Posted by Jim on August 24, 2012
What is it about the British? They throw a wonderful Olympic party, for which we all can be grateful Prince Harry kept his clothes on. No doubt Her Majesty’s Government gave VIP treatment and freebies to hundreds of U. S. government employees for their loyalty to the Crown. Such amenities are the mother’s milk of the ‘special relationship.’ What’s not to like? Alas British hospitality comes with a price.
Last week it was revealed that a British bank, Standard Chartered, whose Board has at least 4 Directors with ties to the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defense, admitted ignoring U. S. and U. N. sanctions against Iran and laundered oil transactions to the tune of $200 billion dollars. As the late Sen. Everett Dirksen once said: “Pretty soon you are talking serious money!” That is only the amount admitted in an indictment to which the bank recently plead guilty in the State of New York. All this lawlessness was going on even as President Obama was signing a law to increase and strengthen the sanctions. Talk about dissing a President and the members of Congress who supported the measure like the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
But save your sympathy for Ireland. The coalition government there rolled out the green carpet and spent money it could ill afford for a Queen who praised the new atmosphere of cooperation all the while her Government was working feverishly to unravel the Irish peace process and escape accountability for decades of murder, corruption and human rights violations. Do not believe me? Just thumb through the reports submitted by the Committee on the Administration of Justice, Relatives for Justice, British-Irish Rights Watch recently submitted to Congressman Chris Smith and Senator Ben Cardin, Co-Chairs of the Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
So is it their bullying arrogance, their rank hypocrisy or mischievous meddling which is more obnoxious? Some say it is the insufferable hypocrisy of the UK criticizing China for its persecution of attorney Cheng Guangcheng. Just months before
Britain admitted colluding in the murder of Irish human rights attorney Patrick Finucane. This collusion came as a surprise to Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who recently held a press conference in Washington with Cheng. Others believe it is their bullying arrogance as typified by the phone hacking engaged in by British-owned News Corp. Senator Rockefeller intends to use the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act should there be evidence of hacking in America. The smart money is on boodles of hacking Stateside. Or for that matter what better display of arrogance than the imperial dismissal of the Irish governments request for British Army documents related to the largest act of slaughter of the conflict, the no-warning car bombing of Dublin & Monaghan shopping centers. The cars were delivered and bombs were primed by British Army members and handlers. As the song goes “..and they dare to call me a terrorist….” But my personal favorite is their obnoxious meddling in the affairs of another country, something they always complained about when countries objected to their crushing of the civil rights movement, their corruption of the rule of law, media censorship or their destruction of democracy with political assassinations. Fearful of a political party’s success in Ireland Britain has chosen to meddle in America by using Attorney General Holder to subpoena tapes held in the Irish archives of Boston College. This could be a win-win for Britain. They might get the tapes and spin them to try and influence Ireland’s politics. That surrender by the Obama administration could offend constituencies in key States and thereby insure that Britain will get a chance to put that second bust of Winston Churchill back in the White House.
If this subpoena is enforced and the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) is abused, it will be the most spectacular insult to a President and Congress since the 1812 burning of the White House. Consider. Attorney General Holder initiated the subpoena prompted by an ex-Royal Ulster Constabulary member of the much maligned Special Branch based upon an interview of Marian Price, who is opposed to the Irish peace process. Her claim being that a now Sinn Fein leader had something to do with a killing 40 years earlier at the height of civil unrest in N. I. The 1998 Belfast peace treaty addressed all that or so believes the Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry. The insult to the intelligence to every sitting member of Congress and the Obama administration can be found in these facts:
· From 1971-1973 in N. I 183 people were killed by the British Army. Not one soldier was prosecuted.
· 1984 Sir Patrick Mayhew says evidence of wrongdoing by 11 RUC officers in a dozen murders but states “not in interest of State to prosecute.
· Stevens Report is so damaging it cannot be released in full. A released summary states that “..many innocent people were murdered.”
· 5 elected Sinn Fein officials murdered by collusion. Nothing to compare in any modern democracy. No investigation or prosecution.
· Over 800 Catholic murders were to be re-examined per the Belfast Treaty because there were no arrests or prosecutions.
Now the British government would have the Attorney Generaland others believe a bona fide criminal investigation is underway in this singular case.
Who will hold Britain accountable for this mockery of justice, democracy and the rule of law? Will it be Representatives Sherman, Deutch, Berman and Senator Kirk who claimed that those ignoring sanctions on Iran and Syria will “..face serious consequences?” Let no one think for a minute the British government was surprised by the 5 year Project Gazelle of Standard Chartered bank. Perhaps President Obama will overrule Attorney General Holder or he will issue an MLAT request to prosecute the real crimes of Standard Chartered. Or Secretary of State Clinton may bail him out by assessing the threat to the Irish peace process. Maybe Senator Kerry will seek a delay on delivering anything to the British until a full Senate hearing is held to determine the validity of not only the request but the worthiness of the requestor. Stay tuned.
Michael J. Cummings, Member
National Board
Posted by Jim on
By Joseph Vincent McNulty
It has been 44 years since the first historical civil rights march from
Coalisland to Dungannon demanding civil and human rights. I was proud to
walk that walk as a young man. It is beyond belief that nearly all the
injustices and denial of people’s rights still exist today in 2012 and
that we have to march again for the same rights.
The housing waiting list in the Dungannon area is more severe than 1968.
The Irish Language Act has been binned with no consultation with
interested parties.
Unemployment is at record levels with immigration ri e among young
people. Swingeing cuts of #4 billion have been implemented by the
British government and meekly rubber stamped by a ser vile Stormont
administration. Sickness benefit, disability living allowance, housing
benefit to be slashed (under 25s to get no housing benefit at all)
affecting the most vulnerable in society. Schools have been closed
without consultation.
Internment without trial has raised its ugly head again in the case of
Marian Price. No jury Diplock courts; 28-day detention orders (it used
to be seven days); brutality and strip searching of prisoners with a
number still on a dirt protest. No inquests after 20 years for families.
Supergrass trials are also given the green light again, which is
totally wrong.
There is not one acute hospital in the county of Tyrone and health cuts
are taking place all over the nor th of Ireland. What are the MLAs from
every party doing about all these abuses? Nothing it seems. House
repossessions are also on the increase.
A civil rights march will take place from Coalisland to Dungannon this
Sunday at 2.30pm to highlight all of the above abuses of Br it ish
government and Stormont neglect of t he ordinary citizen.
We need to demonst rate that this will not be tolerated any longer. This
march is non-party political and people from all religions and none are
very welcome to attend. If you care, you will be there.
Posted by Jim on August 17, 2012
By Brian Maye (for the Irish Times)
The Sinn Fein founder, Arthur Griffith, died 90 years ago this week.
He was the man who founded Sinn Fein and led the Dail delegation to
London that signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the founding document of
Irish independence. He contributed much to bringing about that
independence but it would be probably true to say that in the Ireland of
today he is largely forgotten. It was not always thus.
A small Dublin weekly paper called the Spark, edited by John Doyle under
the pen-name Edward Dalton, conducted a poll in February 1915 based on
the question: “Who is the Irish nationalist whom Dublin wishes most to
honour?” Griffith was the first choice, followed by Eoin MacNeill and
Alderman Tom Kelly, a longtime Sinn Fein representative on Dublin
Corporation.
Dalton wrote: “The name Arthur Griffith has been chosen by a majority of
readers of the Spark . . . What Ireland owes to Griffith, to his
patriotism, to his self-sacrifice and to his ability and earnestness
will one day be told. The man’s modesty prevents it being known to his
contemporaries.”
Michael Collins, WT Cosgrave, Richard Mulcahy and Desmond FitzGerald are
among the leaders on the pro-Treaty side who recorded their debt to
Griffith’s teachings.
Their testaments should not surprise us. But what about the leading
anti-Treatyites who were equally strong in recording their debt to his
influence? “He was the greatest intellectual force stimulating the
national revival,” wrote Erskine Childers, a particularly gracious
tribute given that Griffith, in an uncharacteristic outburst during a
Dail debate, referred to Childers as a “damned Englishman”.
Harry Boland declared to Dr Patrick McCartan: “Damn it, Paddy, hasn’t
Griffith made us all!” Sean T O’Kelly wrote that “Griffith’s political
philosophy, so eloquently taught, and his long years of toil and
sacrifice, brought the present generation of Irishmen from their knees
to their feet and rekindled in their hearts the almost extinct flame of
liberty.”
The centenary of Griffith’s birth was 1971 and it is revealing to
contrast that year with the hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Michael Collins (1990) from the point of view of commemorative events.
Collins’s centenary was marked by the publication of a major new
biography, by television and radio programmes and newspaper articles.
And by a wreath-laying ceremony at his birthplace, a function at which
every shade of political opinion in the State was represented.
Compare this to the muted manner in which Griffith was remembered nearly
20 years before. A campaign was undertaken by a few private citizens to
have a commemorative postage stamp struck in his honour, but then
taoiseach Jack Lynch dismissed the idea in the Dail with the comment
that Griffith was “a Civil War figure”. A thought-provoking piece in the
periodical Studies by Griffith’s foremost biographer, Sean O Luing, and
a few newspaper items were all that recalled him in 1971.
So why has he been forgotten and why should he be remembered? The
extract from the Spark quoted above referred to his modesty. He never
sought positions of leadership. Although he founded Sinn Fein in 1905,
he became its leader six years later only when he could not find anyone
else to take the role. And in 1917 he willingly stepped down in favour
of Eamon de Valera in order to prevent a split in the movement. De
Valera overshadows him in Irish history because of his longevity and
domination of Irish political life for so many of the 90 years that the
State has been independent.
Griffith was that non-glamorous person, the writer, intellectual and
philosopher, the one who worked quietly on policies in the background
while others claimed the limelight. Collins overshadows him because of
his role as orchestrator in the War of Independence and all the tales of
derring-do, close escapes and heroism, and the brilliant
counter-intelligence campaign he ran which turned the tables on the
British. Collins also has the romance associated with dying in action
and dying young – the lamented “lost leader” who might have achieved so
much had he lived.
It is not easy to do justice, in an article of this length, to the
extent of Griffith’s contribution to the Irish independence movement
from around 1900 to 1922. But there are three facets of that
contribution to which particular attention should be drawn.
Firstly, what mattered most to Griffith was not political independence
but economic independence, because he saw the former as useless without
the latter. As a result, he devoted much of his writing as a journalist,
editor and pamphleteer to making the case for Ireland’s economic
self-sufficiency, which is summed up in the name of the movement with
which his name will always be associated: Sinn Fein (Ourselves).
The economic philosophy he preached may be summed up as “economic
nationalism”, of which protectionism was the core. It is one of the
ironies of Irish history that it was not his lineal political successors
in Cumann na nGaedheal in the 1920s but his anti-Treaty opponents in
Fianna Fail from the 1930s onwards that put his economic ideas into
practice. And it is important to realise that the economic policies
pursued by successive Irish governments from 1932 up to the 1960s were
based on ideas that Griffith had advanced in the early decades of the
20th century.
Secondly, whatever about his attitude to or actions during the 1916
Rising, it was absolutely vital that the programme he had evolved in the
previous 20 years was there in the aftermath of the rising. That
programme provided the blueprint and framework on which future progress
could be built after 1916.
Terence de Vere White expressed this interaction between Griffith’s
programme and the sacrifice of the men of 1916 well: “Pearse and his
comrades . . . provided by their sacrifice whatever mystical and
romantic inspiration was lacking in Griffith’s work” but “he had created
the political philosophy and hammered out the framework” on which their
dream could be realised. Albeit they discarded his idea of a dual
monarchy.
Thirdly, and perhaps most enduringly in terms of his contribution, Dail
Eireann was primarily one of Griffith’s long-advocated theories put into
practice. From the beginning of the 20th century, he had called on the
Home Rule MPs to abstain from going to Westminister (because that, to
him, was to recognise the legitimacy of the British conquest) and to set
up their own parliament in Dublin. Griffith had always argued that the
way to achieve independence was to establish a rival administration at
home which would win the confidence of the Irish people.
That is exactly what the victorious Sinn Fein candidates in the general
election at the end of 1918 did and on January 21st, 1919, Dail Eireann
met for the first time. For Griffith, who had been elected to the Dail
but who was in jail in Gloucester at the time, the meeting of that
assembly in the Mansion House in Dublin was a dream come true.
To Arthur Griffith, the establishment of a separate parliament in
Ireland was part of the process of winning independence by peaceful
means. He was thus one of the earliest advocates of the theory of
non-cooperation or passive resistance. And its greatest 20th-century
exponent, Mahatma Gandhi, recorded his debt to the founder of Sinn Fein
in his campaign to free India from British rule.
When Griffith collapsed and died, probably from a heart attack, on
August 12th, 1922, it is said that the only money found in his pockets
was one penny. But he left behind a legacy of selfless dedication to his
country for which he deserves to be remembered.
Posted by Jim on
ANTI-SUBPOENA GROUPS INVITE
JOIN CAMPAIGN
Denver, CO & NY, NY August 15th The largest Irish American activist groups in the nation including the oldest Irish Catholic organization in America, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, have appealed to President William P. Leahy S. J. to join the educational campaign regarding Britain’s unprecedented effort in America to intimidate journalistic inquiry, academic freedom and to color the historical record of the Anglo- Irish conflict to their liking.
“We believe,” stated Thomas J. Burke Jr., President of the Irish American Unity Conference, “ there is no better institution in this nation to voice concern for these issues than one so long associated with the Irish and their contributions to America.”
The letter indicated that even as the Court of Appeals litigation continues to search for a decision that might recognize the constitutional freedoms involved and elevate them over the flawed inquiry by the British government, Boston College could make an immeasurable contribution to the political campaign. It could identify these larger issues by appealing to Members of Congress to hold hearings on the merits of this questionable use of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.
Brendan Moore, newly elected National President of the AOH indicated “the 1998 Belfast Agreement is recognized by most in America as the turning point in the conflict and the hard work of peace can only be made more difficult by this apparent effort by the British government to undermine the peace process.”
“Boston College has rendered under to Caesar what is Caesar’s by responding to the subpoena ” stated Robert Dunne, President of the Brehon Law Society, “and now we ask that this fine Jesuit institution speak truth to power and seek a forum to do that in the Halls of Congress.”
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For more info contact Thomas J. Burke at 303-478-8473, Brendan Moore at 845-712-5463 or Jim Cullen at 914-907-5480.
Letter attached
ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS
BREHON LAW SOCIETY
IRISH AMERICAN UNITY CONFERENCE
August 16, 2012
William P. Leahy S. J.
President
Boston College
Botolph House
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467
Dear President Leahy:
As you may know, we represent groups who have long had an interest in the conflict in Ireland and now its fledgling peace process. We have closely followed the case of Attorney General Holder’s subpoena of tapes from the Irish archives in the Burns Library. We did originally meet with Mr. Swope regarding litigation and we recognize that while we shared many of the same goals, there were different assessments of the need for appellate litigation. We believe there are serious academic and constitutional issues associated with the British fishing expedition but we also recognized that resort to the courts would be a steep climb.
We have used the time provided by the litigation to take a different and, we hope, more successful approach to these and related issues we see raised by the UK action. We initially raised our concerns with Senator Kerry. His letter to Secretary Clinton highlights several of the reasons why he is asking Secretary Clinton to oppose the release of any material to the British. His concerns focused on the misrepresentations of the British government during the adoption of related Extradition, and Mutual Legal Assistance (MLAT) treaties and their commitment to the 1998 Belfast Agreement. In addition, he shares some of our concerns about this apparent abuse of the MLAT in a matter where the totality of the circumstances does not support the assertion of a bona fide criminal investigation.
The rubber stamping of the UK request by Attorney General Holder was particularly troubling to our coalition in light of Britain’s failure to adhere to key justice provisions of the 1998 Belfast Agreement which could impede a peace process which America, and no doubt Boston College, supports. This brings us to the point of this letter.
In acceding to the demands of the subpoena, Boston College had many factors to consider beyond academic freedom and the integrity of historical research. Not the least of those may have been legal costs. But there is another option.
You can speak truth to power by giving voice to those concerns and ours if you wish. A bi-partisan coalition of twenty Members of Congress to date have joined along with Senator Kerry to write both Attorney General Holder and Secretary Clinton in opposition to the subpoenas and to the faulty and uncritical manner in which they were implemented in the U. S.
Boston College has the ability and credibility to reach out to Members of Congress and to the Jesuit network of universities to raise the issues of academic freedom which the court decisions have thus far avoided in any substantial manner. We would be grateful for an opportunity to talk with College officials about the merits of raising these concerns in the political and academic arenas. We have several Jesuit college law school graduates amongst our volunteer legal team so pleased be assured we want to do what is right.
Thank you for whatever consideration you may give this invitation. If you have any questions or are in need of any material regarding our points of advocacy, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Sincerely,
Brendan Moore Robert Dunne Esq. Thomas J. Burke Jr. Esq
National President President National President
Ancient Order of Hibernians Brehon Law Society Irish American Unity Conference
845-712-5463 212- 278-1565 303-478-8473