British Government must honor its commitments on disclosure to victims

Posted by Jim on November 20, 2015

IN THE Stormont House Agreement that was reached in December 2014, the British government committed to providing full disclosure to families of victims of the conflict but have now done a U-turn from that position.The British government has failed to honour this agreement, just as they failed to honour the agreement for a full and independent inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane.

It continues to cover up the actions of its agents, army, police and political establishment during the conflict in Ireland by using a ‘national security’ veto. Because of this, no agreement has been possible on dealing with the legacy of the past as part of the Stormont House Agreement and Implementation Plan announced on 17 November.

THE British government’s proposals on legacy are unacceptable, Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy said on 17 November following the conclusion of talks at Stormont.

“The British government’s proposals on legacy issues pre- sented during the most recent talks were about preventing the full disclosure to the families of victims of the conflict they committed to as part of the Stormont House Agreement last year.

“The ‘national security’ 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.

“This is unacceptable and means that no agreement was possible on dealing with disclosure and the past.

Mr Murphy said Sinn Féin will continue to work with victims’ groups and families to hold the British government to account.

“The two governments committed to return to this issue to seek an early resolution – and we intend to hold them to that,” he said.

While welcoming the agreement, the Sinn Féin MLA criticised the role of the British and Irish governments throughout the talks process.

“The influence of Britain’s military establishment and security and intelligence agencies is the major factor in reinforcing the Westminster Government’s intransigence against revealing the truth about its role in the conflict,” he said.

“They are absolutely hostile to Sinn Féin being in government in the North and share with the Southern political establishment an opposition to the continued electoral rise of Sinn Féin in the 26 Counties.

“The British government has failed to honor the Stormont House Agreement on full disclosure to meet the needs of victims. “The Irish government must stand as a co-equal guarantor of the agreements, must honour its commitments and must hold the

British government to account. They have failed to do this.”

Victims groups criticise British government position on disclosure

“In their homes around the country, those who lost loved ones in the conflict will be privately grieving and angry at London’s insistence that it must be able to redact/censor reports from the proposed Historical Investigations Unit on ‘national security’ grounds.

“The PFC and JFF consider it totally unacceptable for the state to demand the right to conceal the actions of its agents in bombings, shootings and murders during the conflict. This was not part of the Stormont House Agreement in December 2014.”

“Let us be very clear – this is not a question of the ‘local parties failing to agree’. It is the UK Government that has vetoed progress by demanding the right to use ‘national security’ to cover up the unlawful activities of its agents. “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.”

Stormont House legacy elements in “suspension”

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THE POLITICS OF THE ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE

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by Bill Donohue

When I became president of the Catholic League in 1993, there was no Catholic League unit in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. That soon changed. For the past 20 years we have had a small contingent in the parade, but we will not be marching in 2015.

As I have already indicated, my support for the parade’s rules, about which I have invested a lot of time and energy defending on radio and TV for the past two decades, was based on the principal that no groups with their own agenda could march. I have constantly defended the exclusion of pro-life Catholic groups on this basis, using it analogously to defend the right of parade officials to exclude gay groups. So when I was asked how I would react to a gay group being asked to join, I said I could support this decision only if a pro-life group were also invited. Indeed, I explicitly pressed for confirmation that there has been a formal change in the parade’s rules. I was told that there was and that a pro-life group would march in 2015. Count me in, I said.

It soon became apparent that things were different. I was asked to keep the news of the parade rule change confidential prior to being announced on September 3. I did. I was also told that the parade’s new spokesman, William O’Reilly, would call me on September 2 to inform me of how he was going to roll out the story. He never called. Moreover, someone leaked the story to Irish Central and the Associated Press late on September 2. When I got to work on the 3rd, the story was out and I was being called by the media for my reaction.

The media were sent a statement by O’Reilly on the morning of the 3rd formally making the announcement. I was not sent a copy. The statement was worrisome because it made no mention of a change in the parade’s rules, or that a pro-life unit would be welcome. Instead, it concentrated exclusively on the gay group.

I did not allow my displeasure with the absence of a principled rule change in O’Reilly’s statement to alter my commitment to marching. But I intentionally titled my news release, “NYC St. Patrick’s Day Parade Amends Rules,” saying, “I have been assured that the rules have been formally changed to allow both of these groups [a gay and a pro-life unit], as well as others, to march under their own banner. That being the case, there should be no controversy.”

O’Reilly said on the morning of the 3rd that no gay group, other than Out@NBCUniversal would be marching in 2015. Later that day he was overridden by John L. Lahey, the vice chairman of the parade committee: he told the media at the New York Athletic Club that other gay groups could still apply to march in next year’s parade. Lahey is the president of Quinnipiac University and an advocate of gay groups marching in the parade; he is next in line to become chairman of the parade committee.

Curiously, no mention of a pro-life group was cited in either O’Reilly’s statement or Lahey’s remarks. But on the evening of the 3rd, the Wall Street Journal wrote that “As part of the change in policy, the organizers also will now let a ‘pro-life’ group march with a banner, said parade spokesman William O’Reilly.”

When I learned that a pro-life group would be marching, I felt relieved. But it didn’t empty my concerns. According to Lahey, there would be more gay groups marching in 2015. Which gay groups? DignityUSA says it is a Catholic gay group, but it openly rejects the Church’s teachings on sexuality and is properly regarded as a dissident, if not anti-Catholic, group. I also noticed that there was no talk about having more pro-life groups marching.

On September 8, Lahey was again asked if more gay groups would be marching next year. He hedged. “I won’t say that it is possible that we would consider another group,” he said. “We are under pressure to shorten the parade—I would be surprised if we would.” As usual, he never said a word about pro-life Catholics marching.

On September 9, O’Reilly was asked by Wall Street Journal reporter Mark Morales to reply to the promise that parade officials had made to me, namely that a pro-life group would march in the parade. “Mr. O’Reilly said that if a group opposed to abortion rights applied, parade organizers would look at the application favorably, but that none did so.” O’Reilly also said that the list of groups marching in the 2015 parade was “settled.”

This is truly amazing. The fact is there was no reason for either gay groups or pro-life groups to apply given the reality that there was no public announcement of a rule change. This accounts for the fact that no pro-life group applied. So what about the NBC gay group? How did they know there was a rule change when no other group did?

OUT@NBCUniversal didn’t have to apply—it was selected. NBC televises the parade and it threatened not to broadcast the event if a gay group was not included. Francis X. Comerford is the chief revenue officer at NBC and a member of the parade committee; he is also a past grand marshal of the parade, as is Lahey. The dots are not hard to connect. There is a lot of money at stake, both for NBC and the parade. There is also a lot of prestige to be had in elite Catholic circles to show their colleagues how “progressive” they are.

The final straw for me was when Lahey was asked by Irish Central to comment on my assertion that a pro-life group was slated to march. On September 10, he said, “That won’t be happening.” In other words, I was double-crossed.

The goal of some in the Irish community is to neuter the Catholic element in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. They want it to be an ethnic celebration. But as I have said, we are not the Irish League: we are the Catholic League. Indeed, our full name is the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Under the direction of Lahey, who has effectively taken over control of the parade, there is no room for a pro-life Catholic group in 2015, but there is room for a non-Irish, non-Catholic, gay group. But the worst is yet to come.

When Lahey was told that radical gay groups, led by Brendan Fay, would like to march in 2016, he “reacted enthusiastically.” Fay is a former official of DignityUSA, an outfit that works against the teachings of the Catholic Church. “I think Brendan Fay will find we’re very receptive,” Lahey said.

For the record, DignityUSA is a group which had Paul Shanley as its chaplain, the most infamous child rapist priest in the history of the Catholic Church. More recently, it opposed the request made by the Catholic League that the Empire State Building light its towers in honor of Mother Teresa’s centenary. In 2010, it expressed its displeasure with the election of New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan as the new president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

This explains why the Catholic League is finished with the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Eirí Amach na Cásca (Part 8)

Posted by Jim on November 19, 2015

On Easter Sunday, after sending out new mobilization notices from the Hibernian Hall to local Volunteer companies, Pearse ordered the Louth Volunteeres to demolish a section of the Portleix railway to prevent troops from reaching Dublin.  They also raided the Wolfhill RIC Barracks becoming the first to fire shots in the Rising.  Meanwhile, 1000 copies of the Proclamation were printed in the basement of Liberty Hall as the Countess painted the words Irish Republic on a green flag that would fly over the GPO the following day next to the tricolor raised by Argentine-born Volunteer Eamon Bulfin.  Bulfin had attended Pearse’s school at St. Enda’s and his sister would later marry Nobel Laureate Sean MacBride.

As Easter Monday dawned, a smaller than normal group of Irish Volunteers, Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan and Fianna hEireann gathered at Liberty Hall. John J. Scollen, knew by the cancellation notice in Sunday=s paper that some- thing was afoot so he ordered his Hibernian Rifles to gather at the Hibernian Hall as well.  Posts were assigned to each leader: the Four Courts to Ned Daly; Jacob=s Factory to Tom MacDonagh; Boland=s Mill to Eamon deValera; the South Dublin Union to Eamonn Ceannt; St. Stephen=s Green to Michael Mallin and Countess Markievicz; and the Mendicity Institute to Sean Heuston. They were to capture surrounding buildings as necessary and follow the battle plan laid out by Joseph Plunkett to prevent British troops from reaching the General Post Office (GPO) Headquarters. They hoped to hold out long enough for the world to pressure Britain to free Ireland since the excuse for WW1 was to free small nations.

At noon on Easter Monday they marched into the streets of Dublin and onto the pages of Irish History.  One of the men asked Connolly, Is the Citizen Army in the lead and Connolly replied, there is no longer a Citizen Army or Irish Volunteers, only the Army of the Irish Republic!  For the first time since the invasion of Canada 49 years earlier, the Irish Republican Army was back in the field.  The insurrection was to start with a bang as the Magazine Fort, a Phoenix Park storehouse of British munitions, was to be blown, but the men sent to blow it couldn’t get into the locked storeroom so they blew the fort but the storeroom did not explode.  At noon, Pearse, with Clarke and Connolly at his side, read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic to startled passers-by.  There were a few cheers, but for the most part the people were simply astonished.  Inside the GPO, men were filling mail bags with scraps and blocking the windows. They also used figures from the Wax Museum on Henry Street and thought it ironic that King George, Queen Mary and Lord Kitchner would stop incoming British bullets.

That afternoon The O=Rahilly, long opposed to a rising, drove up in his classic De Dion Bouton automobile loaded with rifles.  To those surprised to see him he said, I=ve helped to wind this clock, I=ve come to hear it strike!  Sadly, neither he nor his expensive auto would survive the rising.  His car would be buried with the rubble from the Rising at the railway end of Croke Park B the GAA athletic field B and covered over.  Later immortalized as Hill 16 it became perhaps one of the most famous sports terraces in the world.  The four British Barracks: Marlborough, Richmond, Royal and Portobello were caught napping with only 100 soldiers on duty in each.  The first British incursion into Dublin took place Monday afternoon as a group of mounted Lancers rode up O=Connell Street to clear the GPO; they were scattered by firing from the Post Office roof.  The first thing the IRA did was to cut the telephone wires to prevent the British from calling for aid, but a Castle telephone exchange was secure and soon troops from Athlone, Templmore, Belfast and the Curragh were on their way.

In order to get word out to the world, Joseph Plunkett sent a party of 7 men to the Wireless School of Telegraphy which had been shut down.  They managed to repair a 1.5 Kilowatt transmitter and Dave Bourke, an experienced Marconi operator, began transmitting in Morse Code the message >Irish Republic declared in Dublin . . . Irish troops have captured the City and are in full possession . . . the whole country is rising=. Since early telegraphic communications were station to station, Marshal MacLuhan, philosopher of communication, considers this diffused message to be the world’s first radio broadcast!  One of the 7 men was the Dublin-born, Protestant patriot Arthur Shields, later an American movie star who would appear as the Protestant minister in the Quiet Man with his brother Barry Fitzgerald.  John J. Scollan sent a message to Connolly that the Hibernian Rifles were ready to assist.  Connolly replied saying he was glad of the assistance and at later sent orders to the Hibernian Rifles to proceed to the G.P.O.  They were put under the command of The O=Rahilly who ordered the group to break and barricade all the windows on the upper floors. One member P.J. Walsh was stationed at the telegraph station on the second floor since he had a good knowledge of Morse Code and was able to pose as a government agent sending out queries about the rising to the government station in an effort to obtain information.  He received a few items of information which he reported to Plunket and Pearse.  Connolly detailed Scollan to check reports of British troops in the area while other Hibernian Riflemen helped to construct barricades in the streets.  On Easter Monday evening in the GPO, Pearse commissioned Jack Stanley proprietor of the Gaelic press to issue an official bulletin. Stanley seized O=Keefe=s Printworks on Halston Street and printed >Irish War News=, a four-page news sheet on Tuesday morning which had ASTOP PRESS!@ on the back page announcing the establishment of an Irish Republic.  Although the Proclamation of the Irish Republic does not name the Hibernian Rifles as participants in the rising, >Irish War News= lists them as part of the >Dublin Division of the Army of the Republic=.  The surprising tranquility of the first day of the Irish Republic passed with little confrontation, but that was about to end. On Tuesday morning, British General Lowe arrived with orders to put the rebellion down in any way possible.

A BRIEF FOR THE US CONGRESS

Posted by Jim on

A BRIEF FOR THE US CONGRESS

Prepared by the KRW-LLP law firm. November 18, 2015

THE LEGACY OF SCAPPATICCI: THE NEED NOW FOR AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION INTO COLLUSION DURING THE CONFLICT IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND

Lawyers from KRW LAW LLP have always received a receptive welcome from our colleagues in the USA. We have briefed lawyers, academics and politicians on behalf of our clients in the North of Ireland specifically on the matter of collusion between the British government and paramilitary organisations during the Conflict and the use of agents and informers in what as has been described as a “Dirty War”. Recently the extent of this Dirty War is becoming increasingly apparent as new information emerges through the process of civil litigation taken on behalf of the victims of collusion in their quest for truth, justice and accountability.

In 2012 Prime Minister David Cameron apologised for the existence of collusion in the murder of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane following the publication of the De Silva Review Report. Congress is well aware of the resonance of this case given the eloquence of persistency of Patrick’s widow Geraldine Finucane and her family who continues to demand an independent statutory inquiry into the murder of her husband. Patrick Finucane was killed by Loyalist paramilitaries with the complicity of state agents – agents of the British government engaged in a government sanctioned policy of collusion during the Conflict.

For many years it has also been known that the British government – specifically the shadowy agencies of the RUC Special Branch, MI5 and the Force Reconnaissance Unit, ran agents infiltrated into the IRA including agent Stakeknife, recognised as Freddie Scappaticci.

We represent a number of relatives of victims who were murdered by the IRA Internal Security Team known as “The Nutting Squad” which headed by alleged British informer and agent Freddie Scappaticci – Stakeknife. It is believed that Scappaticci and The Nutting Squad were responsible for at least 24 murders during the Conflict and that the activities of Scappaticci possibly extended to the early period of the PSNI, the institutional successor to the RUC. As noted, the nefarious activities of Scappaticci throughout a sustained period engage serious allegations of collusion with British Security Forces including RUC Special Branch, FRU and MI5.  The victims of Scappaticci included Caroline Moreland and Joe Mulhern amongst others. We hope now that Scappaticci, his crimes and his employers – the British government – will now be independently investigated and held to account.

The questions the victims we represent have is to what extent were the murders and violence perpetrated by Scappaticci and his colleagues sanctioned by the British Security Forces, what extent could any of these deaths have been prevented and what was the role of Scappaticci as an informer and agent? Lord Stevens conducting three investigations into allegations of collusion between paramilitaries and state agents during the Conflict in the North of Ireland initially with specific reference to the murder of Patrick Finucane. Had a Stevens 4 investigation have been allowed to have been undertaken it may well have examined the role of Scappaticci and the murders and violence he is implicated in. In the event the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) assumed aspects of the Stevens brief, the outcomes of which are well known – as members of Congress are aware the HET was closed following a report exposing its bias and unlawfulness.

Last month we were  informed by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI)whose Office has been undertaking an investigation into the activities of the IRA Internal Security Team and the role of the RUC, that an interim report into this linked complex investigation of 24 murders involving Scappaticci that commenced in 2013 and revealed evidence of culpability, complicity and collusion amounting to criminality of both RUC officers and members of the British Security Forces specifically MI5 has been sent to the Director of the Public Prosecutions Service for Northern Ireland (PPS)

Because PONI has no jurisdiction to investigation allegations against state agents other than RUC or PSNI personnel, he referred his interim investigation report to the Director of Public Prosecutions: the DPP has now requested the Chief Constable of the PSNI to conduct an investigation into the activities of Scappaticci and the culpability, complicity and criminality of RUC and MI5 officers. Further, the DPP has, on the advice of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, requested an investigation into an allegation of perjury by Scappaticci in a 2003 prosecution.

KRW LAW LLP welcomes this referral by PONI to the DPP and the order made by the DPP to the PSNI. However, we must sound a note of caution on behalf of our clients which Congress should be alert to when being briefed on these serious matters by the British government.

First, the announcement of the DPP comes as legal proceedings against the PSNI are in the process of being lodged with High Court regarding the failure of the PSNI to undertake a thematic investigation into the role of Scappaticci into the murder of Caroline Moreland by the IRA in 1994 and that she was murdered because she was an informer for the British Security Forces and killed to protect the position of Scappaticci. We are arguing that so far the PSNI has failed to undertake a thematic investigation into the activities of Scappaticci, the RUC and MI5 and that it does not have the resources to do so and that any such thematic investigation will lack the necessary degree of independence to deliver truth, justice and accountability to the family of Caroline Moreland.

Second, on that basis we are sceptical as to whether the order of the DPP to the PSNI to undertake a thematic or linked investigation into the complex case of Scappaticci and collusion on the basis of the work of OPONI is both a possibility in terms of resources or feasible in terms of the requirements of human rights law when the British government must undertake a human rights compliant investigation when there has been a breach of the right to life of the ECHR (Article 2).

The PSNI Legacy Investigations Branch (LIB) has taken over aspects of the work of the defunct and discredited HET but is a smaller unit with lesser resources a directly within the operation command of the PSNI and employs a number of former RUC officers. It cannot satisfy the demands of human rights compliance.

Third, if the PSNI consider that it either cannot perform such an investigation into Scappaticci and collusion because of resources or because of necessary independence then another mechanism is needed. As yet the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) proposed under the Stormont House Agreement 2014 has yet to be legislated for as a Stormont House Agreement Bill has not be published. What is known about the proposed Bill is that the HIU will also not necessarily be Article 2 compliant in terms of independence.

We therefore suggest either a statutory inquiry into this matter is established to undertake an investigation into collusion during the Conflict in Northern Ireland including the activities of Scappaticci or another mechanism is developed to discharge the obligations of the British government – legal, moral and political – which are on-going human rights obligations to the relatives of the victims and survivors of the violence of the legacy of collusion.

We would request that all members of the Congress of the USA press the British government, on behalf of all victims of collusion during the Conflict in the North of Ireland, to establish such an inquiry, so that the wounds of the past can be sutured and the quest for the truth, justice and accountability concluded.

END.

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