Posted by Jim on August 25, 2014
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Posted by Jim on
MARTIN GALVIN
ATTORNEY AT LAW
BRONX, NEW YORK, 10451
August 12, 2014
EDITOR
IRISH NEWS
113-117 Donegal Street
Belfast, Northern Ireland
BTI 2GE
RE: Fionnuala O’Connor-12 August
INTERNMENT RALLY IN BELFAST
The thousands who ignored rain and loyalist protests to march on Internment Day, had far better reasons than those ascribed by Fionnuala O’Connor (Sorrow of internment lost in 21st century.)
Internment went deeper than imprisonment without charge or trial beginning on August 9, 1971. British forces shot down those who got in the way in Ballymurphy, picked victims to be hooded and tortured, and then answered Internment protests with “Bloody Sunday.” Compton and Widgery were enlisted to whitewash British injustice.
Internment symbolized Britain’s willingness to use and cover-up injustice when it served British interests. Had ‘the sorrow of Internment’ ended there, or even in 1975 with the release of remaining internees, few would take to the streets today.
Instead Britain replaced one injustice, Internment, with another injustice, Diplock Courts, forced confessions and a thinly veiled conveyor belt to the H-Blocks or Armagh. British strategists saw ending Internment as their chance to bin special category political status and masquerade political prisoners as criminals.
Internment Day marches became launching pads for new campaigns against new British injustices. At the huge 1979 Internment rally at Casement Park, we speakers were briefed that the event must be a major show of support for the Blanketmen, in the battle to move Thatcher to resolve the impending crisis short of a hunger strike.
Later Internment Day rallies would be devoted to the Hunger Strikers, then Supergrass trials, then other successive wrongs that showed the same British determination to impose and justify injustice represented by Internment.
Internment required impunity for those who carried it out. British forces could not be expected to shoot down unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy, torture selected victims or fire on protesters in Derry without knowing they had immunity for it all. Theresa Villiers’ denial of an inquiry to the Ballymurphy families was more of the same impunity.
Brenda Downes stood for hundreds of families whose relatives and friends were murdered with impunity by British forces, acting alone or in collusion with loyalists. In 1971, the British sent “armoured cars, and tanks and guns.” In 1984, the British sent RUC armoured cars and land-rovers and plastic bullet guns against peaceful marchers for a ban that the Thatcher regime would later admit in writing was a mistake.
The RUC member who fired the plastic bullet which killed John Downes was acquitted in a trial which seemed to many of us the same British justice we got from Widgery and Compton. Brenda Downes like so many others is still being stonewalled in the fight for truth.
Those who marched should be commended for understanding the true meaning of all Internment represents, and for knowing that the sorrow cannot be lost while British injustices continue.
Slan
MARTIN GALVIN
Posted by Jim on August 21, 2014
There is mounting concern among Irish-Americans that the Irish Government is turning its back on the good work of previous Irish Governments on the Irish peace-process.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus, President of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, has been alerting Members of Congress to the serious danger of Dublin’s neglect .
Fr. Mc Manus said: ” Albert Reynolds, Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and John Bruton all were engaged, thereby helping to make the peace-process possible. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has demonstrated consistently, and quite blatantly, that he has no interest in the peace-process. Indeed, his persistent refusal to show interest indicates he may even have distain for the Irish peace-process — the most important and hopeful development since the partition of Ireland.”
Fr. Mc Manus added: ” This is not only the growing opinion among Irish-Americans, but also of serious commentators like Brian Feeney of the Irish News, Belfast, and former Irish diplomat Eamon Delaney “United States doing more for Irish peace than Irish or British ” (Eamon Delaney @irishcentral August 18,2014).
Fr. Mc Manus continued: ” Over the years we have had Congress put a lot of pressure on the British Government. Now it seems we have to get Congress put pressure on the Irish Government. How sad is that? Can anyone explain Taoiseach Kenny’s irresponsible neglect? It reminds me of what British Prime Minister Robert Cecil (Lord Salisbury) said of his nephew Arthur J. Balfour on appointing him in 1887 to be Irish Chief Secretary. Explaining Balfour’s unique qualification for the job, Cecil said it was Balfour’s ‘perfect indifference to what is said of him.’
Fr. Mc Manus concluded: ” Taoiseach Kenny’s perfect indifference to the Irish peace-process must be tolerated no longer.”
Fr. Sean Mc Manus President
Irish National Caucus
Posted by Jim on
CAPITOL HILL. Thursday, August 21, 2014 — The president of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus has paid tribute to former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds who died on August 21, 2014.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus said : ” God rest the noble Irish soul of Albert Reynolds. Just when one had given up hope that the Dublin Government would ever do the right thing on The North, Albert came along like a breath of fresh air and helped to make the Irish peace -process possible. As I document in my Memoirs, My American Struggle for Justice in Northern Ireland, I knew Albert was a different type of Taoiseach by the way he responded to the meeting a group of us had with presidential candidate Bill Clinton in New York city on April 5, 1992. Clinton promised to support our main demands. Albert immediately welcomed Clinton’s expressed interest … and the rest is history.
Contrast that with the way Garret Fitz Gerald reacted to the meeting I had arranged with presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in Pittsburgh, PA, October 27, 1976 : Carter give us an excellent statement on the Irish issue, and just six days before he was elected President. Instead of welcoming it, Fitz Gerald set out to sabotage Carter’s interest, demanding Carter prove he was not supporting violence, thereby assisting the British Government in forcing Carter to back off. As I say in my Memoirs, ‘ I am haunted by this thought: had Fitz Gerald welcomed Carter’s statement, how much sooner the peace-process could have started, how many lives could have been saved and how much suffering could have been spared.’ (Page128).
Fr. Mc Manus concluded with: ” And now it appears that Taoiseach Enda Kenny — by his studied indifference to The North — is determined to undo the good work of Albert Reynolds, and repeat the bad work of Garret Fitz Gerald.”
Fr. Sean Mc Manus
President Irish National Caucus
Posted by Jim on August 19, 2014
Eamon Delaney @irishcentral
The United States is presently engaged in a humanitarian military mission in Iraq. Meanwhile, in Gaza, the US has been intensely involved in diplomacy to end conflict, while at the time supporting and arming Israel. It’s a tricky combination. But there is one place where US foreign policy has been entirely uncomplicated and well received and where it doesn’t involve any guns or planes. And that is, Ireland.
From its crucial involvement in the breakthrough IRA ceasefire of 1994, the US has retained a low key, but often intense, involvement in the struggling but generally successful Northern Ireland peace process. And it is a completely bipartisan commitment.
George Bush sent Richard Haass to Ireland as his special envoy and in 2013 Haass returned to chair crucial talks between Unionists and Nationalists in trying to achieve a lasting settlement of the issues that still divide them. The talks ended unsuccessfully in December 2013.
Not only is the Haass process an important part of the political scene, it might be the only show in town. The Irish and British governments are now so hands-off that it is left to the Yanks to try and resolve those crucial ‘final issues.’
The Haass talks process was the first time that neither government got directly involved in such negotiations, and in the end this was probably part of its failing. At the final hurdle, the Unionists rejected a reasonable template for dealing with parading issues and this caused the talks to collapse.
And there was nothing more that Haass could do, especially since the Dublin government is unwilling to put serious pressure on the Unionists and now appears more preoccupied in dealing with Sinn Fein as political threat in the South rather than as the nationalist co-partner of government in the North. Such a complacent and cynical attitude will have dangerous consequences.
Last week, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said that the Northern Ireland peace process is under its greatest threat since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. It is a dramatic claim, but one with very valid points. Apart from the impasses over commemoration of the past, contentious parades and the fudged NI welfare bill (which, in fairness, is Sinn Fein’s doing) there is a serious lack of any empathy from the Unionist side for the entire partnership to actually work or grow. Fearful of their radical fringe, the Unionists have taken a completely minimalist approach to a unique cross-community agreement that is supposed to be organic.
Compounding the problem is the withdrawn attitude of the two governments. David Cameron’s British Government appears sublimely indifferent and even hostile to the Northern peace process and the Irish Government seems to have just switched off, preoccupied as it is with the South’s economic problems.
The mentality in the South is that ‘the two sides are in Stormont together, so we can ignore it.’ But this is the very opposite of what was supposed to happen, after 1998, certainly from a Sinn Fein or even Irish Government perspective – that is, when the latter actually had a view on the situation. And the North hasn’t bedded down. Far from it, and the psychological withdrawal of the two governments, Irish and British, is partly to blame for that. Almost every week now there are new rows about political identity, flags and parades as well as attacks on Orange halls and GAA clubs. Sectarianism is deep-rooted and both sides play to their tribal base.
The unique coalition of SF and the DUP will not work unless there is constant pressure by the two governments acting as guarantors for the post-conflict arrangement. This is especially necessary when the relationship has gone cold and the two partners are barely talking to each other.
But it is hard to see the new Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan tackling the current Unionist stubbornness. Indeed, it is significant how few of the current Irish cabinet have dealt directly with Northern Ireland. Do they even believe in an ‘Irish dimension’ any more or in the constitutional nationalist position which is long held by the Irish State and which has always been distinct from that of Sinn Fein? Or do they think that any such national approach is now ‘outdated’ and will only in fact aid Sinn Fein, which they see as an electoral enemy?
Certainly, it seems odd that, in terms of negotiations, the US government appears to show more involvement, commitment and imagination on Northern Ireland that does the Irish government. Which these days is a rarely trumpeted and uncostly success story for US foreign policy, and one which is to the credit of both Democrats and Republicans alike.
* Eamon Delaney is a Dublin-based journalist and former diplomat.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus
President
Irish National Caucus
P.O. BOX 15128
Capitol Hill
Washington, DC 20003-0849
Tel. 202-544-0568
Fax. 202-488-7537
sean@irishnationalcaucus.org