New Year Holiday, 29 December 2000 - 1 January, 2001
Tuesday, 2 January, 2001
Thursday-Saturday, 11-13 January, 2000
Sunday-Tuesday, 14-16 January, 2000
New Year Holiday, 29 December 2000 - 1 January, 2001
Dublin planned 'invasion' into North in 1970
The Dublin government was ready to order a military incursion north of the border to protect Catholics as violence against them escalated dramatically in 1970, according to documents released for the New Year.
The order to prepare for such an action was made following a crisis meeting of the 26-County Government on February 6th, 1970.
But the South's military forces were not prepared for the operation and confusion reigned at all levels within the government of the day, the papers reveal.
Hesitant Army chiefs warned that a defence mission across the border would face heavy casualties at the hands of much stronger British forces, and that it was also likely to provoke a counterstrike in the South by British troops.
Details of the directive were revealed in files released by the National Archives Office in Dublin under the 30-year rule of secrecy.
The Taoiseach, Mr Jack Lynch and his cabinet heard evidence from Catholic representatives from the North who had no defence against systematic and widespread attacks on their communities by loyalists.
But in an April 6th briefing paper marked "top secret", the Defence Forces' chief of staff, Lieutenant General Sean MacEoin, and his senior officers warned the government of "disastrous consequences" if they were ordered into the Six Counties.
The soldiers from the South could have been outnumbered by more than 16 to one by a combined force of British troops and armed RUC.
But according to one military file, northern nationalists sought weapons and ammunition, "the provision of which the government agreed as and when necessary".
"Accordingly, the Chief of Staff was instructed to put truck loads of these items at readiness so that they could be available in a matter of hours if required," the document reveals.
The paper says that Ireland's defence force strength at the time was only 8,860 personnel, a number which included the air corps, navy, troops on UN duty, and back-up units.
"Excluding these elements there would not be more than 2,500 line troops available to be mustered, organised into units and trained preparatory to undertaking incursions," the document warns.
In addition, the paper says their combat effectiveness would have been low and there were deficiencies "in almost every type of armament, ammunition and military equipment".
The southern forces would have faced 13,000 British troops in as well as 8,500 police and reserves trained with firearms.
These could be immediately reinforced from Britain by another 20,000 troops with air and naval support.
"The armed opposition likely to be encountered by incursions into Northern Ireland is vastly superior in strength, organisation, combat training and equipment to those elements of the Defence Forces which could be mustered," army officers warned.
TURNING POINT IN STATE KILLINGS
* The family of one of the first victims of the conflict has expressed anger at new evidence that the Unionist government of 1970 resisted British calls to widen the investigation into the killing.
A proper investigation into the controversial shooting of John Gallagher by a B-Special platoon in Armagh in August 1969 could have prevented later state killings of nationalists.
Six County government papers released under the thirty-year rule reveal that Labour home secretary Jim Callaghan called for an English police inquiry into the killing.
The Labour government, which had pressed the Unionist administration to accelerate a programme of reform, was defeated in Westminster elections a few months later, and the case remains unsolved to this day.
New Year Holiday, 29 December 2000 - 1 January, 2001
Tony Blair must engage - Adams, IRA
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has said that the London government has the power in its hands to resolve the issues confronting the peace process.
But this will involve challenging the British militarists and securocrats who have been resurgent in recent months, he added.
Republicans remain disappointed with the lack of movement on the issues central to the present crisis and the inaction of Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson.
Mr Adams pointed out the British Army had yet to fulfil its commitment to demilitarisation in south Armagh and he strongly criticised Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble's ban on Sinn Fein members attending north-south ministerial meetings.
"Peter Mandelson intervened last February to collapse the institutions. He intervened on the issue of flags flying on designated days and the flying of other flags.
"However, he won't intervene with the first minister to hold his pledge of office," he said.
Trimble's ban is the subject of a judicial review, a ruling on which should be forthcoming this week.
Mr Adams said the two governments needed to reach a compromise on demilitarisation in south Armagh.
While the IRA could put hand on heart and say it had fulfilled its committment to the Good Friday Agreement, Mr Adams said, the same could not be said by the British government.
"It is imperative that the British prime minister take charge. The securocrats have been rehabilitated.
"All the contentious issues involve the British government. The unionists do not control demilitarisation or policing.
"This dispute is with the British government," Mr Adams said.
In its New Year Statement, the IRA accused the British government of failing to seize the opportunity created by its peace initiatives.
And in a direct reference to the issue of arms decommissioning, the IRA said it was committed to seeking a resolution of the issue, but said this could not happen until the British Prime Minister "takes political responsibility for it".
The British and Irish governments are planning to meet the leaders of the North's political parties within the next two weeks in an attempt to avert the collapse of the Northern Executive.
Senior government officials in London and Dublin will review progress on outstanding issues, including decommissioning, this week. They will then hold talks with the Ulster Unionists, SDLP and Sinn Fein. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern will join the discussions if they believe a breakthrough is possible.
Ulster Unionists are threatening a series of sanctions, including a withdrawal from the Executive, unless the IRA makes further moves on arms decommissioning. The party's ruling council is to review the state of IRA decommissioning by the end of January and make a judgement on the party's continued participation in the new political structures.
Meanwhile, a deadlock is building over policing. British officials are not publishing a revised implementation plan for policing reform in the absence of nationalist support.
Although 49 candidates have been interviewed for nine places on the new policing board, nationalists have declined to be nominated unless assurances on the scrapping of the notorious Special Branch and other contentious issues continue. The new board must be created in shadow form by the end of January in order to oversee the reforms, and to take what will be controversial decisions about the new force's uniform and insignia.
A programme of change is supposed to get under way soon so that the new police service can come into being on September 1 as scheduled.
Raytheon's presence in N. Ireland debated
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff
LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland - The Irish love irony, and there is more than a little in the fact that one of the dividends of the Northern Ireland peace process has been the arrival of companies whose business is making the weapons of war.
In some parts of Northern Ireland, defense contractors have been welcomed with open arms, seen as purveyors of much-needed jobs. But here where the Irish civil rights movement was born and where the 30 years of violence known as the Troubles broke out, the response has been more ambivalent, with some people openly hostile to the idea of using peace to cash in on war.
Raytheon Co., the arms manufacturer based in Lexington, Mass., recently opened a software center here, and local criticism forced the company to take the unusual step of declaring that none of its work here will be directly connected to the defense industry.
Jackie Berger, a Raytheon spokeswoman, said the 57 engineers and support staff currently employed in Londonderry are working on civilian air traffic control systems. But in an interview, Berger said the company plans to expand the staff to 150 by 2002.
In the future, ''we may do defense work,'' Berger said. ''In all likelihood we will. We are, after all, a defense company.'' Of Raytheon's Irish critics, she added, ''The people causing the friction are a small minority.''
Small, perhaps, but dogged.
''We're a concerned minority,'' countered Shane O'Curry, a Raytheon opponent. ''In a democracy, when you have a legitimate question, it doesn't matter how many are asking the question.''
Jim Keys, a leader of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign, contended that Raytheon, by vehemently insisting that its work in Londonderry is not defense-related, has accepted the premise that it would be wrong for it to engage in work related to weapons here.
Keys and other opponents want the company to state unequivocally that it will not use its plant to make anything remotely connected to killing other people. Keys accused Raytheon of being secretive and refusing to meet its critics, in hopes that the controversy will die away.
With the local newspaper a vocal cheerleader for the new jobs Raytheon will bring and with virtually every member of the city's establishment firmly backing the company, the debate has been limited. But it could take a higher profile this month when city councilors tour the Raytheon site for the first time.
The arrival of Raytheon has put an uncomfortable spotlight on John Hume, the leader of moderate nationalists in Northern Ireland and this city's most famous politician. Hume, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for his stewardship of the peace process, envisions an Irish Silicon Valley in the Foyle region of Northern Ireland, and companies like Raytheon are crucial to fulfilling that dream.
Hume, whose principled stand against violence in Northern Ireland has made him an international statesman, has been stung by criticism suggesting that he has checked his principles at the door in a blind pursuit of jobs.
In an interview, the normally loquacious Hume refused to talk about the subject at any length, underscoring its sensitivity. ''I don't want to get into it,'' he said.
Asked whether, as a pacifist whose heroes include Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., he saw any conflict in his active role in bringing the defense industry to the cradle of the Irish civil rights movement, Hume said the Raytheon office here is not part of the arms industry.
''They are making software,'' he said. ''I want the Foyle Valley to become the Silicon Valley of Europe, and that's happening.''
Annie Courtney, a city councilor in Hume's Social Democratic and Labor Party, was less reticent.
''We are not saying jobs at any price,'' she said. She noted that Raytheon
has not applied for special security status, suggesting that the company
is telling the truth when it says the work here is not defense-related.
But, Courtney added: ''There is little difference between software
that guides missiles or brings in aircraft safely. I think we're splitting
hairs here.''
When Raytheon announced its plans to come here, its chairman and chief executive, Daniel P. Burnham, said, ''Raytheon is indebted to John Hume for his unwavering encouragement.''
Hume welcomed Raytheon by saying, ''The company has recognized that the dividend from peace is still flourishing.''
He was joined by David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader with whom he shared the Nobel prize, in welcoming Raytheon, something that Robbie McVeigh, a local economist and human rights activist, called a ''shameful spectacle.''
''It is cruelly ironic when the possession of a Nobel Prize is a key qualification for the advocacy of the arms industry,'' McVeigh said. Mairead Maguire, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for reconciliation efforts in Northern Ireland, is firmly opposed to allowing defense contractors to set up base.
''One of the greatest challenges to the integrity of our peace process is the concerted attempt by the international arms trade to establish a stronger presence in Northern Ireland and the Republic,'' she said. ''Our responses will demonstrate the depth of the hard-won lessons of the past 30 years, lessons about human rights, about conflict transformation and resolution.''
As a Belfast-based political scientist and a former politician in Hume's party, Brian Feeney regards the controversy here as peculiar to the city that most people call Derry.
''In Belfast, you won't hear this argument,'' Feeney said. ''It's just, `Give us the jobs; we don't care what they are.' But Derry was always different.''
It was here in the late 1960s that Catholics modeled their civil rights movement on that of African-Americans. When it was brutally repressed by the authorities, Hume led the nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience that was gradually overshadowed by a virtual civil war. In 1972, when British troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators here, killing 14 of them on what became known as Bloody Sunday, any chance of peacefully resolving the conflict was lost for three decades.
Today, the peace process is well-established, and there is an ongoing British government inquiry into what happened on Bloody Sunday. That provides an especially poignant backdrop to the debate on whether this city of 100,000 should accept one of the world's biggest weapons manufacturers as a new corporate citizen.
Richard Moore can't see welcoming Raytheon to his hometown. In fact, he can't see at all. In 1972, when he was 10, he was blinded by a rubber bullet fired by a British soldier in the street battles that followed Bloody Sunday.
Today, he works for Children in the Crossfire, a Third World relief and development agency.
''This is a moral question, and morally we should not be building peace by building weapons that kill and maim people in other parts of the world,'' he said.
Moore said he is disappointed in Hume and others who have been unwilling to debate the propriety of accepting jobs in the arms industry as part of the peace dividend.
''You can't be an envoy of peace and say we should export our philosophy about conflict resolution around the world, then support a company whose main business is to produce weapons of mass destruction,'' Moore said.
While Hume's position as an international statesman and Nobel laureate has many critics pointing at him individually, his support for Raytheon is shared by all of the main political parties, including Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army.
While fighting raged in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein denounced imperialism and the use of sophisticated weapons against indigenous people. Today, Sinn Fein's official position is to say it has no problem with Raytheon's being here, as long as it is not involved in building weapons.
Mary Nelis, a Sinn Fein city councilor, winced when asked if she supports the party line. ''I wish our position was stronger,'' she said. ''I have real concerns.''
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 1/2/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company
Tuesday-Thursday, 2-4 January, 2001
Analysis: 1969 and all that
By Fr Des Wilson
Offical papers released by the London and Dublin administrators after 30 years do not reveal much that people did not know already.
When the unionists tried their 'final solution' in 1969, London and Dublin knew they had to do something about it.
What they did was pretend. They did little else to help, and the offical papers now released show that this is so. Jack Lynch of Fianna Fail was Taoiseach in Dublin, a man who could just as easily have been leader of Fine Gael, so little was he committed to Fianna Fail politics. Like a number of other poiliticians he chose the party which would give him a political future.
When the unionist attacks began he did not know what to do. The people who were being burned out of their homes and whose churches were being attacked - within a short period 40 churches were attacked - knew what they wanted to do. The police, north or south, would not help them, in fact they were part of the problem, and the military, north or south, would not help them either.
So people asked for guns - some who asked fo them later denied they had done so. But they asked for them all right, what else would you expect from people as the smell of buring homes assaulted their noses and the sight of fleeing refugees assaulted their eyes? So Jack Lynch on behalf of his government promised guns and defence. But there were problems - should they put guns into the hands of people who did not know how to use them? Of course not, so the Dublin administration set up camps where people could be trained to defend themselves. They got no guns though. Guns were moved up to the border and, like a modern day version of the tale of the Grand Old Duke of York, they were moved back down again.
Mr Lynch promised not to stand by doing nothing, and sure enough he did not stand by doing nothing. Having set up the mechanism for getting weapons into the state from abroad, he then turned on his own ministers and had them arrested and tried, thus running the risk of exposing those who had asked for defence and were in big enough danger already.
The real problem was not the fear that guns would be given to people who could not use them - you can train people to use weapons in a short time if you want - but rather that guns might be given into the hands of those could use them. So, there were London and Dublin promises for those who could not use them, and no guns for those who could. Lynch's fear, and the fear of many others, was that republicans would get guns. They did not seem to realise that refusing weapons for defence is a sure way of encouraging people to get guns for themselves. One gross misjudgement after another was made in that period 30 year ago.
Jack Lynch was afraid of London with its alternating and threats, and Fine Gael and the Gardai were prepared to use that fear to intimidate him. He was intimated and passed his ministers through the courts, stopped the training camps - which ended up like the pub with no beer: respectable but unexciting - and stood by while his officals ordered guns from one of the suppliers in Europe - Schleuter, who never supplied anybody with guns except sovereign governments - and then charged his officals and ministers with trying to bring guns into the state without government permission. Schleuter had a policy of never supplying weapons without relevant government permission. Fine Gael, Labour, members of the police, the London government, all intent on making sure that if houses burned, to let them burn rather than allow people the means to defend themselves. The policy was, "if we don't defend them, and we won't, nobody will be allowed to, especially republicans."
That is the real story, and a sorry story it is too. If the Dubin government had done its duty, and if the whole weight of Catholic church leadership had been brought to bear on London, and if the opposition parties in the south had done their duty too, lives could have been saved and perhaps there would have been no war.
Dublin did not even summon the British ambassador to defend the policies of his government - they could have sent him home but they did not even do that.
It is a story of ineptitude, dithering, party politics and burning houses. A story almost impossible to tell properly during the past 30 years partly because nobody was allowed to question either the wisdom or the integrity of Mr Lynch. People needed defending, they did not get it. And what resulted in people getting guns for themselves. And lives were lost which could have been saved.
Thursday-Saturday, 11-13 January, 2000
Feature: Review of 2000
January
Not to break the mould, Mandelson followed his previous comments by delivering of proposals on policing that seemed almost oblivious to the recommendations of the Patten Commission Report. The Relatives for Justice Campaign responded swiftly to the proposals: "We are totally appalled at the announcement by Peter Mandelson that the current RUC boss, Ronnie Flanagan, is to have responsibility for overseeing the implementation of human rights within the new policing structures," they said. "Flanagan in charge of human rights is a real contradiction in terms and certainly does not augur well for the future."
February
David Trimble, however, proved that he and the UUP clearly were a threat to the peace process - supported by a aquiescent British Government. Peter Mandelson's unilateral suspension of the political institutions came immediately after the production of a second De Chastelain Report. Despite the positive nature of the report, Mandelson decided to proceed with the suspension - proving again that he was dancing to the beat of a UUP drum, to the detriment of the Good Friday Agreement.
March
The failure of the signposted summit for St Patrick's Day to materialise was a clear indication that the British Government had no gameplan to repair the damage it had caused to the peace process, except that is, to support the increasingly strident demands of unionism without exception. David Trimble barely shaded Martin Smyth in the UUP leadership challenge and created new room for political progress - albeit limited by a new veto. Now the Ulster Unionist Council had decided to block any resumption of the political institutions if there was to be a change in the RUC's title. Mandelson, faithfully in toe like a submissive lap dog, said that republicans would have to provide unionists with the "watertight assurance that the war is over, that violence will never again play a part in Northern Ireland politics".
April
At the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis in Dublin, Caoimhghin O Caolain, the party's Cavan/Monagahan TD, addressed the notion of ta 26-County coalition government involving Sinn Fein. "We would require decommissioning," he said, "decommissioning of the partitionist mindset which still persists among them (the right wing parties). Decommissioning of the conservative politics which have helped to create our two-tier unequal society. Decommissioning of the consensus between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to abandon Irish neutrality."
May
Not to reciprocate the Army's gesture of goodwill, Peter Mandelson unveiled a Police Bill in the House of Commons which could aptly be described as an insult. Ahead of yet another Ulster Unionist Council meeting, Mandelson had chosen not to break with British political tradition and again accede to the demands of unionists.
June
Masked and brandishing weaponry, the UDA renewed its armed threat against norther nationalists, accusing them of "ethnic cleansing" in Belfast. The Six-County Housing Executive immediately refuted this allegation, saying that it was actually nationalists who were being intimidated out of their homes. The loyalist feud was beginning to rear its ugly head.
July
At the end of the month, the vast bulk of Oglaigh na hEireann POWs were released. Despite having clearly qualified for release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, Jerry Sheehy, Pearse McCauley, Mick O'Neill, Kevin Walsh and John Quinn remained, and still remain, behind bars in the 26 Counties. Bertie Ahern, in this situation at least, has clearly failed to honour his commitments under the Agreement.
August
As the feuding continued, Charlene Daly, the 11-year-old daughter of a former UDA prisoner, was shot through the window of her Coleraine home. Luckily, she survived the attack.
September
Peter Mandelson's claims that his proposed Police Bill represented a faithful implementation of the Patten Report suffered a further blow when the British Government's own appointed Police Authority in the Six Counties publicly slammed the proposed legislation. In their last annual report, the Authority said that Mandelson's legislation allowed for the "appearance of oversight without any real power to back it up". "The overall result of the legislation as it stands," Authority Chairperson Pat Armstrong said, "is a less powerful policing board and a more powerful secretary of state".
October
But, sadly, to no avail. 54 per cent of the Ulster Unionist Council voted, at a meeting in Belfast's Waterfront Hall, for David Trimble's motion to exclude Sinn Fein ministers from North-South Ministerial Council meetings, pending IRA decommissioning. Again, the British Government encouraged Trimble in his efforts to minimise change and make impossible demands. Sinn Fein Chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin said that the situation amounted to "the most serious crisis yet in the peace process". Trimble, he said, had set the process on a "course for collapse".
November
As Mandelson's flawed Police Bill made its final journey through the British House of Commons on Tuesday 21 November, Mitchel McLaughlin said of the beleagured state of the peace process that "we may well be at the end of this particular journey". "The British Government are quite deliberately, quite cynically, in a planned fashion, reneging on the public promise which they made in May this year, and that essential bridge of trust between the IRA and the British Government has been broken."
December
Sunday-Tuesday, 14-16 January, 2000
Analysis: A just resolution
Many people are approaching the 29th anniversary of Bloody Sunday with mixed emotions. The past year has seen the disclosure of enough evidence to ensure that the Widgery whitewash will never again be used to justify the murderous assault by the British army on the people of Derry.
But not enough has been done to satisfy many, in Derry and beyond, that this Inquiry will be able to hold all those responsible for Bloody Sunday to account.
A number of issues are causing concern as to the ability of the Inquiry to deliver on the open and accountable investigation that was promised in 1998:
The attempts to shift responsibility for events in Derry away from the British army and their political masters.
The atmosphere surrounding the Inquiry in the city is currently very tense. The feeling is that each of these issues taken individually is a cause for concern, but when they are taken together, they may threaten the ability of the Inquiry to contribute to a just resolution of Bloody Sunday. It is certainly viewed as unacceptable fort he British government to stand aside as a government department actively subverts the search for truth.
The establishment of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry was a political decision only arrived at after a long and arduous struggle. The attempts to subvert it are no less political. As the Inquiry undertakes its work over the next year, it is vital that the people of Derry, and furher afield, ensure that there is no attempt by the Inquiry or anyone else, to rerun Widgery.