Posted by Jim on February 15, 2013
As Reported by BBC News Feb. 15, 2013
The sister of a teenager shot dead in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday has described the offer of £50,000 compensation as a ‘distraction’.
Kate Nash’s brother William was killed on Bloody Sunday.
She said the compensation offer was a stalling tactic by the Ministry of Defence. She said the families want prosecutions of the soldiers responsible for the killings.
“To me that is more important, I am not interested in money,” she said.
“It is a distraction from the real issue which is ending impunity and getting the soldiers to court.
“We also have an ongoing police investigation and I don’t know how that is progressing but I will be finding out very soon.
“I am not remotely interested in money, not now, and even after prosecutions, we are not interested in money.”
The DUP Security Spokesman Gregory Campbell has questioned the process which led to the £50,000 figure.
Criteria
“As far as I am aware when people receive some form of compensation there are criteria about whether they had dependents, their age and their possible earning potential.
“That doesn’t appear to have applied in this case.
“It seems to be a carte blanche £50,000 irrespective of circumstances,
“Many people who had loved ones killed in their early part of the Troubles in the 1970s got a pittance in comparison to this, some of them got nothing whatsoever.”
On Friday, the Ministry of Defence issued the following statement: “Discussions with the families’ solicitors about compensation are ongoing and any speculation about payments is unhelpful and premature.”
Thirteen people died when British soldiers opened fire during a civil rights march in Londonderry in 1972. A fourteenth person died later.
The Saville Report into Bloody Sunday was published in June 2010.
Prime Minister David Cameron apologised to the families and said the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable”.
Posted by Jim on February 14, 2013
A chairde,
Just want to take this opportunity to thank all who turned out for the great night we had in Dublin last weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and it was wonderful to meet-up again with so many old friends, as well as get to see and talk to many more new ones.
The Druids are a magnificent group and richly deserve the accolades they’ve received for their music and performances. In addition to that they are also really good guys and it was an honour to meet, converse and be photographed with them.
Brian, Mick, Anto and all our friends in Dublin did a magnificent job in putting the event together at relatively short notice.
The previous weekend’s Fáilte Abhaile in Tyrone is STILL being talked about and I have to thank Damien, Noreen, Barry and all who took part in the organizing for the brilliant night that was enjoyed by everyone in the huge crowd that turned-up.
Once again, the Irish Brigade excelled themselves and it’s easy to see why they’ve remained so popular over the years. Apart from being excellent musicians they are also good personal friends and neighbours and it meant a lot to have them there
There are so many people that need to be thanked and rest assured that the help and support of one and all during this difficult period of injustice for my family and I are deeply appreciated. May God bestow bountiful blessings upon you.
Beannachtaí,
Gerry McGeough.
The Irish band “The Druids” are coming to NY/NJ in March. Please try to get out to support them. The band played at Gerry McGeough fundraisers over the past 2 years! Help spread the word and don’t miss out on the opportunity to hear the best Republican Rebel band in Ireland!
THE DRUIDS
March 2013 NEW YORK / NEW JERSEY TOUR
Tues. 12th March The Quite Man Peekskill’s New York
Weds. 13th March Thatcher McGhee’s Denville New Jersey
Thurs. 14th March Thatcher McGhee’s Pompton Lakes New Jersey
Friday 15th March Kelly Ryan’s The Bronx New York**
(**a special show: the history of Irish Republicanism through song)
Sat. 16th March Connolly’s 47th St New York (all day)
Sun. 17th March Connolly’s 45th St New York 6:00pm
Irelands Number One
Rebel Band
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
Posted by admin on
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