Sunday/Monday, 12/13 December, 1999

• Delight at first meeting of All-Ireland Council *
• Stevens investigation rejected *

• Hamill Campaign gets London boost*
• Analysis: Establishing the Republic*

• Jeremy Hardy on Robert Hamill **

• Celtic links boosted by new British-Irish bodies *
• Analysis: A century of struggle *

• Public hearings planned into Dublin/Monaghan massacres *
• Analysis: Class War in the Classroom *

• Silverbridge Press Conference **

• No normality yet as Britain maintains war machine *
• Mandelson brings Christmas gloom to South Armagh *
• "Security - Return to Normality" - A Summary *

• English racecourse evacuated after mystery bomb hoax *
• Analysis: A year of bigotry, attacks, and censorship by omission *

Sunday/Monday, 12/13 December, 1999

Delight at first meeting of All-Ireland Council

The first full meeting on Monday of the All-Ireland Ministerial Council marked the establishment of the first institution of its kind in Ireland.

The meeting formally brought together the North's Executive Ministers and the 26-County Cabinet in a new all-island body concerned with cross-border administration.

Held in Armagh, the ecclesiastic capital of Ireland and an ancient seat of power in Ireland, the event was laden with significance.  With the possible exception of the Hill of Tara, no other location could have underlined the historic all-Ireland dimension.

Security was tight, and surprisingly there were no protests at Armagh Palace council offices, which are located in a largely nationalist area off the main Dublin-Belfast road.

The full complement of Fianna Fail and Progressive Democrat ministers from Dublin arrived almost at once in a fleet of Ministerial cars to Armagh, where they met with their Sinn Féin, SDLP and Ulster Unionist counterparts from Belfast.

It must have seemed like a gap had opened in the border which partitions and divides Ireland.  It was an event as simple and as potentially significant as the opening of a gate in the Berlin Wall.

Burdened by this fantastic opportunity to forge a single cross-border Irish government, while wary of the continuing threat by unionist ministers to resign unless the IRA disarms by February, nationalists were restrained but clearly delighted.

Despite the obvious temptation to kick for touch, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness spoke openly of the prospects for a united Ireland and looked forward to the practical work ahead.

"It will be welcomed by the vast overwhelming majority of our people and I believe that we can all now press on in honest endeavour, working constructively with one another - Bairbre (de Brun) with Brian Cowan on health, myself with Micheal Martin on education and all of the other ministers with their counterparts - to try and build a new Ireland.

"And hopefully, as far as we are concerned as Irish republicans that will see a culmination in the eventual unity of Ireland."

He said the meeting was a "joyous occasion" and represented "a new political reality".

He and fellow Sinn Féin Minister Bairbre de Brun pointed out that Republicans were now part of a new political administration with elected representatives from throughout the island.

The importance of thinking, planning and acting on an all Ireland basis "cannot be overestimated", they said. "We look forward to strengthening and developing this work in a dynamic and energetic fashion.

"For nationalists, today's inaugural meeting of the All-Ireland Ministerial Council signals a real step forward in terms of full recognition of our rights and of real equality for all of us sharing this island. Today is another step on the road to a lasting settlement.

In a joint statement released following the meeting, the Ministers said that Sinn Féin would bring a radical republican labour persective to the new political institutions.

"Others will bring their own political perspective. However, this diversity of opinion should be seen as a strength and not as a difficulty. We now have an opportunity to find new ways of working together and of realizing that we have many common goals.

"Republicans want to build a future based on inclusiveness, partnership and equality. We want to work in a unique partnership with other nationalists and with the representatives of unionism to achieve this.

"We believe that be working together our common interests will come to the fore and that we can embrace the new opportunities which face us.  This can be and we hope is, the beginning of a new era for all of Ireland."

Emphasised by their huge phalaynx of Mercedes-Benz automobiles out front, there was no doubting that the Dublin Ministers had made their presence felt.

An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern dramatically flew in on Irish Air Corps helicopter.

"This is a day quite unlike any other," he said. "It is unprecedented in my political career, in the political career of anyone else here, or in the political career of anyone who has ever served the people of this island," he said.

"For too long conflict and political division led us to turn our backs on one another, rather than to deal face to face. That era is now over," he said.

Mr Ahern pointed up the symbolic and political mood tones when he remarked that "for the first time, elected ministers, drawn from both our great traditions, and from both parts of the island, are gathered together in one room, with a shared objective: to work for the common good of all the people".

Inside, it was a slightly incongruous scene, like so many others over the past two weeks. David Trimble was directly across the table from Bertie Ahern and the SDLP's Seamus Mallon was opposite the PD's Mary Harney. Then along one side sat the north's ministers: Ulster Unionists Reg Empey, Sam Foster, Michael McGimpsey; the SDLP's Sean Farren, Mark Durkan, Brid Rodgers; and Sinn Féin's Bairbre de Brun and Martin McGuinness, all sitting across from the Dublin ministers.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble pointed out that Monday was also a historic and significant day for Ulster Unionists, but spoke of the improving "cooperation between our countries".

Looking to the first meeting of British-Irish Council on Friday. Mr Trimble said that the establishment of the all-Ireland Council was a "very important part" of the Good Friday Agreement.

"Indeed as important as it is to the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, it is also important to the unionist community.

"The vast majority of unionists have always supported a mechanism that would facilitate cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic, but which did not seek to undermine our constitutional sovereignty. This type of cooperation already exists across the European community."

Mr Trimble said he was sorry two hardline unionist ministers - Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds - had boycotted the Armagh meeting but added that he believed their absence was likely to be temporary.

Tanaiste Mary Harney said that Ireland stood "at the threshold of a new era for our island and for its economy".

"At this turning point in history, we have been given an opportunity denied to previous generations. An opportunity to work together to enhance the wellbeing of all of the people of this island. An opportunity to advance the work of healing and reconciliation," Ms Harney said.

But the Armagh meeting was attacked by Cedric Wilson, leader of the anti-agreement Northern Ireland Unionist Party in the Assembly.

He said the cross-border bodies being created were dedicated "both functionally and factually to a United Ireland".

The bodies placed unionists at a permanent disadvantage as a minority to the arrangements, he said, and warned that if for any reason the Assembly failed to deliver, the cross-border bodies "could emerge as an all-Ireland government in embryo".

Mr Wilson said it was matter of the deepest regret to him that Mr Trimble had entered into the new arrangements.

"Dublin is being given a formal say in the affairs of Northern Ireland thus ending the United Kingdom's untrammelled sovereignty over Northern Ireland."

Sunday/Monday, 12/13 December, 1999

Stevens investigation rejected

The Stevens' investigation into the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane was set up "to prevent a full public judicial inquiry", says Martin Finucane. The family were responding to renewed calls by British police chief John Stevens for relatives of the dead man to assist the investigation. "A criminal investigation is not a public process," says Martin. "Its sole function is to secure criminal convictions not to find the truth. It is our opinion that the Steven's investigation is no substitute for a full public international judicial inquiry."

A report, now in its final stages, is to be presented by the family to both the London and Dublin governments detailing the reasons behind the family's refusal to support the current investigation. This will be the second report to be presented to the two governments. The initial report was compiled by the human rights watchdog, British Irish Rights Watch. "The report will affirm our reasons for not supporting the investigation," says Martin, "which we have consistently stated is not the most appropriate nor effective means of establishing the truth." Martin pointed out that in the past, on a number of occasions, the Finucane family have been told by both Tony Blair and John Stevens that the murder had been "thoroughly investigated".

Pat Finucane was murdered after masked gunmen burst into his North Belfast home  in February 1989. In 1990, John Stevens, then Deputy Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, was called upon to investigate allegations of Crown force collusion in a number of loyalist killings including Pat Finucane. Stevens returned for a second time after the role of British military intelligence  was exposed during the trial of their agent Brian Nelson. Earlier this year, after refuting a claim by RUC Chief Ronnie Flanagan that  the Finucane murder had already been investigated by Stevens, the British policeman was called upon to investigate the killing. The decision came despite calls for an international independent public inquiry.

During the last seven months of the Stevens investigation, one loyalist has been charged with the Finucane murder and several others arrested for other loyalist attacks, William Stobie, a self confessed UDA quartermaster, has admitted that he supplied Pat Finucane's killers with their weapons. Stobie's claim that he was working as an informer for RUC Special Branch at the time was confirmed during a bail hearing. Despite the murder charge, Stobie was released on bail.

Meanwhile, John Stevens has claimed that the current investigation will continue for at least another six months. Stevens is due to take up a post as London's Metropolitan Police Commissioner in February. He will be replaced in the day to day running of the Finucane investigation by Hugh Orde, a deputy assistant commissioner with the Met, but retain overall responsibility.

Tuesday/Wednesday, 14/15 December, 1999

Hamill Campaign gets London boost

Three of London's most eminent lawyers and human rights campaigners joined Diane Hamill in Camden Council Chamber in London on Tuesday 14 December to speak to a joint meeting of the Robert Hamill Campaign and the recently formed National Civil Rights Movement. The NCRM provides support for the victims of racial injustice and promotes family-based campaigns to challenge the criminal justice system and institutional racism.

Diane Hamill explained the circumstances of her brother's murder, and the subsequent police harassment faced by her family, particularly one of her brothers. She recounted a number of incidents of overt police intimidation, including her wedding day when, as she left the hairdressers, she discovered her car had been deliberately blocked in a nearby car park by a police Land Rover Imran Khan, solicitor to the Stephen Lawrence family, Michael Mansfield QC, Gareth Peirce, together with Sukhdev Reel, mother of racist murder victim Ricky Reel, Suresh Grover of the Southall Monitoring Group, Jeremy Hardy and Dr Robbie McVeigh of the Rosemary Nelson Campaign, gathered to urge those present to become involved in the various campaigns for truth and justice and to join the National Civil Rights Movement.

Suresh Grover told the audience that the Metropolitan Police inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence had been "an epic tale of racism, an epic tale of corruption" and urged increased solidarity between black and Irish people in campaigning for the human and civil rights of both groups. He said that whilst this and a number of other individual campaigns had succeeded in calling the authorities to account, a more systematic approach was needed.

"Where we have failed is in linking organically the anti-racist struggle with the struggle of other communities in this country, in particular the struggle of the Irish people, and we cannot go into the next century in that predicament. We say that the murder of Robert Hamill was a racist murder in the same way as the murder of Stephen Lawrence."

In an impassioned contribution, Michael Mansfield QC, who for legal reasons was unable to speak directly about Robert Hamill, outlined the malign, anti-democratic effects of both the new Criminal Justice Act and the new permanent Prevention of Terrorism Act which also received its first reading in the British parliament on Tuesday to profound disquiet on the part of civil rights campaigns and a number of Labour backbenchers.

Referring to the case of Stephen Lawrence, he talked about precisely what campaigners mean when they speak of the corruption of the Metropolitan Police Force. By corruption, he said, he did not mean "corruption in the [Neil] Hamilton sense of money in brown envelopes" but "a different kind of corruption and that is intellectual corruption. Actually, racism itself is corruption, whether it occurs in Ireland or whether it occurs here".

Speaking about Robert Hamill, Jeremy Hardy explained to the audience that his murder should be classified as racist. "Sectarianism in Ireland is not a matter of theological difference. Loyalists have a settler mentality, a colonial mentality. They do see Catholics as inferior. They're all right if they know their place, if they're not uppity. When they get uppity, some of them have to be taught a lesson to keep them in their place. Portadown is the absolute crucible of this and it has got worse since the Garvaghy residents have said 'we are not putting up with it any more'. Sectarian murders have got worse in Portadown because they are determined to get a march down that road."

British Labour MP Kevin McNamara called on Wednesday, 8 December for an independent judicial inquiry into the killing of Robert Hamill.  McNamara urged MPs to back Sinn Féin, Amnesty International, the International Relations Committee of the US Congress, the SDLP, Alliance and the Woman's Coalition in calling for an inquiry.

Tuesday/Wednesday, 14/15 December, 1999

Analysis: Establishing the Republic

By Gerry Adams

When this century began Britain had an Empire. As Empires go it could swagger about the planet as well or better than most other Empires.  Now it swaggers no longer. The Empire is finished.

The first real blow against imperialism this century was struck in Ireland when the children of the Famine, especially those survivors who fled to the USA, built for revolution in Ireland. Great movements were built from within the Dublin workers, the rural peasants, the language enthusiasts, intellectuals and a range of radicals. Their agitationary efforts were trumped by unionists led by a Dublin barrister and supported by English Tories.

But in 1916 they had their day. An Irish Republic was declared. The proclamation of that republic equals any of the great Addresses or Proclamations in modern history. It was egalitarian, democratic, and visionary. It was also deemed to be unlawful and seditious. The British suppressed the 1916 Rising with great brutality. The rest is history.

The execution of the leaders robbed the revolution of its social and republican thinkers and strategists. It also created the momentum for the growth of Irish republicanism and the IRA and for the endorsement for the Sinn Fein position and the ratification of the proclamation in the 1918 elections. But in politics every positive has a negative and Irish unionism was in the ascendency also. So that in 1921, when the British were defeated militarily, they regrouped behind the partition of the island, consolidated their control in the north east and continued to exert their influence everywhere else. They also succeeded in dividing the revolutionary forces, in halting a national struggle and aborting its social dimension.

There are numerous lessons for Irish Republicans in all of this.  These are lessons which were learned by people in struggle throughout the rest of the Empire. We Irish must have been doing something wrong for all the years of the conquest because others throughout the colonies moved to the point where they won their independence much quicker than us. Or maybe it's a matter of geography. Maybe we had the misfortune of being too close to the Imperial power. Not that that matters much nowadays because the Imperial power is no more. The Empire has gone except in the minds of the Little Englanders who think they still have an Empire. And we're it!

In an interview about a book which spanned this century, I heard the RTE broadcaster Marian Finucane reflect with some feeling her reaction on being reminded that Dublin was under British rule for the first 20 years of this century. That is something of which nationalists from the north are always conscious. I dare say that is a feeling which the unionists share with us. But for different and opposite reasons.

1916 was also part of the international movement that ran totally contrary to the imperial wars. But the defeat of that time and the awful legacy of the Irish civil wars, south and north, killed any real progressive effort for decades. Emigration ruled in the south, while unionist domination did its bit in the north. And two conservative states grew up on the island, each in their own ugly way the exact opposite of the 1916 Proclamation. Of course, there was progress and there were movements to improve social and economic conditions, and there were also constitutional changes in the south, but all within the context of partition.

It is impossible to understand anything about the Irish in Ireland, north or south or scattered throughout the globe, unless we understand ourselves in the context of the colonisation of this small island and of the conquest of Ireland by the English. Shameful things, which disgraced humanity, occurred here. Of course they are but a shadow of the awfulness which occurred on a global scale throughout this century, for example, in the second Great War. But revelations this decade of child abuse, of the existence of such obscenities as the Magdalene Laundries, and the perpetuation of poverty and disadvantage on a nationwide scale is evidence of the power and the control of conservative elites in church and state.

The end of the century closes on a more promising note. There are still huge things wrong on this planet. The rich continue to shaft the poor and wars and famines, from Kosovo to Sudan, continue unchallenged. The official Irish worldview apes that of the big powers. The reconquest of Ireland has yet to affect those in high places. Not yet. But changes are coming. Unionism as we have known it is finished. The face of Britain's involvement in ireland as we have known it is finished also. Whether these changes amount to no more than the modernising of British rule and as a consequence the modernising of unionism is entirely dependent on whether we, An Phoblacht readers and others, are up to the challenges that are coming.

In the last 30 years worldwide, there have been huge changes, from the fall of the USSR, the reunification of Germany and the liberation of South Africa. Irish republicans have been part of these phenomena. We approach the new millennium undefeated and undeterred. We have grown wise in the ways of struggle. Through civil rights, demonstrations, street campaigns, prison struggles, armed struggle and hunger strikes, we have learne dmany lessons and we have grown in our knowledge of the machinations of our opponents, particularly those who used to have an Empire.

The Good Friday Agreement is the biggest development in Ireland since partition. It marks an important and transitional phase in our struggle. It could and would have been a more decisive phase had we greater political strength north and south. That is the big lesson for those of us who are part of the reconquest. A real reconquest of Ireland can only be accomplished by the people of the island. It is our historic task to create the conditions in which this can be achieved.

So the century ends on a more hopeful note than it began. A hundred years is a big deal for we mere mortals. But it is only a blink of an eyelid in the history of humanity. Yet this last few months alone I have talked to five people who are well over a hundred years old. They have survived all of this history. They are also all women but that's another story. The test for the rest of us is whether we can establish in the opening decades of the next century the republic which was proclaimed at the beginning of this one. I think we can. I believe we can.

Thursday, 16 December 1999

Jeremy Hardy on Robert Hamill

In Britain, the cases of Stephen Lawrence, Ricky Reel, Michael Menson and many other victims of racism who are still barely known, have brought a growing understanding of why so many black people do not trust the police. In Northern Ireland, if you want a single example of why so many Catholics do not trust the RUC, consider the case of Robert Hamill. In Portadown, at about 1.30am on April 27, 1997, Robert Hamill, a 25 year old Catholic, was kicked to death by a mob of about thirty Loyalists in full view of an RUC Land Rover, 200 yards from an RUC station. Four RUC officers, wearing body armour and armed with plastic baton rounds, revolvers and machine guns, remained in the Land Rover during the attack Robert had been to a dance at St Patrick's Hall, a Catholic social club that stands in isolation in the centre of Portadown. To get home to their enclave around Garvaghy Road and Obins Street, Catholics leaving St Patrick's have to travel down Thomas Street and across Market Street onto Woodhouse Street, which is safe territory. On Saturday nights, young Loyalists tend to hang around on Market Street after returning by bus from the Rugby Club and the Coach Inn in nearby Banbridge. One of the officers on duty that night has described the Loyalists on Market Street as "the usual crowd from the Coach". Local publicans had warned the RUC that the junction of Thomas Street and Market Street was becoming increasingly dangerous for Catholics. Late at night, anyone heading from Thomas Street toward Woodhouse Street would be presumed to be Catholic.

Indeed, just a few minutes before the attack on Robert, another man was able to get past a hostile group of Loyalists and warned the officers in the Land Rover that more Catholics were on their way from St Patrick's and would be in danger. But the officers remained in the vehicle, and radio logs show that nothing was done to warn people at the hall until 2.11am, some thirty to forty minutes after the attack.

Robert was with three friends: Joanne, Siobhan and Gregory Girvan. They left the club at about 1.20am. Unable to raise a taxi, they walked cautiously toward Market Street. Seeing the Land Rover, they felt safe enough to proceed, Robert walking slightly ahead of the others. But as soon as Robert stepped onto Market Street he was beaten to the ground. Gregory ran to help and was also knocked down. Both were kicked and beaten unconscious. Gregory survived. Robert was to die after 12 days in a coma.

Joanne and Siobhan screamed for help. They could be heard outside a bar 120 yards away, from where people came running to help, trying in vain to get through the mob to reach the injured men. No one, however, got out of the Land Rover, just 20 yards from the attack. Siobhan ran to the vehicle, shouting and banging on the side, but there was no response. The kicking and stamping went on for several minutes, until the attackers seemed to tire of it and it petered out. Finally, some ten minutes after the attack, two of the officers, Constables Neill and Atkinson, got out of the Land Rover, at which point the reinforcements arrived: two officers in another Land Rover and another two in a car. The Northern Ireland Office confirms that there were nineteen RUC officers on duty in Portadown that night and four army units available within ten minutes. At 2.11am, a mobile army unit radioed Portadown police station to offer assistance, but were told that they were not needed.

The murderers loitered apparently unconcerned for about an hour but nobody was arrested. When the ambulance arrived, it had to drive through the mob. No first aid had been given to Robert or Gregory by the police. One of the officers to arrive after the attack was Constable Clare Halley. She took one of the crowd, Wayne Lunt, and put him in the Land Rover. She took his name and address and, after confirming these by radio, let him go. Halley has testified that two men approached her, one of them, asking why she had released Lunt and telling her, "He's one of the ones that did it." She did not even take this man's name. No statements were taken from anyone - witnesses or suspects. Even after the arrival of a senior officer, no crime scene was declared and no evidence gathered. In short, the police made no effort to start any sort of investigation at all, when all the evidence was right in front of them.

At 6am, the first of a number of contradictory press statements was put out by the RUC. According to the police, the attack had been a clash between "two rival factions". A second statement three days later claimed, "A police Land Rover crew in Portadown town centre were alerted to a disturbance and immediately intervened to gain order and prevent assaults." It was not until May 7th , after the Hamill family had passionately protested at this distortion, that an RUC statement was issued acknowledging that the incident was, as all the witnesses say, an unprovoked assault on two men by a large group.

The next day, Robert died from his head injuries. It was after this that Lunt and five others, Rory Robinson, Allistair Hanvey, Dean Forbes, Stacey Bridgett and Paul Hobson, were arrested and charged with his murder. All asked to be held in the Loyalist Volunteer Force wing of the Maze. Billy Wright's LVF, which had broken from the Ulster Volunteer Force to continue the random slaughter of Catholics in defiance of the cease-fire, welcomed the men as heroes and produced leaflets championing the "Portadown Six".

By October, charges against Forbes, Hanvey and Robinson had been dropped. Releasing the men, the magistrate said, "It has been a terrible ordeal for all three of you". He said nothing to members of the Hamill family who were present in court. In November, charges against Bridgett and Lunt were dropped.

This prompted Colin Prunty, the witness who had approached Halley, to complain to the Crown Prosecutions Service that he had never been asked to attend an ID parade.

Paul Hobson finally came to trial earlier this year. Constable Neill testified that, approaching the scene, he saw Robert lying unconscious and Hobson aiming a kick at his head, but couldn't tell if it connected.

Lord Justice McCollum convicted Hobson of unlawfully fighting and causing an affray but, ruling that Robert was probably already fatally injured by the time Neill approached, acquitted Hobson of murder.

A few days after the attack on Robert, his sister Diane, unhappy at the quality of the investigation, had enlisted the help of Lurgan solicitor, Rosemary Nelson. Rosemary's response to the dropping of charges was to announce that the family would bring a private prosecution against the suspects and the RUC. An appeal was begun to raise the funds and Rosemary became the family's leading campaigner, as well their legal adviser and beloved friend. This March, Hobson's trial ended, with judgement reserved, and she was in no doubt that he would be acquitted. She had spoken to Michael Mansfield QC about the planned private prosecutions. On March 15th, she was blown up by a car bomb.

The sophistication of the device and the unusual level of RUC activity close to her home before the explosion led to accusations of collusion. The day after the bombing, graffiti appeared in Lurgan, reading, "Rosemary Nelson, human rights defender, murdered by RUC".

Rosemary had received an increasing number of threats from RUC officers. The Independent Commission on Police Complaints unusually called in a Metropolitan police officer to oversee its investigation of the threats. The ICPC reported that officers barely disguised their hatred of her.

The Hamill family has also become unpopular with the RUC since querying the handling of Robert's case. Diane cites many instances of intimidation, including a police car swerving in front of hers, forcing her to brake, and officers pointing their fingers at her in imitation of guns.

The family has also suffered emotional torture by Loyalists since Robert's death. According to Diane: "At the place where Robert was attacked, we placed flowers in memory of him, but within hours every petal would have disappeared. Regularly my family have been taunted in Portadown town centre. I have been called a Fenian slut, and men and women have shouted, "Where is Robbie now". As recently as April, we discovered some graffiti saying, "Where is ya Robbie now, where is ya flowers now?" .I wouldn't want to be inside the minds of these people; it must be a very frightening place. On occasions some Loyalists have taken to jumping up and down in front of me, this is their imitation of Robert's murder; this is funny to them. In the early stages I called the RUC on several occasions following incidents of this nature but they never did anything about it. After a while I decided it was pointless calling the police for assistance; we now have no one to turn to. The taunt of "What about Robbie Hamill?" has now become commonplace around Portadown when Catholics are being abused; this doesn't appear to be a crime either.

The Hamills are looking for justice rather than vengeance. If there is to be an independent judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Robert's murder, it must be ordered by Tony Blair under the Tribunal of Inquiry (Evidence) Act. He did it for the Bloody Sunday families and it is to be hoped that he will be persuaded do it for the Hamills, but it will take pressure. You can help in the following ways.

Write to the Prime Minister,

Ask your MP to support this call and forward his/her response to the campaign.

Ask your trade union, political party, religious or community organisation to adopt Robert's case and invite speakers from the campaign.

Help distribute information and publicity material

Make a donation

Write to:

Cheques payable to Robert Hamill Campaign

Thursday/Friday, 16/17 December, 1999

Celtic links boosted by new British-Irish bodies

*Historic hand-shake sets the tone

Leaders from the parliaments and devolved assemblies of Ireland and Britain gathered in London on Friday for the first meetings of the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference, the last of the bodies to be set up under the terms of last year's Good Friday Agreement.

At Lancaster House in Central London, the meeting of the British-Irish Council brought together leaders from all the assemblies of all the islands of northwestern Europe, including representatives from Scotland, Wales and the smaller islands of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

The council, which will meet twice a year, has no executive powers but will see dialogue dealing with practical matters such as the environment, crime, cultural issues, tourism and inter-parliamentary links.

Shortly afterwards at Downing Street, the British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference was set up to facilitate co-operation between the administrations in Ireland and Britain following the scrapping of the obsolete 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the group gathered at Lancaster House in central London they were building a "whole new architecture of institutional links.

"We are setting the seal on a truly unique relationship for the future, between the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the rest of these islands," Blair said.

The Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said that the Lancaster House meeting had both symbolic and practical implications—particularly the involvement of elected leaders from Scotland and Wales.

"We were in the habit, inaccurately but revealingly, of thinking in terms of 'Anglo-Irish' relations. This terminology is no longer adequate for the complex reality which I see represented here."

He admitted the delay in establishing the institutions had been "a source of frustration".  But, he said it had allowed the launch of the British Irish Council with all its members fully established and present "which might not otherwise have been the case".

The seismic developments in Irish politic life over the past few weeks have led to a sense of 'institutional exhaustion', and the atmosphere in London was relatively low-key.

^*) Historic hand-shake sets the tone

But the day will be largely remembered by the first public handshake between a British Prime Minister and a member of the Sinn Féin leadership.  Tony Blair's close encounter with the new Six-County Minister for Health, Bairbre de Brun, provoked a storm of camera flashes but none of the political histrionics which once would have been considered mandatory.

Blair himself played down the exchange.

"Part of this whole process is that we start to treat each other like normal human beings in a normal society," said Mr Blair.

"Bairbre de Brun is a minister in the Northern Ireland executive, and I think it would be strange if I were not able to shake hands with her in public."

Speaking to reporters in Downing Street, Mr Blair said he had shaken hands with her before in private and it was  "a measure of how many things have to be got over to make this situation one that is normal for people, that it should be thought as an event in itself".

He said he would always be wanting to greet people who he believe are "trying to make democracy and peace work".

"If that's a milestone, well so be it," said Mr Blair.

David Trimble, Six-County First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader, said it was "the first time in generations when all parts of the British Isles are meeting together in friendship to discuss ways of working together for the benefit of  all."

In his formal script, he was due to refer to "a truly historic day".  But he departed from the text to obliquely insist on IRA decommissioning early in the New Year. "Then we can relax and talk of historic," he said. Trimble has threatened to collapse the new insitutions and the Good Friday Agreement itself unless the IRA hands over weapons by February.

Ian Paisley's DUP was not invited to yesterday's meeting in London as a rebuff following their boycott of the first meeting of the new All-Ireland Council earlier in the week. The Paisleyites said the British-Irish Council is insignificant and its establishment is simply a way of disguising the fact that real power lies with the North-South body.

The party's two ministers, Mr Peter Robinson and Mr Nigel Dodds, did not attend yesterday's meeting in London.

Mr Dodds said: "The North-South Council is all substance. The British-Irish Council is all shadow. The contrast in the powers given to both bodies is another example of how Mr Trimble sold Ulster short in the Belfast Agreement.

"Whereas the North-South Council has real decision-making teeth, the British-Irish Council is purely consultative with no powers. The meeting in London was merely a smoke screen to disguise the reality of where real power lies."

Mr Dodds said the Good Friday Agreement ensured that the different levels of power of both bodies were clearly set out, ensuring "that the real power-house would be North-South arrangements with their full range of consultative, harmonising and executive roles."

Mr Dodds said the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC), which met in London yesterday, was the "renamed Anglo-Irish Conference" which "gives the lie to the notion that the Anglo-Irish Agreement has gone."

He said the IGC's remit "covers the areas of security, policing, prisons and human rights covered under the Anglo-Irish Agreement, with a secretariat being set up to service it. (The old secretariat) may have gone, but only to be relocated elsewhere."

Speaking before the first meeting of the British-Irish Council, Bairbre de Brun spoke of her hopes that the new body would "seek to build a new relationship between the people of the two islands".

Ms de Brun said it was essential that all of the institutions agreed on Good Friday last year were "established and working successfully".

"We recognise that there has been a long history of conflict between these two islands. We want to bring that to an end. In presenting our political analysis we have argued that the British government involvement in Irish affairs lies at the source of this conflict. The way forward requires the development of new relationships between the peoples of these islands based on mutual respect and mutual independence.

Her party would present a "radical republican view of the way forward".

"The proximity of the two islands, the long history of trade and commerce, the family and personal contacts all reflect the reality that we have a shared history. The Council should seek to build upon this experience."

She added that her party was particularly looking forward to working with the Scottish and Welsh nationalists in developing "a process of cultural renewal" for all the people of the islands.

Thursday/Friday, 16/17 December, 1999

Analysis: A century of struggle

Danny Morrison

Partition dominated the experience of northern nationalists in the 20th century. Danny Morrison looks back on how 30 years of struggle brought about change and eventually empowered nationalists and republicans.

My Uncle Harry, reminiscing to me many years before his death, told me a story about the time he was on the run in Belfast in the 1940s. One of the safe houses he stayed in belonged to a republican sympathiser from Sandy Row who was in the RUC. One morning, in the early hours, he was disturbed by the noise of a squad car suddenly pulling up outside.  He immediately jumped out of bed and pulled on his pants. He was climbing out the window when the door burst open and there stood a breathless RUC man, his host, who was on night duty.

He could hardly contain himself with laughter. "Guess what, Harry! I just had to call in and tell you! We're on our way over to the Falls to raid for you!"

The story now sounds apocryphal, but so many fantastic things have happened down the years since, half of which can never be told, that one never knows. It appealed to me because it had all the ingredients of a noble story: the hero on the run in a dark age, battling for freedom against incredible odds, finding sanctuary with the enemy who turns out not to be an enemy after all but an honorable and brave human being with a sense of humour. If only more RUC men were like that, I thought, rather naively. But one quickly grows up at the end of an RUC man's baton, quickly loses one's romantic view of human nature.

Even though I was born in the early fifties, my sense of an age or period considerably predates that. From listening to one's parents, aunts and uncles you felt as if you knew what the blitz had been like or the rationing. Names like Rocky Burns and Tom Williams were spoken of with awe and admiration, even by people who didn't believe in the IRA but who still subscribed to a view of history called the nationalist experience. The McMahon killings, the pogroms of the 1920s, were as if recent memories. And there was always a climate of fear, which suited those in power as it meant they only had to resort to some actual violence occasionally.

As nationalists saw it, they were born into the Black North because of partition, because of the Truce and Treaty. They were losers. Their votes meant nothing. In the eyes of the state, a ceilidh dance was a suspicious gathering, and a hurling stick looked very like an IRA rifle. If you had any sense you'd get out - or, in the fifties and sixties, get an education, then get out.

We were the fourth green field, still in bondage and we pined for justice. The proudest date was Easter 1916, when Irish men and women once again rose against British rule and restored pride and dignity.  The Tan War period was viewed heroically (the more inglorious actions being glossed over). I could never get to grips with the politics of the civil war, and for many years I foolishly thought it had been fought over the single issue of partition! Like most republicans from the Six Counties, I viewed the South—which I derisively called the Free State—with ambivalence, trying to separate the good people from the bad state. My Uncle Harry, who lived in Dublin, cursed the guards in Irish because he thought that the greater insult.

The common people of the South were our natural allies, if only we could get through to them. Weaving in and out of the history of their state was the story of the IRA. Men and women who believed in the Republic as proclaimed. Killing and dying. Going to jail for their political convictions. Maintaining structures. Passing on the torch of resistance. It was they and their comrades in the North who inspired the reorganisation demanded by the bloody events of August 1969.

Out of the pogroms of 1969, the denial of civil rights and state repression, came the armed struggle. Came 30 years of conflict, packed with narrative but with the true stories coming in second to government lies. Remember them? The Derry marchers with nail-bombs in their pockets; detainees puncturing their own eardrums; unarmed Volunteers going for their guns whilst crashing RUC checkpoints; Sinn Féin intimidating people to vote for it!

Probably the biggest hypocrites and greatest fools to have emerged over the past three decades have been that little coterie of revisionist journalists and historians who cannot spot the simplest contradiction in their own position. Attacking Irish nationalism for its alleged narrow-mindedness and sectarianism, they actually served only to encourage those very vices, self-righteousness and intransigence within unionism. The revisionists provided not one answer to the problem. As the critic Denis Donoghue noted of such people: "Nationalism is a fine flower, so long as it grows in Israel, Tibet, Poland, and Lithuania."

But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, in this case, the unionist cause with their waffling apologists in the 'Sunday Times' and 'Indo'. This country belongs to unionists and nationalists alike; but from the unionist perspective, the IRA waged a ferocious campaign the magnitude of which was out of all proportion to any sense of injustice nationalists could possibly have felt. The IRA destroyed their towns and killed their sons and daughters who wore the uniforms of the RUC and UDR.

Republicans, not surprisingly, view the struggle differently, as mainly a 30-year story of a community's endurance in the light of state terror and assassination. A story of the courage, sacrifice and suffering of supporters and Volunteers alike; about life on the run or on active service against a superior enemy; long-term imprisonment; dramatic prison escapes; hunger strikes to the death; arms smuggling under the noses of superpowers; intifadas; street protest movements.  And the remarkable story of the survival, rise and success of Sinn Féin.

The republican struggle has given nationalists a palpable self-confidence for the first time since 1921. And the versatility of the Republican Movement, its decisiveness and daringness in going for the Good Friday Agreement, this major, but incomplete breakthrough, has changed the dynamics of politics on this island.

That silly mantra of unionists—Sinn Féin/IRA—has come home to haunt them because it lends to only one interpretation—the guerrillas fought and now the guerrillas, not just Fenians, are about the place and in government. This attitude of unionism still has the potential to bring down the Agreement but cannot alter the fact that this is the endgame.

Regrettably, along the road, some comrades, beginning with the 1986 ard fheis, dissented from majority opinion in the Movement over differences in strategy and principle, later the cease-fire and the way forward. By the time they come around to recognising the changed circumstances it may be too late for some of their activists. Yet if we republicans are to successfully draw a line through the past, we must also be concerned for the release of the last of the political prisoners.

One summer evening in 1973, myself and Seando Moore ('The Child' as he was aptly nick-named) were walking around our Cage in Long Kesh. We were having a light-hearted yarn after having just come from a long, boring political meeting. Seando suddenly stopped, looked at me and said half-satirically, "And what do you think, Dan, of a Thirty-Two-County, Democratic, Socialist Republic!" "That would be wonderful," I replied.

And so it would, I still think after all these years.

Sunday/Monday, 19/20 December, 1999

Public hearings planned into Dublin/Monaghan massacres

The announcement yesterday of the terms of an official Irish government investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings has been welcomed by relatives of the victims.

Thirty-three people were killed in the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in May 1974. There is strong evidence that the operation was a result of British intelligence/loyalist collusion.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern last night announced the appointment of retiring Chief Justice Liam Hamilton to conduct a thorough "fact-finding and assessment" examination of all aspects of the atrocities. Justice Hamilton, who will also be examining the bombing of a public house in Dundalk in December 1975, which killed one man and injured 20.

His report is then likely to be examined by the joint parliamentary committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights. Relatives of the victims, whose efforts were long treated with studied official neglect, should be entitled to appear at public hearings of the committee.

The Justice for the Forgotten group, which represents a number of survivors and victims of the bombings, is still insisting on a full public inquiry. In September, the group objected to an announcement of a private inquiry based on the recommendation of the 26-County Victims Commission.

A dossier of evidence was presented by Justice for the Forgotten to the Irish Prime Minister personally this year.

In his book on the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, Don Mullan exposes the work of 26 County Garda policeman, Detective John 'the Badger' McCoy, for British intelligence.  He accompanied British military intelligence agent Major Peter Maynard, who was based in Portadown, where the bombers are believed to have came from, on a visit to a senior Irish Army officer in Dublin just three months after the bombings. Given the strong evidence of British intelligence involvement in the bombings and the contacts between them and gardai, Mullan asks if this is the real brake on establishing a public inquiry.

Mr Ahern's new announcement is likely to lead to the first public hearings into the circumstances of the bombings. Justice for the Forgotten, which has campaigned for a public inquiry for many years, last night welcomed the move as the "first stage" towards its goal.

Mr Justice Hamilton, who retires as Chief Justice early next year, has been invited to undertake a thorough examination of all aspects of the bombings and their aftermath. No time limit has been set for the investigation, which may take over a year.

Mr Ahern said yesterday the Dublin government would ask the British authorities to co-operate. The investigation is to include an examination of the nature and adequacy of Garda investigations; the adequacy of co-operation from the RUC and British Army; the handling of scientific analyses of forensic evidence; the reasons why no prosecutions took place; and whether, and if so by whom and to what extent, the investigations were impeded.

Mr Justice Hamilton will not be given judicial powers to call witnesses and demand the production of documents. However, his report will be followed by an examination in public session by the parliamentary committee on Justice, Equality and Women's Rights.

Welcoming the move, the Justice for the Forgotten group said last night this was a process of assessment, not a private inquiry, and on that basis it supported it. It also welcomed the fact that they would be fully represented at the committee's public hearings.

The group's secretary Margaret Urwin said they were happy with Mr Ahern's commitment to seek British government co-operation in helping to establish the full facts on "the biggest mass murder case of this State".

She said they had agreed to co-operate with the Chief Justice's examination on the basis that it was "a process of assessment and not a private inquiry".

"The process of a public inquiry, where justice is not only done but seen to be done, is a minimum requirement for the families and wounded in their 25-year search for truth, justice and closure," she said.

Sunday/Monday, 19/20 December, 1999

Analysis: Class War in the Classroom

By Mick Derrig

My schooldays were marked down by an approaching date that there was no escaping from. As it hoved into view, the class system in the classroom moved up a gear from silent derision to formal exclusion. The teachers silently sifted you in their middle-class matronly minds who would be going to the school they went to and who would be going "Upstairs". Going upstairs sounds like promotion. It wasn't.

At primary school going upstairs was a literal truth. The upstairs floor of the art deco prison that housed St.Bridget's Baillieston was the secondary modern. None of our teachers had come via that route— no way. They had gone to the Senior Secondary.

If you went upstairs, you then went into life in the West of Scotland doubly disadvantaged. By your name you were identified as a Fenian.  The school you went to told them that you were a dumb Fenian!

Actually it didn't tell that about you at all. What it told the enquirer was that the school system had decided—at age ELEVEN— that you were dumb.

How was this damning conclusion arrived at?

Because of the social space that the primary school teachers had sketched in between their perceived superior social standing with that of your family. They actually started coaching you for the "11-plus", as it was formally called, without you, a child, knowing. It wasn't very subtle.

The GP's daughter was, looking back, placed with other kids in a cluster of desks whose fathers would've been the local Catholic middle class.

The classes mixed at primary school level in as much as we were in the same classroom. That would all change at 11.

The kids in the playground called it "The QUALIE", because it was the "Qualification Test". As you got to 9 or 10 years of age, the teachers would start to mention it more and more. "Silly boy! You'll be going upstairs after the Qualification Test!"

Just to build up your confidence you understand.

The only primary school teacher who didn't do this to me was my only male teacher—Mr. McHugh. Everything I did was encouraged and supported. I belted home and got out the homework on the big table.  They didn't know what was up with me at home.

I went to a Catholic school—all of my teachers were Catholics— daily communicants, we were regularly marched the 50 yards from the school to the chapel. It was actually in the same complex.

The old school was from pre-1918 Education Act days, when the Fenians built and ran their own schools in Scotland.

Mr McHugh was a Protestant. A fairer, kinder, better man I never met.

What the wee rough Fenians and me suffered within St. Bridget's, circa 1965, was stated class discrimination and, perhaps, a discrete sexism as well. The teacher I had before the Qualie year would later stand for the Conservative Party in local elections. A laughable event in my Irish village on the edge of Glasgow.

I walked by her in the polling booth. I was in my mid twenties—she asked me how I was doing. She asked it in a way all candidates are required of anyone who has the franchise.

I actually had just walked around the corner from where my uncle by marriage was showing me the delights of keeping an aged Riley car on the road. The man is the most modest genius I have ever met.

His dad was court martialled for arranging to "lose" his .303 in Dublin in 1915 in the direction of Oglaigh na hEireann. He also persuaded all of his "Scottish" platoon to do the same.

He did time in the 'Joy for it. The platoon was sent to the Somme— death sentence. He was a lovely, quietly spoken hero from the Gorbals.  His son, my uncle, was his double.

As the Africans say: "It takes a village to raise a child."

I had nearly forgot to vote and an old schoolmate of mine was standing for Labour. Later on, they threw him out for being a socialist.

I rushed round to the polling booth and there she was. I was in overalls and my hands caked in oil. The image I presented to her immediately confirmed what she had thought of me 15 years earlier.  "Factory material", an industrial squaddie.

I didn't give a thought to how I was dressed or how I presented— anyone who knows me will testify that this is still the case!

I automatically and truthfully answered in a polite way in the fashion I was reared to talk to teachers and priests. I told her I was enjoying the summer after pottering about after graduation.

Graduation!

She nearly fell through the floor.

Graduation meant only one thing in those days—University. This was pre Polyversity. Universities were meant for the cognitive and, ipso facto, social elite in Britain.

I mused on my next career turn and whether or not to do a Masters in this discipline or that, as I had a degree with an equal combination of politics and sociology. She just stood looking at this bearded rough customer in overalls sketching out why he would rather do a Master's by dissertation on his undergraduate research project rather than a taught course.

I said I had liked my time at York, despite it being suffocatingly middle class, that I had decided not to take up the place offered to me by an Oxford college because at York I could get the early Intercity 125 to Edinburgh and get over to Glasgow to see the Celtic.  As Godel would have it "rich systems of logic are never complete..."

I looked at her and her whole wee world was being assailed. Her self-esteem was based on her profession. Her professional standing was based on the belief that she and other experts could judge a kid at 11.

I left the polling station, which was a primary school, and felt sorry for her. I never did sit the feared "Qualie".

The year before was the last in Scotland -- 1969. Someone in the Scottish Education Department had the guts to realise that this was no way to treat children. It would be another decade before the research the 11-plus was based on was found to be fraudulent.

By that time its forger, Sir Cyril Burt, had been knighted for services to education. File that with the RUC's George Cross.

My academic ability suddenly wasn't tied to the house in which I lived or to how my family earned their living. Suddenly, all kids went to the same secondary school.

I went to a comprehensive school in 1970. I was treated like I had a brain. I was first in the class.

Today, I'm on my fourth academic qualification and I've lectured students in two universities.

Fenian?

Yes.

Dumb?

Do it Martin.

Monday, 20 December, 1999

Silverbridge Press Conference

The following statement by Alan Brecknell was delivered at a press conference in Belfast today. In addition the Silverbridge families have now asked the PFC to contact Chief Justice Liam Hamilton following the announcement by the Dublin government that he is to lead an inquiry into the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, the murder of Seamus Ludlow (see PFC website) and the attack on Kay's Tavern in Dundalk in 1975 which left two men dead. The latter attack was believed to have been coordinated by the same gang which attacked Donnelly's Bar, just one hour later.(see also fact sheet attached to this press release)

On behalf of the families of Michael Donnelly, Patrick Donnelly and Trevor Brecknell.

Yesterday, December 19, was the anniversary of the deaths of three people who died in a gun and bomb attack on Donnelly's Bar in Silverbridge Co Armagh in 1975. Michael was just 14 when he died. Patrick was 24 and Trevor, my father, was aged 32. Like many other relatives, our families and the wider community in Silverbridge tried to deal with the loss as best we could. But we didn't accept the loss. It didn't go away. In the past 12 months we began to ask questions. To date we have not received the answers.

In June of this year the RTE Primetime programme broadcast allegations that certain members of the security forces may have been involved in the attack on Donnelly's Bar. We made contact with both the Irish and British Governments in the wake of the programme. Adam Ingram MP, Minister for Victims and Security has told us that he cannot meet us due to an "ongoing police investigation". We have yet to be notified of the nature of this investigation.

The reason that we have asked you here today is to make an appeal to the RUC officer who led the then investigation. We are appealing to this man, who we believe is now a senior RUC officer, to contact us, directly or through a third party of his choosing. His name is known to us but we do not intend publishing his identity. During the investigation the families gained the impression that he was genuine in his commitment to finding the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. We believe that his efforts were thwarted by higher authorities. We believe the investigation was blocked. Soon after this officer was transferred out of the area.

In July of this year statements were taken from a large number of survivors of the attack. For the majority it was the first time that anyone had bothered to ask them what had happened. Following press coverage of this a former member of the RUC, based in South Armagh in the seventies, approached us and asked to meet. Representatives of three human rights organisations have met with this individual on a number of occasions since July on our behalf.

He has stated that, he always believed that the investigation of the Silverbridge attack had been blocked and felt that an injustice had been done to our families.

Special Branch in particular would have known the identity of the killers but choose not to act because of cross membership between certain loyalist paramilitaries in the area and the security forces, both RUC and UDR.

in his opinion the officer who led the thwarted investigation was a man who would have attempted to get to the bottom of what happened.

The very fact that this former RUC officer came forward and the opinion which he volunteered regarding the man who led the investigation has led us to make this appeal today. We do not wish revenge but we do demand the truth about the events leading up to, during and following the gun and bomb attack which left our loved ones dead. Times have changed. Everyone in this room is hoping that the tragedy of the past 30 years will not be repeated. But we cannot just sweep our loss under the carpet, bury it and forget it. We are therefore appealing to the man who led the investigation or others who could shed light on the attack on Donnelly's Bar, to contact us or a representative of their choosing. It is our both our right and duty to seek the truth and find closure.

Fact Sheet:

Attack on Donnelly's Bar, Silverbridge, South Armagh, 19 December 1975

On 19 December 1975, three people, Trevor Bracknell (32), Patrick Donnelly (24) and Michael Donnelly (14) were killed in a gun and bomb attack on Donnelly's Bar inSilverbridge, Co. Armagh. Six people were seriously injured in the attack.

The attack was officially recorded as having been carried out by the Red Hand Commandos. No one was ever convicted in connection with the attack.

Earlier that same evening, there was an attack on Kay's Tavern in Dundalk, Co.  Louth. Two men, Hugh Waters (60) and Jack Rooney (61) were killed in the attack. This too was claimed by the Red Hand Commandoes.

On 6 June 1999 RTE Prime Time aired a programme alleging security force involvement in the Donnelly's Bar attack.

On 11 June 1999 the Pat Finucane Centre wrote a letter on behalf of the families of Trevor Brecknell, Patrick Donnelly and Michael Donnelly requesting a meeting with Minister for Victims and Security, Adam Ingram, MP to discuss allegations of security force involvementin the attack.

A week later, a letter was sent to the Irish Government with the same request.

On 5 July 1999 the Pat Finucane Centre receives a letter from the Private Secretary to Adam Ingram noting that "the British and Irish Government and the RUC are aware of the allegations" of security force collusion in the attack on Donnelly's Bar. The letter goes on to add that "[a]s you will no doubt be aware, the RUC are presently investigating the allegations and it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment further or to interfere in an on going police investigation."

None of the families were aware of any "on going investigation" -  to date none have been contacted by the RUC.

Two weeks later, the Irish Government agrees to a meeting to discuss the Silverbridge Attack.

On 24 July 1999 representatives from the Pat Finucane Centre and Relatives for Justice travelled to Silverbridge to take statements from the survivors of the attack on Donnelly's Bar. Almost 30 people provided eyewitness accounts.

In statements a number of issues emerged:

the bar had been raided days before the attack by the RUC/later the RUC stated it had no record of the raid, the attackers did not feel it necessary to wear masks, British soldiers were present in fields near the bar during the attack, virtually no attempt was made by the RUC to conduct an investigation.

Two days after the statements are taken, the Irish News carries an article highlighting the attack on Donnelly's Bar and the controversy surrounding it. The article prompts a response from a former RUC officer who lends credence to the accusations of collusion.

In further correspondence with Adam Ingram, the Pat Finucane Centre is told once again that the "Minister cannot comment on what investigations the RUC may have carried out in relation to the allegations made." For more information, the Centre is asked to contact the RUC Chief Constable.

In December 1999 the Pat Finucane Centre meets with a representative of the Irish government's Department of Foreign Affairs to discuss the Silverbridge attack.

The Centre is also waiting on written responses from both the RUC Chief Constable and the Director of Public Prosecutions to a series of questions relating to the attack and the investigation into the attack.

Monday-Wednesday, 20-22 December, 1999

No normality yet as Britain maintains war machine

The British government has been accused of evading its obligations under the Good Friday Agreement after it produced a vague and hollow report on its plans for the demilitarisation of the North of Ireland.

As Northern Secretary hyped the the annual Christmas parole for the north's political prisoners, his brief report, published on Wednesday after a 14 month delay, has infuriated many who believed it would detail plans for winding down the British military occupation of northeastern Ireland.

The document makes only watery and aspirational references to a "normal" society, which "might" lead to reductions in troop numbers and fortifications.

For nationalists and Republicans, Britain's military presence on Irish soil is the principal cause and source of violence in Ireland. The continuing failure of elements within the British military establishment to accept any share of blame for thirty years of conflict lies at the heart of the report, which speaks about "improving the security environment", the need for "counterterrorism", and "public order operations".

Monday-Wednesday, 20-22 December, 1999

Mandelson brings Christmas gloom to South Armagh

Republicans in South Armagh, still the most heavily militarised area in western Europe, were particularly scathing.  Cryptic and Orwellian statements in the report such as: "When normalisation is complete, only such military installations as are required for normal peacetime duties will be retained", have been received poorly in the shadow of the infamous spy towers which keep a 24-hour watch on the residents of the strongly Republican area.

Toni Carragher of the South Armagh Farmers and Residents Committee was scathing of the report, and said Mr Mandelson had "purposely ignored South Armagh".

With the British army currently undertaking extensive building work at a number of lookout posts and installing new surveillance equipment, Ms Carragher said that British military activity in the area was now at an "all time high".

Sinn Féin blamed the document on a group of right-wing British militarists and securocrats who it says engineered the recent bugging of the party's negotiators in recent talks.

Gerry Kelly, Sinn Féin member of the Stormont Assembly for North Belfast, complained: "It is a report produced by securocrats who are still fighting a war and who are clearly intent on protecting their jobs".

Rejecting the report, he said nationalists and Republicans were not interested in "vague waffle or minimalist and ineffectual gestures."

And he said Mr Mandelson's report meant absolutely nothing to farmers in places like south Armagh where land had been taken over for military installations.

"There is no time table, no detail, no substance. We do not need intentions. We need action on demilitarisation."

He suggested the document was in breach of the terms of last year's Good Friday Agreement: "This report lacks the detail and substance of the report promised by the British government 14 months ago and which it is obliged to produce under the terms of the Good Friday agreement."

The only specific measures to be announced include the closure "as soon as practicable" of the two remaining interrogation centres at Gough Barracks and the Strand Road base in Derry-and by the end of next year, the near-empty Long Kesh prison.

There was no mention of the continuing construction of British military bases in South Armagh. And Sinn Féin councillor Paul Butler yesteday revealed that the British government had secretly applied to the local authority to build 150 new houses for military personnel at Thiepval barracks.

He said: "Lisburn is part of the demilitarisation. There shouldn't be any more expansion of barracks."

The report indicates that two reviews are underway, one into unspecified "security arrangements....taking into account the prevailing threat", and another on the use of plastic bullets.

Spokesman for the United Campaign against Plastic Bullets Jim McCabe said there was no need for yet another review of the use of plastic bullets, which have killed more than 20 civilians and caused hundreds of injuries.

"There have been numerous reports, all of which have shown these weapons to be deadly and lethal and which have recommended their use be discontinued. In addition to this, all the guidelines governing their use have been continually flouted."

Gerry Kelly was equally dismissive.  "We want to see an end to plastic bullets - not a review. We want to see the the disbandment of the RUC, the end of the RIR, the closure of forts and spy posts, and the dismantling of the apparatus of militarisation pervading our areas."

In a reference to Mr Mandelson's new pet dog, Mr Kelly said:  "Bobby the dog could have produced a better report."

Monday-Wednesday, 20-22 December, 1999

"Security - Return to Normality" - A Summary

The following is the full list of steps to be taken by the British government towards "achieving normal security and policing in Northern Ireland", taken from the report "Security - Return to Normality" published yesterday by Britain's Northern Secretary, Peter Mandelson.

A reduction in the number of troops available to the general officer commanding for counterterrorist and public order operations in Northern Ireland. This might include progressive withdrawal of the remaining three battalions posted temporarily to Northern Ireland back to their permanent locations in Great Britain;

Service personnel remaining in Northern Ireland engaged in normal peacetime activity;

Security barriers and gates in some 20 town and city centres in Northern Ireland will be left open and eventually completely removed; remaining control zones will be lifted;

public access to police stations and public buildings will be improved and protective fencing progressively removed;

a review is now under way which will focus particularly on specific security arrangements, including various installations throughout Northern Ireland, taking account of the prevailing threat. Any changes will, of course, depend on genuine cessations of violence and continued progress in the political process. The first phase of this review will be completed early in the new year;

when normalisation is complete, only such military installations as are required for normal peacetime duties will be retained;

a continuing decline in the use of the counter-terrorism legislation; the closure of the police holding centres at Gough Barracks and Strand Road as soon as practicable;

an increase in the proportion of jury trials;

and the enactment of new United Kingdom-wide counter-terrorism legislation, with the removal of measures and powers specific to Northern Ireland, with transitional arrangements as necessary. The new law will be fully consistent with human rights obligations and will allow the United Kingdom to lift its current derogation under the European Convention on Human Rights by introducing a new judicial system for authorising extensions of detention;

continuing the significant reductions in military support to routine police patrols and in operations specifically designed to counter terrorist activity (for example vehicle check points, searches and helicopter operations);

an end to all military operations in support of the police (save where specifically requested, for example for civil emergencies or major public disorder); - a review of the use of plastic baton rounds; the closure of HMP Maze by the end of 2000.

Christmas Holiday, 23-27 December, 1999

English racecourse evacuated after mystery bomb hoax

A reported bomb threat against a top British horse racing event provoked confusion but little panic yesterday. Despite a warning of a car-bomb on the course grounds. racegoers were allowed to watch the King George VI Chase, one of the biggest races of the season, before being evacuated.

Unexplained delays marked the handling the bomb hoax, which was blamed by British police on a tiny breakaway Republican group, the self-styled "Continuity IRA".

The incident began at 1.30pm when a caller to the BBC newsroom in Belfast warned of a device planted at the Surrey reacecourse. The caller had failed to use an appropriate code word, but the BBC said it had passed on the threat immediately.

A London Police spokeswoman said it had received a "threatening" call some 18 minutes later, at 1.48pm.   Ms Sue Ellen, managing director of the company which owns the racecourse, said it was not until after 2 pm, when the runners for the main event were in the paddock, when the call came. The head of Surrey police added to the confusion when he claimed the race was "either ongoing or it had finished when the warning came". In any event, the main race took place as scheduled at 2.20pm.

At 2.53pm, officials first asked people to leave the course. More than two hours later, racegoers were still being evacuated. Clutching champagne glasses, many were surprised to find they had been evacuated into the area where the car-bomb was supposed to have been placed, the car park.

The irregular and ponderous manner in which the bomb claim was handled has generated some suspicion that the British police was aware that no such threat existed, and were merely going through the motions. Some Republicans have also claimed to see the hand of British securocrats behind the low-energy, high-profile evacuation.  They point out that militarists within the British establishment, including RUC Chief Ronnie Flanagan, have sought to justify a continued heavy British Army/RUC deployment in Ireland by exaggerating the possible threat of violence from dissident paramilitary groups.

Christmas Holiday, 23-27 December, 1999

Analysis: A year of bigotry, attacks, and censorship by omission - Banging the loyalist drum

By Fern Lane

Looking back over the last year, do you remember during those tortuous months of negotiations up at Stormont when Word of the Week—every week—amongst many of the politicians and most of the political commentators was "choreography", a word which was used with embarrassing and tooth-grating regularity? This was closely followed by the ubiquitous use of "sequencing", which in the political context meant exactly the same thing but which added a little bit of much-needed variety to the cliches. Well, as the year draws to a close, the Word of the Week at the moment in these rarified circles is, it seems, "whinging". The great, the good and the incredibly stupid amongst the right-wing media and those of unionist persuasion have been nodding sagely at one another and agreeing with themselves that the problem with those damn Catholics is that they whinge too much.

For example, a few days ago Bairbre de Brun came in for an unusually deranged attack, even by his standards, by Kevin Myers. Kevin decided that Bairbre was guilty of whinging for the simple reason that on a visit to the Royal Victoria Hospital in her new role as Health Minister, she (a) pointed out the self-evident fact that plastic baton rounds kill people and that those people tend, on the whole, to be Catholic, (b) is angry about this, and, get this, (c) is a woman.

And some weeks back, the allegedly intelligent and allegedly abjectly remorseful David Ervine also decreed from his own personal moral high ground that Catholics would have to just get over what he described as their "victim mentality". Despite the much-vaunted brain, he is obviously incapable of the relatively simple intellectual process which would conclude in an understanding that perhaps this mentality is somehow related to the fact that Catholics actually are victims; years of discrimination, harassment, burning, torture, and murder are not figments of their imagination, as he would clearly have the world believe, and he should know this better than most. For a man with his past to say such a crassly insensitive thing defies comment. Catholics are victims, David, because people like you made them so in the name of obscene, racist political objectives. And others continue to this very day to do just that.

Amazingly, however, Ervine was allowed to get away with this monumentally imbecilic comment by an admiring media, which is itself also very good indeed at ignoring the undercurrent of loyalist violence against the nationalist population, which continues despite the new political dispensation. Ervine, like others, is also in the habit of portraying the unionist community as the principal 'victims' of the past 30 years of conflict. This is not only because of the deaths suffered by that community but also, crucially, because unionists and loyalists are no longer able to live in a supremacist, one-party state, predicated on sectarian principles in which all social, economic and political power is in British hands, and because their efforts to slow down or even halt the pace of change is being resisted. Nationalists are constantly fed the line that unionism has made huge sacrifices and should therefore be indulged in its tardiness. Unionism, particularly its middle class, hasn't made any genuine sacrifices at all. It has been made to give up what didn't belong to it and has fought it all the way. For that, it doesn't deserve anybody's sympathy. Making this point, however, is decried as 'whinging'.

But then, Ervine, Myers and their unionist friends in the media are all in good company. Just as the resident psychotics of the Red Hand Defenders were putting 400 masonry nails end-up in a football pitch to be used by two Catholic under-11 teams (an event which went totally unreported in the British media), they were also warning Catholics of their intention to exclude them from educational institutions, most specifically East Antrim College of Further and Higher Education, saying: "If they keep this whingeing [sic] up, we will make sure that no Catholic sets foot in the place. This applies to any other establishment as well!"

Very well then. If being voluble in opposition to such racism is whinging, so be it. If campaigning to have a discredited police force disbanded is whinging, fine. If highlighting the daily harassment and burning out of Catholic residents is whinging, that's OK too. If fighting tooth and nail to bring to justice those who committed and colluded in the murder of Rosemary Nelson and others is whinging, then we should all be world-class whingers. And now I'm going to whinge some more.

In a year of previously unimagined change, continuing loyalist violence and bigotry has been the one constant which the UUP in general and David Trimble in particular have refused to properly condemn. The daily rhythm of attack with petrol and pipe bomb, as well as the murders of Rosemary Nelson and Elizabeth O'Neill, serve to remind nationalists of the huge difficulties they are up against in trying to achieve some kind of reconciliation, both in the sense of being able to forgive their tormentors and to function with them in a supposedly normalised society.

The faces of hatred which I witnessed in Portadown were truly shocking, partly because being on the receiving end of such abnormal behaviour has itself become normal for the residents of the Garvaghy Road and partly because it forced me to ask myself: how does one reach out to people like those Orangemen and their supporters? How can one even begin to overcome the murderous loathing and contempt in which they hold anyone outside their tribe? How can one respond adequately to men who wave broken Barbie dolls as they march to church and who glory in the death of another human being? And yet, in the face of this, the British government throughout the year has still urged the residents of Garvaghy Road to find some way of accepting an Orange march through the area to which Catholics have been confined by the racism of the same people who also gloated over the death of Rosemary, friend and champion of the besieged residents. Her loss was incalculable.

But then, these people who call themselves Christians are akin to those who in recent days have encouraged schoolchildren to engage in protest against Martin McGuinness, democratically elected Minister of Education, and who have helped turn such demonstrations into no more than ugly displays of sectarian ranting. The television footage last week of a small boy, immaculate in his uniform, obviously quoting well-worn nonsense from either his parents or their political representatives, would have been funny had it not been so sad. "He'll take the Queen's shilling" he trilled, "but he won't worship.. er..  respect the Queen". D minus for you, young man, for mucking up your lines when they were so carefully rehearsed only moments before the camera crew turned up. I wonder what it's like being a Catholic in this little darling's school.

Occasionally however, and to be fair, there have been times throughout the year when paramilitary violence has made all the major British news bulletins and the front pages of all the newspapers. This, of course, has been restricted to when blame can be attrtibuted to the IRA. In such circumstances, violence has been of immense interest and consequence to Conservative politicians and the British media. In the same vein, this year saw the emergence of John Taylor's previously well-hidden social conscience, which expressed itself in his sudden and uncharacteristic concern for such victims of punishment beatings; this was very touching but would have been more convincing had it extended to those receiving punishment beating from the UDA. But then there was no political capital to be gained from it; indeed for Taylor it could have been politically detrimental. Throughout this year, as every other year in living memory, questions about loyalist paramilitary activity have been routinely dismissed by unionist politicians.

Perhaps the subliminal message being sent out in respect of the hundreds of unreported and uninvestigated sectarian attacks this year is that the Catholic population of the Six Counties has implicitly been asked to accept a certain level of violence as the price for political power, a level of violence which would be considered outrageous and unacceptable in any other democracy. Whilst the UVF and UDA have managed to resist the urge to go on the customary Taig-hunt whenever things weren't going their way, loyalist elements have found old habits hard to break. Catholics who are living in the shadow of real and threatened violence are being ignored and silenced by the shiny, happy people of the SLDP, UUP and British Government holding hands up at the big house. There appears to be an unspoken assumption that loyalism has to work out its frustration at the loss of absolute dominance and can only do so by venting its anger on helpless residents. A sinister version of the old boys-will-be-boys indulgence of appalling behaviour.

The fact that during 1999 there have been fewer loyalist murders than in previous years does not diminish the individual trauma suffered by those families whose loved ones have been killed, nor does it lessen the misery and fear of those forced to leave their homes by orchestrated mobs of loyalist youths.

In the wake of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the British Government promised a policy of "zero tolerance" of racism in its institutions, most particularly the police, and of racist attacks on its citizens; a similar policy of zero tolerance has been desperately required in the Six Counties over which the British government still has jurisdiction.  Only now is it starting to make promises to try to eradicate sectarian hatred. Perhaps, and we can but hope, the new millennium will finally see such promises upheld.

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