Posted by Jim on May 30, 2015
Crisis talks are to take place between the main political parties in the
North this week in a bid to revive the Stormont House Agreement and
sustain the political institutions in Belfast.
The meeting, hosted by the Dublin and London governments will be held at
Stormont House on Tuesday, is being described as a “review” of the
agreement.
It is not clear whether DUP First Minister Peter Robinson — who is
recovering from a reported cardiac arrest — will be well enough to
attend the meeting.
On Tuesday, key welfare reform legislation insisted upon by the London
government was rejected in the Stormont assembly. Using a petition of
concern, the two nationalist parties, Sinn Fein and the SDLP, vetoed the
legislation after it was discovered that the cuts would hurt the most
vulnerable in society.
Sinn Fein said top-up schemes designed to protect welfare recipients
were not as comprehensive as they had been led to believe in December’s
negotiations, and accused unionists of acting in bad faith.
There had been suggestions that the assembly could collapse within days
after the welfare legislation was rejected, although those were quickly
discounted. However, the crisis deepened further on Thursday when the
parties failed to agree a budget for next year’s public spending.
The DUP has now set a new deadline and warned if the government does not
step in, the assembly will collapse by the end of July. DUP deputy
leader Nigel Dodds said the British government must take control of
welfare powers if nationalists do not accept the planned cuts.
“It is not sustainable to have this level of damage caused to our public
services by parties because they are not prepared to take practical and
sensible financial decisions,” he said.
Sinn Fein said its concern was not just about welfare, but the
implications of further cuts threatened by the Tories as part of a 25
billion pound reduction to be outlined in the July budget.
The cuts – which have been described as ‘eye watering’ by the Tories
themselves – will affect the most vulnerable and lead to the loss of
thousands of jobs within vital frontline services such as health and
education.
Sinn Fein Deputy Martin McGuinness said they “formed absolutely no part”
of the discussions which led to the Stormont House Agreement.
“Last week, I spoke to someone who had recently discussed with Downing
Street officials the extent of what is facing us. He said he could only
describe it in one word – brutal,” he said.
Sinn Fein has also expressed concern at plans by the Conservatives to
scrap the 1998 Human Rights Act, considered an integral part of the Good
Friday Agreement, and to hold a referendum on membership of the European
Union, which could dramatically reinforce the partition of the island.
Mr McGuinness said the crisis facing the Stormont parties was not of
their making.
“The Tories received only 9,000 votes in the north, just over one per
cent of the vote,” he said.
“This is a party, which doesn’t have a single Assembly or local council
seat. They have no democratic mandate for their austerity policies in
the north of Ireland.
“Yet they have already taken 1.5 billion pounds from the Executive’s
block grant. And Cameron’s cabinet of Tory millionaires have announced
plans for further cuts of 25 billion pounds to our public services and
to welfare protections for people with disabilities, the long-term sick
and large families.”
He said representatives from Stormont should join a meeting of the
representatives of the Scottish and Welsh local Assemblies to develop a
common position.
“The current crisis has come about solely through the actions of the
British government. It can only be resolved by the actions of the
British government.”
Posted by Jim on
New York Attorney and long-time republican activist Martin Galvin on the
recent arrest and internment-by-remand of Ardoyne republican Dee Fennell.
As we move towards the Centenary Commemorations of 1916, the British
moved against Easter Commemoration speaker Dee Fennell. My view is that
conditions do not exist to support a continuation of Armed Struggle at
this time but this view will become harder to defend if the British
begin a clampdown on Easter Week Commemoration speakers.
The Carrickmore Easter Commemoration was attended by relatives of
Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa. This Fenian patriot inspired the oft-quoted
words ‘Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’. With six counties
unfree, these words might be said to run afoul of British law. Should we
fear to speak these words and others including Maire Drumm’s, even as
Pearse’s oration is re-enacted in Centenary Commemorations elsewhere in
Ireland?
What of the 1916 Proclamation itself? It says the people of Ireland hold
the right to ‘national freedom and sovereignty’. It seems unlikely that
Tom Clarke put his name to something that did not count the people of
his home county Tyrone, and 5 others, amongst ‘the whole people of
Ireland’. It says this right is ‘indefeasible’, meaning something that
can never be bargained, sold, or bequeathed away (even by referendum).
It even makes reference to ‘standing on that fundamental right and again
asserting it in arms’. Surely these words suggest there have been
conditions where it was ‘legitimate’ to do so.
What of the Roll of Honour? British law today regards those that
resisted them during the Troubles as mere criminals. For example, Gerry
McGeough and Seamus Kearney were imprisoned for IRA actions that took
place in 1981. Ivor Bell faces accusations from 1972. How many
Republicans carry felon licenses, employment bars or travel
restrictions?
The Roll of Honour lists Republicans who were part of that same struggle
and died at the hands of British and pro-British forces. Their names on
a Roll of Honour say they were not criminals but patriots, whose deeds
were not alone legitimate but are remembered with respect and pride. The
Roll of Honour and Easter 1916 Proclamation are customarily read in
Republican commemorations, because we identify those on the Roll of
Honour with the same principles and struggle proclaimed in 1916. Must we
pretend otherwise?
There are no doubt readers and friends who will be at pains to argue
that Dee Fennell’s case will be the last of it. The British would never
clamp down on anyone else. They will make the same arguments they made
after Gerry McGeough’s arrest in 2007. Perhaps they can convince Ivor
Bell, Seamus Kearney or those holding OTR immunity certificates that the
re-elected David Cameron says need no longer be honoured.
Posted by Jim on
Bimpe Archer . Irish News ( Belfast). May 29, 2015
A MISSING assault rifle used in the Sean Graham bookmakers atrocity was found on display in London’s Imperial War Museum, it has emerged.
The weapon was one of the guns used in the 1992 attack by a UDA murder squad that killed five people and injured several others at the Ormeau Road bookmakers in south Belfast.
The RUC – and subsequently the PSNI and Historical Enquiries Team – told the families of the murder victims that the weapon, a Czechoslovakian-manufactured automatic assault rifle, had been destroyed and no longer existed.
In fact, it was a key exhibit in a British museum which displays memorabilia charting the country’s military endeavour from the First World War to the present day.
The shocking revelation was detailed in a BBC Panorama programme last night examining the extent of security force collusion with paramilitary agents during the Troubles.
Victms campaigner Mark Thompson, director of Relatives for Justice said relatives of victims were “absolutely shocked” to learn of the gun’s existence.
He said families had been informed of the discovery by the Police Ombudsman.
“There still is a deep sense of disbelief, shock and understandable anger,” he said.
“Families and survivors of the attack are struggling to come to terms with this latest information.”
The firearms had been provided by Special Branch/MI5 agent Brian Nelson, and the programme also detailed how the bookmakers’ shooting was linked to nine other murders, with state collusion alleged in all of them.
The development came as Chief Constable George Hamilton hit out at claims there were “hundreds and hundreds” of deaths as a result of security force collusion.
Former Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan told Panorama that the police and British army allowed informers to commit crime, up to and including murder, with “impunity”.
“They were running informants and they were using them. Their argument was that by so doing they were saving lives but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people died because those people were not brought to justice and weren’t stopped in their tracks,” she said.
Mr Hamilton questioned her assessment of the “scale” of killings and said informers had in fact saved “thousands of lives”.
However, the PSNI chief admitted that during the Troubles, there were “no rules” governing how security force handlers dealt with agents.
Posted by Jim on
By Ray OâHanlon. Irish Echo. May 29, 2015
rohanlon@irishecho.com <mailto:rohanlon@irishecho.com>
The U.S. Congress and President Obama should join Amnesty International in demanding action in the aftermath of a BBC television documentary casting light on alleged state-linked murders during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
âThe United States must not be silent about this BBC exposure of forty years of British government state terrorism in Ireland, one of the longest terrorist campaigns in history,â said Fr. Sean McManus, president of the Washington, D.C-based Irish National Caucus.
Amnesty has called for an investigation after the BBC documentary program âPanoramaâ reported claims that agents inside loyalist and republican terror groups were able to kill and target victims with impunity during the Troubles.
Reported the Guardian newspaper after the documentary, entitled âBritainâs Secret Terror Deals,â was broadcast Thursday night: âLady Nuala OâLoan, the former police ombudsman in the region, branded informers who were allowed to commit crimes including murder while in the pay of the British state as âserial killers.ââ
The report added that Panorama had alleged that in many instances the security forces â RUC special branch, military intelligence and MI5 â helped cover up killings carried out by their agents.
Said OâLoan: âThey were running informants and they were using them. Their argument was that by so doing they were saving lives, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people died because those people were not brought to justice and werenât stopped in their tracks. Many of them were killers and some of them were serial killers.â
Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty Internationalâs program director for Northern Ireland, said: âThe breadth and depth of collusion being alleged here is truly disturbing.
âKilling people targeted by the state, using intelligence provided by the state and shooting them with guns provided by the state â if all this is proven, weâre not talking about a security policy, weâre talking about a murder policy.
âThere must now be a full, independent investigation into the scale of the policy where the police, army and MI5 worked with illegal paramilitary groups, resulting in the deaths of perhaps hundreds of people.â
The documentary, according to the Guardian, focused on links between the RUC, army and MI5 with the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, but also explored allegations from the families of those killed by the IRA that, in some cases, those involved in murdering their loved ones were informers for the British state.
Meanwhile, the political crisis in the North prompted by the failure of the Welfare Bill to secure approval in the Northern Ireland Assembly has prompted the Irish and British governments to convene next week for what is being described as a âReview and Monitoringâ meeting focused on the Stormont House Agreement.
Invitations have been extended by the governments to the leaders of the Northern Ireland Executive parties. The meeting will take place on Tuesday, June 2.
Posted by Jim on May 28, 2015
“Leitrim’s Republican Story 1900 – 2000” will be launched in Rosie O’Grady’s. 7th Ave, New York on Friday 5 June, starting at 8.30pm.
The book which was hailed in Leitrim as a unique and groundbreaking publication sold out within three weeks of publication but was reprinted in time for last Christmas. In response to requests from Leitrim people in America, the author is now travelling to New York to launch the book and to speak about Leitrim’s Republican story.
The author, Cormac Ó Súilleabháin, is from Ballinamore and he spent thirteen years researching the book which covers the War of Independence, the Irish Civil War, historic events in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s and also covering the period of The Troubles, as they affected Leitrim.
The author, Cormac Ó Súilleabháin, will speak at the launch. Copies of the book will be available and can be signed by the author. Everyone welcome. Fáilte roimh cách.