British Officials and Politicians

"The government view is that if they (striking prisoners) wish to die, then they had better get on with it. It's a standoff. If somebody dies, there will be a limited degree of disorder, but we think we are prepared for it. By and large, it (the hunger strike) is a test of nerve, and I think we (the British government) have enough nerve."
     High ranking government official in Belfast
     Chicago Tribune, 3 March 1981, 1-2-1-P

"[Sands' hunger strike will] cause no change of policy on political status. The government has made it clear on a number of occasions the principles by which it is guided."
     Spokesman for British government in Northern Ireland
     Chicago Tribune, 12 April 1981, 3-17-1

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

"Crime is crime is crime.

It is not my habit or custom to meet members of parliament from a foreign country to talk about a citizen of the United Kingdom resident in the United Kingdom."
    British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on refusing to meet
    with Irish Prime Minister
    Charles Haughey
    Chicago Tribune, 22 April 1981, 1-12-1

"It's not Bobby Sands really. He just puts the focus on the real problem. Whatever we've been doing the past 12 years, we've arrived at a point at which Catholics and Protestants are further apart than ever."
     Senior British official
     Washington Post, 4 May 1981, A1

"Mr Robert Sands, a prisoner in the Maze Prison, died today at 01.17. He took his own life by refusing food and medical intervention for 66 days."
     Northern Ireland Office
     Daily News, 5 May 1981, 3

"I regret Sands' death. Too many have died in Northern Ireland. His death was self-inflicted."
     Humphrey Atkins, Northern Ireland Secretary
     Washington Post, 5 May 1981, A14

"I regret this needless and pointless death. Too many have died by violence in Northern Ireland. In this case it was self-inflicted. We should not forget others who have died, two of them in the last few days by violence inflicted by others. It is my profound hope and prayer that the people of Northern Ireland will recognize the futility of violence and turn their faces away from it."
     Humphrey Atkins, Northern Ireland Secretary
     San Francisco Chronicle, 5 May 1981, -1-6

"We shall continue in our efforts to stamp out terrorism. Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice his organization did not give to many of their victims."
     British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
     Washington Post, 6 May 1981, A35

"The hunger strike 'has become a major embarrassment around the world.'"
     British government official speaking for the British Foreign Office
     Washington Post, 16 July 1981, A21

"'The government sees no justification for giving prisoners in Northern Ireland a substantially different regimen' from those imprisoned elsewhere in Britain."
     Northern Ireland Secretary Humphrey Atkins, after death of Thomas McElwee
     Washington Post, 9 August 1981, A25

"Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a letter yesterday to four U.S. critics of Britain's Northern Ireland policy, said blame for the hunger-strike deaths rests with those who order 'these young men to commit suicide.'

Thatcher said: 'We have facilitated the efforts of the Pope's personal representative, the European Commission of Human Rights, the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, and now the International Committee of the Red Cross.'

She said all efforts to end the hunger strike 'have foundered on the intransigent adherence of the prisoners to the five demands which they formulated five years ago and which have not changed in substance to this day.'

The hunger strike by jailed Irish nationalists in the Maze Prison may be called off because it is 'placing little or no' pressure on the British government, a spokesman for the prisoners said yesterday."
     "IRA May Give Up On Hunger Strike"
     San Francisco Chronicle, 3 October 1981, 10-5

"[Margaret Thatcher] is delighted that the hunger strike has ended. She has been deeply distressed at the loss of young lives inside and outside the prison."
     British spokesman at 10 Downing Street
     Washington Post, 4 October 1981, A-1

"I and my predecessors have already made clear that further development of the prison regime will be possible once duress is removed."
     James Prior, British Secretary for Northern Ireland
     Chicago Tribune, 4 October 1981, 1-6

"The 10 men who starved themselves to death in a Belfast prison did not go on hunger strike because they wanted to, but because the Irish Republican Army gave them 'no alternative,' a Conservative member of the British Parliament said here Tuesday.

'If you didn't go on hunger strike when you were told to, you wouldn't last very long, and neither would your family,' she said..."
     Jill Knight, member of British Parliament
     Chicago Tribune, 7 October 1981, C1-3-1