PAROLE COMMISSIONERS STONEWALLING Fr. Mc Manus on the Gratuitous Mistreatment of Marian Price

Posted by Jim on December 17, 2012

 I came to America forty years ago. One of the early protests I helped to organize was outside the United Nations – to protest the inhumane and racist mistreatment of the Price sisters imprisoned in England. The late Paul Dwyer and I spoke. The other speaker was the father of Marian and Dolours, Albert, whom we had brought out from Belfast. For years later I would visit Albert when I went home to Ireland. And now, after all these years, I am protesting the mistreatment of Marian Price. This is the sort of thing that for centuries has ensured Irish-Americans retain an ongoing visceral fury at British injustice. The British establishment professes bewilderment at the “ intransigence” of Irish-Americans — that they are “still going on about The Famine, etc.” Well, for a current explanation for our fury, look no further than the mistreatment of Marian Price — made all the more outrageous since it is happening in the middle of the Irish peace-process : “For if they do these things with a green tree, what shall be done with the dry?” (Luke 23:32). A singularly gratuitous example of the anti-Marian cruelty is the apparent stalling, even stonewalling, of the Parole Commissioners regarding Marian’s “ application for release”. “Parole Commissioners” may well now enter the Irish-American lexicon in the same breath as The Famine, Gombeenman, Cromwell, etc., etc. … And don’t blame Irish-Americans , but the reason : gratuitous mistreatment of the Irish.

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

The truth is Margaret Thatcher likely ordered the Pat Finucane murder — British can never reveal the truth about the killing of civil rights lawyer

Posted by admin on December 12, 2012

Cameron admits collusion, denies conspiracy in Finucane murder

Posted by Jim on

  The British Prime Minister has admitted the assassination of Pat  Finucane was “an appalling crime” which involved three state agents, the  RUC police and the British Army, but he has stopped short of ordering a  public inquiry.

  In a statement to the Westminster parliament this afternoon Mr Cameron  said there had been “shocking” levels of state collusion but no  “over-arching state conspiracy”. He was speaking following the release  of an official report on the murder of the Belfast defence lawyer by  British barrister Desmond de Silva.

  His comments went further than any previous statement by a British Prime  Minister, but appeared to draw a veil over the potential involvement by  the Tory government of the day in the atrocity.

 The de Silva report confirms that the British Army suggested Finucane as  a target and were heavily involved in the murder and subsequent  cover-up.  But the report does not succeed in identifying those  politically responsible for the assassination plan, or make any link to  the comment by Minister Douglas Hogg in the government of Margaret  Thatcher, just weeks before the murder, that “some solicitors were  unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA”.

  The review finds that actions by employees of the state “actively  facilitated” the killing, and that 85% of the intelligence obtained by  the UDA came from the British Crown. In a two year period, there were  89,270 separate incidents of what were described as “leaks” from the  Crown forces to UDA.

  Cameron told MPs today that the British Army and Special Branch had  advance notice of a series of planned UDA assassinations, but “nothing  was done”. Employees of the state and stage agents played “key roles” in  the Finucane murder, and he admitted: “It cannot be argued that these  were rogue agents.”

  The Finucane family had suffered “the most grievous wrongs” but Cameron  continued to disagree about the need for a public inquiry, claiming the  de Silva report provides “the fullest possible account of the murder of  Pat Finucane and the extent of state collusion”.

  He said the degree of collusion exposed was “unacceptable” and said in a  message to the family: “I am deeply sorry.”

  John Finucane was eight when the death squad of British agents and UDA  loyalists burst into the family home and gunned down his father while  they were eating Sunday dinner.

 Speaking before today’s statement, he said: “No matter what the  circumstances, it’s not easy for anyone to lose their father at a very  young age, never mind in such a violent fashion.

  “In the case of my father we see that those [state] agencies not just  failed to protect him but instigated the murder and then covered the  matter up.. That’s quite shocking and remains so for me and my family.”

Dublin Government Told British Of Threat To Pat Finucane Two Months Before He Was Killed

Posted by Jim on December 11, 2012

STATEMENT BY ED MOLONEY ON THE DE SILVA REPORT – Dec 12th 2012

In his report on the murder of Pat Finucane, Sir Desmond de Silva has this to say in relation to the RUC’s role in encouraging the UDA to target the solicitor (Par 73):

“The critical issue, in my view, was to determine whether RUC officers had been involved in inciting loyalists in custody to attack Patrick Finucane. Allegations that RUC officers had incited loyalists in this manner were first expressed privately by the Ambassador of the Government of Ireland to the Cabinet Secretary on 13 February 1989, the day after Patrick Finucane’s murder.”
In December 1998 I was the Northern Editor of the Sunday Tribune newspaper. During that month I had lunch with the late Tommy Lyttle, then the West Belfast Commander of the UDA. During the lunch he told me that RUC detectives at Castlereagh interrogation centre had recently suggested to one of his colleagues during an interrogation session that the UDA ought to consider killing three “IRA lawyers”, Pat Finucane, Oliver Kelly and P J McGrory. Tommy Lyttle’s words were that the RUC man had said that the UDA was wasting its time killing Catholics when there were real targets like these lawyers available.

Since Tommy Lyttle is now dead, as are the three lawyers at the centre of the story, I feel I am free to talk openly about this incident.

As a journalist covering a beat like the violence in Northern Ireland it was inevitable that from time to time I would come across evidence that suggested someone’s life could be in danger. While protecting source confidentiality has always been the highest priority to me I never hesitated in such circumstances to pass on a warning in such a way that the source is not revealed and the threatened person is able to take the proper precautions.

At the same time one had to be careful about how this was done. Motives can be be misinterpreted, actions misunderstood and the consequences could be dangerous both for yourself and your source. But there was no doubt in my mind that the three solicitors had to be warned. When a paramilitary figure as senior as Tommy Lyttle mentions such a possibility it had to be taken seriously.

Of the three lawyers, I was closest to Paddy McGrory who I regarded as a friend as much as a very valuable legal contact. I decided to tell him of the threat knowing that he would pass it on to the other two in a suitably discrete fashion. Shortly after my lunch with Tommy Lyttle, I went to his home and told him that the RUC was encouraging UDA gunmen to kill the three solicitors and that in my view he should take the warning very seriously indeed.

Paddy later  told me that he had contacted the office of the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey to tell him of the threat and that the Irish government in turn contacted the Northern Ireland Office to insist that security be stepped up at his home. This was done apparently under some protest from the NIO. What precautions, if any, were taken in regard to Oliver Kelly and Pat Finucane I do not know. Mr Haughey’s involvement in the affair and the NIO’s role in upping security precautions at Paddy McGrory’s home are checkable facts.

The Irish government was therefore aware of the UDA threat to Pat Finucane as well as the other lawyers some two months before the UDA struck and because of Mr Haughey’s intervention the British government was also aware of the threat long before Pat Finucane was killed. Sir Desmond de SIlva is therefore mistaken, or was misinformed. The British government was made aware by the Irish government of the UDA’s threat to lawyers long before February 12th, 1989.

Gap between Catholics and Protestants in North of Ireland down to just three per cent

Posted by Jim on