Thursday-Saturday, 4-6 May, 2000
Friday, 5 May, 2000
Sunday-Tuesday, 7-9 May, 2000
Monday, 8 May, 2000
Wednesday, 10 May, 2000
Wednesday/Thursday, 10/11 May, 2000
Saturday/Sunday, 13/14 May, 2000
Tuesday/Wednesday, 16/17 May, 2000
Friday/Saturday, 19/20 May, 2000
Sunday, 21 May, 2000
Monday/Tuesday, 22/23 May, 2000
Thursday, 25 May, 2000
Saturday, 27 May, 2000
Sunday/Monday, 28/29 May, 2000
Thursday-Saturday, 4-6 May, 2000
Death of Kieran Nugent
The death of the first blanket man Kieran Nugent stunned republicans on the eve of the 19th anniversary of the death of hunger-striker Bobby Sands.
He led the way in the prison struggle for political status against the criminalisation policy of Margaret Thatcher by refusing to wear a convict's uniform.
He is widely remembered for stating that the only way the authorities could make him wear the uniform was to "nail it" to his body.
Republican leaders have paid tribute to Mr Nugent.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said the news of Mr Nugent's death has caused "great shock and regret" in the republican community.
"Kieran Nugent was the first republican prisoner who refused to accept being branded a criminal by the British government," he said.
"He led the protest against the policy of criminalism by refusing to wear a prison uniform. He was the first 'blanketman'. "He will be especially remembered by republican ex-POWs for his leadership inside the prison at that difficult time." After once again shouldering the coffin of the heroic IRA Volunteer at his funeral today [Sunday], Mr Adams said: "Kieran's death comes at a very poignant point in our history.
"The day he died was the 19th anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands, the first hunger striker to die, and it comes at a time when the IRA has made a significant contribution to the peace process.
"Kieran was an extraordinary human being who rose to the challenge of a very difficult time in his own life and in the republican struggle."
Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane, the IRA O.C. during the hunger strikes, said Mr Nugent had been "a tower of strength". "He set a tremendous example to many other prisoners, particularly younger prisoners. "He set a trend for resistance in the prisons. He was alone in his cell for a year or more, and suffered physical abuse as well. "He was denied everything, every creature comfort. "He never yielded and he never bowed. He was a tower of strength. He was a rock."
Mr McFarlane said he first met Mr Nugent in 1978, and after his release he had travelled widely. "He went to the United States and Europe to give talks and seminars."
"Kieran played a significant part and people need to look at that and focus on the stand that he took," he said.
Letter issued to party leaders by the two governments
This sets out the two governments' proposals necessary to secure full implementation of the Agreement by June 2001, in addition to those already set out in our statement.
The letter is dated 5 May 2000
Rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity
As has already been announced, incorporation of the EHCR [European Convention on Human Rights] into British and Irish domestic law will take effect from October 2000. The British Government has already invited the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission to advise on the scope for defining rights supplementary to the Convention.
Under the legislation which came into effect in January, all designated public authorities in Northern Ireland will begin to have equality schemes in place from 1 July 2000.
The Irish Commission on Human Rights will be established by the Irish Government in July 2000, so that the Joint Committee of both Human Rights Commissions required under the Agreement will therefore be established by the end of July 2000.
Both Governments will continue to take measures and develop programmes to support the victims of violence and their families.
The British Government will ratify the Council of Europe Charter on Regional or Minority Languages by September 2000 and publish within six months an action plan for implementing the charter. Technical discussions on the steps required further to extend TG4 reception in Northern Ireland will continue. Other measures will also be taken including a two year Irish language TV and film production pilot scheme which will start by April 2001.
SECURITY
The British Government will progressively take all the necessary steps to secure as early return as possible to normal security arrangements in Northern Ireland, consistent with the level of threat. It will report regularly on the steps taken and will consult with the Irish Government, and the political parties as appropriate, on measures necessary to respond to any continuing paramilitary activity.
In particular, both Governments will continue to oppose with resolute and determined action any group that uses or threatens violence to disrupt the peace process, taking whatever measures within the law are justified by the threat.
POLICING AND JUSTICE
Legislation to implement the Patten report will, subject to Parliament, be enacted by November 2000. The new Policing Board will be appointed in January 2001 and will assume it responsibilities in April 2001. A new independent police recruitment agency will be established, and the first process for recruits to join the Police Service of Northern Ireland will start in April 2001.
The British Government has already announced a six month consultation process on the Criminal Justice Review to end in September, so the Government will announce its decisions on implementation in October 2000. Legislation, and a detailed timetable for implementation, will be published by April 2001.
PRISONERS
It is intended that, in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement, all remaining prisoners qualifying for early release will be released by 28 July 2000. Measures will continue to be taken to facilitate the reintegration of prisoners into the community, and to address related issues.
We are writing in similar terms to the leaders of other Parties represented in the Assembly, and of the UDP.
Signed:
Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern
IRA statement
The full text of an IRA statement issued this afternoon.
The leadership of the IRA is committed to a just and lasting peace. We have sustained that commitment despite the abuse of the peace process by those who persist with the aim of defeating the IRA and Irish Republicans.
Republicans believe that the British government claim to a part of Ireland, its denial of national self-determination to the people of the island of Ireland, the partition of our country and the maintenance of social and economic inequality in the Six Counties are the root causes of conflict.
The maintenance of our cessation is our contribution to the peace process and to the creation of a future in which the causes of conflict are resolved by peaceful means. For our part, the IRA leadership is committed to resolving the issue of arms. The political responsibility for advancing the current situation rests with the two governments, especially the British government, and the leadership of the political parties. The full implementation, on a progressive and irreversible basis by the two governments, especially the British government, of what they have agreed will provide a political context, in an enduring political process, with the potential to remove the causes of conflict, and in which Irish Republicans, and Unionists can, as equals pursue our respective political objectives peacefully.
In that context, the IRA leadership will initiate a process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use. We will do it in such a way as to avoid risk to the public and misappropriation by others and ensure maximum public confidence. We will resume contact with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning and enter into further discussions with the Commission on the basis of the IRA leadership's commitment to resolving the issue of arms. We look to the two governments and especially the British government to fulfil their commitments under the Good Friday Agreement and the Joint Statement. To facilitate the speedy and full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and the government's measures, our arms are silent and secure. There is no threat to the peace process from the IRA.
In this context, the IRA leadership has agreed to put in place, within weeks, a confidence-building measure to confirm that our weapons remain secure. The contents of a number of our arms dumps will be inspected by agreed third parties, who will report that they have done so to the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. The dumps will be re-inspected regularly to ensure that the weapons have remained silent.
P. O'Neill
Governments move to restore institutions by May 22
In a defining moment for the peace process, the British and Irish governments announced tonight that the Northern Assembly and Executive are to be restored by May 22, subject to a positive response by the political parties. On February 11, Britain's governor in Ireland Peter Mandelson, suspended the North's devolved power-sharing institutions and reimposed direct rule from London.
A joint statement by the two governments tonight declares the governments' commitment to the full implementation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement by June of next year.
It announces the existence of clear proposals implementing the remaining aspects of the Good Friday Agreement, and urges the IRA and loyalist organisations to "state clearly that they will put their arms completely and verifiably beyond use". In response to such a "reduction in the threat", the British government said it would take substantial normalisation measures toward the demilitarisation of the North of Ireland by June 2001.
The announcement came shortly before midnight, after a long day of talks in Belfast, involving the pro-Agreement political parties and the Irish and British Prime Ministers.
British premier Tony Blair said he hoped the arms issue would now be dealt with "completely and verifiably". Mr Blair said: "It is now incumbent upon the parties and perhaps in particular the paramilitary organisations that they respond to these proposals that we have made.
"We very much hope that response is positive and in particular we can make sure the arms issue is dealt with completely and verifiably."
Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said he looked forward to the full implementation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and a "finality to where we are at this stage".
Mr Ahern said: "I hope that this will form the basis for the institutions to be up and running by later this month." Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said it was a "very decisive moment" in the peace process. He welcomed the governments' decision to bring about the restoration of the institutions and said he believed nationalists and republicans would welcome the governments' commitments on human rights, equality, the Irish language, demilitarisation and support for all the victims of the conflict.
He added: "It is also essential that we have a new policing service which nationalists and Republicans can give their support to and feel confident about joining."
He spoke of the "many difficulties" that the change invoked by the Good Friday Agreement presented for those locked into the divisions and conflicts of the past.
"But change is essential if there is to be real equality, real democracy, real justice and the rights of people of this island to be respected and valued. There must be no more second class citizens."
Mr Adams said it was now time to stand up for, and defend, the Agreement.
"I would urge all of those who voted yes in the referendum in May 1998 to rally behind this initiative, support those political leaders and parties who are striving for a new and better future for our children and give it a fair wind in the time ahead."
There was no immediate statement from the Ulster Unionist Party.
The full text of joint governmental statement is as follows:
UN supports ex-prisoners' freedom of expression
A United Nations report on freedom of expression has endorsed complaints against the British Broadcasting Corporation initiated by the republican ex prisoners co ordinating group Coiste na n-Iarchimi.
A report submitted by Special Rapporteur Abid Hussain to the UN Commission on Human Rights accuses the BBC of bias and criticises the corporation's attitude towards ex prisoners which it says inhibits reconciliation within the North of Ireland.
The report went on to call on the British government to scrap emergency legislation, ban the use of plastic bullets, stop the use of excessive force against peaceful demonstrators, publish the Stalker-Sampson inquiry and the Stevens' report and guarantee the rights of others are not violated in the exercise of the right to assemble and march.
Commenting on the specific issue of freedom of expression for ex prisoners Coiste spokesperson and former republican POW Laurence McKeown said, "the BBC are living in the past, they're out of step with the current peace process and the responsibilities of conflict resolution."
In January 1999 during a press conference launch of Coiste na n-Iarchimi a BBC film and radio crew interviewed, at their own request, three republican ex prisoners who had been recently released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. The former prisoners spoke of their hopes and fears for the future and the difficulties of reintegration. All three supported the Good Friday Agreement and the self help ethos of the Coiste.
The establishment of the Coiste, which represents 20 local groups and projects run by and for republican ex prisoners, was a significant development towards peace and reconciliation.
It is estimated that 15,000 republicans have experienced imprisonment during the last 30 years of conflict. Clearly the launch of the Coiste was an important media event which should have commanded coverage on local television and radio. Yet coverage of the launch and the interviews of the three ex prisoners were never broadcast by the BBC. Although Radio Ulster indicated on air at 12 noon that there would be a report on the one o'clock news, when the programme was broadcast there was no mention of the launch.
According to a newspaper report at the time, the BBC had "pulled a planned radio item about the launch of a prisoner' rights group an hour before transmission...The BBC says it stopped the broadcast as it did not have enough opportunity or time to consult with the relatives of the victims."
Following a formal complaint by Coiste Director Mike Ritchie, the BBC cited guidelines drawn up by the corporation to deal with interviews with former and serving prisoners "BBC NI has reported fully the debate surrounding the release of paramilitary prisoners and their future in this society and will continue to do so in a fair and comprehensive manner," replied radio news editor Kathleen Carragher.
"The guidelines cited by the BBC are geared towards dealing with interviews of criminals in England and as such are totally inappropriate for dealing with people imprisoned as a result of political conflict in the North of Ireland," says Laurence.
In response the Coiste described the guidelines as offensive to their clients. "A large element of the conflict concerned attempts by the British state to criminalise the republican perspective in general and republican prisoners in particular. From our point of view , dealing with political prisoners as if they are criminals is to abandon neutrality concerning the nature of the conflict."
In a submission to UN Special Rapporteur Abid Hussain, the Coiste pointed out that the BBC's guidelines "are problematic in that they make no distinction between criminal and political convictions." The Coiste pointed out that there was a danger that ex prisoners "will continue to be defined in media terms in relation to their victims rather than in their own right.
"Particularly in relation to a transition from conflict, this is unhelpful to our overall project of reintegration and reconciliation. Indeed it could be argued that such an approach has been deeply undermining of the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement which was overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of Ireland."
But it was Dr David Miller of the Stirling Media Research Institute who pointed out the BBC's hypocrisy. In a letter to Andrew Coleman, the head of news and current affairs of the BBC in the Six Counties, Miller asked why interviews with Irish republican ex prisoners should be governed by guidelines drawn up to deal with criminals.
Miller pointed out that there was a section within the guidelines which states "interviewing political dissidents and activists is an important part of providing a full understanding of events." The BBC's implementation of the guidelines was not only inappropriate it was arguably duplicitous.
"Are there any occasions on which you have informed victims of the security forces when interviewing them. Have BBC journalists, for example, consistently informed Karen Reilly's parents before an interview with Lee Clegg was broadcast?"
Of course they had not. In a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur, Miller points out that the "different standards which are applied to individuals or groups is dependent not on their actions but on which side they are." Miller cites the example of Lee Clegg and accused the BBC of double standards.
But behind this is an even bigger issue said Miller. "Although British forces have been responsible for a large number of civilian and paramilitary deaths in the conflict less than ten have been jailed for murders committed while on duty. "This does mean that the operation of the justice system in Northern Ireland tends to further disadvantage those who are imprisoned in the sense that they are disproportionately regarded as criminals."
Miller points out that the censorship of republicans ex prisoners comes within the context of a wider suppression of the truth by the British state. Miller cites a number of examples.
Tony Geraghty, journalist and author arrested in relation to his book "The Irish War". Attempts to interfere with a book written by Jack Holland about the covert actions of an RUC Intelligence operative killed on the Mull of Kintyre.
Court action against Tribune journalist Ed Moloney after an interview with an RUC Special Branch agent William Stobie, which implicated the RUC in the murder of Pat Finucane, was published.
The imposition of a gagging order on the Sunday Times following revelations about the British army's covert Force Research Unit and attempts by the British army to destroy evidence gathered by the Steven's Inquiry into collusion.
And attempts by David Trimble and the Prentice brothers to suppress Sean McPhilemy's book "The Committee" which attempts to expose a conspiracy to murder involving members of the RUC, prominent Unionist businessmen, professionals and politicians.
Focusing on the BBC in the North of Ireland, Miller points to the corporations pro British agenda and pro Unionist ethos. "The BBC in particular has on the one hand been overly reliant on government statements and briefings during the peace process."
On the other hand, "there has been a tendency to treat Orange parades as matters of either cultural expressions or as the focus of disputes rather than as expressions of dominance....the view of Orangeism as fundamentally sectarianism is extremely rarely reported and explained."
In their submission to UN official Abid Hussain, the Coiste concluded that "BBC NI is open to being politically influenced by Unionist anti Agreement elements who have been very opposed to the prisoner release programme and have used this emotive issue to attack the peace process in general."
The Coiste continues, "it is disappointing that then BBC have not reviewed and altered their guidelines given the changing political situation and in particular the Good Friday Agreement with its proposals for the release of political prisoners. "That agreement clearly indicates the distinction between political prisoners and ordinary criminals. This is nowhere reflected in the BBC guidelines."
In his judgment, the UN Special Rapporteur recognised the rights of victims but went on to endorse the Coiste's view that the BBC's "attitude does not favour the reintegration of ex prisoners and reconciliation in Northern Ireland."
The Rapporteur concluded that the BBC should "review its guidelines in this particular regard, taking into account the changing political situation in Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement, which clearly indicates the difference between political prisoners and ordinary criminals."
The UN report goes further, calling on the British government to scrap their emergency laws. Abid Hussein said emergency powers and the Official Secrets Act had restricted investigative journalism.
The British government should immediately disband emergency legislation like the Prevention of Terrorism Act which "have a chilling effect on the right to freedom and expression," said the UN report, "as regards the media, further efforts should be made to improve the media tone and attitude."
The Rapporteur called on the British government to publish the Stevens inquiry into crown force collusion with loyalist death squads, and the Stalker and Sampson report into summary executions by the crown forces, the operation of shoot to kill policy. The UN official said that the victims of state violence should have access to the reports.
On the issue of contentious marches, he described the freedom of expression and assembly as "core human rights" but he recognised the need to guarantee that "the rights of others are not violated in the process."
"The Special Rapporteur urges the government to stop the use of excessive force against peaceful demonstrators, in particular the indiscriminate use of life threatening plastic bullets, as recommended by the committee against torture in 1998."
Commenting on the UN report, spokesperson for the Coiste, Laurence Mckeown said, "Abid Hussain has vindicated our challenge to the attitude of the BBC towards republican ex prisoners.
"The UN report places the media's denial of political prisoners rights to freedom of expression within the wider context of attempts by the British state to suppress the truth about their role in the conflict. And places the onus on all of us to move into a new period of change based on truth and justice."
A huge and mighty step - Now Ulster's unionists have to say yes
Northern Ireland: special report
The Guardian
They did it while the rest of the world looked the other way. In Britain, the political classes were fixated on elections in England not noticing the long hours and intense nights underway in Belfast.
There, away from media scrutiny, a handful of people were working around the clock to rescue a situation that all too many had presumed doomed. Incredibly, it looks as if they have succeeded - through a combination of diplomacy, ingenuity and sheer determination.
The deadlock was between a Unionist movement that demanded IRA guns and an IRA that would not give them up. The Unionists said they could hardly sit in government with politicians who had recourse to a private army.
Republicans explained that they could not persuade people who had given their lives to a cause to make a gesture that, to them, symbolised surrender. The result was an impasse that crippled the peace process from the early 1990s until now. Decommissioning was the Gordian knot.
The breakthrough has come with a decision not to untangle the knot, but to cut through it altogether. The IRA's weekend statement ingeniously sidesteps the entire problem.
The provos will not hand over their guns to the British enemy -the gesture of humiliation the organisation could not wear - but will instead "put them beyond use". The method is to dump them in places where they can be inspected by trusted outsiders. It is decommissioning, but not surrender.
The elegance of the idea is in the detail. The IRA imagines the process running in tandem with a downscaling of the British presence in the province, with troop numbers in South Armagh beginning to fall.
That is important, allowing the organisation to believe that what is happening is not defeat - but the withdrawal from the battlefield of two armies which have fought each other to "an honourable draw".
This is not the explicit moral equivalence which so repelled the British military brass, but a kind of implicit equivalence which will have done much to placate republicanism's hardliners.
Finally, the choice of international inspectors is inspired. By asking the former African National Congress general secretary, Cyril Ramaphosa, to act as a verifier, London and Dublin have found a man who not only enjoys worldwide respect but also specific credibility with the IRA: they regard him much as they regard themselves - as a veteran of an armed, liberation struggle.
Who deserves credit for this piece of smart thinking? Close to the top of the list is a man who is hardly a household name: the Irish foreign minister, Brian Cowen.
According to a document leaked last week, Northern Ireland officials regarded Mr Cowen as a mouthpiece for Sinn Fein. They were wrong. Instead he did what none of the other players in this process had done before: he asked what the IRA might say yes to.
Everyone else had pushed the provos on what they refused to do - urging them to crack under the pressure - while Mr Cowen asked the IRA how they saw decommissioning and how they might one day do it. With that as his starting point, he built on the first yes until he got more.
Help clearly came from Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams. They kept on making the case for politics, rather than violence, within republicanism even when events conspired to undermine them and strengthen their internal critics.
Tony Blair always believed they were serious. So did this newspaper. But others did not and they duly excoriated those who dared be more hopeful. Today those critics should reflect on whether their actions helped or hindered the search for peace.
Mr Blair also deserves praise: he certainly gets it from those on the ground. They believe that he showed a suppleness rare for British politicians in Northern Ireland and not a little courage - by daring to take on the fainthearts in the British military establishment who tend to prefer the status quo to taking risks for peace. He also invested huge amounts of political capital and time in the process: on Tuesday he talked with Gerry Adams for seven hours straight.
What now? The ball is firmly in the court of the Ulster Unionists. David Trimble has made encouraging noises, but he has to move cautiously: even when progress is as obvious as this. He knows there are rejectionists within his own party who, with the decommissioning issue all but resolved, will simple shift their intransigence to a new issue: the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. He knows too that his party's ruling council will meet again within a fortnight and that that body came close to sacking him last time it gathered.
For all that, Mr Trimble can afford to be brave now. He can face down his own rejectionists by telling them that the peace process has brought the IRA further than any of them ever believed possible. Republicanism has found a way to move from war to politics in its own terms. Mr Trimble needs to claim credit for that - and to persuade unionism to accept it and rejoice in it. In a word, unionism needs to learn to say yes.
Copyright © Guardian Media Group plc. 2000
Finucane Inquiry Support
By Monika Unsworth in Belfast, Irish Times
The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has added its support to calls for an independent inquiry into the killing of the Belfast solicitor, Mr Pat Finucane, saying that the current inquiry headed by Sir John Stevens does "not seem wide-ranging enough".
Mr Finucane was shot dead outside his north Belfast home by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989, leading to allegations of security force collusion in his death.
The Chief Commissioner of the commission, Prof Brice Dickson, yesterday said they had decided to back the call for an independent inquiry after meeting members of the Finucane family and some of their legal representatives, and meeting representatives of the Stevens inquiry team.
"It is now fairly obvious that only an independent judicial inquiry can properly get to the bottom of the range of issues which this murder has thrown up," Prof Dickson said. "The inquiries being undertaken by Sir John Stevens's team do not seem to be wide-ranging enough to address those issues." Prof Dickson said Sir John's record "did not inspire confidence" among commission members. After the first Stevens inquiry, only a summary of Sir John's report was published, while after the second inquiry no formal public report was issued. This time, it was not even clear whether Sir John was reporting to the RUC Chief Constable or the Director of Public Prosecutions, Prof Dickson added.
"We are not totally confident, given that Sir John is now the head of the London Metropolitan Police, that all the lines thrown up by the British Irish Rights Watch report are being followed up," he said.
The commission intended to write to the Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson, seeking a response to the yet unpublished report on Mr Finucane's death.
"The report by British Irish Rights Watch, which was handed to the [British] government more than a year ago, has still not elicited the kind of detailed response which all concerned are entitled to expect."
Copyright © 2000 Irish Times
Wednesday/Thursday, 10/11 May, 2000
RUC men jailed
In a ground-breaking case, two RUC men who assaulted a Catholic man and threatened to have him shot by a loyalist death-squad have been sent to jail. Another RUC man and a British soldier were fined a thousand pounds for their role in the assault.
Following the attack, the RUC sought to charge Bernard Griffin with assaulting them. These charges were dropped when supervisors refused to prosecute the case, but the RUC later raided his home and planted a bomb in his house. Mr Griffin spent three months in jail awaiting trial on explosive charges before these charges were also eventually dropped. It was a typical sectarian attack and victimisation of an innocent nationalist by the British Crown forces. But the imprisonment of two of the culprits is a breakthrough.
The conviction came about when one of the RUC men involved in the assault chose to tell the truth and the British soldier involved refused to maintain the lie in court.
One of the jailed men, 31-year-old Darren James Neill, received a two year sentence for attacking Mr Griffin in the back of a RUC Land Rover and threatening to have him shot following his arrest on February 2 1998.
Neill, whose address was given as c/o Oldpark RUC station, was given a concurrent 12-month sentence for perverting the course of public justice to cover up his attack.
Jailed with him for a year was 32-year-old Michael Magowan, also of Oldpark RUC station, who had been the driver of the Land Rover. He admitted taking part in the cover-up.
'FENIAN BASTARD'
Speaking from his north Belfast home, 21-year-old Mr Griffin recalled how the episode began in the early hours of February 2 1998.
"I came out of the GAA (Gaelic sports club in Ardoyne) and I was just standing waiting for a burger. This RUC man came over and said: 'We have observed you for an hour throwing bottles at a police patrol.'
"There was nothing I could say to him, I mean I wasn't (throwing bottles), I was just out of the GAA. "He just put me into the back of the jeep. As soon as the doors was closed the front-seat (RUC) passenger asked me my name. I didn't answer him.
"He started beating me up, saying: 'What's your name you Fenian bastard?' "He hit me with the baton on the back of the head, round the mouth. He digged me in the face. He kept calling me a Fenian bastard.
"He seen I was wearing a Celtic top and he goes: "He's f*****g wearing a Celtic top.' "He tried to pull it off me and exposed my bare back and kept whacking me. Then he pulled me up close to him and put the baton to my head like a gun and says: 'We'll get the LVF to shoot you. We'll drop you off at the Shankill.'
"I thought I was never going to get out of the jeep alive. I was relieved when I got to Antrim Road barracks. I was covered in blood and crying and saying these ones have assaulted me. I didn't know until afterwards they hit each other and said I assaulted them and resisted arrest."
Mr Griffin was charged with disorderly behaviour. The arresting officers would unsuccessfully seek to have staff in the station also charge him with assault and resisting arrest.
Days later RUC reservist Andrew Timothy Lea, who had been in the Land Rover, went to his superiors to report the cover-up.
The false charges were later dropped against Mr Griffin. The three RUC officers and a British soldier who were present in the Land Rover were all placed under investigation.
But his lawyer says the case against the four had reached the high court when, within weeks, the RUC raided Mr Griffin's home.
"It was a Sunday morning," he said. "I was sleeping. My brother came up to me and said: 'The police are at the door they are asking for you.'
"I went down and they said: 'We're raiding the house for explosives.'
"They raided the house and in the attic they claimed to find a bomb. I think it (the search) was directed at me, because my brother lives here too, but they asked for me.
"I didn't know anything about it (the device)...I maintained they planted it there to discredit my evidence against the police." During the search an RUC man said: "You're the one who has those police officers up in court? I thought you were."
In September 1999, Mr Griffin's brother was granted bail on the explosives charges, though Bernard was remanded in custody and sent to a young offenders centre where he was held until December 22, when the charges were dropped.
The entire episode has impacted on his life and the life of his family. Mr Griffin said: "Since this started my life has just been a nightmare..."
He says he will leave Ireland now, but what does he want for the future? "I want to be able to live in peace," he said.
* Sinn Féin Assembly member Francie Molloy has received substantial damages after suing the RUC for wrongful arrest and assault. The out-of-court settlement agreed on yesterday is understood to be a four-figure sum.
Mr Molloy and his son were arrested on St Stephen's day 1996 after being stopped by police in Dungannon, County Tyrone. "The RUC questioned me under the Emergency Powers Act, but then asked whether I had been drinking. This was despite the fact that I am a teetotaller and was wearing a Pioneer pin."
"This type of behaviour from the RUC was uncalled for and unwarranted," he said. "It was simple harassment."
Wednesday/Thursday, 10/11 May, 2000
Irish vote propels Livingstone's return
British Prime Minister received a blow last week when Londoners voted for Ken Livingstone as the city's first directly elected mayor. Livingstone, who was expelled from the Labour Party when he announced his intention to run for office, was the subject of an intensely negative campaign by the party. Nevertheless, since his victory he has striven to build bridges with his former colleagues, inviting party member Nicky Gavron to accept the post of Deputy Mayor.
Frank Dobson, widely referred to as the Prime Minister's 'placeman', was beaten into third place by the Conservative Party candidate Stephen Norris.
The failure of Labour to sieze the mayoralty also came on the same day as local government elections saw them lose almost 600 local councillors.
Ken Livingstone's victory was helped in no small part by London's huge first and second generation Irish community, estimated by some sources at as much as ten percent of the population, who voted overwhelmingly in his favour.
Livingstone has long been considered a friend to the Irish community in Britain, partly because of his willingness to engage in dialogue with Sinn Féin long before it was considered acceptable (he was almost declared public enemy number one by the then Conservative government when he invited Gerry Adams to the House of Commons), and partly because of his vigorous opposition to the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
During the electoral campaign, however, he was obliged to confess that, despite this opposition, he had in fact not voted against the new Terrorism Bill, considered by many human rights organisations to be even more draconian than the PTA. His explanation, during 'Irish Question Time' in Camden Irish Centre organised by the Irish Post, was that neo-nazi and far-right groups such as the BNP and Combat 18 now represent a sufficient threat to justify the new Bill, although the only groups actually proscribed by it are those proscribed under the PTA—all Irish.
Saturday/Sunday, 13/14 May, 2000
Dublin/Monaghan bomb victims remembered
Wreaths were laid in Monaghan town yesterday to commemorate the victims of a loyalist bombing campaign which claimed the lives of 33 people in the Republic.
Relatives of those who were killed in the 1974 atrocities - in Monaghan and Dublin - laid wreaths in North Street, where one of the car bombs exploded.
Later, an inter-denominational service organised by Justice for the Forgotten was held at St Macartan's Cathedral - the first joint commemoration in memory of those who died in the infamous Dublin-Monaghan bombs.
On Wednesday, the 26th anniversary of the bombings, another wreath-laying ceremony will take place in Talbot Street Memorial, Dublin, followed by an annual Mass in St Mary's Pro-Cathedral.
Twenty-two people were killed when three car bombs exploded during rush hour in Dublin, and a further five died in the Monaghan blast.
In July 1993 the UVF admitted to the bombs, which also injured over 250 people.
It is widely believed that British agents were involved covertly in the planning of the bombing, lending loyalists the technical expertise and allowing them to travel across the border without hindrance.
Last year, a former RUC Special Branch officer linked British forces to the bombings. John Weir revealed that the explosives used in the bombings were supplied by a locally recruited British soldier and that an RUC policeman allowed his house to be used to assemble the devices. Another British soldier was also alleged to have assisted in the attack.
Justice for the Forgotten - the committee of victims and relatives seeking justice for the two outrages - and other groups are seeking a cross-jurisdictional public inquiry into the atrocity.
Tuesday/Wednesday, 16/17 May, 2000
No action over RUC death threats against Rosemary Nelson
RUC members who made death threats against human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson before she was murdered are not to be disciplined.
Despite widespread allegations of collusion by the RUC in the murder, the same force has been allowed to investigate itself in relation to the the murder of the mother of three. The so-called Independent Commission for Police Complaints (ICPC), an RUC agency, claimed it had carried out an investigation into the death threats, but found nothing wrong.
The ICPC, in a letter to the Nelson family, said there was "insufficient evidence" to bring disciplinary charges against any of the RUC members involved in the threats.
Mrs Nelson was killed when a bomb exploded under her car outside her home in Lurgan, County Armagh in March last year. Nobody has been charged in the case.
She and a number of witnesses made sworn statements in l997 and l998 that she was threatened with death and victimised by the RUC for her work as a public defender.
Sinn Féin said the decision not to discipline was a disgrace, but not a surprise. Assembly member Dr Dara O'Hagan said: "It highlights the official condoning of unaccountability and action with impunity that is so much part of the RUC psyche." The decision was also denounced by Ed Lynch, the chairman of the US-based Lawyers Alliance for Justice in Ireland. He said the Commission had "labored mightily over many months to produce a worthless product".
He recalled that Rosemary Nelson and at least 5 independent witnesses gave sworn statements in 1997 and 1998 to the ICPC and Commander Mulvihill of New Scotland Yard setting forth the identities and details of the RUC Officers who insulted, threatened and warned Rosemary Nelson the she 'would be dead' if she continued to uphold her oath as a lawyer to honourably represent the best interests of her clients.
"Now more than 2 years have passed, Rosemary Nelson is dead, and these bold Officers walk free of even the slightest conseqences. The identified Officers were not required to appear before a hearing, give testimony under oath before a court of law or otherwise subject themselves to legal test for their cowardly acts.
"I ask Chief Executive McClelland and Chief Constable Flanagan what message you intend to send to the rank and file of the RUC? That harassment of a wife and mother is acceptable conduct? That no act or statement, no matter how vile, will expose you to a disciplinary hearing? That you, as a member of the RUC, are above the law?
"What other conclusion can be drawn from the clean bill given by the ICPC and the RUC to the men who dishonoured every true and just member of the RUC?
"On the day that Rosemary Nelson was killed, Ronnie Flanagan called my office and left word that no stone would be left unturned in the search for those responsible for the dastardly act. I now understand more clearly, that in the North of Ireland some stones are best left undisturbed. And justice and good people continue to suffer."
Friday/Saturday, 19/20 May, 2000
Bloody Sunday soldiers prevented wounded receiving aid
Day 20 of the Bloody Sunday inquiry heard how British soldiers used abusive and threatening language on running into a house where a woman shot on Bloody Sunday was being treated.
Anna Nelis, who lived in the house at Chamberlain Street, said one soldier said: "Let the whore bleed to death" on seeing the injured mother-of-14 Peggy Deery lying in the house. Mrs Deery, 38 at the time and now deceased, was shot and wounded in the leg.
The inquiry also heard evidence of soldiers threatening to kill other people and boasting about the people they had already killed.
Mrs Nelis's brother, George, said he was confronted by a Para who threatened to shoot him. The Para told Mr Nelis he had been in shot in Belfast and was seeking revenge.
Mr Nelis said the soldier claimed to have shot four people on Bloody Sunday, two through the head, one in the chest and one in the testicles. He told the Derry man he watched the man he shot through the testicles dying slowly. The Derry man said the soldier also claimed he would shoot him.
He subsequently made a complaint to the RUC who interviewed the soldier in March 1972. The soldier claimed he had identified Mr Nelis throwing stones at the British army barrier at William Street.
But in a separate statement in November the same year, the soldier denied killing four people or threatening to kill Mr Nelis. He also said he could not confirm that Mr Nelis was throwing stones.
Inquiry counsel, Christopher Clark QC also outlined evidence of an attack on an elderly man and a Knights of Malta first-aid worker.
In a statement to the inquiry, first-aid worker Mr Glenn recalled witnessing a soldier beating an elderly man over the head with a gun. He shouted at the soldier, "I order you to stop", whereupon another soldier hit the first-aid worker on the chest with a gun. Yesterday's hearing was shown a picture of Mr Glenn lying on the ground moments after he was assaulted by the soldiers.
Earlier in the inquiry Soldier V gave evidence - in a statement - of holding Mr Glenn against a wall by pinning his rifle across his chest.
Soldier V claimed he saw men in uniform and respirators - first aid workers - when he deployed in Bogside and thought the Derry nationalists were "well organised".
One elderly man also gave evidence of being beaten as he was chased by Paras to an armoured car. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the Saville inquiry has completed its fifth week, lawyers representing the Bloody Sunday families still do not have statements from all the soldiers who opened fire.
The matter was raised yesterday on day 20 of the Bloody Sunday inquiry by Michael Mansfield QC, who represents the family of victim Bernard McGuigan.
Mr Mansfield also raised the question of security force risk assessments which are necessary before a decision is taken as to where former soldiers should give their evidence.
He said: "We still do not have the lettered soldiers' statements to the inquiry. "They are very key people obviously, those who are still alive."
The QC also pointed out that the families' lawyers had yet to receive any statements from Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford, one of the key Parachute commanders on Bloody Sunday.
Leaked policing bill omits keys aspects of Patten report
By Ed Moloney, Sunday Tribune
The British government has gutted the Patten report and the Irish government did nothing to stop them. While the issue of preserving the RUC's name understandably dominated last week's efforts to entice David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Council to accept the Hillsborough arms deal, it was really all a bit like the sham fight at Scarva between King Billy and King James that Orangemen re-enact every July 13th. The real outcome of police reform had been decided elsewhere and some time before.
Elsewhere, in the case of the future of the RUC, means in the Chief Constable's office and in the policing and security department of the Northern Ireland Office. At least that is what many Nationalists and human rights activists suspected when they got their first read of the Police Bill and a leaked version of the accompanying implementation plan which aims to put policing changes into practice.
"Its appalling", said one human rights expert. "The Bill and the plan have been clearly designed by the police and the security establishment in the NIO to thwart the positive aspects of the Patten report". Others reserve their anger for the Irish government which they believe had full knowledge of the British plans up to two months ago yet did little or nothing to change them.
Whatever the truth the result may, in the words of one expert, produce a final situation in which one of the central aims of the peace process, the securing of full Nationalist support and especially that of Sinn Féin for the new policing service, could be frustrated.
The following are the key criticisms of the new Police Bill:
Copyright © 2000 Sunday Tribune
Monday/Tuesday, 22/23 May, 2000
'Brits' exposes shoot-to-kill
According to TV journalist Peter Taylor, whose series 'The Brits' is being screened on BBC, the British government was aware that military intelliegence officers had killed a young nationalist who could have been arrested, and that a cover-up had been mounted.
Tomorrow night's programme covers the shoot-to-kill murders, including six shootings in County Armagh in 1982 by a so-called "elite anti-terrorist police unit".
According to the programme, a report to the government revealed how MI5 officers destroyed a tape recording of 17-year-old Michael Tighe being shot dead without any warning in a hay shed outside Lurgan in 1982.
Although Tighe's killing and the others were later investigated by former Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester John Stalker, his report was also suppressed.
SICK CELEBRATIONS
Undercover Army units in the North of Ireland celebrated the killing of IRA Volunteers with cakes carrying the name of their victims, it was also revealed.
According to TV journalist Peter Taylor, whose series 'The Brits' is being screened on BBC 2, members of the 14th Military Intelligence Company had cakes baked in the shape of a cross with the names of IRA members shot in undercover operations.
Mr Taylor today released a photograph of one such cake bearing the name of William Price from Co Tyrone. The 28-year-old IRA member was shot dead in an ambush by the SAS early on July 13 1984 in Ardboe, County Tyrone. In tomorrow night's second episode of Mr Taylor's programme, a member of the 14th Intelligence Company called 'Anna' explained how they celebrated.
"We went to the bar, we drank quite a lot. The cooks made us a cake.
"If a terrorist was killed there was a cake made with their name on it, part of the celebration. Some of the cakes were in the form of a cross with RIP on it."
Mr Taylor today revealed that he had met members of William Price's family last night to inform them of the photograph and of the revelation in this week's programme.
"They were philosophical and sad," he said.
Clinton refuses to back Blair's deal for RUC
Northern Ireland: special report
Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian
The famously close relationship between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair came under strain last night, as it emerged that the US president had refused, point blank, two successive pleas for help from the prime minister over the Northern Ireland peace process.
In what one high-placed source described "as an extraordinary and unprecedented event" Mr Clinton rebuffed Mr Blair twice in a day during two phone calls to the White House.
On May 10, just days after the IRA had promised to open its arms dumps to outside inspection, the prime minister contacted the president asking him to lean on both the Irish government and Sinn Fein, urging them to compromise on the proposed name change of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Unionists want the RUC name to stay: Mr Blair was seeking White House help in extracting a republican concession on the issue.
"Clinton told Blair straight: not every issue is negotiable," the official, closely involved in the peace talks, told the Guardian last night. "He's about the only person who could have stood up to Blair on the issue and he did."
The president explained to the prime minister that, while the US had sympathised with unionist demands for IRA disarmament, it had no patience with subsequent unionist demands on the RUC and the flying of the union flag on public buildings on Northern Ireland.
Mr Clinton, who has remained in day-to-day, direct contact with the Ulster peace process, stressed his belief that the Patten report on police reform should be implemented in full "as it was printed."
The revelation comes as the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Mandelson, is due to announce the government's final decision on the RUC name, possibly today. He is understood to be poised to make one final move to woo unionist doubters.
The decision will be watched closely for its impact on waverers within the Ulster Unionist party. The UUP's ruling council is due to vote on Saturday on whether to re-enter devolved government with Sinn Fein, with many unionists saying they will vote no unless the RUC name stays.
Party officials yesterday fore cast an extremely close vote, with as many as 400 of the council's 871 members already claimed by the No camp. But that cut little ice with the White House.
According to US officials, Mr Clinton regards the notion of an overwhelmingly Protestant force in Northern Ireland as the equivalent of the mainly white police forces that ruled black areas of the United States before the civil rights era. He believes that to bow to unionist demands on the RUC "would be like leaving Alabama and Georgia under all-white cops."
The president's rebuff of Mr Blair came after an all-out effort by the British embassy in Washington to persuade US opinion-formers to understand the unionist case on the RUC. Most American political and editorial opinion had earlier sided with unionism on disarmament.
But Mr Clinton stepped in with a lobbying effort of his own, making it clear that the onus was on unionism to compromise.
The episode is the first known clash between the two leaders, who have made much of their closeness. Mr Blair stood at Mr Clinton's side throughout the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998, and the president has seen the prime minister as his main ally in the search for a new third way in centre-left politics.
But his involvement in Northern Ireland has been so intense for so long that Mr Clinton now has strongly held - and highly informed views - of his own. Many observers say he has often read the process more shrewdly from Washington than have his counterparts in Dublin and London.
The government hopes that the focus on the RUC may be enough to bring John Taylor, the unionists' deputy leader, back onside, which would be a vital development in the push to restore devolution next week. Mr Taylor, at present in the Far East on parliamentary business, is opposed to a return to government with Sinn Fein.
Concessions would anger nationalists and republicans who say there are already as many as 44 differences between Chris Patten's recommendations for RUC reform and the Policing bill published last week.
Sinn Fein sources warned this week that the IRA initiative could be removed altogether if there were further concessions.
Mr Trimble also poured scorn on the plans of Jeffrey Donaldson, the Ulster Unionist MP for Lagan Valley and a critic of the Good Friday agreement, to forward his own proposals at the Saturday meeting.
Mr Mandelson indicated last week that he would back incorporation of the RUC's name in the "title deeds" of the new service. And he may accept an Ulster Unionist amendment before the debate on the bill.
Copyright © Guardian Media Group plc. 2000
No more excuses - Unionist no vote will leave peace in tatters
Northern Ireland: special report
The Guardian
Not for the first time the fate of Northern Ireland lies in the hands of 870 or so members of the Ulster Unionist Council. On Saturday they will vote whether or not to re-enter devolved government with Sinn Fein. If they vote yes, their party leader, David Trimble, will resume as Northern Ireland's first minister. The province's grand experiment in self-rule will begin once more. If they vote no, Mr Trimble's leadership will be in tatters and the Northern Ireland executive will be nothing more than a memory. According to Seamus Mallon, the ever-wise deputy leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party, the outcome will be even bleaker: the peace process itself will be sidelined "for at least a decade".
So the stakes are high. In the past Unionists had to ponder the risks of power-sharing with Sinn Fein while the IRA refused to give up its weapons. Now that has changed. The IRA has found a way to disarm in its own terms: by offering to open up its arsenals to independent, international inspection. That offer came in a statement at the start of the month which almost everyone involved could see was a huge breakthrough. Indeed, that was the word used by the Ulster Unionists' deputy leader, John Taylor - who predicted at the time 95% backing among Unionists for a return to the executive. In other words, the major obstacle that used to stand between them and power-sharing has been removed. The decommissioning problem has been solved.
And yet the no camp within the UUP remains as adamant as ever. They claim to have wooed at least 400 council members over already, although some suggest their strength peaked last weekend - when Mr Trimble wisely put off a vote which he might well have lost. Which way that human weather vane, deputy leader John Taylor, jumps will be crucial. The rejectionist case no longer centres on decommissioning. Instead, the rejectionists have shifted their complaint. Now they say they cannot re-enter government with Sinn Fein unless the Royal Ulster Constabulary is allowed to keep its name - in defiance of the recommendations of Chris Patten's independent report. They also want to wave the Union flag from public buildings. For that they are prepared to spurn the best chance of peace in a generation.
This is a demand that should not be indulged. As we report today, Bill Clinton understood that - and said as much to Tony Blair. For this demand is not meant sincerely. Most of those making it are using it as an excuse to refuse, once again, to reach an accommodation with republicanism. Jeffrey Donaldson and his chums do not want to share power with Sinn Fein. When decommissioning ceased to be a good excuse not to, they found something else. Proof of that came when Mr Donaldson told the BBC on Sunday that he did not want his two daughters to be taught in schools controlled by Martin McGuinness as minister of education. There was something refreshingly honest in that remark. For what Mr Donaldson was admitting was that arms, names and flags are not the core problem: the heart of the matter is that he does not want to see Sinn Fein anywhere near power, no matter how much it or the IRA changes. It has taken some time to reach this degree of clarity. But now that it is there, we should use it: and understand that Saturday's vote is a straightforward choice between Mr Trimble's acceptance of the necessity of power-sharing and Mr Donaldson's refusal of it. It is a choice between reality and fantasy. We hope Ulster's Unionists know which way to jump.
Copyright © Guardian Media Group plc. 2000
Flash: Ulster Unionists vote to return to government
The Ulster Unionist Party's ruling council has voted to back a return to devolved power-sharing government in the North of Ireland by a margin of The result of the vote was announced by Lord Rogan to be 459 (53%) votes in favour, 403 (47%) against, with one spoiled vote. The narrowness of the vote, the result of a recount, was seen as a decline in the 'Yes' pro-Trimble vote, and pointed up the growing possibility of a major split in the UUP.
The motion before the council meeting was a straightforward acceptance or rejection of the David Trimble's report in favour of the deal to restore the Good Friday Agreement.
The meeting started around 9am with Mr Trimble presenting his report, followed by a speech leading dissident Jeffrey Donaldson, who is said to have made an impassioned and powerful plea to reject the report.
The debate continued for about three hours, with Trimble's supporters appearing to gain the upper hand in the debate as time wore on.
Deputy leader John Taylor was one of the last to speak. He announced that he had been given assurances by both the Irish and British governments that the Royal Ulster Constabulary will be retained as part of the legal name of the new policing service (the Police Service of Northern Ireland), satisfying a precondition set at the previous UUC meeting.
In a further bid to sway waverers, Mr Trimble proposed that a review group be set up to monitor developments on the arms issue. The group is to be composed of selected members of the party who are not elected Assembly members. and will report back on progress towards IRA decommissioning to the Ulster Unionist Council and to the party leader himself.
Mr Trimble pointed out that only 60 names are required of the 870 members of the UUC for a further meeting to review their continued participation in the political institutions.
Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey said before the vote was announced that while he was not yet aware of the terms of today's vote, he said he wanted to see "a fresh start". He said that there should be no diluting planned policing reforms proposed by the Patten commission, including the new name.
"The joint statement given by both the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister just after Hillsborough contained very specific commitments that the Patten report would be implemented in full," he said, adding that this was the basis on which the IRA made its statement.
Dissident MP William Thompson described the vote as "a pyrrhic victory" and "another step in the road toward a massive change of policy" OF the UUP.
He suggested Mr Trimble should resign. "No political leader of any other party would stay in his position," he told BBC news.
The vote was welcomed as "the right thing to do" by Mr Trimble in a press conference immediately after the vote was announced. He said: "It is a majorty in favour of resumption. it is prefectly obvious that we have stretched ourselves, remarkably in the circumstances.
"It is also obvious that there is a limit to how far we can stretch ourselves." Launching an attack on Ian Paisley's DUP, he hoped that, today's debate having been concluded, his party would be reunited around the position voted on. He described the proposals by hardiner Jeffrey Donaldsn as merely "a difference of tactics".
He blamed the narrowness of the vote on "emotional factors" and the "arrogant behaviour" of Sinn Féin during the eight weeks of devolution. He infuriated Republicans by saying they had not yet become "house trained", and there would have to be checks and balances on Sinn Féin Ministers.
He also said he expected the Republican Movement to "deliver" on promises to put its arms beyond use, and to commit itself to peaceful means.
"If there is any foot dragging, if there is any delay, there will be problems."
Brute force
Ronan Bennett explains why the Unionists must not be allowed to minimise the reform of the RUC
Northern Ireland: special report
The Guardian
Put yourself in this position: you come home to find your house has been burgled (again) and the television and video stolen. You have a pretty good idea who's responsible. You're a law-abiding citizen, all you want is your property back and to feel secure in your own home. But this home happens to be in Ardoyne in north Belfast, a strongly republican area, and one of your neighbours suggests you go to the IRA. You're fed up, you want something done, but you don't approve of punishment beatings.
What do you do? The obvious course is to go to the police, to the RUC. Not an easy decision. Here are some things you will be thinking of as you mull over your predicament.
You will be aware, for example, of the slaughter that took place in Kinnaird Terrace, a mile or so away, and which has come down to you as folk memory. One March night in 1922, at a time of bitter IRA and loyalist fighting, a band of masked policemen led by John Nixon, a district inspector in the RIC (shortly to be reorganised as the RUC), sledgehammered their way into the house of Owen McMahon, a prosperous Catholic publican, moderately nationalist in politics. The policemen roused the family from their beds and herded the men into the parlour, where Nixon ordered McMahon, his five sons and his bar manager, Edward McKinney, to say their prayers. Then the policemen opened fire.
When the shooting stopped, McKinney, McMahon and three of his sons were dead; two others were seriously wounded. A few days later, Nixon visited Arnon Street with some of his men. Here they found a Catholic man, Joseph Walsh, in bed with his seven-year-old son Michael and two-year-old daughter Brigid. Dragging Walsh from the bed, they smashed his head in with a sledgehammer. They then shot the two children, killing the boy. Before leaving, they also shot 14-year-old Frank Walsh.
There's much more - Nixon's men using bayonets to finish the job, murdering a Catholic policeman - but none of it led to Nixon's arrest, though his activities were known to both Lloyd George and Churchill. Nixon remained a policeman, helped found the Sir Robert Peel Memorial Orange Lodge, was later elected to Stormont as an independent Unionist MP, and went on to be awarded an MBE. As Catholics at the time were not slow to grasp, the murder gangs were intent on terrorising the Catholic population into political quiescence and acceptance of the newly created state.
There are those who say there is too much history in Ireland, too much remembering and casting up of the past. But the point about the Nixon murders of 80 years ago is that they established what turned out to be a consistent pattern. And they serve to illustrate that the overwhelmingly Protestant RUC was, from the moment of its creation, whether acting illegally or otherwise, understood by Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists, as existing to serve the interests of the ruling party.
The RUC acted as the Unionist party's enforcers when, in 1964, it used water cannon and batons to snatch a tricolour from the election offices of a republican candidate in Divis, sparking the worst riots Belfast had seen for many years. It was acting in the same spirit in 1968 when in Derry, in front of the world's cameras, it beat civil rights marchers -protesting about the abuses of the Unionist-run Derry city council - off the streets with such violence that it triggered the outbreak of the Troubles. When Unionists express outrage at the proposed reform of the RUC, it looks very much to non-Unionists as if they are doing so because they see the RUC as theirs.
It is a point made by Max Hastings, no lover of Irish republicanism, who recalls in his recently published memoirs being in Belfast in August 1969 and is explicit in attributing to the RUC the deaths of innocent Catholic civilians during the loyalist attack on the Falls Road. He asks the obvious question: how do you expect Catholics to trust a force which was responsible for machine-gunning their co-religionists?
Or for killing children with plastic bullets? Or for colluding with loyalist assassins? Or for brutalising prisoners in the infamous interrogation centre at Castlereagh? Or - in a less dramatic, everyday kind of incident - for beating up a Catholic teenager outside a chip shop, falsely arresting him, throwing him in a van and calling him a "fenian bastard" (the RUC officer in this case was, unusually, sent to prison a few weeks ago)?
It would take much more than the space available here to complete the indictment of the RUC. But let's consider one more count, chillingly reminiscent of the activities of Nixon. In the 80s, in the vicious sectarian murder triangle of mid-Ulster, a serving RUC sergeant who was also a member of the UVF, the loyalist paramilitary group responsible for hundreds of sectarian murders, called at the shop of a local Catholic, like Owen McMahon unconnected with the IRA, and shot him dead. The sergeant was not alone. Six of the 10-strong special RUC squad based in Armagh of which he was a member were later arrested and convicted of assassinating Catholics and carrying out bombing attacks on Catholic homes and property.
The present RUC chief constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, routinely dismisses
allegations of anti-Catholic, anti-nationalist prejudice in his force by
insisting that such episodes are neither "tolerated" nor "systemic". But
if, say, half a dozen
white Metropolitan police officers had been convicted of moonlighting
as racist assassins; if others were handing over weapons to white supremacist
murderers in order to kill black people; if yet more were passing on confidential
information about prominent members of the black community - their movements,
their cars, their telephone numbers, their addresses - and this information
was then used to kill them; if they conspired to pervert the course of
justice by destroying evidence of their activities; if they had fired plastic
bullets that resulted in the killing and maiming of black children on the
streets of London; and if all of this had gone on for over 30 years, would
the Metropolitan commissioner dare to make a statement as palpably risible
as Flanagan's? Would his force have gone unreformed for so long?
There are many who thought Chris Patten's report on the future of policing did not go far enough, and that the case for disbanding the RUC and starting afresh was unanswerable. But, for the sake of something more important, they reluctantly went along with Patten's recommendations, only to see them watered down by Peter Mandelson. If the Unionists succeed in minimising reform, the party may have reason to feel pleased, but it will be to the ultimate detriment of the north. All it will have achieved is the alienation of our burglary victim. Until he can go to the police, the law and order vacuum will continue to be filled by the men with baseball bats and pistols.
• Ronan Bennett is author of His Rebel Heart, a four-part drama set in Ireland between 1916 and 1922 to be screened on BBC1 later this year
Copyright © Guardian Media Group plc. 2000
Sunday/Monday, 28/29 May, 2000
Devolved powers restored
'Every issue a battle', says Adams
Power has been restored to the Irish institutions of government set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, amid rising hopes that the a new period of progressive change has begun in the North of Ireland.
Britain's Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson signed the order on Saturday for the resumption of the institutions, including the Executive and Belfast Assembly, which he brought down in February following a unionist threat to quit. That threat was removed on Saturday, when the Ulster Unionist Party leader and the First Minister in the Executive, David Trimble, secured a slim victory for his party to resume its part in a power-sharing government.
The all-Ireland Ministerial Council and implementation bodies, the British-Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference have also been reinstated.
Yesterday, Trimble returned to Stormont Parliament Buildings for a press conference alongside the Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon.
"We hope these institutions will take root," he told reporters.
"We hope that a new situation will develop within society. Certainly, for our part we will do everything we can to maximise the opportunity here for people.
"I hope we've come over the Rubicon this time but again, with other events, we'll wait and see how things unfold." Trimble's lack of conviction did nothing to dispel fears that anti-Agreement unionists could yet conspire to destroy the new institutions. Concerns over issues such as policing and flags remain very much to the fore, while nationalists are still incensed by sectarian insults made by Trimble in the aftermath of Saturday's vote.
Trimble said Sinn Féin members still needed to be "house-trained" before they could become democrats, and that they needed to be "brought to heel".
RACIST REMARKS
The North's Minister for Health and Public Safety, Sinn Féin's Bairbre de Brun said she found Mr Trimble's remarks disgraceful and racist.
"I do not want to detract from the positive nature of the decision but David Trimble's comments immediately afterward were totally disgraceful. They were sectarian and they were racist.
"The way in which he described myself, Martin McGuinness and other members of our party was totally and utterly sectarian.
"It's the kind of sectarianism that led to the second-class citizenship that Catholics and nationalists have known throughout the history of the state. It led to much of the conflict and it needs to be left behind," she said.
Education Minister Martin McGuinness criticised what he called Mr Trimble's "personal attack on Sinn Féin members". He said that the political process can only be advanced on the basis of inclusivity, equality and mutual respect, but that Trimble "may have some difficulty in embracing these concepts".
"Mr Trimble will have to quickly get used to the fact that unionist supremacy and domination in the north of Ireland is at an end," he added.
Mr McGuinness said that despite the furore that he was "relishing" his return to the role of Education Minister this morning, and that it was time for "sane and sensible" leadership.
Speaking outside Parliament Buildings, he attacked the "decommissioning junkies" who continued to place the issue of IRA arms above all others dealt with in the Agreement.
"We're living in a time where there is constant hope among the people," he said. "Political leaders need to reflect the reality that there is a great opportunity for us all.
"We want to build a future for everybody. The question is, are we up to that task? I think we are. I think we can get this right."
FLAG DAYS
But the depth of the divisions between nationalists and unionists is sure to be further underlined later in the week. Friday is a "flag day", one of several when British Union Jack flags are hoisted over British government buildings in the North of Ireland.
In accordance with the Good Friday Agreement's declaration of the equal parity of esteem for nationalists and unionists, McGuinness and de Brun have ordered that no flag be flown from their offices.
Unionists opposed to the Agreement have railed against this, decrying it as a "dilution of Britishness" which they insist is unacceptable in any form. The matter is due to be discussed at the first meeting of the restored Executive on Thursday, a meeting likely to be boycotted by the two Paisleyite Ministers.
Paisley's party, which has yet to decide if it will resume its two Ministerial positions, is already seeking to collapse the Executive. It is attempting to gather the 30 signatures of Assembly members necessary to force a debate and vote on whether Sinn Féin should be allowed to participate in the Executive. The Assembly's first meeting in four months takes place on June 5.
POLICING FURORE
But the continuing controversy over the name of the North's new policing service, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), is the source of the most difficulty. It is thought that some attempt may be made to include a reference in legislation to the existing Royal Ulster Constabulary, which would allow unionists to argue that the RUC is not being replaced by the PSNI.
There was some concern in nationalist and republican circles over the reported claim by UUP Deputy Leader John Taylor, at the Ulster Unionist Council meeting in Belfast on Saturday, that he had secured unspecified concessions on policing.
Mr Taylor waved about a "letter of comfort" from Mr Mandelson at the private meeting in Belfast's Waterfront Hall before calling for support for a return to government. His most prominent opponent, Jeffrey Donaldson called to him to "read it out" but Taylor said it was private between himself, the Secretary of State and the British Prime Minister.
British officials say their government's position is as outlined by Peter Mandelson in the House of Commons on May 17th, when he indicated there would be "a legal description in the Bill which incorporates the Royal Ulster Constabulary, in effect the title deeds of the new service, while introducing a new name that will be used for all working and operational purposes".
Criticising Mandelson for refusing to meet with his party over the new Policing Bill, to which the SDLP has tabled 44 amendments, Seamus Mallon expressed confusion as to what kind of deal—if any—had been done. He asked journalists: "Have you discovered yet what the title deeds of a Bill are, because I haven't?"
On his way to receive a honorary doctorate from Boston College, Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams stressed the importance of the British government fulfilling its commitments, especially on the implementation of policing reforms.
Questioned in New York on recent reports about the British government seeking assistance from the White House on policing concessions to unionists, Mr Adams said the May statement by the IRA had come in a context, particularly regarding the Patten report on policing reform.
"That is the basis on which Mr Blair signed up, that is the contract which was created. The joint statement says the British government will implement the Patten report, it's very clear, there is no ambiguity."
But the Sinn Féin leader dismissed questions on weapons and said he had confidence that the IRA would keep to its word. "I have more confidence that the IRA will keep to its commitment than I have about any other group, or any other government or any other institution in this process.
"Let's not have the next phase infected with media and other fetishes about guns. Let's let that part of the process move quietly and constructively and positively and let's all seek to make politics work, which is the only way to take the guns out of the situation."
Mr Adams also warned that "the rejection camp are going to regroup and they need to be faced down. Every issue is going to be a battle".