Posted by Jim on November 24, 2015
McGurk’s Bar activist, Robert McClenaghan, writes on the reality of
Britain’s inability to face up to its human rights abuses, and how this
now becomes his own ticking clock dilemma.
I was with other family members in west Belfast to hear about the
current situation with the Stormont House Agreement and how families who
lost loved ones during the conflict are yet again abused by the British
state. Britain does not want to deal with its past.
I found out the British Government are using what they call “National
Security Issues”to allow them to hold onto documents and files which
they think are too important to British National Security Interests to
give to families of those murdered or injured during the conflict.
And it does not matter to them if your son, daughter, father, mother,
was IRA, UDA, UVF, UDR British Army, INLA, IPLO, Ulster Resistance, or
civilian Protestant, Catholic or Dissenter.
Every single family is being refused the truth because of British
National Security Interests.
My Thoughts
Firstly, when we talk about Legacy Issues, Dealing with the Past or
National Security, we lose sight of the human beings we are actually
talking about. The victims are faceless and nameless. They have no
family and left nobody behind that mourns for them every day. They do
not exist. And neither do we.
This brings me to my own personal case which I would like to share with
you as it has been on my mind recently.
I call it the Ticking Clock Dilemma.
On the one hand we have the British Government steadfastly refusing to
tell the truth about its involvement in the conflict here for fear it
may reveal terrible dark crimes committed in its name by the British
Army, the RUC, the UDR and MI5 as well as its gangs of agents recruited
to wage war as a counter to the IRA campaign to destroy the State of
Northern Ireland as they saw it.
On the other hand of the Ticking Clock Dilemma is my Dad, Sam.
Sam is 86 years of age and I love him to bits. On December 4 1971 my
Dad’s step-father, Philip Garry, was murdered along with 14 other
innocent men women and children in McGurk’s Bar in the New Lodge area of
North Belfast. He was having a quiet pint when the bomb exploded. My
grandfather was 73 years of age at the time of his death. 73.
Within 12 hours of the murders in McGurk’s Bar, the RUC made up the
story that my grandfather was a bomber, an IRA man who along with the
others blew themselves up as part of an IRA own-goal.
I was 12 at the time and I am 56 now.
We have been waiting for nearly 44 years for the authorities to tell the
truth.
The Ticking Clock Dilemma for my Dad is this:
On Friday the 24 October the Chief Heart Consultant in the RVH told Sam
that he has only one artery to his heart left working and it is being
kept open by a small metal tube called a stent. The rest of his arteries
have all collapsed and cannot be repaired. They sent him home from
hospital saying there was nothing more medically could be done for him
and it was now in Gods hands how much longer he had left to live. I
cried when he told me as now I know my Dad is living on borrowed time.
One artery is now doing 100% of the work and sooner or later it is going
to stop and Sam will be dead.
The Ticking Clock for the British is that they want to waste as much
time as possible before they are forced by public opinion to tell what
they did as part of the conflict here.
They are refusing to hand over to my Dad crucial documents relating to
McGurk’s Bar.
My Dad along with other McGurk’s Bar families have taken the former PSNI
Chief Constable Matt Bagott and the present Chief Constable to court to
overturn a report by the failed and discredited Historical Enquiries
Team which was sanctioned by the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The
HET’s report lied and said that the RUC did nothing wrong in December
1971 when they blamed the IRA for the atrocity and not the real culprits
the UVF.
This is despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary discovered and
presented to the by our campaign to the police from the state’s own
files. They have it in front of them in black and white. They deny us
other information which they are attempting to deny us access to for 84
years.
What delay means
I mention all this because i want to highlight our particular case to
prove a general point which is simple.
My Dad and other families cannot afford any further delay in getting the
British Government to admit not only what happened at McGurk’s Bar in
1971 but also hundreds and hundreds of other cases.
The RFJ website estimates that 365 people where murdered by the British
State and a further 1100 where murdered on top of that by the UVF and
UDA and Ulster Resistance as a result of a policy of collusion with the
British State.
The McGurk’s Bar case is one of the first cases of the British State
using counter-gangs to try and defeat the IRA, and to deter the
Nationalist community from supporting the IRA. The control of the
narrative in the aftermath which presented the bombing as an own-goal
was a classic psychological operation. It is a psychological operation
which continues to this day.
The McGurk’s Bar fell into a timeline. It did not explode in a vacuum.
The Ticking Clock dilemma persists as the British State tries to cripple
the coronial system, or the proposed Historical Inquiries Unit, and it
still refuses to allow any information that they do not like to see in
the public domain to be shared with anyone.
The British want to see the clock tick longer and further into the
future. My Dad Sam does not have the luxury of time. Something has to
give. Either my Dad’s heart or the British State.
The blockages in my Dad’s heart can be compared to the blockages put in
the way of the truth. We all must do our best to unblock them. Sam needs
it before it is too late. Thousands of other family members need it too.
Posted by Jim on November 22, 2015
by Eamon Sweeney
A relative of two of the victims of Bloody Sunday has described as an “insult” that the British Ministry of Defence is to foot the legal bill for soldiers arrested in connection with the PSNI investigation into the events of January 30, 1972.
The news emerged after an emergency question was lodged in the House of Commons over last week’s arrest of a former member of the Parachute Regiment. ‘Lance Corporal J’ was arrested on November 10 and it is understood he was questioned in relation to the killing of William Nash, John Young and Michael McDaid as well as the wounding of Alexander Nash. The ex-soldier was detained in County Antrim and questioned at a Belfast police station before being released on bail pending further police police inquiries.
This prompted seven other soldiers to seek a judicial review in London. It is understood these soldiers are soldiers B, N, O, Q, R, U and V. These were the anonymous names applied to the ex-soldiers during the 12 year Saville Inquiry.
Lawyers for the soldiers contended that the motivation behind the arrest of ‘Lance Corporal J’ was “politically motivated” and also followed on from the realisation that if they are charged their anonymity could be put aside. It is also possible that if charged and subsequently convicted that they may not quality for early release under the Good Friday Agreement as it falls outside the timeframe agreed for non-qualification agreed in the 1998 accord.
The seven soldiers also lodged objections to not being given at least 24 hours notice of arrest, whereby they could arrange to present themselves to local police stations for questioning. They have also objected to being transferred to Northern Ireland for police questioning.
The judicial review will take place at a Divisional Court in London, next Thursday, November 26. Mr Justice Ouseley ordered that families of those killed on Bloody Sunday are not persons “directly affected” by the application as the case concerns the lawfulness of the anticipated arrests, chiefly because the soldiers are willing to be interviewed in England, and because of risks faced in Northern Ireland.
Independent MP for North Down, Lady Sylvia Hermon, asked in the House of Commons if the Ministry of Defence will pay for his and other soldiers’ legal costs.
She said: “That’s the legal advice and legal representation – top legal representation – of any former soldiers who served in Northern Ireland and who are charged in connection with any inquiry, Bloody Sunday or indeed inquests such as those announced for Ballymurphy.”
Confirming that legal fees will be paid, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, Ben Wallace, said that the Ministry of Defence recognises it has a duty of care to all current and former members of the armed forces.
He said: “As an essential part of that, we will pay for independent legal advice, so that they are able to defend themselves when they face legal proceedings on matters related to their former service.”
Reacting to the news that the ex-Paratrooper’s will have their legal fees paid by the Ministry of Defence, Kate Nash whose brother was shot dead and father wounded, told the ‘Journal’: “Again the British Government have insulted the family’s and victims of Bloody Sunday.
“They are paying legal expenses for former soldiers they say they owe a duty of care to. Are they serious? What about the innocent victims who’s lives ended that day? What about the innocent people they wounded? What about the hundreds they arrested and brutalised? What about the people who still suffer because of their memories of that day.
“They are paying for these cowards because if they don’t they might tell the real story-that they were ordered in to do exactly what they did, murder Irish people.”
Posted by Jim on
By Susan Edelman, NY Post
A female firefighter who was allowed to graduate the Fire Academy despite failing physical tests has already gone out on medical leave — just 10 days into the job, The Post has learned.
Probationary firefighter Choeurlyne Doirin-Holder injured herself Monday while conducting a routine check of equipment at Queens’ Engine 308 in South Richmond Hill. Getting off the truck, Doirin-Holder missed a step and landed on her left foot, suffering a fracture, sources said.
It was her second shift after a transfer from Engine 301. In training for a hazmat assignment, officers found her struggling to perform the required tasks.
Firefighters called the tripping incident embarrassing — and alarming.
“If you’re going to get hurt in the firehouse checking a rig, what would happen at a fire?” an insider asked.
On Nov. 6, Doirin-Holder celebrated her FDNY graduation as one of four new female Bravest, bringing the number of women to 49 — an all-time high in the FDNY’s 150-year history.
But Doirin-Holder’s competence was questioned by sources familiar with her training. They said academy instructors let her pass the Functional Skills Test, a rigorous obstacle course of job-related tasks, even though she had failed to complete it in the required 17 minutes and 50 seconds or under.
In addition, when she failed to finish a 1.5-mile run in 12 minutes or less — even after the course was shortened — she was allowed to demonstrate aerobic capacity on a StairMaster machine under watered-down requirements enacted by FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro.
Doirin-Holder, who turns 40 this month, is one of 282 “priority hires” passed over in 1999 and 2000. Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis ordered they must get preference as victims of past discrimination against minorities.
It was Doirin-Holder’s third attempt to pass the academy. She failed midway through an academy class in 2013 and returned to her former job as an EMT. Two other female priority hires in that class did well.
Doirin-Holder started another class in early 2014 but dropped out because of an injury. The FDNY then gave her a desk job and kept her on the payroll at top firefighter salary, $76,488. She made $81,376 with overtime in 2014 and entered her third class this summer.
Since she was injured on duty, she is eligible for a disability pension that would pay three-quarters of her annual salary, tax-free, if deemed unfit to return.
In an online FDNY forum, firefighters fumed at the preferential treatment.
“If you can’t meet the standards, you are a danger to yourself, the public and most importantly everyone operating on the fire ground who is doing their job,” one wrote.
The FDNY said it won’t discuss personnel or medical matters.
Posted by Jim on November 21, 2015
Informers within the Provisional IRA are suspected of providing
information that led to the loyalist murder of a senior republican in
north Belfast man almost 30 years ago.
Laurence Marley, known as Larry, was shot dead by the UVF in front of
his wife and new-born son as he answered a knock at the door of his
Ardoyne home in April 1987.
The senior IRA figure was gunned down 18 months after serving a 13-year
jail term for his part in the armed struggle, which included helping to
mastermind the famous Long Kesh prison breakout of 1983.
His family is now preparing to sue the PSNI police, the British Ministry
of Defence and Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers over his death. They
believe the Crown Forces played a part in targeting the father-of-six by
passing information to his loyalist killers, facilitating the attack and
protecting their own agents.
His funeral was delayed for three days after the RUC police launched a
massive security operation and formed a heavily armed cordon around his
home to prevent a republican funeral.
Two attempts to bury the IRA man were aborted after a platoon of RUC
surrounded his cortege. His funeral finally took place six days after
his death.
During the stand-off undertakers had to re-embalm the body in the house
amid threats from the RUC that it would be seized under public health
laws.
The episode led to Bishop of Down and Connor Cahal Daly calling on the
RUC to rethink its approach to dealing with republican funerals.
It is now thought that the senior republican was set up by a number of
agents within the IRA who supplied information to their Crown Force
handlers on his movements — and who in turn passed it on to the UVF.
His son Setanta believes that information was “passed on by republican
agents to their handlers which would have added to the knowledge of my
father’s involvement in planning the ‘great escape’ in 1983 which was a
major embarrassment to the Thatcher administration, especially in the
shadow of the hunger strike.”
Setanta, who was only two week’s old when his father was killed, accused
the PSNI of failing to investigate his death properly.
“The behaviour of the security forces at the funeral is nothing short of
proving investigative bias,” he said.
He said the family wants “accountability and truth on the part of the
British government” and has been “put in a position where they have to
pursue a civil action in the hope that the discovery process divulges
information that can provide assistance and the truth”.
Mr Marley, who is himself a member of the legal team at KRW Law taking
his father’s case, said the family was also engaged with the Police
Ombudsman on the matter.
He said he believes his father’s murder was “sanctioned at the highest
echelons of the British establishment” and described the RUC’s actions
during the funeral as “vicious”.
Mr Marley said that in the months before his father’s death he had been
arrested several times and threatened while being interrogated by the
RUC at its Castlereagh base.
He said that floor plans and diagrams of the family home were also taken
during Crown raids in the run up to his death. Mr Marley said his family
also wants a new inquest under Article Two of the European Convention of
Human Rights.
Posted by Jim on
There are fears that this week’s talks agreement represents such a
victory for unionist and British negotiators that it could wreck the
North’s political process, rather than sustain it.
The so-called ‘Fresh Start’ agreement comes after ten weeks of talks
aimed at reviving the main elements of the failed Stormont House
Agreement, which was reached in the run-up to last Christmas.
Unionist commentator Newton Emerson said he was unnerved by what he
described as a “total defeat for Sinn Fein”. He warned the deal was
“destabilising and unsustainable”.
Every aspect of the negotiations saw setbacks for nationalists,
republicans and progressives. Arguably the most controversial
development was that an entire section of the previous agreement on
dealing with the past was shelved. That component was dropped over the
British government’s insistence that its “national security” take
precedence over the release of information to victims of the conflict.
Sinn Fein officials said no deal on legacy issues was better than a bad
deal. However, victims groups said the party should have refused to
sign up to any agreement at all.
“In their homes around the country, those who lost loved ones in the
conflict will be privately grieving and angry,” said Relatives for
Justice and Justice for the Forgotten.
On the welfare issue, Sinn Fein pointed to a headline figure of
financial measures of 146 million pounds a year to compensate those
affected by cuts in welfare and tax credits.
Overall, however, the ‘Fresh Start’ agreement contains less money than
the Stormont House deal it is meant to replace, to the tune of 85
million pounds. A broad range of left-wing groups and political parties
have denounced it, and protests have already been organised for this
weekend.
There are reports that some in Sinn Fein could rebel against the deal.
The party’s leader on Belfast council Jim McVeigh, in a message to
supporters, warned that planned cuts in corporation tax might not go
ahead “unless we afford it and we won’t be able to afford it any time
soon, comrades”.
That earned an apparent rebuke from Martin McGuinness, who said: “Sinn
Fein will honour all commitments it made in this week’s agreement.”
The new deal includes cuts to all working age benefits, a benefit cap
for families with children, and also agrees to another round of cuts
currently before Westminster.
“It is overwhelmingly children who will suffer,” said Eamonn McCann of
People Before Profit. He said Sinn Fein had now joined the ranks of the
pro-austerity parties.
“Staying in government with the DUP took precedence over standing by
the most vulnerable,” he said. “The worst-off people in deprived places
like Derry will be hardest hit. If the Coalition in the South
introduced this sort of package, Sinn Fein would be elbowing its way to
the front of street protest.”
The British Crown Forces in the North are the new deal’s clear
financial winners. The PSNI and a new cross-border agency will receive
160 million pounds of additional funding over the coming years, with an
additional 85 million pounds to secure interface area as well as issue
payments to “community workers”.
The deal appears stacked against republicans by concentrating on
illegal cross-border activity — there is no requirement for the PSNI
or other British state agencies to address loyalist criminality or
sectarian and racist violence.
In another embarrassing development, Sinn Fein was required to openly
cut its ties to the Provisional IRA’s Army Council by agreeing to a
principle to “accept no authority, direction or control on our
political activities other than our democratic mandate alongside our
own personal and party judgment”. Neither unionists nor the British
government have an equivalent commitment to end their co-operation with
loyalist paramilitaries.
BAIT AND SWITCH
In a key intervention, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the
promotion of truth and justice, Pablo de Greiff, warned against the
British stance on dealing with the past.
He said it had worked “to cover up the action of their agents, army,
police and political establishment by using a so-called national
security veto.
“That pretext for blocking disclosure is clearly nonsense as much of
the information families are looking for is related to events 30 to 40
years ago,” he said.
Brian Gormally of the Committee for the Administration of Justice
described Mr de Greiff’s remarks as “significant”.
Accusing the British government of pulling down the shutter on legacy
investigations, he said: “This is contrary to international standards
and unacceptable to victims.
“It will use state power to give impunity to state agents. In so doing,
it jettisons the interests of victims and the truth, continues its
violation of international human rights standards and undermines the
rule of law.”
Relatives for Justice spokesman Mark Thompson said British ‘national
security’ issues were not raised during the Stormont House Agreement
last year.
“It’s introduction was an indication that the British government do not
want to face into the truth of their responsibility and role in the
conflict,” he said.
“They are denying families from all sides of the community who lost
loved ones the truth and facts about those murders.”
‘TORY PROXIES’
The other political parties at Stormont sought more time to examine the
contents of the agreement when it was released on Tuesday. However, the
welfare element was pushed through by Sinn Fein and the DUP at the
Belfast Assembly within 24 hours.
The motion ended Sinn Fein’s opposition to the Tories directly
legislating on the matter from Westminster. There are fears that the
axe is now set to fall on a range of crucial welfare payments and
frontline public services as collective punishment of the nationalist
community.
In the day-long debate, Sinn Fein was accused of capitulating on its
main ‘red line’ vow to oppose Tory cuts, and also needlessly agreeing
to give London 60 million pounds a year to balance potential changes to
tax credits.
Sinn Fein denied it was supporting austerity in the Six Counties but
opposing it in the 26 Counties. Its Minister for Regional Development
Conor Murphy said the devolved administration had acted as a “bulwark”
against the Tory government’s austerity policies.
“I think what is being proposed and agreed in part of this
implementation plan gives us protection measures better than exist
anywhere on these islands for people who are struggling,” he said.
However, SDLP deputy leader Fearghal McKinney accused Sinn Fein of a
u-turn.
“We are being asked to hand over to the Tories – or ‘Thatcher’s
children’ as Martin McGuinness likes to call it – decisions on
legislating on welfare,” he said.
“Only a matter of weeks ago Sinn Fein would have described this as a
huge serious mistake but now Sinn Fein are doing Tory austerity, and in
spades.”
REPUBLICANS OUTRAGED
In its response, Republican Network for Unity spokesperson Nathan
Stuart said the Sinn Fein had agreed on a document that “would make
Margaret Thatcher blush”.
“Once again, and after a nine month delay, the right-wing coalition in
Stormont have shafted the Irish working class in favour of feathering
their own nest,” he said.
“All anti-imperialist groups must begin a process of working together
and putting the doctrine of Irish sovereignty back on the agenda.”
The 1916 Societies said the fact that Sinn Fein had agreed to move
forward while Britain still refused to admit its ‘Dirty War’ was a
“clear demonstration of who holds sway in Ireland”.
“The Sinn Fein project of drawing power away from Westminster,
supposedly towards regional decision-making processes, stands in ruin,
the handing back of key powers to London exposing the same as facade,”
they said.
“All of this makes clear the deal in question has been framed to uphold
partitionist government, fulfilling the needs of the British state and
its occupation system, with the people barely an afterthought.”
But Sinn Fein insisted the deal was an important milestone.
“I am hopeful that we will be able get on with the important work of
building a fairer society for all the people on the island of Ireland,”
said the party’s Galway West election candidate, Trevor O Clochartaigh.
“The agreement is as Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness described
it, evidence of a common commitment to a better future,” he said.
“There are of course aspects of the agreement that we may not be overly
happy with but there is enough in it that is positive and constructive
and allows us to move forward.
“Our aim must be to focus on the positive aspects and look to the
future.”