Posted by Jim on August 17, 2017
Dr Féilim Ó hAdhmaill says he suffered ‘waterboarding’ after arrest in Belfast in 1978
Freya McClements. Irish Times. Dublin. Monday, August 14, 2017
A university lecturer who alleges he suffered “waterboarding” after he was arrested in Belfast in 1978 has said he believes torture “was the norm, rather than the exception” in the North in the 1970s.
Dr Féilim Ó hAdhmaill – who was then a 20-year-old student at Queen’s University, Belfast – said he believed he was going to die when water was poured over his mouth and nose.
“The sensation was that of drowning, you felt you were drowning because you couldn’t breathe in air, all you were breathing in was water.
“I remember thinking, how far are they going to go? Are they going to kill me?”
A 1978 statement by Dr. Ó hAdhmaill, who was then known as Phelim Hamill, is one of a number of documents uncovered by Derry-based human rights organization the Pat Finucane Centre which contain allegations of what is now known as “waterboarding”.
It involves temporarily filling a victim’s nose, sinuses, mouth and throat with water so that he or she has the sensation of drowning.
The statements given by Dr. Ó hAdhmaill and others are to be publicly read in Derry on Monday as part of an exhibition on the legacy of colonialism.
In his statement, to the Association for Legal Justice (ALJ), Dr. Ó hAdhmaill said he had been arrested and beaten by about 20 detectives.
“My arms and legs were pinned down and a light-coloured towel was put over my head, obstructing my vision.
“They tied the towel around my neck and choked me. Whilst the towel was tied around my face a cup of water was poured down my throat and nose giving me a drowning feeling.”
A British government spokesperson said the UK “considers torture or inhuman treatment to be an abhorrent violation of human rights and human dignity”.
“It consistently and unreservedly condemns the practice,” the spokesperson said.
Sign admission
Dr. Ó hAdhmaill said the RUC wanted him to admit involvement in the murder of a police officer. “I was held for a number of days, during which I was badly beaten.
“The main aim was to get me to sign a statement of admission of involvement in the IRA and involvement in the killing of a member of the RUC who worked in Castlereagh. A number of people were rounded up and brought in, and I was one of them.
“During that particular period it was the norm and I thought my treatment was severe, but it wasn’t unusual.
“It was only really when things came out about waterboarding in Iraq that people started to revisit some of the stuff that took place in the North and my case was one of a number of cases where it was alleged that what we went through was waterboarding.
“I had never heard the term waterboarding until Iraq, so I would never have used the term waterboarding.”
In a statement, the PSNI’s Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said that as he had not seen the documentation referred to he was unable to provide any substantive comment on its substance at this time.
“Where people have a complaint regarding the actions of army personnel, they should contact the police.
“Anyone with a complaint about the actions of police should contact the office of the Police Ombudsman,” he said.
Prison term
In 1994 Dr. Ó hAdhmaill was convicted of conspiring to cause explosions in England and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
He was released under the Good Friday Agreement, and is now a lecturer in social policy at University College, Cork.
“The thing that I’m most concerned about today is peace, and it seems to me that we’re not going to get peace until we have some sort of release for people who have gone through all sorts of things.
“That includes people who have been damaged by the IRA, people who have been damaged by loyalists but also people who have been damaged by the state.
“Rather than saying no, we didn’t use torture, I think the British government needs to come out and say yes, we did this as part of a number of different attempts to deal with what we thought was an emergency situation
“At the end of the day the British soldiers and the RUC, regardless of what I personally feel about them, they were the cannon fodder, they were the foot-soldiers, they did what they were told.
“You have to look at the people who were behind the policy. You have to look at the state.”
Posted by Jim on August 12, 2017
Over a thousand people took part in an anti-internment parade through
Belfast which was banned from the city centre last weekend, while two
tiny loyalist and fascist events were allowed to take place there.
The well-marshalled parade organised by the Anti-internment League (AIL)
passed off quietly and ended in a rally at a PSNI barrier of Land Rovers
and riot police.
It had earlier travelled from Ardoyne to North Queen Street through the
Cliftonville Road, Antrim Road and New Lodge districts, but was
prevented from carrying through to West Belfast.
The rally was chaired by AIL spokesman Dee Fennell and included an
address by Lorraine Taylor whose husband Tony is currently interned in
jail without charge.
Mrs Taylor said the jailing of her husband has “devastated” her entire
family.
Former political prisoner Tony Taylor was summarily returned to prison
last March by then British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers. Parole chiefs
recently rejected a bid by him to be released from Maghaberry Prison.
Mrs Taylor told those attending that her husband has told her he is
“committed to the process of the transition to a peaceful society”.
“And that view was clearly shared by the numerous people who spoke up
for him in his parole hearing recently – including clergy, politicians,
community and trade union mediators and human rights organisations ,”
she said.
“The decision not to let him out was at best underhand.
“It was based on a secret submission to the hearing by the secret
services, a submission that Tony could neither hear not challenge.”
In an unusual joint statement, the SDLP’s Mark H Durkan, Sinn Fein MP
Elisha McCallion and MEP Martina Anderson aid Mr Taylor’s detention
violated his human rights.
“The British government’s continued use of this unjust power to revoke
someone’s license while providing no evidence of any wrongdoing is an
affront to justice and human rights,” they said.
“As political leaders in this city and district we have raised Tony
Taylor’s case at every level and supported the campaign for his
release.”
They said Mr Taylor should either be brought before a court or released.
“If evidence exists to suggest he is a risk to the public it should be
put before him and his legal team in open court so it can be
challenged,” they said.
There was also strong condemnation of the burning of stolen campaign
posters for Mr Taylor on loyalist bonfires in the Nelson Drive and
Tullyally areas of Derry.
Ms McCallion said the placing of posters on the bonfires was a hate
crime. Lorraine Taylor also expressed her disgust and said she would be
reporting the incident to the PSNI.
“What would [DUP MP] Gregory Campbell have to say about this, he called
my husband a terrorist, will he support the burning of his image on the
bonfire?” she said.
Posted by Jim on
There is increasing speculation that Sinn Fein could become the junior
partners in the next coalition government in the 26 Counties after the
party leadership refused to rule it out.
While current leader Gerry Adams and reputed leader-in-waiting Mary Lou
McDonald both condemned the deals currently used to hold up minority
governments in Dublin and London, neither would rule out entering into a
coalition with either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.
“You either take the plunge and you go into government or you don’t,” Ms
McDonald said.
Any decision on the matter will need to go before a special Sinn Fein
Ard Fheis, a potentially fraught conference of party delegates, many of
whom would be ideologically opposed to a deal with a right-wing party.
Both Mr Adams and Ms McDonald were speaking after the Fianna Fail
leader, Micheal Martin, while ‘ruling out’ a coalition with Sinn Fein,
left open the prospect of a confidence-and-supply deal with the party
for a minority government after the next election.
Any coalition would be a “matter of discussion” and depend on the
agreement of a “robust, transformative and ambitious” programme for
government, Ms McDonald said.
“Then, crucially, can we only ask the party itself,” she said, but
added: “We want to be in government.”
Mr Martin has consistently rejected the prospect of a coalition with Ms
McDonald’s party, but some of his most prominent TDs now openly say they
would favour such an alliance over one with Fine Gael.
A future coalition government involving Sinn Fein must have a strategy
for Irish unification, party leader Gerry Adams has indicated.
He said his party will place an emphasis on housing, the health service
and Brexit as part of any post-election negotiations on forming a
coalition government.
The Louth TD described ‘confidence and supply deals’ such as the current
one between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael as “fundamentally dishonest” and
“quasi-democratic”.
“Nobody votes for a confidence and supply deal,” Mr Adams said, but
emphasised that Sinn Fein “wants to be in government to deliver change
in the lives of citizens”.
He said Sinn Fein’s aim “is to replace partition with a new agreed
Ireland”, adding “you are not going to achieve that with a minority
government deal”. However, he also declined to rule out a coalition
with a larger party.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has commissioned a white paper on a
united Ireland, which is due to be completed later this year, and
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said Fine Gael should “bring back into use
the term ‘United Ireland Party'” as a tagline.
Mr Adams has also said “Sinn Fein is open to negotiating with other
parties to deliver a republican programme of government and real change
in the lives of citizens”.
“Regardless of what parties are saying today, and depending on what
mandates we receive, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail will either enter a
formal partnership or begin to talk to Sinn Fein.”
Any move by Sinn Fein to return Michael Martin or Leo Varadkar as
Taoiseach could benefit the small socialist parties.
Solidarity TD Paul Murphy warned “about the road that is being traveled”
by Sinn Fein, pointing to “demoralisation” that took place when Labour
went into government in 2011 and helped to implement Fine Gael’s
conservative agenda.
“Coalition on any basis with the right will be a disaster for working
class people,” he said.
“Look at the experiences of the Green Party and the Labour Party. They
all went into coalition supposedly with the good intentions of
delivering on their election promises. They inevitably ended up as
implementers of austerity and regressive policies.”
Posted by Jim on
The scene for the Battle of the Bogside was set long before August 1969.
For years the nationalist majority of Derry had suffered a unionist
gerrymander of the city which left many Catholics living in slum
conditions.
Matters came to a head in October 1968 when a civil rights march was met
with force by the RUC.
Pictures of MPs leading the parade were beamed across the world,
bringing the problems in the north of Ireland to a global audience.
In January 1969 the situation deteriorated further when loyalists
attacked a People’s Democracy march from Belfast to Derry at Burntollet.
Days later ‘Free Derry’ was born in response to attacks on Bogside
pensioners’ homes by the RUC.
The July 12 Orange Order parades in 1969 were accompanied by violence
and so it was not a surprise that tensions were high leading into the
Relief of Derry march planned for August 12.
The largest loyal order march of the year, the Relief of Derry, was
organised annually by the Apprentice Boys to mark the end of the Siege
of Derry in 1689.
For years it had been a source of tension in the city as a coat-trailing
exercise and it was often accompanied by violence.
Despite the rising tensions, on August 8 1969 the Stormont government
decided to allow the parade to go ahead.
As it passed close to the Bogside at Waterloo Place on August 12,
rioting erupted between nationalists and Apprentice Boys and their
supporters.
RUC immediately used armoured cars and water cannon – followed by
loyalist rioters – to chase nationalists back into the Bogside.
What became know as the Battle of the Bogside began.
Rioting ebbed and flowed as day moved into night and Bogsiders,
supported by nationalists who rallied from all over the north-west,
forced police and loyalists back out of ‘Free Derry’.
Rioters used the vantage point of the high-rise Rossville Street flats
to keep police at bay with missiles and petrol bombs.
At one stage — with concern rising that rioters would run out of petrol
— the Derry Citizens Defence Association dispatched representatives to
obtain petrol from a garage, providing a receipt against the petrol
seized.
By the morning of Wednesday August 13, rioting had spread to other
nationalist areas of the north in a pogrom of Catholic areas.
Taoiseach Jack Lynch issued his famed and usually inaccurately quoted
message that “we will not stand idly by” as he sent Irish troops to the
border to establish first-aid posts.
What Lynch actually said was: “The present situation is the inevitable
outcome of the policies pursued for decades by successive Stormont
governments.
“It is clear also that the Irish government can no longer stand by and
see innocent people injured and perhaps worse.”
With refugees fleeing south, Stormont mobilised the B-Specials who were
soon repelled by the Bogside nationalists.
As the north faced into an abyss on day three, two people were killed by
the RUC.
Nine-year-old Catholic boy Patrick Rooney was shot dead in his Divis
Flats’ home in west Belfast when police fired from a Browning machine
gun mounted on an armoured car.
In Armagh, John Gallagher was also shot dead at Cathedral Road by
B-Specials.
With the RUC now completely exhausted and over-stretched, Six County
prime minister James Chichester-Clarke asked the British government to
deploy troops.
At 4.30pm, British PM Harold Wilson agreed.
At around 5pm on Thursday August 14 the first soldiers of the Prince of
Wales Own – on standby outside Derry – marched into the Waterloo Place
front line in their distinctive ‘Tommy’ tin hats and carrying tin
shields and SLR rifles.
Their commander, Major David Hanson told journalists:
“Provided one is pleasant and polite, one can achieve an awful lot in
this world.”
Their arrival marked the start of what the British army code-named
Operation Banner, a campaign of atrocities that was to last 38 years.
The next day, August 15, six people Herbert Roy (26), Hugh McCabe (20),
Samuel McLarnon (27), Michael Lynch (28), Gerald McAuley (15) and David
Linton (15) were dead.
Posted by Jim on
By Brian Feeney (for Irish News)
Leo Varadkar’s visit here ruffled unionist feathers but he wasn’t
addressing unionists.
His target was the British government and its failure to offer any
details about what they intend to do about the problems they have caused
for Ireland.
As he said in his speech at Queen’s he is going to be sitting with other
EU leaders in October assessing whether enough progress has been made to
begin trade negotiations.
At the moment the answer is no. Sir Simon Fraser, permanent secretary at
the Foreign Office until 2015 said on Monday: “We haven’t put much on
the table.”
Actually Britain has put absolutely nothing on the table about Ireland,
one of the three priority items where progress needs to be made.
There’s another reason Varadkar’s remarks weren’t addressed to the DUP.
Michel Barnier had made clear he will only negotiate with sovereign
states, not devolved administrations.
As Varadkar’s colleague Neale Richmond, who speaks for Fine Gael on
European Affairs, said last week, the DUP is “politically impotent” in
the matter.
There is no evidence they have had any influence on the British
government.
On the contrary, the waffle Jeffrey Donaldson spouts is proof the DUP
has no policy until they know what the British government’s policy is, a
perfect example of the root of our current problem here – lack of
unionist leadership.
Varadkar intoned the usual cliches about getting the executive up and
running but privately the Irish government believes there is no chance
of that happening in the near future and the main reason is that the DUP
has no policy for reinstating the executive.
They do know one item that is necessary. They have to change their
attitude and behaviour, something the DUP have found impossible.
Let’s be clear about this fact. The DUP went into an executive with Sinn
Fein only because they believed that was the best way to prevent any
change in the north.
Their fear was greater Dublin involvement looking like joint authority
if they didn’t.
Remember, all the senior figures in the party opposed the Good Friday
Agreement.
Arlene Foster and Donaldson left the UUP because Trimble was not hard
line enough.
The DUP opposed devolving policing and justice. They agreed but reneged
as they do, then wouldn’t implement it until forced in 2010.
The party has opposed any change on flags, emblems, Orange marches, the
past, victims, you name it. Their participation in the executive was
never enthusiastic.
It’s a unionist trope. In the words of the historian E.H. Carr unionists
can’t see change “as achievement, as opportunity, as progress, but as an
object of fear”.
They can’t see that the world is in perpetual motion. For unionist
‘leaders’, for want of a better word, change means inevitable decline,
loss, defeat.
They don’t seem to realise that change itself is inexorable so when an
event such as the loss of their majority in the assembly election
happens it’s proof that change is bad, not that new ideas and policies
have to be devised to cope with inevitable change.
Instead they look for a way to claw back to where they were. Hence the
frantic resurrection of the oul’ alliance with the UDA and UVF to get
out the vote for them in June’s election.
All so they could say, “See, there are still more Prods”. No thought of
the horrible price they pay for that deal.
Endorsed by the men who are an incubus on their own community.
Undermining their own public representatives. Supported by convicted
extortionists, drug dealers, thieves and gangsters whose nefarious
activities are reported luridly every Sunday in a local paper. But, hey,
that’s OK if it gets you elected.
The price was immediately visible to all in the disgraceful twists and
turns unionists made around the bonfires which threatened the homes of
people who’d just voted for them.
Did you ever see such a gutless performance by politicians? Yes,
obviously you did. The last time unionists were called upon to do the
decent thing for their electorate.
They can’t stand up to the UDA because they might need them again soon
to prevent change.
The DUP’s fundamental policy is, “Stop the world, I want to get off.”