Posted by Jim on February 1, 2016
Newspaper whipped up “ Unionist fury” by blatant misrepresentation of excellent animated internet video by Irish National Caucus.
The E-video is available at IrishNationalCaucus.org
Letters to the Editor
writeback@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
Belfast Telegraph.
Belfast
Northern Ireland
Friday, January 29, 2016
Dear Editor,
I write regarding your coverage of the Irish National Caucus’ animated Internet Video ( E-video).
When the Belfast Telegraph contacted me to get permission to publish the E-Video, I consented, adding that “I hope the Belfast Telegraph will write about our E-Video in a fair and balanced way. If people over there saw Northern Ireland as The Beloved Community, it would be hard for them to disrespect each other.”
I said that with firm hope as I have been impressed by the way the Belfast Telegraph over the years has tried to soften its image of being “the Protestant/Unionist newspaper”— which indisputably was how it was seen in the Catholic/Nationalist/Republican community until fairly recently.
Imagine, therefore, my utter amazement when I saw your headlines: “Arlene Foster’s fury at US video describing Orange Order as supremacists and claiming anti-Catholic discrimination is rife in Northern Ireland.” ( Rebecca Black. January 29).
“Fury” about an E- video that is replete with words and concepts such as “working for justice and praying for peace” ( the perfect Biblical formulation); “The Beloved Community”; “liberty and justice ”;” The answer clearly lies in equality, unity, nonviolence, and forgiveness, with liberty and justice for all”.
How is such fury warranted ? How often in the past forty years have your readers seen anyone urging Northern Ireland to be seen as the Beloved Community— the beautiful concept that Blessed Martin Luther King, Jr. took up and made more famous.
Apart from the extreme reaction of Unionists spokespersons, Ms. Black’s own words are factually wrong and misleading:
1.The E-video never says “ anti-Catholic discrimination is rife in Northern Ireland.”
2.The E-video never says, “It claims Protestants have never accepted Catholics as equals…”
Rather it very carefully and judiciously says : “A significant section of the Unionist/Protestant community resents sharing power with Catholics (Nationalists and Republicans) because they have never accepted Catholics as equals.”
That is not only a legitimate opinion but one that is consistently supported by a myriad of facts, figures and documentation. And it’s a point that objective and respected commentators often make. For example, Brian Feeney former SDLP elected official.
I am really surprised that First Minister Arlene Foster— whom I admire and respect, and not just because she, too, is from Fermanagh— reacts in such an over-the-top and extreme way. The
E-video makes a reasoned and passionate appeal for equality, justice, unity, nonviolence and forgiveness , and yet the First Minister oddly deems it to be sectarian. A bit like the crazy talk of her former leader (while she was still an “Official” Unionist), James Molyneaux, who declared the IRA ceasefire as “the most destabilizing event since partition.”
How can one make rhyme or reason out of that ? Black is white, down is up. Crazy, crazy talk.
Furthermore, it is rather flimsy and weak for Unionist leaders to seize upon the unfortunate but obviously technical glitch whereby the animated E-video seems in some versions to include Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan in Northern Ireland. As if l — a man from Kinawley parish, which is divided by The Border, in South Fermanagh— would not know there are not nine counties in “the Wee Six.”
I would also think that current Unionist leaders would not want to open that can of worms: reminding their followers that it was Unionist leaders, back in the day, who excluded their Orange brethren from Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan— abandoning good and true men and women in the 26 Counties who had signed the Ulster Covenant allegedly “ in their own blood.” The sell-out to end all sell-outs. The Ulster Unionist spokesperson — without the slightest sense of historical irony — says , “By and large, I expect the people of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan will have a canary when they realize they have been relocated into Northern Ireland without so much as a by your leave.”
The Orange Order questions why “why the IRA were whitewashed out of it.” Very simply: there is no mention of any army, police force or any paramilitary group.
Even though the E-video exposes the undeniable bigotry in some Orange quarters, the E- video — with the accompanying Press Release— puts the fundamental blame not on Protestants/Unionists/Orangemen but on the constitutionally enshrined anti-Catholic sectarianism of the (unwritten) British constitution. Why does the Belfast Telegraph totally ignore this? How is that fair and balanced reporting.
Finally, while the E-video rightly raises the issue of the Orange Order forcibly marching in all- Catholic areas where it is not wanted, the E-video also declares : “And let’s be clear about this: If Catholic Republicans and Nationalists wanted to parade provocatively through all-Protestant areas of Belfast, the Irish National Caucus would be the first to oppose it.”
Why would the Belfast Telegraph see fit to exclude such an integral and strictly appositional point?
Fr. Sean Mc Manus
President
Irish National Caucus
Posted by Jim on January 27, 2016
Posted by Jim on
“In the face of public knowledge about the illegal activity of the security forces in allowing killings to take place the British government’s refusal of adequate investigative procedures holds the concept of the rule of law during The Troubles up to ridicule.”
State forces illegality still being shielded
Brian Feeney. Irish News (Belfast). Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Allison Morris’s startling revelations in this paper on Monday concentrated on the role of informers in the IRA leading to the officially authorised killing of loyalists, civilians and other IRA members.
That concentration was because the information came from documents concerning IRA informers stolen from Castlereagh. It is clear that the handlers of those informers often didn’t act to prevent killing in case their sources were revealed.
The most egregious example given was the multiple killing in Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill which caused loyalist retaliation resulting in over a dozen sectarian killings in the next week but also produced a huge political reaction which almost derailed the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993.
Unfortunately there was nothing new in 1993 about the RUC, MI5 and military intelligence playing fast and loose with people’s lives here and it wasn’t just civilians or members of paramilitary groups. In November 1981 Constable William Coulter, a 23-year-old married man was killed in an IRA bomb attack at Unity Flats as Land Rover patrols changed shift. A booby-trap bomb hidden behind a fence exploded killing him and injuring others in the Land Rovers.
It quickly emerged that Special Branch knew about the bomb. Indeed the man who allegedly detonated it by line of sight was arrested next day and charged. The Police Federation complained vociferously that the patrol had not been warned about the bomb. They weren’t told in case it exposed the informant whom the RUC fervently believed would turn supergrass, the prevailing fashion in those days.
The informant did not turn supergrass, withdrew his evidence and all charges were dropped. One policeman was killed, others injured and a family wrecked by someone in Special Branch playing God. After an internal RUC investigation the constable’s widow who had given birth to a son three weeks after his killing was awarded a substantial five figure sum in compensation by the High Court. It wasn’t the first time this sequence of events occurred and of course we know of umpteen other examples over the next 20 years.
Thanks to Baroness O’Loan’s time as Police Ombudsman we know this sort of intelligence chicanery leading to the death of civilians, paramilitaries and security force members was just as prevalent with handlers of loyalist killers as with the IRA.
It’s the real reason our proconsul[Northern Ireland Secretary of State] won’t countenance a proper Historical Investigation Unit and for her insistence on ‘national security’ reasons for refusal to disclose any awkward evidence. Astonishingly the DUP is content with that even though it could mean denying relatives of members of the RUC and UDR receiving compensation from the courts. Anything is acceptable rather than admit the security forces were up to all kinds of nefarious activities throughout The Troubles.
We know from recently released State Papers how furious the Irish government was when in 1988 Sir Patrick Mayhew announced no prosecutions of any police or military personnel involved in the hayshed shootings in 1982. “An inquest will be held in due course’’, he told the Commons. That was 28 years ago. Five attempts to get the inquest started have failed. The conclusions of the highly classified Stalker-Sampson reports are now well known but no inquiry into security force illegality will ever take place.
The recent revelations of intelligence chicanery about the Shankill bomb and other murky dealings with double agents leading to killing cry out for a public inquiry. The Pat Finucane Centre has pointed out that initially the British government refused an inquiry into the killing of Alexander Litvinenko but the High Court ruled that decision wrong and a public inquiry ensued which, with no cooperation from the perpetrators, published important findings about the culprits.
That process demonstrates that even with opposition from the British government successful inquiries could be held despite non-cooperation from paramilitary groups, the Ministry of Defence and PSNI who have become experts at prevarication and obfuscation as evidence in the current investigation by Lord Justice Weir amply demonstrates.
In the face of public knowledge about the illegal activity of the security forces in allowing killings to take place the British government’s refusal of adequate investigative procedures holds the concept of the rule of law during the Troubles up to ridicule.
Posted by Jim on January 25, 2016
“But what if all that we once thought we knew about that time and the events that followed was wrong?
What if the dark hand of British intelligence was playing both sides of the chess board at one time and the innocents standing in Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill Road on October 23 1993 were considered collateral damage?”
Results of investigation could forever change our understanding of the past
Allison Morris. Irish News(Belfast). Monday, January 25, 2016
For those old enough to remember those bloody and at times savage days of the early 1990s, when the north’s conflict spiralled downwards into a series of tit-for-tat sectarian killings, there are numerous tragic events ingrained in the memory.
But even among the almost daily carnage, the Shankill bombing stands out as an event that shocked a population seemingly desensitised from years of conflict. Most people can tell you where they were when they heard the news, my terraced house on the other side of the peace wall in the Clonard area of west Belfast shook violently from the force of the blast.
Retaliation for the IRA bombing was swift and brutal and it was just a week later when news reports showing broken bodies being pulled from the rubble on the Shankill Road were replaced with the scenes of bloody carnage at Greysteel.
Much has been written about that period and the aftermath and with the north on the brink of all out civil war there was a push towards a political settlement. Both sides were as a result forced back to the negotiating table with a war weary public ready to embrace a deal that may have otherwise been unthinkable.
Victims were forced to accept the early release of all paramilitary prisoners, for republicans a settlement that fell far short of the once demanded United Ireland. Unionists agreed to share power and sit in government with former IRA members.
But what if all that we once thought we knew about that time and the events that followed was wrong?
What if the dark hand of British intelligence was playing both sides of the chess board at one time and the innocents standing in Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill Road on October 23 1993 were considered collateral damage?
The Irish News has seen evidence that shows the man who was the Ardoyne ‘commander’ of the IRA from 1991 until 2001 was in fact a top level informant.
Also, that prior information was passed to his handlers about the plan to kill UDA leader Jonny Adair in his office situated above Frizzell’s shop. How previous plans to kill the high-profile loyalist were abandoned as unworkable before the idea of walking a bomb into the building was floated by the compromised IRA leader. That Adair, who met with UDA members every Saturday at the office, wasn’t there on the day of the attack. Was he warned while innocents were allowed to perish?
All this has been known to republicans since the break in at Special Branch offices at Castlereagh in 2001 when classified documents detailing the information being passed by the Ardoyne commander to his handlers was stolen by the IRA.
And while people close to the Sinn Féin leadership, such as Denis Donaldson and Roy McShane, were outed for political reasons, efforts have been made to conceal the extent to which the ‘military’ side of the organisation was infiltrated.
Should a Police Ombudsman’s investigation reveal that the Shankill bombing and other events carried out by the Ardoyne IRA during that period were preventable, our understanding of that time will have changed forever.
For the victims, those injured and those who lost loved ones, this development raises allegations of collusion that overshadows all that has gone before it.
Was a botched attack allowed to go ahead and did the state allow civilians to die to shame republicans into a ceasefire?
That’s now a question for the police ombudsman to answer.
Posted by Jim on
Decrypted classified documents obtained by the Provisional IRA have
shown that a state agent was behind one of the most notorious tragedies
of the conflict, the Shankill Road bomb attack in 1993.
According to a report this morning, a former IRA ‘commander’ in Ardoyne
has been exposed as an informer and double agent working for RUC Special
Branch for more than a decade. Known to Special Branch as ‘AA’, he
cannot be named for legal reasons.
According to the documents, the informer’s handlers were fully informed
of the plan to target the offices used by loyalist death squad leader
Johnny Adair and other UDA leadership figures.
For reasons still unknown the bomb exploded prematurely, killing eight
civilians as well as IRA Volunteer Thomas Begley and injuring his
comrade Sean Kelly. The outcry over the loss of life increased pressure
on the Provisional IRA to call a ceasefire, which they did ten months
later. It also brought about a wave of ‘reprisal’ attacks by loyalists
such as the Greysteel massacre a week later.
The informer in question was identified after the IRA decoded
information from documents taken from inside the Special Branch’s
headquarters at Castlereagh on St Patrick’s Day in 2001. Calls made to
his special branch handlers are logged throughout the documents,
including the information that he carried out the scouting operations
for the attack himself.
He was also involved in numerous other IRA actions at the time he was
working for the RUC. He was quietly replaced by the Provisional Army
Council in 2002, although no explanation was given to the Volunteers
under his control, and continues to live in the Ardoyne area.
The British Crown forces have previously been accused of allowing other
attacks to proceed for their own sinister agenda, such as the devasting
‘Real IRA’ attack in Omagh in 1998. Twenty-nine people died in that
attack after telephoned bomb warnings failed to clear the area around
the bomb. The public outcry led to the organisation calling a ceasefire
three weeks later.
The Police Ombudsman has now been asked to investigate the evidence that
the RUC “could have prevented” the Shankill bomb. The complaint has been
made by a family member of one of the victims, and was lodged on Friday.