Kennedy said he is “honored” to serve as the US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs in a video shared on his social media on January 17.
“My appointment as Envoy comes at an important milestone in our shared history as we approach the 25th anniversary of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement,” Kennedy said.
“We can reflect on how political progress has provided the necessary conditions for economic prosperity.
“Since 1998, Northern Ireland’s growth and foreign direct investment has been remarkable. Improved political conditions have allowed our two-way trade to flourish.
“Now, we must continue the work to create opportunities for all in our future.”
Kennedy continued: “The United States’ commitment to a secure and prosperous Northern Ireland remains as strong as ever.
“I firmly believe that the next 25 years will be a time of even more growth and prosperity.
“Our goals are simple. We’ll capitalize on opportunities that deepen trade and investment between the United States and Northern Ireland.
“We’ll work to strengthen the people-to-people ties that have been fostered over so many years, and we’ll champion together Northern Ireland’s compelling potential as a place to visit, a place to study, and a place to do business.
“During my first weeks in this role, I’ve spoken to a range of leaders, experts, and citizens who have a stake in Northern Ireland’s economic future. I look forward to continuing these discussions.
“I am thrilled, honored, and humbled to be part of our shared history to take on this exciting opportunity.”
In the US Department of State’s formal announcement of Joe Kennedy III as US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, Blinken said that Kennedy “will draw from his extensive experience to support economic growth in Northern Ireland and to deepen US engagement with all communities
“In parallel, US diplomats in Europe and Washington will continue to engage with political leaders on efforts to restore the Northern Ireland Executive and to resolve differences on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“I look forward to Joe’s engagement and service with the people and leaders of Northern Ireland.”
Kennedy is reportedly set to visit Northern Ireland in February, while speculation is mounting that President Biden could be visiting in April to mark the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk
20 January, 2023 02:00
Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald. Picture by Brian Lawless/PA Wire
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said the British government’s legacy bill must adequately ensure respect for the rights of victims, survivors and their families.
Volker Turk said the draft legislation as it stands appears incompatible with the UK’s international human rights obligations.
The bill would provide immunity for people accused of Troubles offences as long as they co-operate with a new truth recovery body, and would also halt future civil cases and inquests linked to killings during the conflict.
Mr Turk said he recognised that addressing the legacy of the Troubles was a “hugely complex and sensitive matter”.
“But the draft legislation as it stands appears to be incompatible with the UK’s international human rights obligations,” he said.
The high commissioner previously wrote to the British government over the proposed conditional immunity from investigation and prosecution for those accused of having committed serious human rights violations and other international crimes, other than sexual offences.
“Introducing conditional immunity in this manner would likely be at variance with the UK’s obligations under international human rights law to investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute and punish those found responsible for serious human rights violations,” he said.
“Concerns remain that the Bill would obstruct the rights of victims, survivors and their families to effective judicial remedy and reparations, including by prohibiting most criminal prosecutions and civil actions for Troubles-related offences.”
Mr Turk said “insufficient time” had been provided to meaningfully scrutinise proposed amendments to the bill one week before the House of Lords committee stage.
Mr Turk added: “Respect for rights of victims, survivors, and their families to truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence is essential for reconciliation,” he said.
“Their rights must be placed at the heart of all attempts to address the legacy of the Troubles.”
Amnesty International UK’s Gráinne Teggart described the high commissioner’s intervention as “significant, timely and welcome”.
David Crosby, the singer/songwriter and guitarist behind The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash, has died at 81, sources close to Crosby have confirmed with Billboard.
Crosby was a founding member of The Byrds, who earned two Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 songs in 1965 with “Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.”
In 1968, he formed Crosby, Stills & Nash alongside Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. Their self-titled debut album spawned two top 40 Hot 100 hits — “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” (No. 21) and “Marrakesh Express” (No. 28) — and the trio won the Grammy for best new artist in 1969. Neil Young was an informal fourth member for occasional live performances, when the group would go by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The core trio stayed active through 2016.
The new Irish dancing team at the Mac Airt Community Centre back in January 1982
We look at the stories that were making the headlines this week in the Andersonstown News in 1982
Anger as British soldiers go on orgy of destruction
THE marauding Fusiliers had their hands full on Tuesday morning. At 6.15 a.m. they raided the Kirby home in Ramoan Gardens, and in the ensuing search, damaged carpets and a bath surround, as well as breaking a washing machine that they tried to dismantle. In what appears to be an unprecedented move, soldiers drew sketches of all the rooms. In areas where pro-British assassins have on occasions shown extensive knowledge of the layout of their victims’ homes, this procedure can only cause disquiet.
At the same time as the search at Ramoan, another raiding party was engaged in wrecking the home of the McCleave family in Lenadoon. Here the floorboards in two bedrooms were ripped up with pickaxes, a hole was driven through the living room ceiling, and lino torn off the bathroom floor. Cupboards and a bath surround were also torn apart during the dawn raid. Soldiers of the Fusiliers’ Regiment caused extensive damage to a Lenadoon house during two ‘searches’ at the weekend.
The house at Carrigart Avenue is occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Magill and their ten-months-old child. During the first raid on Friday January 8th, a new settee was ripped apart, carpets were torn up and floorboards lifted.
Most of the destruction occurred during the second raid which began at 1 a.m, on Monday morning. Fortunately the family was not at home that night. During the next two hours the soldiers dug holes in the cement floor of the kitchen and bathroom and ripped up floors in the bedroom, leaving another gaping hole To gain entry on Monday morning the soldiers smashed a front door window. The father of the young family was sent for and with a next door neighbour, stayed to witness the soldiers’ orgy of destruction.
An unlocked bedroom door was quickly kicked in and while one group set about digging up the floorboards, others attacked the kitchen and bathroom. Wallpaper was removed from the walls and a bath surround wrecked in the bathroom. In the kitchen a meter box was burst open, a cupboard punched in, tiles ripped from the floor and a hole bored right through the kitchen wall to the street outside.
At 3 a.m. one soldier commented ‘third time lucky,” a reference which Mr. and Mrs. Magill fear may indicate another raid is imminent.
Living in fear
ALMOST 20 old and infirm people living in pensioners’ dwellings at Beechmount have been left without the essential assistance of a warden for over 16 months now. Our reporter who went to investigate this matter, unearthed other aspects of the conditions there before he was ordered out of the flats by the Assistant Principal Social Worker for the Falls area.
Without a warden the occupants of the pensioners’ dwellings at Beechmount Pass are, during emergencies, denied easy access to the phone in the warden’s flat or the help of an inter-com warning system linked up to the warden’s flat.
A crisis is not a rare event in the flats, as illustrated by the hospitalisation of three pensioners who took ill since Christmas. Most of the pensioners suffer from some type of illness or disability (ranging from diabetes through heart conditions, to blindness) and at the moment one old woman is bedridden.
The absence of a warden in itself would seem to indicate a serious case of neglect and incompetence on the part of the social services board in the area. The Board’s approach to this problem, however, and their apparent lackadaisical attitude to the many other difficulties experienced by the flat dwellers, gives serious cause for concern. This concern is heightened by their refusal to allow representatives of the press into the flats.
It is only possible to run a pensioners’ dwelling properly and safely with a warden in residence. There has been no warden in the Beechmount flats since late summer 1980. In the absence of a warden the Social Services gave the flat keys to a 75-year-old occupant of the flats, and asked her to perform various warden type duties, e.g. locking and opening the main door, ringing the hospital during emergency. This woman was very wary of talking to us but we have gathered that she performed these warden type tasks for nine months. After that period her doctor insisted that she return the keys to the Social Services because of her deteriorating heart condition. The keys were then given to a 75-year-old man, who for the last nine months has been doing his utmost to perform the warden’s duties, e.g. odd-jobs, chasing off vandals, looking after the bedridden. This man is harassed daily by thugs, who knowing he has the flats’ keys, throw at his window and generally taunt and abuse him.
Thugs from all over Belfast congregate behind the pensioners’ flats every night. Here they sniff glue or get drunk, before stealing cars or attempting break-ins. In all, there have been five burglaries in the pensioners’ flats in recent months. One of these occurred when ‘hoods’ burst into the flat of a blind man and kicked in his television set as he lay petrified and helpless in bed. It is believed that the presence of a warden would deter these people from preying on what they see as easy pickings.
Editorial
“NOW that the horse has bolted, let’s defend the stable” would seem to be a suitable slogan for the Catholic hierarchy’s campaign against the Chilver proposals for the amalgamation of the teachers’ training colleges.
Having accepted for years the total anglicization of the Catholic school system in the North and connived at the cultural assimilation of our people with the British, they now have the affrontery to call on us to man the barricades to defend their vested interest in the British school system (albeit a Catholic interest.)
It comes as no surprise to us that our English overlords should feel that the time may be right. The last move in their cultural assimilation programme, which began with the setting up of Maynooth College to combat the influence of continental trained priests and which has continued unabated to the present day.
The Catholic Church as an institution has been the most single influence in the almost total destruction of the Irish as a cultural entity. The individual exceptions to this rule, strengthen rather than diminish the truth of this statement. Individual members of the clergy and exponents of Irish Nationalism have often been harassed, ostracized and frustrated in their efforts to stem the tide of anglicisation, usually by fellow priests and bishops who believed that Irish culture and characteristics would best be sacrificed if we were only left with “our Catholic faith”.
How wrong they were. If the Catholic religion remained intact in Ireland throughout the long Penal period, it was because of the strong independence of the Irish people, strengthened as they were by centuries of Irish culture and learning, and unbowed by a foreign oppressor with whom they had nothing in common.
The English realised this and embarked on a new course of cultural destruction which has almost been completely successful. and which was helped to no small degree by the Roman Catholic Church.
In the Six Counties today, the difference between Catholic schools and State schools is so insignificant that the call for a separate system would be termed ridiculous by any ordinary society.
The anglicisation of our school system has been so complete that the orchestrators of the present anti-Chilvers campaign have not been able to even mention the cultural aspect of education here, which is in our view, the only legitimate reason for having a separate system.
As we said last week in this page, by all means let’s have separate systems, and not only two but maybe three or four. But let’s take the opportunity to wrest control from those who have connived at cultural destruction and subservience as a nation.
The Roddy McCorley Social Club Christmas dinner in the Kerri Inn was well attended
A Letter from the Road Nothing But the Same Old Tory a Chara, I’m just leaving Washington for New York. It has been a busy and energizing couple of days. No matter how many times I travel to the Hill I always get that pinch-me moment when I see the Capitol Building. The weather was just as I like it; cold and dry. The reception was warm and welcoming. Despite the unprecedented events of last week, Congress members and staff took time to meet and discuss political developments in Ireland. I thank all of those who took time out to meet for their advice and support for peace and progress in Ireland. There is a justifiable shared sense of pride in the success of the peace process in Washington. The signing of the Good Friday Agreement, 25 years ago, remains an American foreign policy success. Despite all of the frustrations and setbacks, peace has endured. A generation has grown up knowing peace and is hungry for the opportunity to write their chapter in our history. The Good Friday agreement placed the future in the hands of the people. It asserted the equal rights of all, democracy, partnership, and peace; over conflict, exclusion, and discrimination. Twenty-Five years on, and the greatest threat to the Good Friday Agreement is not the violent right of unionism or micro dissent republican groups, but successive Tory British Governments. The Tories have continually undermined and polluted the political process to their own self-serving needs. Breaking agreements and international law, attempting to unilaterally impose their policy, creating a continual crisis with Brexit, and undermining the rights of victims of conflict. At its heart is a particular Tory arrogance. That arrogance was laid bare this week when the British Government hosted a meeting with all the leaders of the political parties. They said that Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald could not attend because she was elected in Dublin but would “allow” Sinn Féin Vice President and First Minister (elect) Michelle O’Neill who is elected in Tyrone. There is no Northern Sinn Féin or Southern Sinn Féin. They cannot impose their partition on our party. There is one Sinn Féin and it is an all-Ireland party. The Tory party has no mandate in Ireland. This was a calculated insult to the largest party in Ireland and to Irish citizens living in the North. Sinn Féin told the British that they would not attend if its leader was excluded. The SDLP also refused to attend the meeting under the rules imposed by the British. The meeting went ahead but was pointless. An opportunity for inclusive dialogue was squandered by the British. The days of Britain saying who has a seat at the table are over. It is past time for the Tories in London to get back around the table as equals, honor the agreements and find joint solutions. Politics is the only way forward. The British government needs to stop undermining the political process. Despite these challenges, with the help of friends from Ireland across the US this generation will have the opportunity to define the next chapter in our history. Have a great weekend. Is mise, Ciarán Ciarán Quinn is the Sinn Féin Representative to North America
