Posted by admin on June 19, 2014
British and Irish relations go from strength to strength as the royals tweet “as Gaeilge”. Photo by: Getty
by Nick Bramhill, Irish Central
The Lord Mayor of Dublin has called on the Irish government not to invite members of the British royal family to the 1916 Rising centenary celebrations.
Christy Burke, who left Sinn Fein to become an Independent councillor in 2009, said the event belongs to the families of those who died in the Rising.
His comments follow recent indications by the government that they plan to invite the British royal family to the 100-year commemoration.
But Cllr. Burke, who was elec ted to office earlier this month, said he will seek support for a motion at the next Dublin City Council meeting, which will block any British royal presence at the event.
Burke said his stand-off against the royals participating in the commemorations reflect the views of the public, according to The Irish Times.
He said: “I don’t want to cause any upset in the UK. I don’t mean to offend anybody. I am just making the point that a lot of citizens have made to me.
Burke will no longer be in office when the 2016 event gets underway, meaning a Sinn Fein lord mayor will preside over the commemorations after the party succeeded in forming a ruling coalition on the council.
His motion will call upon the Toaiseach’s office not invite members of the royal family to any “strategic positions” during the centenary, including any of the main events.
The Irish Times also notes that the motion emphasises the centenary belongs to those “who gave their lives in 1916”.
It’s not the first row to have broken out after word spread about the government’s intention to extend an invitation to the event to Britain’s most famous family.
After reports filtered out that the Fine Gael-led government hoped to invite Prince Charles and Camilla, senior Fianna Fail member Billy Kelleher slammed the proposal as “superficial” and “done without thought”.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, he said: “I think before we start issuing invitations on a casual basis, almost without thought, we should sit down as a parliament, and as a people, and discuss it.
“It is nothing against the British monarchy, but the primary purpose of this commemoration is to celebrate the 1916 Rising.”
He added: “There are lots of complexities in Irish history and before we start inviting heads of state from around the world, let’s have our own discussion.”
Proposals to include the royal family at will be an emotionally-charged event are seen as a reflection of the warming bond between the two countries.
President Michael D. Higgins’ recent state visit to Britain was seen as a major milestone in Anglo-Irish relations and followed Queen Elizabeth’s historic – and hugely successful – trip to Ireland in 2011.
It is thought that President Higgins and former president Mary McAleese will both play key roles in the Easter Rising celebration, which will take place in March 2016.
Posted by admin on June 9, 2014
British ministers sanctioned the use of torture against internees in the
north of Ireland in the early 1970s, the then British Home Secretary
Merlyn Rees admitted in 1977, it has emerged.
A letter by Rees to then Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan has been
discovered in the British National Archives in Kew by RTE’s
Investigation Unit. This week it broadcast ‘The Torture Files’, a Prime
Time documentary into the treatment of some of those interned without
trial.
The letter backs up earlier research by the Pat Finucane Centre, which
suggests the Dublin government and the European Court of Human Rights
were deliberately misled by London about the treatment of people
interned in 1971.
In August 1971, 340 men were arrested and interned. Fourteen of these
were subject to in-depth interrogation techniques which had been well
planned and involved specially trained British interrogators and RUC
Special Branch officers.
In 1976, the European Commission of Human Rights ruled the interrogation
methods used were torture. They comprised the so-called “five
techniques”, including white noise, sleep deprivation, hooding, being
forced to stand spreadeagled against a wall and being deprived of food
and water. The men were also beaten and terrorised.
However, the British government appealed the judgment to the European
Court of Human Rights, which ruled in 1978 that while the interrogation
methods were “inhuman and degrading”, they did not amount to torture.
Relying on the official record of several government departments from
the British National Archives, the report reveals for the first time
significant evidence relating to the so-called ‘Hooded Men’.
The 14 men were arrested during internment in 1971 and removed for
special, so-called ‘in-depth interrogation’ where they were subjected to
a “psychological attack” according to a British army directive.
In his letter, Rees made clear members of the British Crown forces found
using such methods in that period could not be prosecuted because they
followed orders as a result of a “political decision”.
“I do not believe that the Irish government understand the nature of the
situation in 1971-1972,” he later wrote.
The Rees letter was written after a meeting in March 1977 between the
Irish attorney general, Declan Costello, and his British counterpart,
Samuel Silkin, during which Costello pressed the British to prosecute
RUC men and British soldiers who had carried out torture on republican
prisoners.
The five torture techniques were banned by the British Prime Minister
Edward Heath in 1972 but the programme shows how the techniques were
used thirty years later in 2003 by British battle groups stationed in
Iraq.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has called for the reopening of the case
of the ‘hooded men’.
He said the new evidence showed that the British government had lied to
the European Court of Human Rights “both on the severity of the methods
used on the men, their long term physical and psychological
consequences, on where these interrogations took place and who gave the
political authority and clearance for it to occur”.
“Not only was the European Court misled and lied to by the British
government but so too was the Irish government,” he added.
Mr Adams said he was disappointed that the 26-County Attorney General
Maire Whelan had refused to reopen the case following representation
from lawyers acting for the men.
Republican Sinn Fein’s Fergal Moore said the programme had confirmed
that the torture of Irish citizens was sanctioned at the highest levels
of the British cabinet and that the British “lied continuously” and
withheld evidence about it.
“This is further proof that there can be no true justice in Ireland
while British occupation remains,” he said.
Posted by Jim on June 7, 2014
The North’s Police Ombudsman Michael Maguire has launched a legal action
against PSNI Chief Matt Baggott over the failure to provide information
on major investigations into killings throughout the conflict.
The dramatic move follows long-running complaints over delays in the
PSNI’s co-operation with investigators reviewing allegations of Crown
force wrongdoing.
The Ombudsman is seeking a judicial review of Baggott’s conduct. It is
understood that at least some of the cases involve informers or state
agents.
The dispute centres on recent and historic cases, ranging from the 1994
Loughinisland massacre, where loyalist gunmen killed six people as they
watched the World Cup in a County Down bar, to an attack just four years
ago in which a PSNI member was injured.
In a statement, the ombudsman’s office said that despite repeated
requests over past months, the PSNI has on more than 100 occasions
“either refused to provide information to the office or has said that it
must first explain and justify why the material is wanted”.
In response, the PSNI claimed there were “complicated, and sometimes
unfortunately competing, legal issues” but that its “primary
consideration” was that of “protecting life”.
It has long been believed that the RUC did not conduct a proper
investigation into the Loughinisland pub massacre because there was
collusion between the force and the UVF death squad which carried out
the killings.
A report by the previous police ombudsman, Al Hutchinson, concluded that
the RUC failed to properly investigate what happened at Loughinisland,
but said there was insufficient evidence of collusion. Those findings
were quashed after a legal challenge by relatives of those who were
killed.
Mr Maguire is now conducting a fresh investigation. He insisted he was
legally entitled to the information being held by the PSNI. “The Police
Ombudsman’s office does not do investigations by negotiation,” he said.
Other cases Baggott is accused of blocking include incidents where
member of the police have been killed.
RUC woman Colleen McMurray died and another was seriously injured when
their car was hit by a mortar in Newry, County Down, in March 1992. It
has been claimed that the RUC’s Special Branch had advance warning about
the attack, and that at least two IRA informers were involved.
The Ombudsman is also trying to find out if the PSNI contributed to the
2006 death of former senior Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson, after he
had been exposed as an RUC/PSNI and MI5 informer.
An inquiry into an attack in 2010 by the breakaway ‘dissident’ group,
Oglaigh na hEireann, in which Catholic PSNI man Peader Heffron was
seriously injured, is also being blocked by Baggott.
Sinn Fein Assembly member Caitriona Ruane said the PSNI chief’s refusal
to provide information to the ombudsman was “entirely unacceptable”.
“This is affecting several key and high profile cases in which families
such as those in Loughinisland are seeking the truth and it will damage
overall confidence in the PSNI,” she said.
“It is therefore not surprising that the ombudsman has been forced to
take this action against Matt Baggott.
“We commend him for exhausting every avenue to conclude on these
investigations despite the barriers being put in place and support
victims and survivors and their families.”
* It was announced separately this week that the PSNI Chief is to
accelerate his departure from the force by two months. Baggott, who had
been due to retire at the end of August, is now expected to vacate his
post by the end of June.
Posted by Jim on June 3, 2014
In Saint John’s Gospel Pontius Pilate responds to Jesus with the question: “What is truth?” It is a puzzling and profound question that colors history down through the ages. Truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. Or so it seems in the N. I. conflict. Truth is on the minds of many there and is pivotal to understanding the legacy of British rule in Ireland. Since partition Her Majesty’s Government views its role as defending democracy, justice and the rule of law. Nationalists argue that the British are entitled to their own opinion but NOT to their own facts. The facts reveal a different truth.
This struggle for truth and ‘interpretation’ of facts is a fight for power and the legacy of history around the world. In China today journalists are instructed not to use certain words to describe the events of 1989 and Tiananmen Square. The Tiananmen Mothers group continue to demand truth and accountability for their murdered children but few have heard their appeals. Twenty-five years after the British government murdered her lawyer husband Patrick , Geraldine Finucane gets Britain’s version of the truth which is more significant for what questions it doesn’t answer. She, too, is unyielding in her demand that the report not be the last word on his killing. Leon Aron, author of Roads to the Temple: Truth Memory, Ideas and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991, describes President Putin’s new “State mythology” and labeling of “national-traitors.” No doubt in a revised “history” of Russia. Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer, would qualify as the latter. Sergei disclosed the truth and facts of corrupt Russian tax officials and died in prison from beatings and neglect.
Terrorism and censorship are essential for authoritarian regimes to retain power. One need only read the 2013 book Lethal Allies by Anne Cadwallader to see it practiced by the British in Northern Ireland. Fearful of losing the last of their empire, from 1968 thru 1974 the British unleashed a ruthless N. I. police force on those protesting internment and discrimination in housing, voting and jobs. Army paratroopers launched an onslaught on Catholic ghettos and began a killing spree with the Ballymurphy (1971) and Bloody Sunday (1972) killings. In 1974 Britain colluded with loyalists to detonate no-warning car bombs in the shopping centers of Dublin and Monaghan in an undeclared act of war against the Irish Republic that cost 34 lives. Thus began the campaign of labeling protesters as criminals and terrorists and spreading the State mythology of their defending democracy and the rule of law. Russia and China have learned well from the United Kingdom’s example. How does Britain do it? How do they cover-up their actions and keep a prying media from uncovering the truth? A few years ago the British bank Standard & Chartered admitted laundering $200 billion to undermine U. S. sanctions against Iran. U. S. investigators also found a handbook for the secret operation complete with a codename of GAZELLE and a how-to step-by-step list of ways to mask the transactions. I am convinced such a manual for maintaining their beachhead in Belfast will be found in the bureaucracy of Whitehall, Britain’s Ministry of Defense complex near Trafalgar Square. Until such time as it surfaces, let me list some of the techniques England has used to keep the truth of their deeds in Ireland from the public, the Irish and U. S. governments and, most importantly, from an inquiring media.
- Greenmail—Millions of pounds have been spent hiring back pensioned Royal Ulster Constabulary officers to review and assess the original investigations, if there was one, of nearly 800 killings of Catholics. They get to bury the very crimes the security forces are suspected of committing and are paid a bundle for it.
- Personal Immunity Certificates—These are issued to members of the security forces and their paid undercover agents. A grant of immunity from prosecution and an incentive to lie. The Official Secrets Act is the ultimate hammer against the truth.
- Media Massage—The conflict is viewed as a small foreign policy problem. The UK thoughtfully provides all journalists with what they ‘need to know’ briefing materials and arranges the ‘right’ people to interview. The last reporter to ignore these inducements, and who chose to independently search out for the truth, Ms. Jo Thomas of the New York Times, was removed from her London post for “unexceptional reporting.” Smears in the tabloid press are a favorite. Gerry Adams is ‘linked’ to the McConville killing, IRA commander Gerry Kelly is “romantically linked “ to Senator Mitchell’s aide and Chief Inspector John Stalker was “associated with gangsters.” All in an attempt to obscure truth and impugn their integrity. To this date Stalker’s report on police killings in the North has not been released.
- Inquiry & Ignite—In order to quickly silence criticism, Britain authorizes a inquiry and some solicitor looking for an Order of the British Empire is appointed to conduct it. Naturally Sir Desmond de Silva dismissed any “overarching conspiracy” in the murder of Pat Finucane. Sir John Stevens, a former Metropolitan Police Superintendent conducted three inquiries into police corruption in N. I. An arsonist somehow entered his highly secure offices in Antrim and set alight records. A report of 3000 pages was never released but a summary of 27 pages was.
- Jamming Justice—Some coroners inquests into killings in N. I. have not been conducted for 30 years. A coroners report contains important facts into the cause and circumstances of death. N. I. has separate rules for coroners inquests from the rest of the UK. Their funding and staffing is reduced. The Ministry of Defense maximizes delays with litigation. Closed Material Procedures or ‘secret trials now are used also for civil matters.
- Disappeared—A frequent government response to many inquiries into official misconduct is that requested files have ‘disappeared.’ The RUC took the most unusual response to an asbestos problem in an old station building. They destroyed all their records.
- Assassinations—A too curious journalist like Martin O’Hagan and too successful lawyers like Patrick Finucane and Rosemary Nelson were executed without charge or trial. Those who expose deceit or corruption of law enforcement are natural targets. Five Sinn Fein elected officeholders espousing anti-government views were assassinated. No modern democracy has witnessed such slaughter of a political party which also included the murder of 8 campaign workers.
British governments difficulty with the truth is not limited to N. I. The Hillsborough Inquiry into the 1989 deaths of 96 football fans is still ongoing 25 years later after earlier reports found authorities attempted to hide data and police had altered witness statements. The Not-So Reverend Ian Paisley once held aloft the book The Narrow Ground by local historian A. T. Q Stewart declaring to the multitude “…this book was the truth.” That author once stated “they [the Irish] have woven themselves a garment of myth and legend which they call Irish history.” It is, in fact, the British who have woven this shroud of deceit in Ireland because they can’t handle the truth.
Michael J. Cummings
Albany, NY 12203-1814
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael J. Cummings, a native of Springfield, Mass., is a graduate of St. Anselm’s College (B. A., 1968) and New York University (M. P. A., 1970). A member of the National Boards of the Irish American Unity Conference (1996-2013), the Ancient Order Hibernians National Board (2001-2008), and the National Executive of the Irish Northern Aid Committee (1988-1996), he served six National AOH Presidents , 5 IAUC National Presidents and two National Chairman of INA primarily in public relations capacities. He is the only person to serve on the national policymaking bodies of all three major Irish American organizations. He also served on the Commission on Peace and Justice of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
Cummings has appeared on American, English and Irish television and radio and his commentary and letters and those of the Presidents have appeared in major American, Irish-American, Catholic print media. He is a frequent columnist for the weekly IRISH ECHO newspaper. He has been married to Nuala Hogan, a nurse and native of Ireland, for 41 years and resides in Albany, New York . They are the parents of five children and two grandchildren.
To contact Mr. Cummings for speaking engagements or for an opinion piece, please call 518-482-0349 or 505-2851 or via e-mail at michaeljohncummings@outlook.com
Posted by Jim on May 18, 2014
A decision by the PSNI police not to investigate the admitted sectarian
murders of an undercover British army unit is being described as a
devastating injustice against the families of the victims.
Although members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF) gave clear
descriptions of their killings in a BBC documentary last year, the PSNI
police have now decided there was no admission of criminal activity and
they will not bring charges.
The TV revelations included details of shootings of innocent unarmed
civilians by British soldiers during the most violent year of the
conflict, mainly in ‘drive-by’ shootings using civilian cars and plain
clothes.
In the documentary, some of those who carried out the attacks openly
admitted their involvement. Wearing thin or no disguises, they said it
was because the British Army “took the war to the IRA”.
The families of two people believed to have been killed by this ‘elite’
unit have now been informed, through their lawyer, that a PSNI Assistant
Chief had formed the opinion that none of those interviewed had admitted
a criminal act.
Patricia McVeigh, whose father Pat was one of the unarmed civilians shot
dead by MRF soldiers, has called on the Police Ombudsman to review the
case.
“As a family we are totally shocked and dismayed,” she said. “The three
MRF men in the Panorama programme appeared to gloat about their
activities at that time.
“Anyone watching the programme could be in no doubt what kind of unit
this was. I would like to know how ACC [Assistant PSNI Chief Drew]
Harris took to come to this conclusion.”
The programme makers said they were not contacted in relation to the
PSNI review of the case.
Ms McVeigh’s lawyer, Padraig O Muirigh said: “It is very clear from the
Panorama programme that these MRF soldiers did not believe, or were
advised by their superiors, that the rule of law did not apply to them.
“One MRF soldier openly admitted on camera that they were there to ‘act
like a terror group’ and that the MRF shot people in situations where it
was not clear whether the individual was armed or not.”
Patrick Corrigan of Amnesty International said the assertion that no
crime had been committed “will seem completely incredible” to anyone who
watched the BBC Panorama programme.
“The soldiers who spoke in the programme say they were given a specific
mandate to act outside the normal rules of the army – and therefore the
rule of law,” he said.
“The soldiers who spoke in the programme say they were given a specific
mandate to act outside the normal rules of the army – and therefore the
rule of law,” he said.
While there were suggestions the announcement was timed to balance a
decision not to charge Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams over IRA actions
(also in 1972) Sinn Fein policing spokesperson Gerry Kelly said that the
ex-soldiers had not even been questioned about the events.
“This is in the face of others being questioned under caution about
issues going back 40 years,” he said.
“This latest knock-back to families whose loved ones were killed by
British state forces comes in the aftermath of Theresa Villiers refusing
a Hillsborough-type inquiry to the families of those killed in the
Ballymurphy massacre.
“People will be left with the clear view that British state forces
remain above the law.
“This is a further insult to victims and families of those targeted by
this undercover military unit.”