Friday, 29 September, 2000
Saturday, 30 September, 2000
Sunday, 1 October, 2000
Sunday, 8 October, 2000
Friday, 13 October, 2000
Friday, 20 October, 2000
Tuesday, 24 October, 2000
Thursday, 26 October,2000
Sunday, 29 October, 2000
Wednesday, 1 November, 2000
Saturday, 4 November, 2000
Tuesday, 7 November, 2000
Thursday, 9 November, 2000
Sunday, 12 November, 2000
U.S. leaders united in call for new police service
The US House of Representatives has unanimously approved a resolution calling on the British government "to fully and faithfully" implement the Patten Commission recommendations on the reform of the RUC.
Earlier, the US Vice-President Al Gore, also issued a statement urging the British government "to fully and expeditiously implement these recommendations". A similar resolution is before the US Senate, tabled by Senators Edward Kennedy and Christopher Dodd, but it may not be voted upon before the Senate rises next month.
The vote in the House is the culmination of months of efforts by members of the Ad-Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs which has included a series of hearings on the Patten Commission report.
Chris Patten himself testified to a committee a year ago and warned against "cherry-picking" the recommendations. Members of human rights bodies have told hearings of the RUC links to the murders of lawyers Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson.
The chairman of the International Relations Committee, Mr Ben Gilman, has called the vote in the House an "important and unmistakable message to the British government that it needs to live up to the terms of the Good Friday accord".
He said: "The British government cannot put aside the promised change and terms of the Good Friday accord for any temporary or political gains, for whatever reason." Republican Congressman Chris Smith said: "This legislation will pressure the British government to give the people of Northern Ireland what they deserve - a police service that they can trust and that is accountable for its actions." Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley said the resolution "will send a message to our friends across the Atlantic that the United States supports their efforts and encourages the adherence of all aspects of the Good Friday agreement, without exception."
The third highest elected official in the United States, Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, has also called on the British government to fully implement (the Patten) reforms. The Speaker said "The path of peace in Northern Ireland must travel through comprehensive policing reforms. Too many citizens in Northern Ireland simply do not trust the RUC. It must be overhauled in such a way that builds trust in both communities."
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has paid tribute to the US politicians after the House resolution was passed, thanking Speaker Hastert and the many other prominent calls in favour of the creation of a new, broadly supported police service.
Mr. Adams said, "I would like to commend and thank all of those politicians in the U.S.A. who have supported the demand for a new policing service. In particular I commend the work of the Chairman of the International Relations Committee Congressman Ben Gilman, Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Human Rights, Congressman Chris Smith, and Congressman Richie Neal the initiator of this resolution to Congress. I would also like to thank Congressman Peter King, Congressman Joe Crowley, Congressman James Walsh, and Congressman Donald Payne among others for their hard work and dedication to this issue."
The Helsinki Commission hearings in Washington, which were held last week addressed by Professor Brendan O'Leary and Dr. Gerry Lynch (a member of the Patten Commission) have clearly added to the understanding that a new policing service is a central plank of the GFA. (http://www.house.gov/csce/092200NIrelandhearing.html),
Mr. Adams concluded: "There is unanimity across the political divide in the United States in support of the full implementation of the Patten recommendations, Political leaders and Irish America understand the critical importance of policing for the future and is centrality in terms of the Good Friday Agreement. US politicians are in no doubt about where the blame for the current crisis lies - with the British government."
Challenge to north of human rights law
By Sharon O’Neill
Northern Ireland’s public authorities are gearing up for one of their biggest challenges – the implementation of the Human Rights Act. Frantic efforts are under way to fine-tune arrangements already in place for the introduction of the wide-ranging legislation.
From Monday, the European Convention of Human Rights will be enshrined in UK legislation. It means that people seeking to enforce their rights on a range of issues can use the court system here rather than the painstaking task of going to Strasbourg.
Courts are obliged to take into account Strasbourg case law and for the last two years the court service and judiciary have been preparing to put the legislation into practice. However, if an application is unsuccessful, people still have the right to pursue their cases through the European courts.
Such is the importance of the legislation that the Secretary of State Peter Mandelson, First Minister David Trimble and Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon will throw their support behind Monday’s launch in Belfast. At the same time similar ceremonies will be held in London and Cardiff.
Human rights groups across Northern Ireland have also been frantically working behind the scenes to face the huge challenge that lies ahead. It is expected that once the legislation becomes fully operational it will open the floodgates for a huge influx of applications, including a number of controversial cases.
Professor Brice Dickson, head of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, who is currently engaged in a consultation process over a new bill of rights, said: “Monday October 2, will see an important new stage in the development of a human rights culture in Northern Ireland.
“Incorporating the rights protected under the European Convention of Human Rights, the Human Rights Act will impact on legislation and policy- making at a very local level, having a direct affect on the rights of everyone in Northern Ireland.”
Paul Mageean of the Committee on the Administration of Justice said he hoped the act will make a huge difference here. “This development is very much welcome. It should mean people will not have to take cases to Strasbourg,” he said. “The test of this act is the extent of which it produces real change. If it is fully applied I think it will make a difference to human rights situation on the ground.”
For more information visit the Campaign site at: http://www.RosemaryNelsonCampaign.com/
Copyright © 2000 Irish News
Rosemary Nelson - Joint statement by members of the House of Representatives
The following is a joint statement released by members of the House of Representatives: Rep. Chris Smith (Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights), Donald Payne, Peter King, Joe Crowley, and Jim Walsh.
"Two years ago today, Rosemary Nelson, a human rights attorney, came and testified before Congress about the death threats, assaults and verbal abuse she was forced to endure as she attempted to properly discharge her duties as a defense attorney in Northern Ireland.
"She told us of the threats against her and her family came from members of the RUC. She testified: "Although I have tried to ignore the threats, inevitably I have had to take account for the possible consequences for my family and also for the staff that I have had in the office." And she said: "no lawyer in Northern Ireland can forget what happened to Pat Finucane, nor can they dismiss it from their minds."
"We too will never forget what happened to Patrick Finucane, nor will we ever forget that just six months after Rosemary Nelson made her plea, she was assassinated, the victim of a car bomb.
"We join together today on the anniversary of her testimony to once again urge the British government to take decisive action to protect defense attorneys in Northern Ireland.
"We renew our call for an RUC- free investigation to the brutal murder of Rosemary Nelson and once again ask for an independent, judicial inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane.
"After 18 months, the circumstances surrounding Rosemary Nelson’s murder, as well as the harassment she withstood while she was alive, are still not being adequately investigated. Our hearts and prayers are with Rosemary’s family and we pledge to redouble our efforts to push for a full and transparent investigation which will hold accountable those responsible for Rosemary’s murder."
For more information visit the Campaign site at: http://www.RosemaryNelsonCampaign.com/
Army unit and loyalist paramilitary assassins ' were in collusion'
Special report: Northern Ireland
Nick Hopkins and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
The inquiry into alleged links between an undercover army unit and loyalist paramilitary assassins in Northern Ireland has uncovered evidence of "institutional collusion" that went unchecked for years, security sources have told the Guardian. Operating in a "maverick" fashion, the force research unit, a covert intelligence cell that handled agents in the province in the 1980s and 90s, gradually "lost the plot", investigators say.
FRU recruited informers against the express orders of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which officially had the lead role in such operations, and allowed agents to "run the army, not the other way round".
With the help of hundreds of previously undisclosed army documents known as "secret books", the inquiry team, led by Sir John Stevens, commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has identified between 20 and 25 former members of the FRU. It regards them as key to exposing the extent and na ture of the collaboration. The Guardian has learned that two former members of FRU, both junior ranking soldiers still serving in the army, were interviewed by inquiry detectives last week. One flew back from Germany; the other was in the UK. Next week, Sir John's team will interview two more. One is stationed in Kosovo, the second in the UK.
Detectives intend to "work their way up" the ranks of FRU, before speaking to its former commander, Brigadier John Kerr - referred to as "Mr Intelligence" - who is the British military attache in Beijing. Sir John has steadfastly refused to speak about the 18-month inquiry and Ministry of Defence sensitivity has led Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, to obtain gagging orders against newspapers.
But security sources have revealed that the 20-strong team is slowly pushing forward and that a report with its findings will be written in the new year.
The team's remit was to re-investigate the murders of Pat Finucane, a well-known defence solicitor shot by the Ulster Defence Association in February 1989, and 19-year-old Adam Lambert, who was shot the day after the IRA blew up 11 people at Enniskillen in November 1987.
An RUC informer, William Stobie, 49, has been charged with offences relating to both killings and is awaiting trial. The Stevens team does not believe that FRU soldiers were working from a "guidebook" telling them how to deal with informers. However, police officers have identified important flaws in the way the unit was operating that allowed them too much freedom.
FRU, which had its own headquarters, was supposed to act as a conduit for intelligence gathered from informers recruited by the army rather than the RUC.
Meetings between FRU agents and informers were recorded on contact forms - CFs. The CF forms were turned into "Mispers" - military intelligence reports -which were supposed to have been delivered to RUC special branch. A source said: "The RUC had primacy over FRU. They should have been given everything. It seems this didn't happen."
The RUC also had power of veto over any informers that FRU wanted to recruit, but its advice was ignored. Another problem was that the FRU's three departments - east, north and west - did not work cohesively. Sir John has been told that his officers now have "severe concerns about the management and meaningful level of control" within FRU and have told him that the systems for handling agents were "not robust enough" and "do not stand up to scrutiny".
An example of the "institutional collusion" was the handling of Brian Nelson, an informer recruited by FRU against the advice of both MI5 and the RUC special branch.
Nelson, the Ulster Defence Association's intelligence officer, was sentenced to 10 years in 1992 on 20 charges, including conspiracy to murder. Because he pleaded guilty, the full extent of his collusion with FRU was never put before a court.
Sir John's team is convinced that a deal was cut to protect the army and that if details had been dislosed then, the current investigation would not have been necessary. "Nelson's job was to target people," said a security source. "This is a high-risk strategy." His aim was to "wipe out half of IRA command". Sir John's team is also understood to be convinced that a fire which wrecked his offices during an earlier investigation into collusion was not an accident.
An investigation by the RUC after the fire in January 1990 concluded it had been started accidentally, though there have been persistent rumours that it was arson carried out by army intelligence personnel fearful of the evidence that was being uncovered.
One former FRU soldier, who uses the alias Martin Ingram, has been a valuable witness for the Stevens team, according to security sources.
As a result of complaints by senior army officers anxious to suppress disclosures about FRU activities, a man they believe to be Ingram is the subject of a police special branch investigation in connection with possible charges under the Official Secrets Act for disclosing information to a newspaper.
Scotland Yard refused last night to discuss the continuing investigation or give details of the former FRU soldiers interviewed last week.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Newspaper Gagged Again Over Paramilitary Claims
By Dan McGinn, PA News in Belfast
A Sunday newspaper today vowed to challenge a gagging order placed on it by the government against an investigation into alleged collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and army intelligence officers.
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon for the second week running succeeded in preventing the Sunday People from publishing a report on allegations that members of a special army unit's involvement with loyalist paramilitary informers.
The newspaper's Irish edition had been investigating a number of loyalist shootings including the killing of Belfast pensioner Francisco Notorantonio in 1987. The newspaper's investigation claimed members of the special Force Research Unit, which handled informers in the 1980s and 1990s had knowledge about the killings.
An inquiry team headed by Metropolitan Police chief Sir John Stevens is currently investigating allegations of military collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in a number of killings including that of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989. In a statement released today, the Sunday People said they had gone back to the High Court yesterday to fight the gagging order for a second time but had failed in their bid to overturn it.
"Incredibly, the judge again ruled that the result be kept secret from the public," the newspaper claimed in their statement. The 'paper alleged that an attempt by Mr Hoon to claim for substantial damages as a result of the Sunday People's story on the killing of Mr Notorantonio was withdrawn yesterday.
It said: "Even more draconian measures to silence and censor" the Sunday People had now been introduced but they were not allowed to say what those measures were. "As a result of the first gagging order, we have been banned from running a further article relating to those investigations that we had prepared for publication this weekend.
"But we do vow to fight this latest astonishing attack on press freedom. We would also point out the matters we have been investigating are the same as those being probed by the so called Stevens Inquiry being conducted into the activities of certain army units in Ulster by Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of Scotland Yard."
The newspaper claimed that the measures sought by Mr Hoon contravened the right to freedom of expression as enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights. "It puts him totally at odds with the Human Rights Act 1998 which comes into force next week," said the paper.
Sunday People editor Neil Wallis said: "I'm furious. It is amazing that the government and security services should be able to gag what is supposed to be a free press. "If they think we will lie back and accept this, they are quite wrong. I can assure you the government have a real fight on their hands."
Greg Harkin, the newspaper's Ireland editor, added that the allegations they were making were clearly in the public's interest and he criticised the government for trying to silence his newspaper.
"It means other allegations of great significance cannot be brought to the attention of the public. As a result of our investigations, however, we will be publishing certain allegations tomorrow."
Copyright 2000 PA News
Death threat solicitor walks down Rosemary's solitary path
Anne Cadwallader
Her name is top of a death list on a hate-filled loyalist website. Her Belfast home is newly-fortified with bullet-proof windows. In 1973, she appeared on behalf of the families of the Bloody Sunday dead at the now discredited Widgery Tribunal.
She was once Gerry Fitt's right-hand woman. She was a close friend of Dominic McGlinchey. As long ago as 1969, her collarbone was fractured when an infuriated Paisley follower hit her with his blackthorn stick.
Yet it is as solicitor for the Garvaghy Road residents coalition that Padraigin Drinan has finally become known to a wider public. Barely 5 ft in her stockinged feet, gentle-faced and softly-spoken, Drinan hardly looks like a front-line warrior in the battle for human rights in the North. She also appears a most unlikely target for loyalist paramilitaries. But she is both a fighter and a potential victim.
After much campaigning, both in Ireland and in the USA, the RUC was finally forced to add her name to the list of those on their "key persons protection scheme". The workmen moved into her house and in went the grenade-proof doors and closed-circuit television.
The threat to her life has hardly eased with her recent action in co-ordinating six ground-breaking cases at the European Court of Human Rights against the British government for allegedly failing to protect its citizens from racial harassment. The act implementing the Good Friday agreement failed to enshrine the "right to live free from sectarian harassment" into law. London says this part of the agreement is merely "aspirational". Drinan says it's discrimination. People are, worryingly, beginning to draw parallels between Drinan and the murdered solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, while hoping, of course, that she doesn't suffer the same fate as the latter (who was assassinated by loyalists in a March 1998 car bombing). At a superficial level, there are wide differences between the two women. Nelson was always immaculately dressed. Her office was neat as a new pin. On Drinan's list of priorities, a well-turned heel does not appear high. Her office and home stand little chance of featuring in a glossy magazine.
But at a deeper level, there are profound similarities. Drinan is, as Nelson was, an incurable workaholic with a boundless commitment for using the law to vindicate individual rights. Because of their belief that racism and sectarianism are two sides of the same coin, a burning anger at injustice and an enduring belief in non-violence to achieve change, both women's work will live on in the public's memory.
The two even knew each other. They were both involved in acting as legal advisors to residents groups (Drinan for the Lower Ormeau, Nelson for the Garvaghy Road. Since Nelson's murder, Drinan works for both). Like Nelson, Drinan also specialises in defending women's and traveller's rights, along with cases of alleged racial discrimination. "We would chat and swap stories on the phone all the time and meet about once a month, over the last two years of her life, to compare notes. It was great to be with someone who was interested in the same areas of law as I am and I still miss her greatly," says Drinan.
Drinan was born in west Belfast 53 years ago. Her mother ran a bar where the Divis tower now stands, at the town-centre end of the Falls Road. Her father, born in Cork, taught Irish at St. Malachy's college. "Father spoke no English at home, mother spoke no Irish. It was a bit difficult," she laughs. Her primary school's catchment area included Ballymurphy so, despite her middle-class background, Drinan learned at an early age about poverty.
While at St. Dominic's, she became involved in the Republican Labour party and worked voluntarily for Gerry Fitt at Stormont. After St. Dominic's, she did "A" levels at Belfast tech and law at Queens. There she joined People's democracy and became embroiled in the civil rights movement. Her collarbone was broken at Burntollet, when DUP members, ably assisted by B Specials, attacked marchers on their way to Derry.
"I can still remember the face of the man who hit me. I thought if I stood my ground and didn't run away, he wouldn't hit me. I was wrong, he just lifted his walking stick high above his head, and brought it down on me. It still aches a bit. "It was an exciting time to be young. I got hit regularly but you didn't feel pain because you were so hyped up at what was happening around you." When other friends became involved in the resurgent IRA, Drinan did not enlist. Why? "I genuinely believed in civil rights and that if you had right on your side, you would win in the end." On her first day out of college, she applied to work with Christopher Napier, a practising solicitor she met at a civil rights demonstration. "For the first year I did nothing but work on internment cases to get people freed. That set the tone for my life's work which has always been rights-based. I was a witness for the Irish government in its case to the European Court of Human Rights over the ill-treatment of detainees.
"I also represented the families of the Bloody Sunday victims at the Widgery tribunal in Coleraine. With hindsight, of course, you could say we should never have taken part in it but, at the time, people really wanted the story to come out in public.
"We worked 20 hours a day, every day, for six weeks straight. It was dreadful when he brought in his verdict, but we had almost expected it from what he was saying during the course of the tribunal.
"I then took a case for the Equal Opportunities Commission against a Belfast bar that refused to serve women. We won that case. I also acted for Noreen Winchester, a woman convicted of murdering her abusive father. We overturned the conviction and from that sprang Belfast Women's Aid and the Rape Crisis Centre."
Her friendship with Dominic McGlinchey grew after she represented him in an appeal against a murder conviction. "He was a terrific person, the media portrait just isn't him. He was persuasive, single-minded, intelligent."
Drinan is still close to Declan and Dominic, the two orphaned sons of Dominic and Mary McGlinchey. She never married and, being childless, the two McGlinchey boys are close to her heart. She also had a long-standing relationship with a man, dating back to her student days but, two years ago, they parted because of a political disagreement.
She doesn't cook, loves Irish music, rarely goes to the movies, reads voraciously when she gets the chance, and has recently discovered the internet, with which she is fascinated.
Now at the peak of her professional career, with her enthusiasm for the law and its potential to increase the sum of justice and human happiness undimmed, Padraigin Drinan is likely to remain in the difficult and dangerous position of legal vanguard in the North.
For more information visit the Campaign site at: http://www.RosemaryNelsonCampaign.com/
Copyright 2000 Ireland on Sunday
Sammy Wilson snubs Dalai Lama
Unionist hardliner Sammy Wilson has extended his catalogue of intolerant remarks when he criticised the the Dalai Lama in advance of his visit to Belfast next week.
Wilson, the current Lord Mayor of Belfast, admitted he did not know who the Dalai Lama is, but dismissed the Tibetan spiritual leader's "peace and love" message.
"I don't think many people in Belfast know who the Dalai Lama is," Wilson said. "I don't know anything about the man or his teachings and I've never had much of an interest in the affairs of his country," he said.
"I think I know human nature too well. There's maybe people not in touch with reality who think if they preach peace and love to people they'll behave like that. I think people can afford to be a bit cynical. I certainly am."
The Dalai Lama will spend three days in Ireland, during which he will cross the peace line dividing the nationalist and loyalist communities in Belfast and plant a "symbolic tree" at Lanark Way.
The Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, will also attend a youth conference in Belfast on the theme, "Non-violence Works", and deliver an Amnesty International Lecture.
Pat Finucane murder - new evidence
Andersonstown News
New evidence has been uncovered which proves that RUC chiefs had a confession to Pat Finucane’s murder in their possession for nine years but chose to bury it to save the Special Branch.
The North Belfast News has learned that evidence exists that one of Pat Finucane’s killers admitted the 1989 murder to RUC officers as far back as 1991.
But despite having the confession a decision was taken by RUC chiefs that the Finucane case was not to be reopened. And evidence now exists that the admission of guilt was made by a senior North Belfast UDA commander and not by self-confessed UDA informer Billy Stobie.
The UDA commander is understood to have made the admission of guilt to three CID officers in 1991, but an attempt to use the confession to charge the UDA commander with Pat Finucane’s murder was blocked at the highest levels of the RUC. It is also suspected that the confession may have been obtained in the form of secretly taping the unsuspecting UDA commander during daily discussions with RUC men on the Shankill.
One of the officers who is believed to have been present when the confession was made is Tennent Street CID officer Johnston ‘Jonty’ Brown, the man whose home was attacked by the UFF earlier this month.
Brown has been a hate figure for the UFF ever since he played a leading role in a sting operation against Johnny Adair in the early 1990s, which ended in the UFF leader being jailed for 16 years on charges of directing terrorism.
Brown secretly taped months of conversations with Adair during the early 1990s in which the UFF leader is known to have admitted his part in a number of killings including that of Ardoyne ex-prisoner Alan Lundy who was shot as he worked on the home of Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey.
Adair’s decision to plead guilty at his subsequent court case meant that none of the tapes were ever made public. Brown admitted last week that his note books had been seized by the Stevens Team and that he was now co-operating with the investigation into the allegations that the RUC chose to ignore the confession of Pat Finucane’s murder.
And a senior source within the Stevens Team has confirmed that the 1991 confession came from a senior UDA commander and not Billy Stobie as was previously thought. Self-confessed informer Stobie has been ruled out as being the agent which RUC chiefs claimed at the time would have been compromised by the reopening of the Finucane case.
In 1991 Stobie’s relationship with his Special Branch handlers had already turned sour after he was charged with possession of weapons alleged to have been found in his home. The self-confessed informer has always maintained that the weapons had been put in his loft by Special Branch who had decided that he was no longer of use to them.
All charges against Stobie were subsequently dropped during the court case. Stobie warned that he would publicly reveal how he had told RUC officers of a planned UFF operation on the evening of Pat Finucane’s murder and how nothing had been done to apprehend the killers either before or after Pat Finucane’s murder.
And the North Belfast News has learned that attempts were made to kill RUC man Jonty Brown from the mid 1990s. Evidence exists that a letter, claiming that Brown was working with the IRA, was sent to a UVF commander in Springmartin in 1993.
But the letter was intercepted by the RUC and the attempts to murder Brown were uncovered although no one was ever charged with the plot. It is unclear whether the attempt to set Brown up for assassination was made by loyalists or members of the RUC, who may have feared that Brown's evidence on Pat Finucane's murder and the RUC’s refusal to act on it, would come back to haunt Special Branch.
Brown's decision to co-operate with the Stevens Team is said to have put pressure on senior RUC chiefs who fear that the investigation will now concentrate on who took the decision to deliberately bury the confession to Pat Finucane's murder.
Copyright 2000 Andersonstown News
1510 Soldiers discharged for drugs but not for murder
1510 soldiers have been dismissed from the British Army for failing random drug tests since 1995, the same year as Scots Guards Wright and Fisher were convicted of the murder of Belfast teenager Peter Mc Bride. The two guardsmen are still serving in the British Army. The figures, revealed in a reply to a parliamentary question put to Defence Secretary John Spellar by Kevin McNamara MP, have angered those campaigning for the dismissal of the two guardsmen.
The Pat Finucane Centre has expressed outrage at the contrast in treatment by the British Army of those convicted of murder in a court of law, and those who fail random drugs tests. "This is a completely ludicrous situation" said a spokesperson for the Derry based centre "What we have here is the British Army effectively telling us that it is a more serious crime to smoke a joint than to murder an innocent Irish teenager. The failure of the army to dismiss two men found guilty of murder in a court of law while discharging over 1,500 soldiers who never even appeared in court is mind boggling."
"The implication is that Wright and Fisher would have been discharged had they committed murder after taking drugs, not because they had committed murder but because they tested positive for drugs.
John Spellar, Secretary of State for Defence, in his reply to the question tabled by Kevin McNamara said "The [armed] Services regard drug taking as a matter of the utmost seriousness and a positive test will, in most cases, lead to an administrative discharge from the Service."
Army Personnel Discharged for Drugs offences up to April 2000 (Hansard):
| Year | Number Discharged |
| 1995 | 104 |
| 1996 | 178 |
| 1997 | 426 |
| 1998 | 336 |
| 1999 | 255 |
| 2000 | 111 (figures until March) |
| Total: | 1510 |
Note to editors
In September 1999 the Ministry of Defence (MOD) was ordered by a Belfast court to reconsider an Army Board decision to allow Wright and Fisher to remain in the British Army despite the murder convictions. To date the MOD has failed to make a decision.
For further information see www.serve.com/pfc
Unionists divided after second IRA arms move
The IRA has confirmed that a second inspection of its arms dumps has now taken place.
On Wednesday, the IRA issued a statement that the re-inspection of a number of its arms dumps by Cyril Ramaphosa and Martti Ahtisaari would take place.
The two international inspectors said last night that the IRA had "fully honoured their commitments" and that the arms dumps have "remained secure".
"We observed that the weapons and explosives continued to be safely and adequately stored. We remain confident that the weapons and explosives cannot be used without our detection." The inspectors added that they plan to reinspect arms dumps on a regular basis.
In the face of mounting evidence of British bad faith, the move was unexpected. It has astonished those who expected a harder line, particularly unionist hardliners who had wanted to create a showdown around the decommissioning issue within weeks.
The IRA did explain that while it has honoured all its commitments, the British government has so far "not honoured its undertakings", including commitments on human rights, equality, justice, demilitarisation and policing.
The timing of the move is significant, just days before a crunch meeting of the Ulster Unionist Party's ruling council on Saturday, and as the critical issue of policing reform is about to be resolved.
In their statement released on Wednesday, the IRA said that it would resume discussions with the de Chastelain Decommissioning Body "when we are satisfied that the peace process will be advanced by those discussions". It is clear that the IRA now expects the British government to move significantly in order to put the peace process back on track.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams welcomed the IRA move as "good news" and cautioned against those who are attempting to downplay the IRA's efforts.
"It is a difficult thing for the IRA to do and it will cause some difficulty for republicans," he said. Adams said that the IRA move was made despite a complete failure by the British government to follow through on their commitments to the peace process. "In areas such as South Armagh we have seen a remilitarisation by the British Army. If one asks the people there, or the people of Divis Flats, there has been no change so far," Adams said. He called on the British government to match the IRA's commitment to the process.
Gerry Kelly, Sinn Fein's spokesperson on policing, said that he believed the IRA's move would surprise many republicans who have witnessed the reneging of the British government, its minimalist approach to demilitarisation and policing and to other commitments given in May.
"The IRA leadership has obviously taken a long-headed view of the process," he said, "despite what I am sure is their own anger at the behaviour of the British.
"This is another of a series of initiatives taken by the IRA leadership over the past couple of years to try to have a positive impact on the peace process and to move it forward."
UUP SHOWDOWN
Meanwhile, a period of political harmony within the Ulster Unionist Party has broken down, with party leader David Trimble and leading hardliner Jeffrey Donaldson increasingly adamant over their different tactical approaches to the Agreement.
At the party's policy-making meeting on Saturday, Donaldson will ask for a clear date for the party's withdrawal from the North's power-sharing Executive, prompting another bruising confrontation with his party leader.
Efforts to forge a joint strategy between the theoretical 'No' and 'Yes' wings of the party have broken down over Donaldson's absurd call for a November 30 'deadline' for the IRA to physically surrender its weapons.
Trimble continues to advocate a gradual boycott of the new political institutions, which he admits is designed only to avoid the blame for their collapse.
A simple ultimatum to the IRA would be too transparent, he said. "That sort of crude device is counter-productive. If you're setting an ambush you don't tell your opponents what you're doing."
There is also confusion within unionism over what might replace the Agreement, and the extent to which elements of it might remain in place. Donaldson has advocated that unionists should try and close the Executive, wrap up the All-Ireland bodies and do away with the Assembly as it sits and turn it into a talking shop.
"This is not imaginative," Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly said. "Indeed, it is not even new. We had it before with the Forum, which Sinn Fein refused to be a part of, because it was a talking shop, and from which the SDLP also pulled out after a short time.
"Unionists need to stand up to the 'No' men like Jeffrey Donaldson. The British government and the unionists need to follow the example of the IRA's bold and pivotal step today.
"All sides have to fulfill their obligations. The Agreement has to be implemented in full. Deadlines and ultimatums must be avoided, and we must all work together to ensure the succes of the peace process."
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Peter Mandelson has again said that Dublin would have a greater role in northern affairs if the Good Friday Agreement collapsed, while British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a one-day visit to Ireland, made it clear that if the institutions collapsed there would be a return to Direct British Rule.
"I think it would be a big mistake if we gave it all up," Blair said. "So give it time. Understand that you're never going to have it in a moment and let's just make it work."
Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness said that people know that the Good Friday agreement is the only road forward.
"People know that if we step off the Good Friday road we are stepping into oblivion.
"We are going to make the same mistakes that have been made in the Middle East and I don't want to be part of making those mistakes.
"I don't think David Trimble wants to be part of making those mistakes either."
The following is the full text of the IRA's follow-up statement, issued yesterday:
"On October 25th the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann announced that we would honour all commitments entered into by us, as outlined in our statement of May 6th.
We specifically announced that we would repeat the inspection of a number of our arms dumps, by agreed third parties, to confirm that our weapons remain secure.
We now wish to confirm that this re-inspection has taken place, and thank those involved for their co-operation.
This initiative represents clear and irrefutable evidence of the IRA's commitment to a just and equitable peace settlement.
This initiative was taken in the context of a series of commitments made by the two governments, especially the British government. To date the British government has not honoured the commitments it entered into.
It is not the responsibility of the IRA alone to enhance the peace process. Others also must play their part."
Outrage as Trimble launches attack on GFA
Nationalist anger shows no sign of abating following the meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on Saturday.
At the meeting, party leader David Trimble unveiled a wrecking strategy designed to destroy or decimate the Good Friday Agreement, starting this week with Strand 2, the critical North-South element.
The First Minister has declared he will use a legal loop-hole to prevent the attendance of Sinn Fein Ministers at North-South meetings, beginning on Friday. Sinn Fein has rejected suggestions that Mr Trimble can prevent their elected Ministers performing their functions, setting the stage for a legal and political battle over their right to take part in the new institutions.
TACTICAL TIME-BOMB
Before the UUC meeting, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams had urged Mr Trimble to work with nationalists and republicans to ensure that the Good Friday Agreement is implemented in full and that all parties keep their commitments.
However, Mr Trimble ignored this advice, and in a letter to Council delegates, he set out his objectives as: a crisis around the Executive and the Assembly; suspension of the Agreement; with blame to be attached to republicans.
His six-point plan to achieve this, endorsed by the UUC, links the blocking of the political process on a number of fronts to the demand for a physical IRA weapons surrender. A follow-up meeting in January to evaluate the results of this strategy is being seen as tantamount to the arms surrender deadline which leadership rival Jeffrey Donaldson demanded be put in place.
After winning the key vote on party strategy, Mr Trimble crucially admitted the policy differences between himself and Donaldson were "essentially tactical". The admission confirms that the divisions within the UUP are not based on 'Yes' or 'No' attitudes to the Good Friday Agreement, but on personal ambition and disunity over what might eventually replace the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Donaldson said he believed the vote marked a shift in party policy. "We are now beginning in a real way to put pressure on republicans - which is something we should have done a long time ago - to decommission their illegal weapons," he said. "We did not get everything we wanted but David Trimble has moved very firmly on to our ground."
The SDLP has expressed "serious concern" about the outcome of the meeting. SDLP Deputy Leader Seamus Mallon said Trimble's plan sought to establish different classes of ministers which was "unacceptable".
The Alliance Party's youth affairs spokesman, Mr Michael Long, said Mr Trimble had "caved in" to anti-agreement forces within the UUP. "How David Trimble can claim to continue to support the process while threatening to bring the whole thing down is beyond me."
Speaking after a meeting of party activists in Castlebellingham, County Louth, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams MP warned that if Mr Trimble follows through on his threat he will be "in breach of the Agreement, and in contravention of his Pledge of Office and of his Ministerial code".
The Sinn Fein leader pointed out that Sinn Fein does not hold Executive position by "dint of patronage" from the UUP. "We have a mandate and the citizens whom we represent must have exactly the same rights as all other citizens," he said.
Mr Adams suggested that Unionism may not be "up to the challenge" of working alongside nationalists toward a peaceful future with equality.
The Sinn Fein President, who spoke to both governments and the White House on Saturday, said there was a need "to preserve the political process and the peace process thorough upholding and implementing the Good Friday Agreement. They cannot allow a unionist veto."
CHEER UP, SAYS MANDELSON
Much now depends on how the Irish and British governments cope with Trimble's wrecking ball, now aimed solidly at the foundations of the Good Friday Agreement. Significantly, while Dublin's Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowan said he was "very concerned", Britain's Secretary of State Peter Mandelson expressed satisfaction with the result of the UUC meeting and feebly urged nationalists "not to overreact".
The following is the text of the UUC motion, passed by 445 votes to 374:
'TIMETABLE FOR DIASASTER' - KELLY
Sinn Fein Assembly member for North Belfast Gerry Kelly described the Trimble agenda as "destructive and ill-advised." It was "a timetable for disaster", he said.
Mr Kelly said the menu set out by the UUP leadership reflected "a hankering after the failed status quo which all politically sane people accept to be untenable.
"The reality is that Mr. Trimble has not stood up to Jeffrey Donaldson. He has not stood up in defence of the Agreement, instead he has proposed an approach that is in clear breach of the Good Friday Agreement."
Mr Kelly blamed the British government for encouraging David Trimble "in his endeavours to have the Agreement and its requirement for change filtered through a unionist prism."
He pointed to the suspension legislation enacted by the British government and the triggering of the suspension of the North's institutions as previous evidence of the British government's "chicanery" and its willingness to at the behest of the UUP. The British dilution of the Patten recommendations and the flags issue "have convinced the UUP that they can hollow out the Agreement with impunity," he warned.
"Sinn Fein's right to representation on institutions and the executive derives from our significant electoral mandate. It is not for David Trimble or any other Unionist leader to set limits on the rights and entitlements of nationalists and republicans. "There can be no unionist veto. "The British government has to take up the challenge of the Good Friday Agreement. It is for them, and for the Irish government, as joint sponsors of the Agreement to defend its integrity and uphold the rights of the electorate who voted for the Agreement."
UUP WALK-OUT SEEN
The North's Minister for Education, Martin McGuinness, said that neither himself nor colleague Bairbre de Brun are going to be treated as "second class ministers" and that his party was going to fight for the rights of nationalists.
Ms de Brun and/or Mr McGuinness are now expected to turn up at a North-South sectoral meeting on Friday, regardless of Trimble's 'sanction'. There is now speculation thatU lster Unionist Ministers might choose to walk away from the meeting rather than participate with those they consider to have no authority.
Mr McGuinness warned that the weekend's developments "bode very badly for relationships within the executive." He and de Brun have requested an urgent meeting of the Executive and are seeking legal advice from within their departments. "Sinn Fein is not walking away from its peace strategy," McGuinness added. "We are not going to destroy the peace process. We are going to hang in there for the rights of our people."
Urgent appeal from the Pat Finucane Centre
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The PFC is non-party political, anti-sectarian and advocates a radical non-violent resolution of the conflict on the island of Ireland. We believe that human rights have been violated by all participants to the conflict over the past thirty years. The main focus of our work is the role of the State because of the particular responsibility of the State under domestic and international law to guarantee the human rights of all citizens. The PFC is based on the following premise; the failure by the British Government to uphold Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law" is the single most important explanation for the initiation and perpetuation of violent conflict. It is therefore implicit to conflict resolution in Ireland that Article 7 be implemented in full. The PFC campaigns towards that goal.
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The Pat Finucane Centre,1 West End Park, Derry, Ireland, BT48 9JF Tel (028) 7126 8846 Fax (028) 7126 6453 Email: pfc@www.serve.com Website: www.serve.com/pfc"I am thankful for the Pat Finucane Centre. It was the staff of the Pat Finucane Centre who enabled me, and other clergy, to start a journey of discovery, introducing me to the widest range of political opinion and community attitude in the city, listening to unfamiliar points of view, vital for one from Warrington hoping to share in a ministry of reconciliation and conflict resolution - both in the north of Ireland and further afield."
The Rev Stephen Kingsnorth MA Methodist Minister Warrington-Ireland Reconciliation EnterpriseLet us have Patten neat
Dilution of the Patten report could threaten progress on arms
Special report: Northern Ireland, The Guardian
In the seesaw that is the Northern Ireland peace process, the momentum seems to have shifted back to the republican side. The last 48 hours have brought a double boost to their cause. First came the upbeat report from the two international arms inspectors, Cyril Ramaphosa and Martti Ahtisaari. Following their second look at the IRA's arms dumps they went far beyond a mere declaration that the arsenals had been untouched since their first visit. They added that the dumps were "substantial", that the weapons they saw were not rusty, obsolete kit but "usable" arms, and that they are convinced that the IRA is serious about peace. Those words represent a PR coup for republicans.
Another came yesterday. The agenda may have looked mundane - a meeting launching a food standards agency - but the encounter between Sinn Fein's health minister in the Northern Ireland executive and her Dublin counterpart was a milestone. For last week David Trimble told his Ulster Unionist party he would ban Sinn Fein from all such meetings of the North-South ministerial council, created under the Good Friday agreement, so long as the IRA held on to its guns. Yesterday both Dublin and Mr Trimble's deputy as first minister, the SDLP's Seumas Mallon, sat down with Sinn Fein - effectively showing two fingers to the Ulster Unionist leader. Now Mr Trimble finds himself at odds not only with republicans, but a combination of Dublin, moderate nationalism and even the British government: the secretary of state, Peter Mandelson, has rightly asked for the ban on Sinn Fein to be lifted.
Still, such a reading of the peace process - as a constant to and fro between unionists and republicans, with one holding the moral advantage this week, the other the next - may be a mistake. For it misses out a key player. The reason for the IRA's failure to move faster on unionism's central demand may have less to do with Mr Trimble than with the British government.
London's dilution of the Patten report on policing has antagonised the IRA - which thought it had agreed a deal with London, trading progress on police reform for decommissioning, back in May. Key aspects of Patten, including both local and international oversight, have been watered down in the process of turning recommendations into law. These changes have not come at the behest of unionists, who have focused on symbolic questions, such as the RUC name and badge, but have been made by the government itself. The Patten inquiry was a fair-minded study. Its findings were just. They deserve implementation on their merits. But their delivery was also promised as the British side of a bargain. It is not just unionists and republicans who must fulfil their obligations. Our own government has a duty to do so too.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
Justice for the Forgotten: Interview with Don Mullan
On May 17, 1974, three no-warning car bombs exploded in Dublin City centre.
Just over an hour later, another car bomb exploded in Monaghan Town. Thirty-three people were killed that day—the single greatest loss of life in any one day of "the Troubles." Nevertheless, this horrific tragedy has largely been forgotten. Many questions remain unanswered since 1974. Serious allegations of collusion and cover-ups—implicating both the British and Irish governments—remain.
It is to these questions that the relatives of the bereaved and the wounded seek the truth. Under the banner of the Justice for the Forgotten, they campaign for a public, cross-jurisdictional tribunal of inquiry. Acclaimed author and activist, Don Mullan, discusses the bombings, the campaign and his new book with Stuart Ross of the Pat Finucane Centre.
Interview w/ Don Mullan
Rutgers U. , Camden
SR: How did you get involved with the Justice for the Forgotten Campaign?
DM: I was approached by artist Robert Ballagh who had been concerned about this subject for quite some time. It was in the aftermath of the success of Eyewitness Bloody Sunday. I was [also] living in Dublin. [Robert Ballagh] asked me if I would have a look at the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and, of course, that lead me to meet with the Justice for the Forgotten Campaign. The more I met with the families and the more I learned about just what happened that day and the way that they had been treated by the Irish government and the Irish police—two groups one would have expected to have been very sympathetic to the families—the more angry I became. And the more I encountered the intrinsic decency of the families who were bereaved and who have been abandoned, the more committed I became to helping them. Then, with their permission—because I think it is very important when you are working on a project like this to have the full confidence of the families and the wounded—I began to work on the book, The Dublin and Monaghan Bombings.
SR: Many credit your book , Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, with helping to overturn the Widgery Report, thereby securing a new inquiry into what really happened in Derry on Bloody Sunday. With that in mind, what are your hopes or expectations—politically speaking—for this book?
DM: Well there would be a number. One is that I wanted to tell the story and the experience of the families, particularly of their experience of abandonment because that became a double wound. I also wanted to insure that the memory of all of the victims who had died that day would not be anonymous -- that, in a sense, we would be able to put faces and names and histories on those people. I think that's a very important part of this book—that it records the memories of the bereaved as well as the memories of the wounded of that day.
Arising out of that, [the book] raises very, very serious questions in terms of the initial Guarda investigation, subsequent Guarda investigations and the role of the Irish government in all of this. Neither Irish institution comes out of this with [any] credibility whatsoever. I believe that the families are entitled to a cross-jurisdictional tribunal of inquiry. I think that the Irish government, in the interest of both our democracy and the democracy of our nearest neighbor must ask questions in terms of the role of British security forces in colluding with loyalist mass murderers in planting these bombs. I would hope that the book, in concert with Justice for the Forgotten Campaign, will help to force that tribunal of inquiry.
SR: The Dublin and Monaghan bombings left 33 dead—the largest number of people killed in any one day of the Troubles. Still, this horrific tragedy is regarded as "the forgotten massacre." Why?
DM: That's a very interesting question. I'm not sure if I can fully understand [why] but in the course of my research, a few things struck me. I think that [in the Republic] there has been a process of denial in relation to the North—people didn't want to dwell too much on it. It's as though they feared that if they dealt too deeply on the subject they might invite the Troubles down into the Republic. In a sense it's an indication that partition had—to a large extent—worked in mentally creating that barrier and that distance.
I also think that it had to do with the way the government handled [the bombings.] I want to explore this further in a future documentary that I am going to be working on later this month. And the way the government handled it, in the immediate aftermath of the bombings, was interesting in that they shifted the focus of blame away from those who were responsible on to those who weren't. The simple logic they used was that if it wasn't for the IRA setting off bombs in Belfast, this wouldn't happen down here, therefore it was republicans who were to blame.
I think that created huge confusion in the public mind—there was kind of a stepping back and thus began the alienation of those families which has lasted up to this period. The contrast in terms of how people in the Republic dealt with Dublin/Monaghan and dealt with, say, the Omagh bombings is quite stark. Again, I deal with this in the opening of the book—I compare the public outcry and response to Enniskillen, Warrington and Omagh in comparison to Dublin/Monaghan.
SR: Allegations of security force collusion have dogged these bombings for nearly 30 years now. In the past, you have said that "[i]f British Intelligence were involved in planning the political murder of citizens in a friendly EU neighboring state, then the implications of that dwarfs Bloody Sunday." Could you elaborate on that?
DM: Well, what really made Bloody Sunday worse was the crude cover-up which the British government and the British judiciary engaged in. If the[y] had truthfully confronted what had happened that day, Bloody Sunday would never have the status that it eventually achieved. It was really when Widgery issued his statement in April of 1972, exonerating the actions of the British Army—that caused many people to step back and many [Northern nationalists] completely lost faith at that moment in due process. I think the Widgery Tribunal—in concert with Bloody Sunday—gave huge impetus to the war of resistance. So what I am saying is that it was really the way that the British government and the British judiciary handled Bloody Sunday that was most appalling.
But the idea of British Intelligence—British security forces—colluding with loyalist terrorists in masterminding an operation where four bombs were delivered... The aim of [the attack] was to cause maximum carnage but it also delivered a very clear political message: 1.) get tough on republicans and, 2.) hands off in relation to the Sunningdale Agreement. [I think] that has huge implications and the implications are so serious that they should warrant an investigation by the guardians of any democracy—particularly, the British government.
SR: You've already alluded to some serious questions that have been raised in relation to the Dublin government and the Guarda Siochana and their (mis)handling the case of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. Has there been an official cover-up? Might the truth reveal Dublin's role in the "Dirty War"?
DM: I think there has been a cover-up. I think that one only has to look at how the Guarda investigation was handled, how the forensics were handled, the fact that there has been a marked reluctance by various Minister's of Justice over the years to even contemplate an inquiry. The mantra all along was that this was an open case—the files remain open [and] if any new evidence came to light, it would be thoroughly investigated. Even the investigation into the Yorkshire Television program [on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings] -- which I relentlessly analyze in the book—I mean it's quite extraordinary. In order to appease public concern and disquiet in the aftermath of the broadcast, [the government] announced that there would be an investigation and Yorkshire Television were told that members of the Guarda Special Branch would be coming to interview them in relation to the documentary. Several months later, they were ringing the Department of Justice asking, "Are you not going to interview us?" I mean, it is quite extraordinary. So, the role [of the Irish Government and the Guarda Siochana] has been very, very bizarre—very bizarre. I think it is all tied up with [how] the Guards themselves were compromised by very, very questionable liaisons with the RUC and the British Army. I am interested in how that potentially undermined this and other investigations into political murder in the Republic. [It is also tied up with] the relationship between the Guards and British military intelligence. There is no doubt that that was sanctioned at some level by the government and that began in the year of Bloody Sunday—in the year of Widgery. So I would like to know what was going on. I would like—as a Northern nationalist -- to have answers to some of those questions.
SR: In December of last year, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, announced that former Chief Justice Liam Hamilton would chair an investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. What is the status of that investigation? How does it square with the demands of the families?
DM: Well, originally the government was going to accept the recommendation of the Victims Commissioner that a retired Supreme Court judge (or High Court judge) would carry out a private investigation—a private inquiry— but would make his findings public. The families out and out rejected that and said they were not engaging in any private inquiry whatsoever. So, we had very, very intense negotiations with the government leading up to Christmas and we [finally] agreed to cooperate with Mr. Justice Hamilton's independent commission of inquiry on the basis that: 1.) this was not a private inquiry, 2.) that he would engage in a process of assessment of all the available information 3.) that he would write a report [but] not draw any conclusions or make any recommendations and 4.) that his report would [then] go to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Human Rights for a public hearing at which the families would have full right of audience and would be legally represented. And that was the basis upon which we agreed. The families also made it very clear that their objective—their demand— was for a cross-jurisdictional tribunal of inquiry. So Mr. Justice Hamilton began this process of assessment. Unfortunately, he took very seriously ill and had to retire. There is now Mr. Justice Barron who has taken over and that has delayed the process a little bit. [Nevertheless,] in Ireland Mr. Justice Barron is someone who is respected in the legal profession as an independent man and a man not afraid to ask very awkward questions if those awkward questions deserve to be asked. I think he certainly has the confidence of the families.
The government has agreed to cover the legal costs of the families lawyers in this process as well. So we are beginning to get movement but that is because we have embarrassed them -- particularly by internationalizing [the case.]
SR: How can one support the Justice for the Forgotten Campaign?
DM: Well, there are a number of ways. Until the Congressional hearings are held, phone calls [can be made] to Christopher Smith's office (R- NJ) -- encouraging him to hold them, saying that it is an important initiative and congratulating him for taking that initiative. In fairness, it's Chris Smith's idea—I had gone to talk to him about it but he took the ball and ran with it before I even suggested it.
Also, a Dublin and Monaghan bombings web page [will be up soon] and there will be various suggestions there. And if there's an opportunity to hold a fundraiser or something just to help the families—not for them personally but to help them run their campaign... I think the most important thing is to become aware of the issues. As people become aware of the issues, they can ask pertinent and intelligent questions and its harder for the government to fob them off. I'm hopeful that my book—as an introductory book—helps to do that.
Book Review: The Dublin and Monaghan bombings
By Laura Friel
"Only it happened to me, I wouldn't believe it." These are the words of Tim Grace, whose wife Breda was killed in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974. In his account of the bombings, Don Mullan records Tim Grace's words and recalls that the speaker "was not referring to the fact that his wife was killed, leaving him alone to raise their one-year-old son. He was referring specifically to the official silence, intrigue and lack of public accountability that have characterised the political and police response to the biggest mass murder case in the history of the Irish State."
And this is the nub of the story. The deaths and injuries were brutal, the loss to the families was tragic, but most significantly the reaction of the state was inexplicable. Here is a state whose citizens were attacked by hostile forces (loyalists), aided most probably by a foreign power (British) but from the very beginning it sought not disclosure but suppression of the facts. The victims and the survivors of the bombings were not cherished by the state but sidelined. For almost 30 years their pain and suffering has remained largely unacknowledged and their need for the truth ignored. The story of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings is not simply one of brutality but also of betrayal.
In the immediate aftermath, Mullan argues, the Dublin government faced the double challenge of ensuring an adequate security response while minimising public outrage at the government's failure to provide adequate protection for its own citizens. Within two hours of the blasts an emergency meeting of the Cabinet was held and an official line on the bombings agreed. "This line was often repeated in the days to follow, both in the press and within Dail Eireann," he writes. "It was a simple message, the ultimate blame lay with republicans and republican violence in Northern Ireland."
On Saturday 18 May, the Irish Independent reported that the Minister for Justice Patrick Cooney had "stressed that the danger would remain until the people completely and unequivocally accepted that the cult of violence must be removed, that they must turn in people who perpetrated or condoned violence". By Monday, 20 May, Mullan points out, it was known by the authorities in the South that the cars used in the attacks had been stolen and hijacked in loyalist areas. "However, the first major security offensive in the wake of the attack saw huge army and police resources deployed in a nationwide raid on republican homes and premises. The question is, did these raids play into the hands of the perpetrators of the bombings? Loyalists planted the bombs, republicans were being pursued by the State." On 21 May, the then Taoiseach, Liam Cosgrave, gave an impassioned speech in the Dail about the futility of violence, the central thesis of which was that the blood of the innocent victims was "on the hands of every man who has fired a gun or discharged a bomb in furtherance of the present campaign of violence in these islands, just as plainly as it is on the hands of those who parked that car and set the charges last Friday".
The nature, extent and adequacy of the Garda investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings is largely unknown, says Mullan, but "what we do know is that, within weeks of the explosions, the Garda Detective and Special Branch had identified prime suspects, all from the Portadown/Lurgan area of County Armagh. All were known members of the mid-Ulster UVF."
And, according to Yorkshire Television's First Tuesday documentary, "Hidden Hand", broadcast in 1993, two of the suspects were identified in police photographs by three separate eye witnesses as drivers of two of the four bomb cars. According to the filmmakers, the Gardai extended their list of suspects with an additional 12 names, derived from intelligence sources in the North.
At the time, writes Mullan, "the urgency and determination of the Minister for Justice in assuring the nation of the RUC's cooperation introduced a false sense of confidence in the public mind that efforts were progressing towards apprehending the culprits. However, in analysing the RUC's handling of information concerning the hijacked and stolen vehicles used in the bombing, it is difficult to be convinced that their cooperation was as the Minister wished the nation to believe."
The lack of RUC cooperation with the Garda was something on which even the bombers appeared to be assured. Mullan points out that the bombers did not attempt to disguise the vehicles used in the bombings. More significantly, Mullan cites the case of William Henry, a taxi driver from the Shankill, whose vehicle was hijacked for the bombings.
Henry was held by the hijackers until 2pm. He was then told to go straight home and wait until 3pm, after which he was told to report the hijacking at Tennent Street RUC barracks. A statement, taken by RUC officer Kennedy and checked by RUC officer Woods at Tennent Street, is recorded at 3.20pm. The bombing mission still had two and a half hours to run. "Why was Henry not held until 7.30pm, when the mission had been completed and the bomb drivers were safe? Such questions lead to other questionss. Did the organisers have inside information concerning RUC operational procedures?" asks Mullan. "All four vehicles were operational inside the Republic with apparently little concern that their details may have been passed on by the RUC to the Garda. This casts grave doubts on the accuracy of the Minister's assertion that the RUC were co operating closely with the Garda," says Mullan.
Within three months, the Garda investigation was wound down. "At one level, it would appear that the Garda had done all in their power to hunt down the killers, only to have their efforts frustrated by a sectarian police force north of the border," says Mullan, "but such a conclusion is too simplistic. Proper procedures were, in many instances, not followed, and additional avenues of useful pressure appear not to have been explored." But this isn't simply a story of Garda incompetence but of official cover up. Mullan exposes this by a detailed analysis of the state's handling of forensic evidence. "The manner in which the bomb debris from all four bomb sites was handled is disturbing." Mullan questions the fact that forensic evidence was allowed to leave the state's jurisdiction.
In 1999, Mullan interviewed a retired Garda who was a senior officer in 1974 and asked why such crucial evidence had been allowed to leave the state's jurisdiction and was sent to Belfast. The former senior officer suggested that the RUC might have had specialist equipment or perhaps a way of confirming findings in the South.
A few fragments had been sent to the Irish State Laboratory and had been examined by Dr. James Donovan, but the vast majority of forensic evidence had been taken to the North's Department of Industrial and Forensic Science for analysis by Dr. R A Hall. Significantly, the debris was not delivered to Dr Hall until 28 May, eleven days after the explosions, a fact of which Dr Hall was critical in his report.
Interviewed by Mullan, Dr Donovan insisted that Dublin's State Laboratory could have carried out a competent analysis in 1974. "It happened in our jurisdiction," said Donovan. "There was no reason whatsoever for it to go anywhere else. We can do it and we have done it in the past." Donovan described the decision to send the debris North as strange. He had not been consulted and even more surprisingly, Donovan had never received a copy of Hall's report.
On the advice of a NYPD bomb squad expert, Mullan attempted to establish a chain of custody for the forensic evidence gathered after the bombings. In January 1999, he wrote to Garda Headquarters asking for conformation that the debris sent to Belfast for analysis was still in the possession of the Irish security services and requested a chain of custody from 1974 to the present day.
"All that I had asked of An Garda Siochana was; 'Do you have the debris and can you establish a chain of custody," writes Mullan. When the Garda refused to answer, Mullan "could only conclude that the Garda did not have the debris". Dr Donovan suggested that the forensic evidence was still in Belfast. In response to a parliamentary question tabled by British Labour MP Kevin McNamara, the North's forensic Science Agency claimed that presumably "they were returned to the Garda in line with normal practice".
"A real and serious mystery surrounds the ultimate fate of crucial evidence relating to the biggest mass murder case in the history of the Republic of Ireland, a case still unsolved," writes Mullan. " Where is the forensic evidence? If it is nowhere to be found, who got rid of it and why?"
Mullan cites an article by Frank Doherty which appeared in the Sunday Business Post in July 1993. Doherty reported that former Garda Commissioner Edmund Garvey had instructed that the forensic evidence be handed over to "British officers who are now suspected of planning the bombs". The article cited a retired senior "Irish Military Intelligence Officer" and a serving Garda detective superintendent as sources for the information. Doherty claimed that the evidence had been given in good faith to a British Intelligence officer who masterminded the plot. "The officer, who is still serving in the British Army at a very high rank, is known to the Gardai and to Irish army intelligence," said Doherty. The article also claimed that the officer had been decorated and had visited the 26 Counties "in plain clothes but bearing arms and attempted to recruit at least one member of the Irish security forces to work for British intelligence". The sudden downgrading of the Garda investigation less than three months after the bombings is disturbing, according to Mullan, who finds the 'new Garda investigation' into the First Tuesday documentary "intriguing".
"For over 25 years, the bereaved and wounded have had to battle for official recognition. Their struggle reached new heights in 1997 and 1998 when the Garda Commissioner fought them in the High Court and Supreme Court, in a determined and successful effort to prevent the European Court of Human Rights from seeing Garda files," writes Mullan.
The Good Friday Agreement has "offered an added dimension of hope to the bereaved and wounded of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and to many other victims of 'unexplained happenings' in the Republic during the 30-year conflict," he writes. "The Agreement held out the prospect of a 'true memorial' ...the memorial of peace and justice. In the case of the Dublin Monaghan bombings, such a memorial necessarily requires transparency, openness and accountability, founded on truth."
Don Mullan's book, The Dublin and Monaghan Bombings (Wolfhound Press 2000), is currently number two on the Irish best seller's list for paperback non-fiction.
It can be obtained in the United States by sending $20 (postage included) to:
Don Mullan, c/o Emma, The Studio, 109 Greene St., New York, NY 10012.
Book Review: The Dublin and Monaghan bombings By Don Mullan Wolfhound Press IrelandIt can be obtained in Ireland and Great Britain by sending £9.99 Sterling to:
Bookworm Community Bookshop 16 Bishop Street Derry 48 6PW Ireland tel: +44-2871-261616 fax: +44-2871-361327(All royalties to go to the Justice for the Forgotten campaign)
Process 'on course for collapse'
Sinn Fein has accused the Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble, of setting the political process in Ireland on a "course for collapse".
In a strongly worded statement, Sinn Fein's party chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said that the two governments, but particularly the British government, must move Trimble away from his current position.
"We are currently facing the most serious crisis yet in the peace process," said McLaughlin. "This crisis has been engineered by David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party and has been encouraged by the actions of the British Government over a long period. The British Government has a responsibility to protect the integrity of the Good Friday Agreement - so far, it has failed to do this."
The Good Friday Agreement, McLaughlin said, requires that if the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC) does not function as prescribed, then the Assembly itself falls. Republicans believe this could be the intended result of the UUP strategy. David Trimble's aims were set out in his letter of 26 October to Ulster Unionist Council delegates. These were first, to create a crisis, second, to suspend the political institutions, and finally, to project the blame for all this on republicans. He then set out his six-point plan to achieve this at the Ulster Unionist Council meeting of 28 October. This was to:
Reconvene yet another meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council in January.
Nationalists have argued that since 28 October, David Trimble has been in breach of his Pledge of Office and the Ministerial Code by blocking the attendance of nationalist ministers at top-level all-island meetings.
Since then, however, there have been no sanctions taken by the two governments—and in particular by the British government— with respect to Mr Trimble's action.
Sinn Fein is planning to initiate a court action against Trimble's attempt to disenfranchise the party by barring its ministers from the NSMC meetings. The party is also considering legal action against British Secretary of State Peter Mandelson, who has refused to use his power to instruct a minister to fulfil his international obligations.
Mandelson has denied that he can compel Mr Trimble to lift his exlcusion order on Sinn Fein Ministers.
"I cannot order unionists to withhold these sanctions that they've taken against Sinn Fein Ministers any more than the Irish government can order the republican movement to decommission," Mr Mandelson said in Lisburn yesterday.
Gerry Adams said this week that he believes the crisis within unionism is holding the Irish people to ransom and has accused the British of allowing the crisis to arise.
"If the political institutions are to be saved, David Trimble must rethink his position. There is little that Sinn Fein can do at this time, except to defend the Good Friday Agreement and the rights of the electorate, in the face of serial demands on decommissioning, demands to change the remit of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, demands for a moratorium on policing, and the threat of another UUC meeting in a few months.
"The British government has the crucial role. Mr. Trimble has developed his approach and painted himself into a corner because the British government gave him the space to do so. From the beginning, by word and deed, the British Prime Minister Mr. Blair should have made clear his intention of speedily implementing the Good Friday Agreement. Instead London saw its role as the management of unionism.
"The political process can be saved but this will require a huge change of approach by London. I am not sure that the British Prime Minister is capable of this change at this time," Adams said.
Senior Ulster Unionist figure Reg Empey last night said accusations that his party want to wreck power-sharing were "bunkum". He said: "If we wanted to collapse the Executive, we would walk out of it."
POLICE BILL CRITICAL
For republicans, proof of whether or not Tony Blair is willing to implement the Good Friday Agreement will hinge largely on his handling of the final stages in formulating the Police Bill in coming weeks. Sinn Fein spokesperson on policing, Gerry Kelly, says that this issue will be crucial.
"The British government can and must, even at this late stage, rectify this situation, if it genuinely seeks to honour the Agreement. To do otherwise will be to willfully reject the opportunity to deal with the policing issue, which is critical to society and to commitments made by the British Government and to the Agreement itself."
The Bill is expected to receive its Third Reading in the House of Lords next week before finally returning to the House of Commons. It is expected to become law before the end of this month. On Wednesday, Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey travelled to London to deliver an extensive critique of the Police Bill, highlighting the shortfall between it and the Patten recommendations, to coincide with its report stage through the British parliament. Maskey warned that failure to implement the Patten proposals could force the collapse of the new political institutions. "It is such an important issue and if not resolved will fester and, sooner rather than later, will affect the functions of the institutions at Stormont." He added: "These proposals have to be implemented; it is a requirement within the agreement."
Mr Maskey, who has spearheaded the Sinn Fein lobbying offensive on British political institutions, said: "We are here to make politicians aware of the defects in the bill and many of them already recognise where it falls short of Patten and how far it is from the original Patten proposals."
With two weeks remaining before the final bill becomes law, Mr Maskey urged the British government to use the time remaining "wisely". He said there was still an "open door" for the British government to ensure that the proposals were implemented in full.
British dirty tricks continue
A leading British Intelligence officer who played a key role in the covert British Army's war against the IRA for over 20 years is being threatened with court martial if she doesn't agree to "retire quietly". The British military are desperately trying to ensure that details of their dirty war in Ireland remains under wraps, despite the recent inroads made by the Stevens team investigating Crown force collusion in the killing of Pat Finucane. The female Force Research Unit (FRU) operative, known only as "Mags", is believed to have been at the centre of many of the most controversial killings in the North.
The former FRU woman worked closely with FRU agent Brian Nelson. Nelson, a former British soldier and member of the UDA, was specifically recruited by Colonel Kerr, head of the FRU, to act as an agent within the UDA. While an agent for the FRU, Nelson played a pivotal role in reorganising and rearming loyalist paramilitaries in the Six Counties. As an intelligence officer in the UDA, Nelson identified targets and supplied up to date information to aid loyalist gunmen. The information was often supplied by his female FRU handler.
Nelson's handler was only recently removed from active service in the Six Counties after it became clear that many of her exploits might become exposed during the Stevens investigation. Her military masters removed her from front line duties and posted her back to England, where she is currently training undercover soldiers.
Recently, the FRU operative was linked to the sectarian killing of West Belfast pensioner Francisco Notarantonio. The FRU operative passed fake documents identifying Notarantonio as "a top Provo" to Nelson, who handed the details on to loyalist gunmen. It was "Mags" who ordered the withdrawal of the regular British Army and RUC from the area, giving Nortarantonio's killers a clear run.
This week, the same operative was linked to the killings of three West Belfast petty criminals during an attempted robbery of a bookmakers shop on the Falls Road in 1990. The three men, armed only with fake weapons, were shot dead at close range. Eyewitnesses said two of the robbers were "finished off" by a soldier standing over them as they lay wounded on the ground. The third, an unarmed driver, was shot at close range as he sat in the getaway vehicle.
A fourth man who escaped the FRU ambush later claimed that the gang had been deliberately set up after documents and weapons were stolen out of a car that belonged to a British undercover unit. The two sports bags were taken from the back seat of the vehicle parked outside the Homestead Inn in Drumboe. A Heckler and Koch machine gun and 9mm pistol were in one of the bags. The bags also contained a map of Belfast with military coordinates, tinned food, clothes, a sleeping bag, a green canister with a grenade type trigger mechanism, a coded document and a jumper with a lion and cannon motif.
The same female FRU operative has also been linked with the killing of UVF gunman Brian Robinson. Robinson was shot dead in August 1989 by an undercover female soldier just moments after he and another loyalist had shot dead Ardoyne Catholic Paddy McKenna. An undercover unit led by a woman in a Vauxhall Astra car rammed Robinson's motorbike as he made his escape. Robinson was shot dead at close range as he lay injured on the ground. According to media reports, the female operative at the centre of the FRU controversy has threatened to "tell all" if there is any attempt to scapegoat her for undercover killings in the North of Ireland. She is refusing to go quietly into the obscurity of retirement and has vowed to resist any attempt at court martial. Meanwhile, the British government has dropped charges under the Official Secrets Act against a former British Military Intelligence officer, Lt. Colonel Nigel Wylde, who was accused of disclosing information about covert surveillance in the Six Counties to author, journalist and former British paratrooper, Tony Geraghty.
Wylde had been employed in 1997 to oversee the upgrading of computer-based surveillance systems used by the British military in the Six Counties. The systems, codenamed 'Vengeful' a vehicle movement tracker, 'Crucible, a database of intelligence on residents in the North and 'Glutton' a system for identifying vehicle number plates, were described by Geraghty in his book "The Irish War".
In a recent interview, Wylde called for the case against the former FRU soldier, suspected of being the whisleblower using the pseudonym Martin Ingram, to be dropped. "I'm concerned about former members of the FRU," said Wylde. "Up to 15 of them have been arrested." Wylde has been lobbying the British government for the setting up of a truth and justice commission for the North of Ireland similar to that established in South Africa. The Force Research Unit is currently at the centre of allegations of Crown force collusion with loyalist death squads. FRU documents were recently seized by the Steven's team investigating collusion in the killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. Taken from British Army headquarters last month, the Stevens team have discovered the fingerprints of dozens of leading loyalists, most notably those of UDA killer Johnny Adair, on FRU intelligence documents.
The fingerprints appear to confirm that the FRU regularly passed British military intelligence files, containing the personal details of nationalists and republicans, to loyalist gunmen. Four people, including one woman, have already been arrested and questioned by the Stevens team in connection with fingerprints found. At least 20 more loyalists may face arrest.
Paras' brutal murder exposed
British soldiers who massacred 14 civil rights protesters in Derry on Bloody Sunday later electrocuted and castrated a man in Belfast the new Bloody Sunday Inquiry was told today [Monday].
The account of the savage murder of another innocent nationalist was made by a British Army 'whistle-blower' as the Inquiry resumed hearings.
Counsel to the Inquiry, Christopher Clarke QC, presented more material to add to accounts in a diary from the former British soldier known as '027'.
A former member of the Parachute Regiment, 027 has previously provided detailed accounts to the tribunal describing how British soldiers used illegal dum-dum bullets and deliberately shot unarmed civilians in Derry on January 30, 1972. He has changed house and car to avoid assassination by former colleagues or elements within the British armed forces.
An account by 027 forwarded to the Inquiry by the Irish government in September this year also describes an attack in Divis Flats, west Belfast, in which soldiers named only as 'G' and 'F' "ran a man bent double between them into the plating of a pig [armoured personnel carrier]".
Summarising the statement, Mr Clarke said: "He was knocked out but then revived, and thrown into the back of the pig where he was electrocuted in some way, castrated, sliced in the face with a knife and generally kicked and beaten."
The man's body was taken to the loyalist Shankill and dumped.
The inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville , rose for the summer at the end of June but was delayed from resuming by more than two months by the surprise resignation of one of the Tribunal, retired New Zealand judge Sir Edward Somers, over the break.
His replacement, retired Australian judge Mr John Toohey, made his first public appearance today alongside Lord Saville and the third tribunal member, ex-Canadian judge Mr William Hoyt. A reserve member of the panel has also now been appointed -- Canadian judge Mr William Esson—who will arrive in the city in two weeks' time to begin shadowing the tribunal throughout the hearings.
The Inquiry was told the Irish government and Irish police force have failed to respond to requests aimed at tracing a tape of British Army conversations bugged by the IRA.
Mr Clarke played a recording of conversations taped from the Victoria Barracks on Bloody Sunday conveying the British Army's celebrations at the killings while some soldiers spoke of "the wrong people" being shot.
The tape, believed to be in the hands of the 26-County Garda Special Branch police, has not been located despite 18 months of efforts by Madden and Finucane solicitors, the company representing most of the Bloody Sunday victims, and the Inquiry itself.
"As yet the Inquiry has received no substantive reply on this issue from the Gardai or from the Irish government," Mr Clarke said.