Sinn Fein leader against Irish unity poll while Brexit impasse remains

Posted by Jim on July 30, 2018

July 30, 2018

by David Young

A poll on Irish unity should not be held while uncertainty around Brexit remains, the leader of Sinn Fein has warned. Mary Lou McDonald said she disagreed with those who argued that a hard or chaotic Brexit should be the trigger for a referendum on unification. The Sinn Fein president insisted that would be the wrong climate for a substantive debate on the constitutional issue. “The obvious thing would be to say ‘well have the border poll and remove the border, if the border is the problem, simply take it away’ and there is a certain logic to that,” she said. “I am very, very conscious that you can’t come at this issue in that simplistic way. “It’s very important when we come to addressing the issue of partition we do it in the best possible climate and we do it in a way that maximises consent. “It is not my preferred option or our preferred option that we deal with the issue of Irish unity in a climate that is unsteady or unstable or chaotic, in other words in the context of a crash Brexit or a very hard Brexit.” In an interview with the Press Association, Mrs McDonald said the border poll question should be put to one side until the “dangers” posed by Brexit are mitigated. “I would prefer, it is my strong reference, that we have sequencing that firstly delivers a level of economic and social certainty, in as much we can be certain, and stability and from that base we then continue the conversation about Irish unity,” she said. Mrs McDonald also said unionists who failed to countenance the possibility of a united Ireland in the future were burying their heads in the sand. She was reacting to the fallout from remarks by former Democratic Unionist leader Peter Robinson, who said unionists should prepare for what would happen if they were to lose a future border poll. Mr Robinson’s party colleague Sammy Wilson was among a number of unionists to criticise the former first minister’s comments, accusing him of giving encouragement to the republican narrative. Mrs McDonald said it was “common sense” to look at possible constitutional changes, even if you did not support them. Reflecting on what accommodations might be made for unionists if a united Ireland was to come to pass, the Sinn Fein president also indicated she would be prepared to accept a different flag and national anthem. “Peter Robinson certainly is not raising a banner for Irish republicanism or for a united Ireland but I think it’s good to hear a senior unionist talk in terms that are simply grounded in realism,” she said. “Peter Robinson is a unionist clearly, and he will argue passionately for the maintenance of the union, as will others, and that’s fine, but it would be a case of really burying your head in the sand for unionism generally if they were not to raise their gaze and look to the future horizons and say if it were to happen, it doesn’t have to be your first option, but if that comes to pass what is it that we need as citizens, as a political tradition, as a cultural tradition, what are the things that we want to secure in a new Ireland? “There are some that think if you just keep shouting ‘no’ loud enough that you can make change go away, you can be that boy with your finger in the dam trying to hold back social change – but that’s not how life works, it’s not how history works.” On the prospect of standing below a new flag and singing a new anthem in a reunified Ireland, she said: “I, as with every other person who argues for a new united Ireland, will honour the flag of that island, will honour the dawning of that new opportunity and I would be proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow citizens, irrespective of religious creed, political background cultural background irrespective of everything that has gone before and I would proudly sing the anthem or anthems of that Ireland.” Earlier on Monday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar restated his view that it was currently the wrong time for a border poll. “I think it’s not helpful to be talking about a border poll in Northern Ireland,” he said. “We are in a situation whereby there is huge uncertainty in Northern Ireland because people don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of Brexit but also the Northern Ireland parties haven’t been able to come together and form an executive. “For me to start talking about border poll in that context wouldn’t be helpful.

AOH believes “One Ireland, One Vote”.

Official Communication from the UFA

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 ‘Political agendas’ protecting alleged chip-shop killers

Posted by Jim on July 28, 2018

A suspected British state agent and hitman identified as a triple
sectarian killer was never prosecuted because of a cover-up in which the
PSNI (then RUC) police simply did not send a file to prosecutors, it has
emerged.

Portadown man Alan Oliver has previously been linked to a UVF gang that
carried out dozens of sectarian murders in the Mid-Ulster area. One of
the gang revealed Oliver as the man who shot dead three innocent
Catholics in an infamous attack on a mobile shop in Craigavon in 1991.

Loyalist James Thomas Harper was the getaway driver in the ambush of
sixteen-year-old Katrina Rennie, nineteen-year-old Eileen Duffy and
29-year-old Brian Frizzell, who operated the shop.

Harper was convicted for his part in the triple murder and given a life
sentence. But the two men he said were his fellow UVF gang-members were
never prosecuted.

During interrogation Harper said that after the attack Oliver used a
radio to say “Tatie bread” to indicate to the other two that the victims
had been killed. Oliver is understood to be still living openly in the
north Armagh area.

Harper identified the third UVF gang member as Tony McNeill, and accused
former UVF commander Billy Wright and Mark ‘Swinger’ Fulton of helping
to plan the attack. The plan for the attack is understood to have come
from members of a British Army (UDR) patrol after Mr Frizzell had
refused to serve them.

During Harper’s sentencing, the judge said it was “unfortunate” that the
other two gang members were not before the courts. Now the Public
Prosecution Service has confirmed that “no investigation file in respect
of Oliver or McNeill was ever submitted to the DPP (Department of Public
Prosecutions) for a decision as to prosecution regarding this incident”.

It added: “it would not be appropriate for the PPS to now apply the test
for prosecution to individuals not reported on the original police
file”.

Eileen Duffy’s brother Brendan spoke of his family’s disappointment.

“I’m very angry that there was never any chance of a conviction,” he
said.

“It confirms what we believed that the state had some role in the
killings at the mobile shop.”

“The truth is more important to us than justice because if there are any
convictions they will only get two years.”

The family’s lawyer Kevin Winters said “the Craigavon mobile shop
killings presents as one of the worst examples of cover up of state-run
murdering agents”.

“We have written to the police seeking an explanation – we don’t expect
to get one,” he said.

“The bereaved Frizzell, Rennie and Duffy families continue to engage
with patience and dignity in a drip-feed legal process that takes a
terribly long time to finish.”

“Getting shocking news like this only serves to retraumatise them and
that’s an experience shared by hundreds of other families.”

Mr Winters said that if similar circumstances arose in another
jurisdiction there would be an investigation.

“But not here, it will never happen because of so called ‘political
sensitivities’ and other ‘agendas’.

“That is both farcical and depressing.”

The peace process is being used as a political hostage

Posted by Jim on

By An Sionnach Fionn

There are few other British historical figures more controversial – and
more reviled – in the popular culture of Ireland than Winston Churchill.
Described by Eamon de Valera in a carefully worded eulogy upon his death
in 1965 as a “dangerous enemy of the Irish people”, the career
politician is best remembered in this country for his close association
with the United Kingdom’s violent rejection of pro-autonomy majorities
in four plebiscite-elections held on the island between 1918 and 1921.
As the Secretary of State for War, the Secretary of State for Air and
later as the Secretary of State for the Colonies his malevolent
influence contributed significantly to the UK’s political and military
responses to the 1916-23 Revolution. Including, most obviously, the
partition of the country in December 1920, and the deployment of three
infamous militia units in 1919-20: the Royal Irish Constabulary Special
Reserve (the RICSR or Black and Tans), the Auxiliary Division of the
Royal Irish Constabulary (the ADRIC or Auxies) and the Ulster Special
Constabulary (the USC or B-Specials).

Given that record, one would assume a fair degree of caution on behalf
of any politician visiting Ireland from Britain who might choose to
summon up his opinions on matters Irish related, however distant in
time. Especially during a period of high crisis and low relations
between Dublin and London, thanks to the ongoing Brexit debacle and the
failure of the latter capital to negotiate a feasible withdrawal plan
with the European Union. However no such thoughts seem to have entered
the head of the British prime minister Theresa May and her advisers on
Friday as she adorned her speech in the city with some remarks by
Churchill lauding the nature of the British legacy colony in the
north-east of the island.

Short of pulling out a Tricolour, the national flag of Ireland, and
setting it on fire on the dais, it is difficult to imagine how much more
undiplomatic and positively provocative the Conservative Party leader
could have been in her words and sentiments on Friday. Gone was any real
attempt at nuance or subtlety, of an authentic reaching out to that half
of the population in the UK-administered Six Counties with an Irish
nationality. Instead we were treated to an egregious display of British
revanchism, of territorial colonialism by rhetoric, with a deceitful
twisting of the principles underlying the Good Friday Agreement of 1998;
the complex, multistranded peace settlement which effectively ended
thirty years of armed conflict in the contested region.

In the full speech delivered in the Waterfront Hall there is little
evidence that the minority Conservative Party government in London,
reliant on a parliamentary alliance with the far-right hibernophobic
Democratic Unionist Party for survival, is now willing to deliver on the
commitments given to Dublin and Brussels in the “backstop” agreement of
late 2017. A Brexit-facilitating deal guaranteeing continued regulatory
alignment under EU rules on the island of Ireland in the absence of any
similar arrangements with the United Kingdom. On the contrary, ministers
and officials in the increasingly desperate UK seem determined to use
the political stability and economic prosperity of this island nation,
and the very peace process itself, as a playable card in its chaotic
negotiations with its former partners and neighbours in Europe.

The French did not coin the phrase, la perfide Albion, for no reason.

* The full text of May’s speech is available at https://bit.ly/2NU5hXp

Mistreatment of two republican prisoners 

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The Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association has relayed
serious cases of abuse of republican prisoners at Maghaberry and
Hydebank jails.

One prisoner who suffered an untreated heart attack in 2014 has been
subjected to a strip search by prison warders just after he had received
urgent hospital treatment.

Thomas ‘Ta’ McWilliams from Ardoyne was diagnosed with renewed heart
palpitations and forced to attend an outside hospital while handcuffed
to a warder.

“At hospital he was fitted with numerous heart monitoring devices which
have been kept on him to monitor his heart rate etc over the next 48
hrs,” the IRPWA said.

“On return to the jail this evening he was stripped standing up as he
was unfit to be laid on the floor. This was while continuing to wear
heart monitoring equipment.

“Although all objective bodies have called for an end to forced strip
searching, the issue of forced stripping of those in ill health was
raised by the Prisoner Ombudsman only weeks ago.

“This behavior, including the presence of screws in medical
consultations, is a flagrant violation of Human Rights. It cannot be
ignored that this is occurring as we approach eight years since the
signing of the August 2010 Agreement- 8 years after NIPS [the Northern
Ireland Prison Service] agreed to end strip searching. Such actions
speak to the depravity of the Maghaberry administration and the Six
County prison service as a whole.”

The IRPWA also highlighted recent threats and attempted assaults on
republican prisoner Christine Connor at Hydebank women’s prison in south
Belfast. As the only republican prisoner at the jail, Ms Connor is
already living in isolation and has previously been subjected to
sustained verbal abuse and other oppressive measures.

This recently escalated into two attempted physical attacks, the IRPWA
said.

“On the first occasion Christine was left trapped in an enclosed space
by a screw who had abandoned his post when a male attacker attempted to
reach her whilst shouting sectarian abuse.

“He managed to get past the useless security measures before being
restrained by his own escort.

“On the second occasion three would-be attackers overcame the measly
security measures, with one of these attackers armed with a sharp
implement. When Christine made her way to safety she was greeted with
hostility and ambivalence by the screw who was on duty.

“When Christine complained she was subsequently charged by Hydebank
jail. The jail has offered only a worthless apology, and it is clear
that Hydebank is determined to see harm come to Christine.

“The treatment of Christine Connor is ample evidence of the depths of
reactionary control and sectarian bigotry in the Six-County prison
service.”