Posted by Jim on February 9, 2013
One of the major driving forces behind the 40 year Republican was JUSTICE. From internment in ’71, Bloody Sunday, The 5 Demands & political status, the diplock court system, the supergrass trials, ‘Shoot to kill’, numerous investigations into the RUC, the list is endless.. The quest for JUSTICE was also a ‘big sell’ o…f the GFA, so much so that Sinn Féin went against D’hondt and gifted the ‘INjustice’ minisrty to the Alliance party.. Yet, despite all the assurances & apologies form cameron to the contrary, British INjustice still prevails in the O6C.. the selective internment of Marian Price & Martin Corey goes far beyond the threat they deemed as to Stormont. In 1973, John McGuffin, a protestant who was interned in ’71, published a harrowing account of British internment called ‘The Guinea Pigs’. If he was alive to day I am sure he would be equally appalled at the treatment of Marian & Martin Corey and would concur that they too are also now being treated as 2013 as Guinea Pigs on elements of the Anti Terorism Act. The British government is attempting to introduce new anti-terrorism laws (MI5/6 involvement) through the ‘Justice and Security Bill’ during the forthcoming parliamentary session. This Bill would permit government Ministers to instruct ‘CMPs’ – Closed Material Procedures (i.e. SECRET EVIDENCE) to be used in civil court processes. If this BILL is allowed to be introduced it will have far reaching implications in the occupied 6 counties. So, whilst our politicians and civic leaders continuously call for a non-return to the ‘dark days’ surely they MUST ensure that the reasons that sparked the conflict do not re-emerge? Furthermore, the likes of Pat Finucane & Rosemary Nelson gave the ultimate sacrifice in their indiviudals quests for JUSTICE for ALL..and NOW by turning a blind eye to the plight of Marian, are we NOT oursleves ‘GUILTY’ of allowing injustice to take root again in our society, and it’s ‘knock on’ effects will be felt by future generations to come??
mcclafferty
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There have been a series of attacks against Catholic church goers in County Antrim. The move comes after the discovery of a device at a church on the outskirts of north Belfast. Mass was cancelled at Mary’s Star of the Sea Church in Greencastle on Saturday evening after the object was found.
Although the incident was later declared a hoax, it prompted fears of an “orchestrated” campaign against Catholic churches following similar incidents in recent weeks.
On Friday last week a pensioner woman lifted one of two pipe bombs at Sacred Heart Church in Ballyclare, Co Antrim. She escaped injury.
About 20 primary school children walked within yards of the devices as they made their way from Tir na nOg Primary School to the church for St Brigid’s Day Mass.
Tensions in other parts of County Antrim have been high since British and ‘Northern Ireland’ flags were put outside St Nicholas’s Catholic Church and the neighbouring primary school in Carrickfergus last summer.
The town has also been the scene of loyalist mob violence since the Alliance Party voted with nationalist councillors at Belfast City Hall to limit the flying of the Union Jack to 18 designated days a year.
In recent weeks, parish workers at St Nicholas’s Catholic church were forced to close the church as loyalists massed nearby.
Days before Christmas Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Whitehead, which is in the same parish as St Nicholas’s, was damaged when arsonists set fire to a boiler room.
The motive for that attack is also believed to have been sectarian.
Although it is not known who is behind the attacks, the UVF and the breakaway South East Antrim ‘brigade’ of the UDA have a strong presence in the area.
East Antrim Sinn Féin Assembly member Oliver McMullan said he believes the attacks are linked.
“These attacks on chapels are about more than the flag. It’s part of other intimidation,” he said.
“They are trying to put fear into the minority nationalist and Catholic population and where better to do it than target their place of worship?
You can’t get much lower than that.
“It’s clearly an orchestrated loyalist campaign.”
Loyalists angered by the City Hall flags decision were also blamed for an incident in north Belfast on Monday, when cars belonging to nationalists were torched.
Four vehicles on the mixed Deerpark Road area were set ablaze.
The area between the loyalist Glenbryn and Ballysillan estates has suffered a long history of sectarian attacks, with evictions of Catholic families, pipe bombings and paint bombs being thrown at homes by loyalist mobs.
Typically, the PSNI refused to admit the most recent anti-Catholic violence is sectarian.
Niall Murphy, a father of two, said if the PSNI continued to refuse to say the targeting of nationalist-owned cars was sectarian, he would complain to the police ombudsman.
“I don’t know why the PSNI cannot call something a sectarian attack whenever it has all the hallmarks of a sectarian attack,” he said.
He warned that PSNI disinterest could result in people being injured.
“You do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to know that attacks in that area are normally and sadly sectarian,” he said.
Posted by Jim on February 5, 2013
IRISH AMERICAN UNITY CONFERENCE
Where to begin for our new Secretary of State? There is no short list, only a long one, of foreign policy issues in need of some serious review, reversal or, as many have suggested, a pivot. The challenge, as Secretary Clinton made clear in her farewell address, is to “…make sure America is secure,that our interests are promoted and our values are respected.” In our view this puts Ireland on the short list.
Why? The U. S. did cajole the British to sign a peace treaty with Ireland in 1998 but the U. K. has worked to undermine it. America has rebuked other nations for human rights abuses while those of the British in Ireland. America’s laws, security and foreign policy positions have been flouted by corrupt British interests. British banks like Standard & Chartered defy U. S. sanctions against Iran. UK judges have refused U.S. extradition requests; most recently to return a fugitive pedeophile. Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC accepted a Deferred Prosecution Agreement and were fined a fraction of their profits from their laundering of Mexican drug cartel money. Moreover, Britain has abused our Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) by using Attorney General Holder to conduct a fishing expedition into the Irish archives of Boston College. As Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations, Senator Kerry was the first to raise the alarm over the subpoenas served on his alma mater.
Are these the unsubstantiated assertions of those who have opposed Britain and the 1998 Accord? On the contrary. Our support of the pact has been known from the day it was signed but unfortunately there are forces at work in Britain including the ‘deep State security and intelligence services’ and the fascist British Nationalist Party that would welcome its demise as well as an end to the Scottish independence movement. We also recognize the value of British partnership and cooperation but in recent years this has meant Ireland has become a stepchild of British politics.
Therein lies the challenge for Secretary Kerry. How to confront and respond to Britain’s mockery of the Belfast Agreement and U. S. laws and policies while retaining British support in other areas of interest. In recent years a failure to do strike a balance has signaled to those who do NOT support democracy , human rights and the rule of law that America is not serious about them or is willing to look the other way especially when England is the offender. Consider:
- U. K. unilaterally dismissed the Irish Treaty obligation for a public inquiry into the murder of attorney Pat Finucane and produced a sham review of government documents to conclude there was no conspiracy to murder. Surprise. Surprise. There was plenty of “shocking ” collusion with loyalist terrorists to make sure it happened but no accountability. Not a whisper of admonition from the White House or Foggy Bottom. Meanwhile China and Russia are publicly chastised for use of violence against lawyers and they understandably have taken exception. The Irish government rarely recognizes when it is insulted. Not so China and Russia who must be weary of America’s blindness to british treachery.
- Also under the terms of the Belfast Agreement investigations were to be conducted into nearly 1000 killings, mostly Catholics. The British, however, stripped the Police Ombudsman of a role; claimed insufficient funds for the work; and then has the chutzpah to hire retired officers to investigate many killings which are suspected of police collusion. Really? When this happens in South America, Africa or Asia official protests are lodged. Not a word of concern from the Department of State. On the other hand, when the murder investigation of Rafik Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon, was being obstructed by the Hezbollah…not unlike Britain’s moves with the Finucane murder…the U. S. paid $30 million dollars to finish the investigation. No such expression of support was offered by the Obama administration to Britain to provide justice to the hundreds of Catholics murdered in N. I.
- A solitary political prisoner in N. I., Marian Price, has experienced every imaginable legal sorcery the British can muster to keep her behind bars. She is old, in poor health and needs a wheelchair. Whitehall refuses to disclose the reasons for her continued confinement. A $175K bond was required to allow her to attend her sisters wake. In contrast, when Secretary Clinton visited Myanamar to visit with democracy activist Daw Aung San Suu Kyii, the military junta freed 1000 political prisoners as a gesture of good will. There was no such gesture of good will by the British to free Price or other political prisoners like Gerry McGeough when President visited Ireland and England last year. The British can find a way to spring the Lockerbie mass murderer but not Irish political prisoners. England’s hubris and hypocrisy does not go unnoticed by regimes whose political prisoners number in the thousands.
- In 2011 Britain passed along to Attorney General Holder subpoenas requesting tapes from a research project that were held in Boston College. They used a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) intended for major money laundering, drug trafficking and terrorist crime prosecutions not a politically motivated fishing expedition. The subpoena sought information on a 40 year old killing of a British informer as British paratroopers were marauding Catholic communities in the North. The request was a shameless attempt to smear Gerry Adams and interfere in the political process of Ireland. More importantly, the subpoenas are a contradiction of the assurances given by the the British to none other than Senator Kerry and others regarding the purpose of the 1998 peace pact. Prime Minister Cameron knows that the man behind the subpoenas is Norman Baxter, a retired RUC officer with ties to both the corrupt Special Branch Unit and MI-5 often cited in the Stevens and Stalker reports for lawlessness. Surely now the U. S. must question both the subpoenas and Britain’s committment to peace and justice in the North.
The British will push back any effort by Secretary Kerry to raise these issues. They can not afford to have any more of their dirty war in Ireland exposed. Their use of the Ulster Defense Association as Murder Inc. like Assad uses the Shabibas would portray the response of the IRA sympathetically. On the other hand, England’s ‘successes’ of late trashing America’s laws, policies and the Irish peace agreement may embolden them to trust Deputy Secretary of State, William Burns, an Oxford graduate, to carry the ball for them with Kerry.
Secretary of State Condi Rice once canceled a trip to Egypt after Mubarak jailed Aman Nour a freedom activist. Would Secretary Kerry do the same to protest the murder of Finucane or the imprisonment of Ms Price? The British would prefer to address such matters away from probing media. But isn’t that the way a message is sent to other nations who would abuse American trust and undermine our polices in support of things like the Belfast Agreement, Iranian sanctions and Mexican drug trafficking? Soon we will know whether there will truly be a new era at the Department of State.
Michael J. Cummings, Member
National Board
12 Marion Ave
Albany, New York 12203
518-482-0349, 447-4802 & 505-2851
iauc.org
Posted by Jim on February 4, 2013
Tommy McKearney has penned a review on his own blog of Ian Cobain’s book Cruel Britannia. A Secret History of Torture.
Britain’s public and its government are currently devoting significant attention to the behaviour of the nation’s broadcast and print media. Both Parliament and the people are, understandably, concerned to ensure that the powerful Murdoch News Corporation and the equally influential BBC are conducting their affairs properly and with decency. The British people are entitled to know, and indeed demand, that newsgathering is done using correct procedures and that information relating to matters of public concern will be disseminated, whether or not it causes embarrassment to those in positions of power.
It would appear, however, that this commendable degree of scrutiny over Britain’s media does not extend to the country’s military and intelligence gathering services. Ian Cobain’s excellent new book, Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture, reveals with a well researched investigation, that Britain’s secret services supported by the military and authorised by successive governments have systematically used torture against enemy personnel and insurgents over many decades.
While Cobain has done an admirable job in providing ample evidence to support his assertion that torture was and continues to be a pillar of British security policy, this is not the most remarkable aspect of his book. It would be strange indeed if, having used torture in every field of conflict the UK has been engaged in since World War II, that there was an absence of such evidence. Cobain does indeed detail at length the sorry history of Britain’s use of torture but what his book also reveals is the astonishing lengths that British governments go to in order to deny and cover-up that which is so well known to its many victims (and the UK’s allies) across four continents.
Unlike the United States, where former president George Bush has stated publicly that he authorised `water-boarding’ suspects (a practice widely recognised as torture), Britain has consistently denied employing what the Americans euphemistically describe as enhanced interrogation techniques.
On some occasions British denials have taken the form of a Jesuitical-like redefining of what constitutes torture. Responding, for example, to allegations of torture in Northern Ireland during the early 1970s, the then British government commissioned Sir Edward Compton to carry out a limited investigation. His conclusion was that physical ill-treatment (hooding, wall-standing, white noise, sleep deprivation, food deprivation) had in fact occurred but that this did not constitute physical brutality and therefore acquitted his employer of torture. Evidence of prisoners being also routinely beaten was apparently overlooked by the inquiry.
More often, though, British governments have simply lied about the brutal methods employed by its security services. By way of illustration, Cobain refers to a statement made by Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram to the House of Commons in June 2004, `We are not aware’ he said, `of any incidents in which United Kingdom interrogators are alleged to have used hooding as an interrogation technique’. A claim he repeated to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights in spite of the fact that he had been aware from the previous September of the use of hoods during interrogation. Evidence of his awareness was to emerge some years later at a subsequent inquiry.
When the issue of torture is occasionally publicly aired in Britain, as in the inquiry referred to above, the discussion tends to be sidetracked into a debate over whether the end justifies the means. Moreover, the conversation to date is usually set in a short-term context and always in the absence of adequate information. Such obfuscation misses the point that torturing an enemy may, at best, deal with the symptoms of a problem but it cannot address the underlying issue. Containing an insurgency is not the same as settling a long running and deeply rooted dispute.
Ian Cobain’s book, Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture, provides the evidence and argument that are essential for a properly enlightened debate to take place about Britain’s use of torture.
Throughout this work, the author leaves us in no doubt that torture occurs and is endorsed at the highest level. What is not so clear is whether Cobain’s shocking exposé will generate sufficient outrage that the British government will be obliged to desist from violating its prisoners’ human rights. Worthy though the book is in every other respect, it provides little grounds for optimism that Britannia is becoming less cruel.
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by Carrie McIntyre on Monday, January 28, 2013 at 3:43pm ·
“If Dolours had a big fault, it was perhaps that she lived out too urgently the ideals to which so many others also purported to be dedicated.
“She was a liberator but never managed to liberate herself from those ideas. Sometimes we are imprisoned within ideals; sometimes in war atrocious things are done; sometimes hard things have to be done.
“Sometimes it is very difficult to handle the hard things that you felt compelled to do when you are soft-hearted at the core of your being. And Dolours was a soft-hearted person as well as a hard person in her politics.” – Eamonn McCann, who was a very close and great friend of Dolours, speaking at her graveside.
He described their friendship as a 40 year love affair, and I know she loved him and relied on him for so much. It has been a long few days. I am not even sure how many days it has been, to be honest. Dolours was found late Wednesday night and we were told of her death Thursday morning. I did not sleep that night. I find everything tinged with an incredible sadness.
Friday I took the train up to Belfast, and called with friends to the wake house. We returned to their place and they got me incredibly drunk which frankly I needed. I slept away most of Saturday, which was also needed. Saturday night we went to the Andytown Road black flag vigil where we stood in the cold, windy air for an hour or so, lined up the length of the road from beyond the leisure centre and past Casement park. We held our flags as they fluttered and cars passed by. Many young people were in attendance, more than I have ever seen in years of white line picket protests. It was sombre, and felt a fitting way to show the solidarity that defined her in that nether world between death and burial. We called briefly into the wake house again, too late to be with Dolours again; she was so near, yet never so far, never to return. Sadness mixed with anger at the frustration of her sister Marian being denied the chance to say goodbye – cruel, unnecessarily heartless; knowing the incredible bond between the two, unimaginable the loss.
Sunday was a long bus ride up and back to Derry for the Bloody Sunday march. Freezing cold. Bernadette McAliskey spoke. Seeing “RIP DOLOURS PRICE” on Derry’s walls brought a bittersweet smile; she would have loved that act of defiance and comradeship, and would have loved being the subject of it. Anger shimmered in the air of the crowd, buzzing with word of Marian’s clandestine three-hour visit to the wake-house in the early hours of the morning – at a cost of £150,000, cash, hastily and not easily raised on a Saturday. I can’t imagine how lonely Marian must feel now; memories of being denied her mother’s funeral, who never did see the two sisters back in Ireland again, crowding with living again in prison, denied the last days of those she loves most.
To think about both Marian and Dolours brings an unbearable sadness. More so because it should not be – the women I knew were vibrant women, fighters, feisty, strong; not broken by the burdens they shoulder. These burdens heaped upon them now are too much for any one person, for any family.
We called back to the wake house late in the evening upon return from Derry, and my husband and children joined me. My daughter, being older, has more memories of her “Aunty Dodo”; my son was her godson. Too little to remember very much, too young to understand, he was incredulous as he watched his daddy kiss Dolours goodbye, telling me in the car later in a stage whisper, “Daddy kissed a dead body!” with fascinated horror. My daughter is moved by it all. She sees how the loss of her friend is affecting her mother. She holds my hand and inquires how I am feeling, if I am ok, or asks “What’s wrong”. I squeeze her hand and tell her I am just sad, too sad for words. She tries to hold her own tears in, feeling the grief around her.
We call at friends’ homes and I am grateful for the small kindnesses shown. The slagging and teasing and the ability to just talk about everything. The shared frustrated outrage. The love.
The funeral was today. I held her coffin on my shoulder and thought only of her, why was she gone, why was I carrying her to her grave, how much she struggled and suffered and what an awful way we eventually find peace. The rain was ceaseless, soaking all of us. The Armagh Prison women who formed her guard walked her from her home, to the chapel, to the grave, every step of the way, through every drop of rain. Dolours would have felt she deserved no less, but would have also craved the recognition, the validation: she was a Volunteer; she gave the ultimate sacrifice: her mind, her heart, her soul, her life.
Eamonn McCann and Bernadette McAliskey spoke at her graveside. McCann was a very close friend of Dolours’, someone she relied upon greatly. Bernadette has been to the fore in campaigning for Marian. I hope McCann’s speech was recorded, or transcribed somewhere; he did her justice. Bernadette’s message was frank, and simple: this conflict has been hard. We must embrace our friends, our comrades. Be a friend to each other. Take the time. She is right. We all hurt, we all struggle, we all bear burdens. Reaching out, being there, even for a half hour phone call, or just to say ‘Hello – I am thinking of you’ – don’t let those we know, and maybe even don’t know, are hurting, drown in the sorrows they cannot abide, and feel they cannot share.
I hugged Bernadette afterwards and introduced her to my daughter. “This is the woman you are named for,” I wanted her to know. Take heed, sweetheart, you are part of a tradition of strong women. Learn from them, from Dolours, the strength of your convictions, and from Bernadette, compassion. From both, learn love.