Posted by Jim on May 31, 2017
Videos of PSNI police abuse and harassment of republicans and the people
of Derry have received hundreds upon thousands of views, likes and
shares on the internet.
Saoradh and republican youth group Eistigi have said there has been an
escalation in the harassment campaign that is being directed against
both republicans and the general public.
Dozens of these incidents have now been documented by videos recorded on
smartphones. One recent video depicts a 15 year old child being bullied
and manhandled by a group of PSNI.
“Had any other group of men in Derry been captured on film, abusing a 15
year old child in this fashion, then their homes would be picketed and
they would, without doubt, be subject to arrest,” Eistigi said in a
Facbook post.
“The gang featured in this video will not have their homes picketed.
They do not live amongst us. They creep amongst us. They are drafted in
from elsewhere and concealed behind a fortified barracks wall. They then
go out on patrol in armoured vehicles and heavily armed.
“They are not part of this community because they are not wanted and
they are not welcome. Neither will the gang in this video be subjected
to arrest. They are protected by their uniform.”
They said there had been a sharp escalation in a campaign of state
harassment that is being directed against young people in Derry as part
of a campaign to smash the youth group.
“The activity and development of Eistigi unnerves the British
establishment in Derry. Another generation of resistance to British rule
is emerging here. They cannot stop it and they know it.”
Last week, Saoradh in Belfast condemned what it described as an
escalation in the intimidation and abuse of its members there by the use
of ‘stop and search’ tactics
The harassment of West Belfast republican Damhnaic Mac Eochaidh and a
local woman was captured on video outside Dunville Park in west Belfast.
An illegal search took place of their vehicle after PSNI members
involved made an unsubstantiated reference to having authorisation from
the British Direct Ruler.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the party in Belfast said that the
searches were deliberately carried out to inhibit the lawful activity
and progress of their movement.
They said the actions were being directed by British military
intelligence. “The aim is to stifle our growth by frustrating our
development,” they said.
Posted by Jim on
The family of a teenager killed by British soldiers 46 years ago have
accused the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) of trying to obstruct a
new investigation into her death.
Martin McGavigan, whose 14-year-old sister Annette was shot dead in
Derry in 1971, made the claim after the MoD attempted to withhold
documents about her death already in the public domain.
Mr McGavigan said he believed the MoD was delaying the case in the hope
his family would eventually give up attempts to hold a new probe.
The schoolgirl was in her school uniform when she was shot in the head
on September 6 1971 while trying to collect discarded rubber bullets
following a riot near her Bogside home.
The only investigation carried out into her death was by the British
Military Police. None of the soldiers responsible were ever charged.
In 2014 the teenager’s family asked the MoD for documents relating to
her death, including an intelligence report. When the Ministry failed to
comply with their request, they complained to the Information
Commissioner.
At a subsequent tribunal hearing at the High Court in Belfast it was
revealed that 90 per cent of the documents were already in the public
domain.
The documents which were held back by the MoD included inquest
depositions taken from soldiers at the time.
In its ruling, the tribunal said it was “extraordinary” that neither the
Information Commissioner or the tribunal was alerted earlier to the fact
that most of the material was already in the public domain adding there
“was no justification for refusing the request”.
The tribunal ordered the MoD to hand over the documents.
However, it turned down the family’s request for an intelligence report
after MoD lawyers refused permission for the Information Commission’s
counsel to view its contents.
Sara Duddy, the McGavigan family’s case worker at the Pat Finucane
Centre, said the decision made it almost impossible for the Information
Commission to argue for the release of the intelligence report.
“To push families to have to battle for every piece and shred of
information, that is frustrating,” Ms Duddy said.
Posted by Jim on
The following piece was published by Junior McDaid House, a new joint
Irish Republican Prisoners’ Welfare Association and Saoradh office in
Derry named after the late IRA volunteer, James ‘Junior’ McDaid.
It is impossible to forget certain media reports. They are engraved upon
your mind at the moment you first view them. Younger Republicans will
not remember certain articles and images from the war but as recent
investigations have brought them back into the public domain, there is
no doubt that all of us can relate to them and their meaning.
The account of Aidan Starrs, Johnny Dignam and Gregory Burns. Three
British agents who had murdered and secretly buried Margaret Perry in an
attempt to conceal their role within British intelligence. They were
executed by the IRA and their bodies left on the road. The recently
aired confession of Caroline Moreland, a Belfast woman who confessed to
being a British agent inside the IRA and who was subsequently executed
with her body being left on the Fermanagh Monaghan border in July 1994.
The recent lonesome and pathetic death of Derry British agent Raymond
Gilmore who had worked for British intelligence against his own people
before ironically being exposed by his handlers. This forced him to flee
his home and to rot in isolation and alcoholism in various shabby
English flats until his pathetic existence was finally extinguished. His
rotting corpse lay undiscovered for days. No-one cares about an
informer, they do not have loved ones.
All of these horrid images and stories raise the question, “What
happened to send these people into such pathetic lonely deaths?”
It begins with an approach. Caroline Moreland claims to have been
threatened with the loss of her children, Johnny Dignam & Co offered
various reasons. Raymond Gilmore pretended he had a justification for
turning on his own but an informer is a narcissist and by virtue of
their existence will do or say anything to protect only themselves and
only for their own selfish interest.
The intelligence world is a dark place that we know is bereft of law,
morals or justice. British intelligence controls everything in the 6
Counties, from the Prisons to the so-called ‘Police’. Over the past 10
years Nationalist politicians aided by the NIO have rammed an image of
the RUC down our throats that simply doesn’t exist.
They have told us that the RUC has changed its ways and swore that it is
no longer at war with the Nationalist community. They have ordered us to
endorse it and they have forced it into every aspect of community life
to such an extent it is impossible to live without “them” being “there”
somewhere.
Last year PSNI commander Will Kerr stated on radio that “MI5 and the
PSNI” are “the same thing”. No-one seemed to raise an eyebrow at this
revelation but it was the first time that someone so senior conceded
what Republicans have known always.
At the weekend National Organiser for Saoradh, Joe Barr, arrived home to
find that a letter signed by “Caroline” awaited him. Joe does not know
who “Caroline” is. The letter is a disgusting attempt by British
intelligence to recruit an agent within the Revolutionary Republican
Party Saoradh.
This letter arrived a week following the publication of a newspaper
article. The article detailed how Joe had been forced from the U.S. by
FBI agents working on the instructions of British intelligence while on
a business trip and how he has been left unemployed as a result.
“Caroline’s” attempt to exploit the very circumstances which British
intelligence created in order to facilitate an approach is truly
shocking in 2017.
“Caroline” tells Joe in the letter that only she can help him. In an
attempt to manipulate him, she tells him that he is smarter than his
comrades and has already proven an ability to act and think differently
than them. It is probably the same theme that was once applied to the
narcissistic Raymond Gilmore and one that appealed to him.
British intelligence have targeted Joe in a number of ways over the last
12 months. He has been arrested, charged, constantly harassed by the RUC
on a daily basis, they terminated his employment and have applied so
much pressure upon him, that both his family and personal relationships
are inevitably enduring stress.
Having directed this vendetta against Joe, MI5 now believe that he is
ready to break and enter the arena for MI5 against his people, his
friends and his Country.
They want him to inflict damage on Saoradh and the Republican movement.
They want him to engage in the activities Johnny Dignam and Co. did and
they want his life to extinguish in a dirty oul’ flat in England in the
same isolation as Raymond Gilmores.
British intelligence set about to destroy this young mans life last year
because of his legitimate Republican beliefs. They targeted a very hard
working, well educated and decent young man until he had lost his
employment, was before the courts and had featured in the local media.
They did so in order to make him vulnerable enough to recruit him into a
life of unthinkable crime. Former agents include Mark Haddock, Torrens
Knight and Freddie Scappaticci. The pathway to a better life that
“Caroline” has offered to Joe is the road to pure evil.
Saoradh demand that the British explain them-selves in relation to this
disgusting attempt at wreaking havoc upon the people of Derry through
agency. We call on the forces of Nationalism, who have been driving the
Normalisation process for a decade, to come out now and to condemn this
horrific and now wholly exposed agenda. The RUC and MI5 are one and the
same body. They have no place around any Irish person and have been
exposed by “Caroline” for what they are and always have been.
Do not be fooled by British intelligence or flattered by their
overtures. They possess the same consideration for Joe or indeed any
other Republican, as they did for the rest of those whom they gleefully
sent to lay dead on border roads, in England’s dirty war games.
We make an appeal to anyone who has been approached by British
intelligence and has accepted their false promises of a better life to
come forward and to make it known. Do not allow yourselves to end up in
the same sorry state that others did. As revolutionaries we understand
how England works and why they work in this manner. We therefore are
truly here to help all victims of British rule.
In response to Caroline who asked that Joe keep her little letter to
himself. We hope you enjoyed this statement.
Posted by Jim on May 21, 2017
Raymond McCreesh
A quiet, good-natured and discreet republican
THE THIRD of the resolutely determined IRA Volunteers to join the H-Block hunger strike for political status was twenty-four-year-old Raymond McCreesh, from Camlough in South Armagh: a quiet, shy and good-humoured republican, who although captured at the early age of nineteen, along with two other Volunteers in a British army ambush, had already almost three years active republican involvement behind him.
During those years he had established himself as one of the most dedicated and invaluable republican activists in that part of the six counties to which the Brits themselves have – half-fearfully, half-respectfully – given the name ‘bandit country’ and which has become a living legend in republican circles, during the present war, for the courage and resourcefulness of its Volunteers: the border land of South Armagh.
Raymond’s resolve to hunger strike to the death, to secure the prisoners’ five demands was indicated in a smuggled-out letter written by Paddy Quinn, an H-Block blanket man – who was later to embark on hunger strike himself – who was captured along with Raymond and who received the same fourteen year sentence: “I wrote Raymie a couple of letters before he went to the prison hospital. He wrote back and according to the letter he was in great spirits and very determined. A sign of that determination was the way he finished off by saying: Ta seans ann go mbeidh me abhaile rombat a chara’ which means: There is a chance that I’ll be home before you, my friend!”
Captured in June 1976, and sentenced in March 1977, when he refused to recognise the court, Raymond would have been due for release in about two years’ time had he not embarked on his principled protest for political status, which led him, ultimately, to hunger strike.
FAMILY
Raymond Peter McCreesh, the seventh in a family of eight children, was born in a small semi-detached house at St. Malachy’s Park, Camlough – where the family still live – on February 25th, 1957.
The McCreeshes, a nationalist family in a staunchly nationalist area, have been rooted in South Armagh for seven generations, and both Raymond’s parents – James aged 65, a retired local council worker, and Susan (whose maiden name is Quigley), aged 60 – come from the nearby townland of Dorsey.
Raymond was a quiet but very lively person, very good-natured and – like other members of his family – extremely witty. Not the sort of person who would push himself forward if he was in a crowd, and indeed often rather a shy person in his personal relationships until he got to know a person well. Nevertheless, in his republican capacity he was known as a capable, dedicated and totally committed Volunteer who could show leadership and aggression where necessary.
Among both his family and his republican associates, Raymond was renowned for his laughter and for “always having a wee smile on him”. His sense of humour remained even during his four-year incarceration in the H-Blocks, as well as during his hunger strike where he continued to insist that he was “just fine.”
SCHOOL
Raymond went first to Camlough primary school, and then to St. Coleman’s college in Newry. It was at St. Coleman’s that Raymond met Danny McGuinness, also from Camlough, and the two became steadfast friends. They later became republican comrades, and Danny too then a nineteen-year-old student who had just completed his ‘A’ levels was captured along with Raymond and Paddy Quinn, and is now in the H-Blocks.
At school, Raymond’s strongest interest was in Irish language and Irish history, and he read widely in those subjects. His understanding of Irish history led him to a fervently nationalist outlook, and he was regarded as a ‘hothead’ in his history classes, and as being generally “very conscious of his Irishness”.
He was also a sportsman, and played under-sixteen and Minor football for Carrickcruppin Gaelic football club as well as taking a keen interest in the local youth club where he played basketball and pool, and was regarded a good snooker player.
When he was fourteen years old, Raymond got a weekend job working on a milk round through the South Armagh border area, around Mullaghbawn and Dromintee. Later on, after leaving his job in Lisburn, he worked full-time on the milk round, where he would always stop and chat to customers. He became a great favourite amongst them and many enquired about him long after he left the round.
RESISTANCE
During the early ‘seventies, the South Armagh border area was the stamping ground of the British army’s Parachute regiment, operating out of Bessbrook camp less than two miles from Raymond’s home. Stories of their widespread brutality and harassment of local people abound, and built-up then a degree of resentment and resistance amongst most of the nationalist population that is seen to this day.
The SAS terror regiment began operating in this area in large numbers too, in a vain attempt to counter republican successes, and the high level of assassinations of local people on both sides of the South Armagh border, notably three members of the Reavey family in 1975, was believed locally to have been the work both of the SAS, and of UDR and RUC members holding dual membership with ‘illegal’ loyalist paramilitary organisations.
Given this scenario and Raymond’s understanding of Irish history, it is small wonder that he became involved in the republican struggle.
JOINED
He first of all joined na Fianna Eireann early in 1973 and towards the end of that year joined the Irish Republican Army’s 1st Battalion, South Armagh.
Even before joining the IRA, and despite his very young age, Raymond – with remarkable awareness and maturity – became one of the first Volunteers in the South Armagh area to adopt a very low, security conscious, republican profile.
He rarely drank, but if occasionally in a pub he would not discuss either politics or his own activities, and he rarely attended demonstrations or indeed anything which would have brought him to the attention of the enemy.
It was because of this remarkable self-discipline and discretion that during his years of intense republican involvement Raymond was never once arrested or even held for screening in the North, and only twice held briefly in the South.
Consequently, Raymond was never obliged to go ‘on the run’, continuing to live at home until the evening of his capture, and always careful not to cause his family any concern or alarm.
Fitted in with his republican activities Raymond would relax by going to dances or by going to watch football matches at weekends.
WORK
After leaving school he spent a year at Newry technical college studying fabrication engineering, and afterwards got a job at Gambler Simms (Steel) Ltd. in Lisburn. He had a conscientious approach to his craft but was obliged to leave after a year because of a fear of assassination.
Each day he travelled to work from Newry, in a bus along with four or five mates who had got jobs there too from the technical college, but the prevailing high level of sectarian assassinations, and the suspicion justifiably felt of the predominantly loyalist work-force at Gambler Simms, made Raymond, and many other nationalist workers, decide that travelling such a regular route through loyalist country side was simply too risky.
So, after leaving the Lisburn factory, Raymond began to work full-time as a milk roundsman, an occupation which would greatly have increased his knowledge of the surrounding countryside, as well as enabling him to observe the movements of British army patrols and any other untoward activity in the area.
ACTIVITY
Republican activity in that area during those years consisted largely of landmine attacks and ambushes on enemy patrols.
Raymond had the reputation of a republican who was very keen to suggest and take part in operations, almost invariably working in his own, extremely tight, active service unit, though occasionally, when requested – as he frequently was – assisting other units in neighbouring areas with specific operations. He would always carefully consider the pros and cons of any operation, and would never panic or lose his nerve.
In undertaking the hunger strike, Raymond gave the matter the same careful consideration he would have expended on a military operation, he undertook nothing either a rush, or for bluff.
CAPTURE
The operation which led to the capture of Raymond, his boyhood friend, Danny McGuiness, and Patrick Quinn, took place on June 25th, 1976.
An active service unit comprising these three and a fourth Volunteer arrived in a commandeered car at a farmyard in the town land of Sturgan a mile from Camlough – at about 9.25 p.m.
Their objective was to ambush a covert Brit observation post which they had located opposite the Mountain House Inn, on the main Newry – Newtonhamilton Road, half-a-mile away. They were not aware, however, that another covert British observation post, on a steep hillside half-a-mile away, had already spotted the four masked, uniformed and armed Volunteers, clearly visible below them, and that radioed helicopter reinforcements were already closing in.
As the fourth Volunteer drove the commandeered car down the road to the agreed ambush point, to act as a lure for the Brits, the other three moved down the hedgeline of the fields, into position. The fourth Volunteer, however, as he returned, as arranged, to rejoin his comrades, spotted the British Paratroopers on the hillside closing in on his unsuspecting friends and, although armed only with a short range Stengun, opened fire to warn the others.
Immediately, the Brits opened fire with SLRs and light machine-guns, churning up the ground around the Volunteers with hundreds of rounds, firing indiscriminately into the nearby farmhouse and two vehicles parked outside, and killing a grazing cow!
The fourth Volunteer was struck by three bullets, in the leg, arm and chest, but managed to crawl away and to elude the massive follow up search, escaping safely – though seriously injured – the following day.
Raymond and Paddy Quinn ran zig-zag across open fields to a nearby house, under fire all this time, intending to commandeer a car. Unfortunately, the car belonging to the occupants of the house was parked at a neighbour’s house several hundred yards away. Even then the pair might have escaped but that they delayed several minutes waiting for their comrade, Danny McGuinness, who however had got separated from them and had taken cover in a disused quarry outhouse (where he was captured in a follow-up operation the next day).
The house in which Raymond and Paddy took cover was immediately besieged by berserk Paratroopers who riddled the house with bullets. Even when the two Volunteers surrendered, after the arrival of a local priest, and came out through the front door with their hands up, the Paras opened fire again and the Pair were forced to retreat back into the house.
On the arrival of the RUC, the two Volunteers again surrendered and were taken to Bessbrook barracks where they were questioned and beaten for three days before being charged.
REMARKABLE
One remarkable aspect of the British ambush concerns the role of Lance-Corporal David Jones, a member of the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute regiment. According to Brit statements at the trial it was he who first opened up on the IRA active service unit from the hillside.
Nine months later, on March 16th, 1977 two IRA Volunteers encountered two Paratroopers (at the time seconded to the SAS) in a field outside Maghera in South Derry. In the ensuing gun battle, one SAS man was shot dead, and one IRA Volunteer was captured. The Volunteer’s name was Francis Hughes, the dead Brit was Lance-Corporal David Jones of the Parachute regiment.
In the eighteen months before going on hunger strike together neither Raymond McCreesh or Francis Hughes were aware of what would seem to have been an ironic but supremely fitting example of republican solidarity!
After nine months remand in Crumlin Road jail, Raymond was tried and convicted in March 1977, of attempting to kill Brits, possession of a Garand rifle and ammunition, and IRA membership. He received a fourteen-year sentence, and lesser concurrent sentences, after refusing to recognise the court.
In the H-Blocks he immediately joined the blanket protest, and so determined was his resistance to criminalisation that he refused to take his monthly visits for four years, right up until he informed his family of his decision to go on hunger strike on February 15th, this year. He also refused to send out monthly letters, writing only smuggled ‘communications’ to his family and friends.
The only member of his family to see him at all during those four years in Long Kesh two or three times – was his brother, Fr. Brian McCreesh, who occasionally says Mass in the H-Blocks.
HUNGER STRIKE
Like Francis Hughes, Raymond volunteered for the earlier hunger strike, and, when he was not chosen among the first seven, took part in the four-day hunger strike by thirty republicans until the hunger strike ended on December 18th, last year.
Speaking to his brother, Malachy, shortly after Bobby Sands death, Raymond said what a great loss had been felt by the other hunger strikers, but it had made them more determined than ever.
And still managing to keep his spirits up, when told of his brother, Fr. Brian, campaigning for him on rally platforms, Raymond joked: “He’ll probably get excommunicated for it.”
To Britain’s eternal shame, the sombre half-prediction made by Raymond to his friend Paddy Quinn – Ta seans ann go mbeid me abhaile rombat – became a grim reality. Bhi se. Raymond died at 2.11 a.m. on Thursday May 21st, 1981, after 61 days on hunger strike.