Posted by Jim on November 22, 2016
John Manley. Irish News. Monday, November, 21, 2016
National security concerns cannot override the British state’s obligations to provide information about the past, a hard-hitting UN report has concluded.
The report, by UN special rapporteur Pablo De Greiff has been welcomed by campaign group Relatives for Justice, which says the report echoes calls for the Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan’s plan on legacy inquests to be resourced and implemented.
Mr De Greiff’s report on the “promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence” was compiled on the back of two visits to the north over the past 12 months.
It comes in the midst of a logjam on dealing with the past.
Despite widespread acknowledgement that the legacy element of the Stormont House Agreement should be implemented, the process has snagged due to a British government national security veto coupled with a hold-up in the release of funding from Stormont for historic inquests.
The UN special rapporteur recommends that support is given to the Lord Chief Justice’s inquest proposals, while saying that national security considerations should “not override obligations stemming from the right to truth”
Relatives for Justice director Mark Thompson, left, said the report was “excellent”.
He said it underlined the need for a process for dealing with the past that was “comprehensive, fully inclusive, robust and above all independent”.
“We welcome his commentary and advices around fully inclusive processes and the need for thematic processes including examination of structural violence and the needs of the injured as well as the bereaved,” he said.
“In particular we welcome his commentary on reparations for victims in which he states these issues should be tackled seriously and systemically.”
Mr Thompson said Mr De Greiff had called for the full implementation of the mechanisms agreed at Stormont House, including the provision by the British government of “effective resources enabling them to function correctly”.
“Noting persistent failures around independence, namely the HET [Historical Enquiries Team] and delays around inquests, he has underlined the need for independence and adequate resourcing in all mechanisms to deal with the past as critical to their success,” he said.
“We agree that the issue of inclusiveness around victims, should be based on a human rights framework.
“This must not be sectarian or driven by sectional interests that seek to separate victims and their needs, which has to date promoted and fostered division – we welcome the comments which seek to promote bridge building.”
Mr Thompson also noted how Mr De Greiff addressed the “absence of a gender lens” in his report, noting how “the majority of those killed were male and those left picking up the pieces were women”.
Sinn Féin welcomed the report. Party spokesperson on legacy issues, Jennifer McCann said it was comprehensive in detail and the party would take time to study its content.
“What is clear is that an international body such as the UN has placed the British government’s failure to deal with past in any comprehensive manner in the dock,” she said.
“Sinn Féin and others have agreed mechanisms to deal with the past which the British government have so far refused to implement.
“The British government need to take heed of this report and implement its recommendations in full, including issues which Sinn Féin has highlighted such as disclosure, resourcing of mechanisms and the need to adequately fund legacy investigations and inquests.”UN report: Security cannot override state’s obligations to information
Posted by Jim on November 19, 2016
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A big arms find in UDA’s Belfast HQ in 1981 proved embarrassing for a
British government resisting calls to outlaw the group but trying to
appear even-handed. An extract from ‘A State in Denial: The British
Government and Loyalist Paramilitaries’ by Margaret Urwin.
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In terms of the politics of proscription [of the UDA], we have always
regarded the existence of such denials as more important than their
accuracy. – C. Davenport, NIO official
On 26 May 1981, at the height of tensions over the IRA/INLA hunger
strike, the RUC searched the headquarters of the UDA in Newtownards
Road, Belfast, and discovered the following weapons: one Thompson
sub-machine gun, six home-made Sten guns, a .45 revolver and 550 rounds
of ammunition. According to official records UDA man Robert McDevitt was
arrested, while Andy Tyrie was merely interviewed. However, The Irish
Times stated that two men were arrested along with Tyrie. The discovery
prompted a debate amongst top civil servants, ministers and the chief
constable. If involvement in outright sectarian murders was not
sufficient cause to ban the UDA, would catching the organisation
red-handed, with a deadly arms cache in its headquarters, be enough?
Surely a Rubicon of sorts had been crossed?
This certainly triggered a flurry of internal memos between senior NIO
officials. Assistant Secretary Stephen Boys-Smith, wrote to P. W. J.
Buxton about the arms discovery, noting Buxton’s views at a meeting with
the secretary of state the previous day regarding UDA proscription.
Buxton had told Humphrey Atkins:
“The UDA is not now engaged in violence although it might be ready to
resort to or encourage violence in extreme situations. The organisation
reflects certain strands of the thinking of the Protestant community and
it would be a substantial step to proscribe it.”
This statement was simply untrue. The UDA was, at that time, engaged in
violence. In March, it killed Paul Blake, a Catholic, and – just ten
days before the arms find – another Catholic, Patrick Martin. Buxton
also ignored the high-profile attempted murder of the McAliskeys.
Some senior NIO officials had certainly been expecting an upsurge in UDA
violence in response to the election of IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands
in the Fermanagh/south Tyrone by-election held on 9 April 1981. David
Blatherwick had written to D. J. Wyatt in April stating that they were
aware ‘that the UDA is currently considering a major escalation in
violence as a response to Sands’ victory’.
At a meeting on 1 June Atkins expressed concern that the police had
failed to make arrests following the discovery of the arms and had not
sought extensions of detention while pursuing their enquiries.
Justifiably, he worried that the police would not be seen to have acted
as might have been expected had a similar discovery been made elsewhere,
rather than at UDA headquarters.
In a note to John Blelloch, deputy secretary, NIO, dated 3 June, Buxton
reported on his questioning of the chief constable, Sir John Hermon, the
previous night about the failure to bring charges; he had put it to
Hermon that he could have used Section 9 of the Northern Ireland
(Emergency Provisions) Act 1978 to do so.
Buxton had advised that Section 9 provided that when arms were found ‘in
premises of which a person was the occupier and which he habitually used
otherwise than as a member of the public’, that might be accepted as
sufficient proof of illegal possession of arms, unless the person could
prove ignorance. The section reversed the onus of proof – under Section
9 a person was not presumed innocent until proven guilty, but rather had
to prove their innocence. Hermon had agreed that it had proven useful in
other cases. In what appears to be a barely veiled criticism of the
chief constable, Buxton advised Blelloch that ‘Hermon still needs to
focus on the continued possibility of laying charges’.
It was a busy time for Buxton. In a long memo to the secretary of
state’s private secretary, he discussed the arms discovery and echoed
the secretary of state’s regrets that it was dealt with at divisional
level without reference to RUC headquarters.
Either Andy Tyrie had very strong powers of persuasion, or the RUC
regarded arms finds in the loyalist community very differently from arms
finds in the republican community. After the local detective chief
superintendent had taken him and the relevant UDA keyholders in for
questioning, they had satisfied their interrogators they had no
connection with or knowledge of the arms and were soon released without
charge, including McDevitt. Buxton reported that the chief constable had
conceded that it might have been ‘convenient’ to hold them for a couple
of days, but, he added, the action taken, ‘professionally speaking’, was
defensible. He explained that the UDA was a tenant of the property, not
the owner, and the NIO had been unable to establish the status of other
properties in which the UDA had an interest. He argued that if the UDA
were proscribed, it would cause the organisation no difficulty to
‘declare themselves under another name’ and re-register properties under
that name.
Buxton then presented the pros and cons of proscription. Points in
favour were that statements by Andy Tyrie in recent months had come
close to admissions of direct involvement in the ‘direction of
terrorism’. In The Washington Star the previous week, Tyrie had defended
assassinations and taken responsibility for ‘the small offensive unit
called UFF’. The arms find at UDA headquarters lent tangible credence to
these statements. Inaction by the government would put its credibility
and that of the RUC at risk when they claimed an even-handed approach to
law enforcement, he said. Proscription would please the Irish government
and Irish-American circles and might act as a ‘sweetener’ to the
‘beleaguered Catholic community’.
The points against proscription were that Tyrie had played a ‘generally
helpful’ role in stabilising loyalist opinion. If the UDA were to be
proscribed, he would lose control, creating a ‘second front’ for the
security forces when they were fully stretched on the main front,
combatting the IRA. They could expect disturbances in Protestant areas,
just when the marching season was beginning; the conviction of UDA
wrongdoers would be more difficult, given the ‘general disaffection’ and
drying up of intelligence sources. It would alienate the ‘Protestant
community’, even those who had no sympathy with the UDA; the
organisation had just unveiled some worthy plans for a new political
movement – proscription would probably nip that in the bud.
Buxton imparted the views of Hermon, who he said was firmly of the view
that this was an inopportune time to proscribe the UDA. In Hermon’s
view, two conditions would have to be satisfied – the politico-security
scene must be quiet (meaning that the hunger strike crisis must be
past), and the UDA should have developed politically to a point ‘where
the mass of dormant membership and the “social welfare/community worker”
elements had been syphoned off, leaving a rump of hard men (loosely
speaking the UFF) and an ordinary criminal fringe ripe for
proscription’.
The chief constable had warned Buxton that, if the government decided to
proceed with proscription, it could not count upon his support, and he
hoped to be given the chance to state his views before a final decision
was taken, preferably at a meeting with the secretary of state. Although
not quite a veto, this does seem to be the chief constable exerting an
undue influence on government policy. If ministers decided not to
proscribe for the moment, Hermon would be glad to be quoted in support
of the decision. His chief argument was the ‘demonstrable efforts of the
RUC to bring members of the UDA to book and the obstacles which
proscription would place in their way in the future’.
Buxton agreed that a strong argument could be advanced about the
prosecution of UDA members and suggested it was proof of the RUC’s bona
fides in claiming an even-handed approach and no sanctuary for the UDA.
He suggested that, in security terms, proscription would be
counterproductive and politically would tend to aggravate rather than
ease intercommunal tensions and provoke demands for similar action,
which they would be very reluctant to take at present, against
‘supposedly similar’ republican organisations. He concluded by
recommending that the secretary of state should not proscribe the UDA
but should keep the matter under close review, agreeing with Hermon that
if Atkins felt unable to accept his recommendation, he should invite the
chief constable to present his case before a final decision was made.
Boys-Smith, in a most revealing memo, wrote to Blelloch on 5 June,
reminding him of a remark by Atkins that proscription would ‘deprive the
security forces of the access which they presently had to those members
of the UDA who were also active in terrorism’.
As can be seen from the de Silva report into the murder of Pat Finucane,
around 85 per cent of all UDA intelligence information was coming from
the various branches of the British security forces at this time.
Clearly the ‘access’ worked in both directions, and to the UDA’s
benefit. According to a BBC Panorama programme, Lord Stevens, during his
investigations, arrested 210 loyalist paramilitary suspects, of whom 207
were agents or informants for the state.
A document included in de Silva’s report, headed ‘Collusion between the
security forces and loyalist paramilitaries’, observes that the flow of
intelligence to the UDA increased significantly around the time of the
Anglo-Irish Agreement: ‘However, it is assessed that research of
intelligence dating from previous years would be likely to reveal a
similar picture to that given in the attached document.’ Boys-Smith
appreciated that proscription would alienate sections of the ‘Protestant
community’ and agreed that it ‘would not be right at present to
proscribe the UDA’, although he noted that Atkins had again expressed
concern at how the discovery of arms at UDA headquarters and the
associated police action would be interpreted, especially if the UDA was
not proscribed. ‘He feared the Government and police would not appear
impartial, and that, even if there were good grounds for not bringing
prosecutions, they were not ones which would necessarily be understood
in the Catholic community or generally in Great Britain or elsewhere.’
The chief constable, he advised, had called on the secretary of state
later that day. Atkins remarked that Hermon was opposed to proscription
‘at this stage’ as he ‘thought it would be unhelpful to the preservation
of security’. He accepted the chief constable’s advice but told Hermon
he was ‘concerned about the perception of events’, both in terms of the
discovery of arms and the subsequent arrests and about the continuing
police investigation. Boys-Smith commented that the secretary of state
had to be mindful of ‘the questions which would be asked of him in
Parliament and by his colleagues and others in Great Britain’. While he
was ready to answer the suggestion that the UDA should be proscribed
‘because of the misdeeds of a few of its members’ and he had up to then
believed he could do so effectively, the discovery of arms created ‘a
different situation’. The UDA as a whole was seen to be involved, and
Atkins worried that ‘questions about its future were bound to be
raised’. Many people would assume that the UDA’s ‘Chairman’ (Tyrie) and
other officers could be held responsible; ‘this might be the case
particularly with those who knew of Section 9 of the Northern Ireland
(Emergency Provisions) Act 1978’.
Boys-Smith observed that Atkins had suggested the criticism would be
muted if there were arrests and prosecutions. He appreciated that
prosecutions were only possible if there was a reasonable chance of
conviction, but believed ‘a legitimate prosecution which failed in the
courts might be better than no prosecution at all’. He stressed to
Hermon the sensitivity of the situation and the importance of taking
action which would minimise the harmful reaction.
The chief constable reiterated that he did not believe UDA proscription
at the present time was the right way to go and asserted:
“Most UDA members did not act illegally and the organisation was not
active in violence. Only a small core of its members was involved in
terrorism or illegal activities and they were not a sufficient reason
for proscription. There was a good record of success against Protestant
extremists which would be hindered rather than helped by proscription.”
Hermon conceded that ‘the immediate aftermath of the discovery of arms
had been badly handled by his officers’ – the release of the three
suspects ‘had been premature, given the context in which the arrests had
been made, and the decision had not been referred to a suitably senior
level in the Force … He did not believe that charges could be brought
against the officers of the UDA’, notwithstanding Section 9 of the
Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act and was opposed to
prosecutions that would result in acquittals. He had assured Atkins that
enquiries ‘were being pursued urgently and energetically’ to try to
identify those who might be involved and to arrest and detain them for
questioning.
While politicians such as Atkins might have claimed ignorance of the
true nature of the UDA, no such excuse was available to Hermon. As chief
constable, he had full access to Special Branch intelligence and would
have been well aware of the widespread involvement of the UDA in
assassinations, bombings, extortion and intimidation.
In the month before the arms find, NIO official D. F. E. (Frances)
Elliot drafted a letter to a Mr McNamara of Liverpool in answer to his
letter requesting the proscription of the UDA, dated 25 March. Ms Elliot
explained that the secretary of state was not, at present, going to
proscribe the UDA. She wrote that the decision was based:
“on the difference between an organisation as such being engaged in
terrorist activities (as for example, the PIRA or the UFF, both of which
are proscribed) and individuals (who also happen to be members of an
organisation) committing crimes.”
This oft-repeated disingenuous and subtle distinction was based on two
false premises. First, the UFF was not a separate organisation but
merely a cover name for the UDA. Second, it assumes that ‘individuals’
who carried out acts of terror were acting alone and were not being
directed by leaders of the UDA.
Michael Canavan of the SDLP persisted in his efforts to have the UDA
proscribed. On 1 June he wrote again to the secretary of state with new
information to bolster his case, referring to seventeen members of the
UDA convicted of terrorist offences; an Ulster Television Counterpoint
programme detailing UDA gun-running from Scotland; the judicial
comments, not only of Justice Murray at the trial of the killer of
Alexander Reid, but also of Justice McDermott (3 April), Justice Rowland
(18 April) and Justice Doyle (24 March and 28 May); and armed attacks on
at least five persons, one fatal.
Having taken the decision not to proscribe the organisation, officials
struggled to decide whether or not to inform Canavan of this. In a
remarkably cavalier response to Canavan’s dogged and justifiable
concern, C. Davenport of the Law and Order Division of the NIO advised
against informing him, noting that ‘interest in the UDA has gone off the
boil’.
Posted by Jim on November 18, 2016
LOUGH FOYLE INTEGRAL TO IRELAND’S NATIONAL TERRITORY – 1916 SOCIETIES
The 1916 Societies note renewed claims of ownership by the British government, in the words of six-county Secretary of State James Brokenshire in the British House of Commons, to the ‘whole of Lough Foyle’, a disputed Irish waterway bordering Derry and Donegal contested since the time of partition.
The claims of James Brokenshire and the state he represents, the so-called United Kingdom, are an outworking of the continued violation of Irish national sovereignty by that same state. They are wholly without foundation given Britain has no democratic title in Ireland. Lough Foyle, as all of Ireland and her territorial waters, belongs as of right to the Irish people and to them should be returned.
The 1916 Proclamation declared the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, holding that right as sovereign and indefeasible, a position endorsed by overwhelming majority through the historic 1918 Election. With that in mind and like all Britain’s claims to Irish territory, this latest grab for the Foyle and her resources represents the imposition of force in defiance of democracy for British imperial gain.
Britain, then, should abandon not only her claims to Lough Foyle but with it her claim to the Six Counties, which remains integral to the Irish Nation regardless those claims. Their sovereignty restored, the Irish people, through democratic engagement among and between their number, can then agree new constitutional arrangements for a modern all-Ireland republic.
The British government must end its involvement in the internal affairs of our nation, that our right to self-determination might proceed without impediment. An independent all-Ireland republic, as freely agreed by our people, can at that point go forward by national referendum, restoring the ownership of Ireland to the people of Ireland as remains their inalienable right.
As the great James Connolly once asserted, Britain ‘has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland’. It remains ever thus. Britain, then, should drop her undemocratic claims to our country and leave, allowing a peaceful tomorrow for the Irish people in a democratic republic for all.
Posted by Jim on November 17, 2016
Brian Feeney. Irish News (Belfast).Wednesday,November 16, 2016
You might wonder what republican and nationalist representatives on the Policing Board are for.
A few years ago it emerged they had been asleep at the wheel while the PSNI[Police Service of Northern Ireland] operated a revolving door policy of recruiting through an agency former RUC personnel, many of whom had trousered [pocketed] huge redundancy payments. Many of them were given sensitive back -office work which could have involved investigating former colleagues or blocking investigation.
Those representatives haven’t been much help to Dr Michael Maguire the Police Ombudsman when he faced obstruction by the PSNI especially in the provision of evidential documents. He had to sue the previous chief constable to obtain certain documents.
They have been worryingly silent on the current low levels of Catholic recruitment after the three-year recruitment freeze ended a couple of years ago. In the tranche of recruits in 2015 only 77 of the 400 new police were Catholic. Around the same time as that figure was revealed in September 2015 the PSNI committed an equally revealing PR gaffe when they said they were very anxious to recruit more women and ‘people from west of the Bann’. Wrong: the priority is to recruit more Catholics and guess what? Women can be Catholics too.
One of the basic principles of the Patten report was that the PSNI should ensure that its composition was not dissimilar to the society which they police. After the idiotic decision by Owen Paterson, under Unionist pressure, to abolish 50-50 recruitment Catholic take-up has fallen consistently. The Catholic total in the PSNI is now stuck at 30 per cent compared to the Catholic percentage of the population now around 46 per cent and growing.
There’s another vital aspect that’s often overlooked. Well, in fact always overlooked by nationalist representatives on the Policing Board. How many Catholics are in senior command and management positions in the PSNI? Last year’s complaints about lack of women recruits came at a time when the most senior woman in the police, the deputy chief constable, was retiring. It was commented that there were only two women chief superintendents in the PSNI. No one, certainly not on the Policing Board, regretted the tiny number of Catholics in senior positions.
Here are the figures. According to the PSNI monitoring of the religious breakdown supplied to the Equality Commission, there are 506 people of the rank of inspector and above. Of those 92, or 18 per cent are Catholic, 396 or 78 per cent Protestant. Taking the total police service, full and part-time, which is 7,221, seven per cent are inspector or above, yet only 1.2 per cent of the total are Catholic. Eight per cent of Protestants in the police are inspectors or above, but only 4 per cent of Catholics. Not good is it?
Now you can understand how this has come about. After all, most of those in senior ranks will have been serving in the RUC or some other force for more than the 16 years the PSNI has been in existence. Nevertheless what, if any, action plan is there to accelerate Catholic officers to make up the shortfall in higher ranks? For women there is a gender action plan “to ensure their progress in regard to female career development.”
Given the evidence that Catholics are less likely to apply to join the police, are less likely to be successful in their application, and more likely to leave early, this imbalance is certain to persist well into the future. Unless there’s a radical change to recruiting policy, in 10 years time when there’s a nationalist voting majority we’ll arrive at the bizarre situation where the Protestant minority is in a substantial majority at all levels in the police. At present it is arithmetically impossible for the situation to change.
The silence among nationalist and republican representatives about the recruiting crisis, for that’s what it is, is a disgrace. It seems that because they have invested so much political capital in supporting the police they feel they can’t criticize its functioning however unsatisfactory. This failure to hold the PSNI to account, and not simply about the egregious religious imbalance, is particularly acute in the case of Sinn Féin which has most to lose as they sit there demonstrating that the Policing Board is a paper tiger.
Posted by Jim on November 15, 2016
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has renewed a controversy over his party’s
‘outreach’ efforts after he was spotted at a royal reception in London
in which the English queen Elizabeth Windsor unveiled a new painting of
herself.
Windsor was joined by Mr McGuinness as she unveiled the new portrait to
celebrate her role in the peace process on Tuesday. DUP leader Arlene
Foster, 26 County Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and Windsor’s
husband, ‘Duke of Edinburgh’ Philip Mountbatten, were also on hand as
the painting was revealed to the gala event.
McGuinness applauded as the monarch pulled the satin cover off the
painting at a reception in Chelsea on Tuesday. He later posed beside the
portrait by Belfast-born artist Colin Davidson and again shook hands
with the queen, recreating the historic moment in 2012 which was said to
have inspired the portrait. He said: “I think she’s made a tremendous
contribution to support the whole process of peace and reconciliation.”
Sinn Fein has said its engagements with the English royals are part of a
process to recognise and respect the unionist tradition in Ireland. But
Mr McGuinness’s attendance at such royal events, including a banquet at
Windsor Castle two years ago, has repeatedly angered his party’s
traditional support.
The failure of unionists to reciprocate is the source of much of the
frustration, and the DUP’s campaign to inhibit use of the Irish language
in the north of Ireland is one example which was again highlighted this
week.
DUP minister Peter Weir adopted a new policy which sets out “the
principal language is English” and ended the use of Irish in
correspondence from the Six-County Department of Education. Official
letters had previously been written in both English and Irish, but the
use of Irish would is now deprecated.
Sinn Fein’s Niall O Donnghaile – who sits on the Irish Seanad – said the
DUP had politicised the language.
“When you have a minister for education, who has a statutory obligation
to promote and enhance the development of Irish medium education, taking
the decision to shut out the visibility of Irish and saying it will be
an English-only department, then that is ill intent, that is negative
and that is politicising.
“The DUP are punishing thousands of children from every religious and
cultural background.”
Responding to the development, Mr McGuinness admitted that some within
the DUP “hate anything Irish”.
He said: “There’s a cohort of people within the DUP who hate anything to
do with the Irish language”, adding: “We have to deal with the reality
that the political institutions we’re part of are institutions that
bring into government people who have different views about many of
these matters.”
NO FRESH START
Sinn Fein is facing mounting internal pressure over the failure of
last year’s ‘Fresh Start’ agreement on dealing with the past conflict.
There have also been conflicting messages over whether the party is
ready to make a historic decision to take up its seats in Westminster
parliaent.
While Martin McGuinness has refused to rule out the possibility, party
leader Gerry Adams has again insisted this week it wouldn’t happen.
“We were elected – and it was my great honour to represent the people of
Belfast for a long time – to not take our seats in the British
parliament,” he said.
“It is a foreign parliament. It is not our parliament and we owe no
allegiance to the English queen. We wish her well and we wish the people
of Britain well.”
During sharp exchanges in the Dublin parliament, opposition Fianna Fail
leader Micheal Martin said Sinn Fein’s approach was a “curious form of
abstentionism because they have never abstained from taking the salaries
or the expenses from Westminster or the Saxon shilling”, which he
estimated at “a couple million”.
He claimed that a principled form of abstention would be to abstain
altogether. Mr Adams said Mr Martin “would not be an expert on
principles”, adding: “you should look in the mirror” — referring to
Fianna Fail’s continued abstention on key votes in the Dublin parliament
order to sustain the Fine Gael-led minority government.