no truck with this sort of thing." Mr Aitken also expressed concern about the amount of overtime pay that policing the event may have cost and questioned whether it meant other areas of the city being deprived of cover. The march commemorated the 10 IRA men, including Bobby Sands, who starved to death in the H-blocks of the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in 1981. The hunger strike was intended to gain political status for republican inmates who did not want to be classed as criminals, and had a devastating impact on attempts to broker peace in Northern Ireland. Yesterday's march was headed by Glasgow schoolchildren carrying black and white photographs of the hunger-strikers and a flute band. Many marchers carried black flags and some wore black armbands; a small number wore paramilitary-style clothing. Jim Slaven, of the 1981 Hunger Strike Committee, which organised the march, said he wanted a similar march to take place every year. He added: "Whatever the police and politicians who wanted to ignore republicans said about this march, we finally got to walk through the streets of Glasgow." Among the speakers to receive a rapturous welcome at the rally in Queen's Park following the march was former republican prisoner Raymond McCartney, from Londonderry, who spent 53 days on hunger strike. FROM THE SCOTSMAN, 28 MAY 2001
