SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph

Adams meeting with family off
Sinn Fein blames media presence at monastery

By Andrea Clements
06 April 2005

Confusion today marred a meeting due to take place between a Londonderry family whose son was knifed to death and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

The family of James McGinley was due to meet Mr Adams at Clonard Monastery on Belfast’s Falls Road to discuss their claims republicans in Derry are covering up for and protecting Bart Fisher who is serving a three-year sentence for killing.

But waiting media were told the meeting was not going ahead although it was confirmed that both parties were inside the monastery.

A spokesman said the media should not have been told about the meeting. He said Clonard was a place of sanctuary and a misunderstanding had taken place.

Eileen McGinley, James’ mother, also said a misunderstanding had taken place. She said the meeting would be re-scheduled although she didn’t know when. “We’re waiting for Gerry Adams to contact us. He says he’s willing to help.”

A spokesperson for Sinn Fein said: “The meeting was arranged as a private meeting to allow Gerry Adams the opportunity to listen to the family. He arrived there this morning and discovered the media there. “Clonard has long been a place where individuals, organisations and religious people have met in absolute privacy to conduct business.

“There has never been a media presence at these things before.

“As a consequence of media presence the meeting between Gerry and the family didn’t go ahead.

“They had a brief conversation and agreed to re-schedule for another time and another place.”

BreakingNews.ie

Taoiseach demands action from IRA

06/04/2005 - 18:32:37

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said today’s statement from Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams must be matched by action from the IRA.

Mr Ahern said: “Mr Adams says that the Republican movement has reached a defining moment.

“He has asked the IRA to initiate internal consultations on the steps they must take as quickly as possible.

“We must obviously await the response of the IRA to this appeal.

“It is vital that the IRA’s consultations be concluded in a timely manner and that everyone will know that the necessary steps have been taken, that they will be adhered to and that the IRA is thus moving on.

“For so many years we have had false dawns and dashed hopes,” the Taoiseach said.

BreakingNews.ie

Two ‘ex-soldiers’ held over 1974 murder

06/04/2005 - 19:03:31

Two men were still being questioned tonight about the murder of a nationalist councillor in Northern Ireland over 30 years ago.

They are being held at Antrim for interview by detectives investigating the murder of Patrick Kelly, aged 33, who was shot dead in July 1974 and his body then dumped into a lake.

Two other men who were also arrested as part of the investigation were released today without charge.

Sources close to the investigation said some, if not all four men, were former soldiers in the Ulster Defence Regiment.

Relatives of the victim claim the UDR was involved in the murder when Mr Kelly was shot dead after locking up his bar in the village of Trillick, County Tyrone. His car was found burned-out and three weeks later his body was discovered in a lake 10 miles away.

Irish Examiner

**Forgive me a little levity here, but I thought from the headline she had seen the Pope wearing a gown, but it turns out she saw an apparition of the Pope ON the gown - Ohhhhhhhkayyyyy! This is much better than seeing Madonna in a grilled cheese…

I saw Pope in hairdresser’s gown, claims grandmother

06 April 2005
By Jimmy Woulfe, Mid-WestCorrespondent

A CO Tipperary grandmother claims she saw an apparition of Pope John Paul II while at the hairdressers last Saturday.
Mary Ward who lives at Ballygraigue, Nenagh, said the vision of the Pope appeared on the hairdresser’s gown she was wearing in the Cut and Dye salon in Friar Street.

Staff members at the salon also claim they saw the apparition.

Mrs Ward has now placed the gown on an altar to the Pope she has erected at her home.

“I saw the apparition of the Pope when I was having my hair done at around 2pm on Saturday last. I was having highlights put into my hair when the view appeared on my lap on the black gown. He was smiling. I then asked one of the girls, Tracey, if she could see anything as I moved to get under the hair drier and one of them said ‘oh my God it’s the Pope’,” Mrs Ward said.

“A few other of the girls working in the salon saw it. It lasted for about a quarter of an hour. I shook the gown and the face was still there. The Pope looked what he was like about the time he came to Ireland. He was smiling and I could see the lines on his face on the gown. When I got up to go under the hair drier it went away.”

Mrs Ward, who has three adult children and four grandchildren, took the nylon black gown home with her.

“I have put it on an altar I have made to the Pope with flowers and candles,” she said.

Now she expects the home where she lives with her husband, Bert, will be inundated with callers to see the gown.

“Already there have been a lot of photographers calling to get pictures,” she said.

Hairdresser, Tracey Shoer, from St Joseph’s Terrace, who works in the salon said she also saw the apparition.

Tracey said: “One of the other girls told me to have a look at the gown. I didn’t have a clue what it was and then I saw the Pope’s face, clear as day. He was a young Pope with the big tall hat on his head … There were a few customers in at the time who saw it. I have never seen anything like this before.”

Since word of the reported apparition spread, many people have been calling to the salon.

Bernadette Ryan, owner of Cut and Dye salon said: “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want this place to turn into a shrine.”

Daily Ireland

TAKE FIVE - Stadium Stormont

By Tommy McKearney

click to view - photo from coiste.ie

If you travel westwards along the M1 from Belfast, you’ll be able to see a graphic example of one of Britain’s answers to its Irish problem. It’s called Long Kesh. Some call it the Maze and others talk about the Blocks but all agree that it was a large, high-security, British Army-guarded prison housing hundreds of political prisoners.
Unlike the Crumlin Road or Armagh jails, Long Kesh was built specifically to hold prisoners of the Northern Irish conflict. For reasons of British state policy it was deemed expedient also to house non-political prisoners there but, have no doubts, Long Kesh was not erected because of some inexplicable outbreak of violence in Northern Ireland. It was designed because, for half a century, London endorsed an undemocratic regime in Belfast and when challenged by a peaceful civil rights movement, refused to order meaningful radical improvements. The inevitable outcome was that a long-suffering and incredibly patient community resorted to arms.
It is recognised as failure on the part of any government, when a sizeable section of the population feels driven to insurrection. Witnessing major civil upheaval, good administrations examine their stewardship; arrogant bullies tend to blame and then punish the people. Like incompetent doctors burying their mistakes, Britain shot or locked up evidence of its inability to create democracy within Northern Ireland; constitutionally an integral part of the United Kingdom.
Many examples exist of London’s mismanagement of Northern Irish affairs. Graveyards and ‘peace-walls’ and segregated education to mention just a few, though for starkness little compares with the concrete monstrosity situated beside Ireland’s first-ever dual-carriageway. Stop and look at it and ask why the British government needed that Bastille in order to govern this small piece of territory.
Better go soon too, because the British government intends building a sports complex over the site. Sure, there will be a token Block left, but effectively the testimony to monumental, decades-long British governmental failure will be covered-up physically and metaphorically. It is disgraceful that the British government is attempting to hide evidence of its years of failure and scandalous that sporting organisations might aid and abet them do so.
The entire site should be retained, not for partisan purpose but as a marker to remind us where bad governance leads.
If Britain really wishes to build upon its failures here, why not place the new stadium on top of a demolished Stormont?

Tommy McKearney is a former member of the IRA and now works with ex-prisoners and as an organizer for the Independent Workers Union.

Daily Ireland

Border areas a ‘cold house’

Photo of Clones from this >>this album

The Southern Border counties were a cold house for thousands of republicans who had fled the North during the Troubles, according to a landmark research report.
The new research, entitled The Emerald Curtain, was launched yesterday at a conference in the Slieve Russell Hotel in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan.
The report found that about 2,000 Northern ex-prisoners and about 2,000 Southern ex-prisoners settled along the Border with their families.
Brian Harvey, one of the project’s researchers, told Daily Ireland yesterday: “They were received like many immigrants are received today — as troublemakers.
“This group continues to face difficulty in accessing employment due to both legal and illegal discrimination. Many found themselves in poverty, cut off from society.
“Our report recommends that they be targeted in the national action against poverty strategy.
“We have also found that many of the republicans’ children have experienced real problems of identity.”
Researchers Brian Harvey, Assumpta Kelly, Seán McGearty and Sonya Murray have called for additional government expenditure in areas such as health, transport, and community and social services. Several key issues were discussed at a conference after the launch of the report and had a positive response.
The researchers took the town of Clones in Co Monaghan as an example of a community affected by the division through the economic war and split with sterling.
“Clones used to be the most prosperous town in the area before partition severed it from its economic heartland of Fermanagh and the Erne Valley,” Mr Harvey said.
“Between the 1911 census and the 1952 census, Co Monaghan went from being regarded as a prosperous area to being termed ‘disadvantaged’.”
The report also looks at a range of issues, including the effects the Border had on women, and the Southern Protestant community since partition.
Speaking to Daily Ireland about the effects of the Border on women, Mr Harvey said: “With road closures along the Border, the Ulster economy was split in two, and the counties on each side of the Border became peripheral to the decision-making process and the area was left underdeveloped.
“As a consequence of this, women stayed in the home as this is a feature of underdevelopment.”
The study has also found that the Southern Protestant community has been adversely affected by the presence of the Border.
Mr Harvey said: “Some of them felt that their identity is not respected. For example, there has been no Orange Order march in Monaghan since the 1930s. I also had an opportunity to visit Orange halls in Monaghan and they have all had to have their windows barricaded up.”
The study found that there was a need for more cross-Border political co-operation.
“While politicians from the area do work together, the people living in the Border areas do not have a strong political body to represent them,” said Mr Harvey.
The report recommended the establishment of a North-South civic forum, as proposed in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and also by the draft agreement of December 2004 between the British and Irish governments, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin.

Daily Ireland

Pope’s condemnation of violence on Irish visit was for one side only – the oppressed

By Danny Morrison

The loyalist prisoners in Crumlin Road all cheered and whooped with joy and we were convinced that a Catholic had been killed overnight. We had no radio in our cell but quickly learnt that the news had announced the death of Pope John Paul, who had been pope for just 33 days.
His successor, Karol Wojtyla, was elected shortly afterwards and took the name Pope John Paul II.
Various historical and political repercussions have been attributed to John Paul II’s papacy, not least that his visit to his homeland, Poland, in 1979 — when millions turned out to hear him and got a sense of their real strength — provided the impetus to the Solidarity trade union movement and the eventual downfall of communism.
That same year, Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich announced that the Pope would be visiting Ireland from Saturday, September 29 until Monday, October 1. The Holy See said that the various details of the visit had yet to be determined, and there was great speculation about the reaction of unionists and possible disturbances if the Pope came North. For Northern nationalists, who felt deserted and beleaguered, it would have been spiritually galvanising and on a par with John Paul’s visit to the beleaguered Poles under communist rule.
At the time, I was firmly convinced that neither the British nor Irish governments, nor sections of the Catholic hierarchy, wanted him to visit the North. Firstly, this was a state whose proud badge was “No pope here”. A visit would have presented a security nightmare given the likelihood of Paisley-led protests — Ian Paisley had only recently topped the poll in the first European elections — and the possibility of riots or worse. Loyalist protesters would have exposed themselves as narrow-minded bigots at a time when the thrust of both British and Irish government propaganda was to hold the republican movement responsible for all violence.
Were the Pope to have stood on the soil of the Six Counties, how could he have remained silent about the reality of life there? On the one hand, he could certainly have spoken about the ferocity of the IRA campaign. But, on the other hand, he would have had to address the violence of the state and thus embarrass the British government.
He would have had to speak about the torture of those held in interrogation centres; the sectarian loyalist assassination campaign against Catholics for being Catholic as well as nationalist; the beatings in the H-blocks; and about Armagh prison, where women were locked up 24 hours a day, deprived of exercise, visits, letters, toilets.
Even Cardinal Ó Fiaich had described the H-blocks as “one of the great obstacles to peace in our community”.
On August 27, an IRA bomb killed Lord Louis Mountbatten and three others in Sligo Bay. A few hours later, the IRA killed 18 British soldiers in two landmine explosions near Warrenpoint. Even though Lord Mountbatten had been killed by the IRA in the South, it was announced that the Pope would not now be visiting the North because of “the upsurge in IRA attacks”. A Northern visit that should have been undertaken for pastoral reasons was cancelled for political reasons.
Two weeks later, there was speculation from sources in Rome that the Pope would make “a major speech on terrorism and injustice”. Closer to home, Bishop Cahal Daly said that “the Pope may ask the IRA to put away its guns”. It was easy to see what way the wind was blowing.
There was massive disappointment in the North among the faithful. But people — including many republican supporters — began frantically raising funds and organising buses to go to Drogheda in Co Louth to hear the Pope. I was amazed and a bit disturbed at the zealotry. Perhaps if I had been the Catholic I once was, I would have been able to empathise but I saw only the politics of this visit and expected the play of propaganda and the same things we had been used to hearing before. I remember how deserted our streets were the day he came to Drogheda.
I listened to his speech on television.
Pope John Paul II on his knees begged republicans “to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace. You may claim to seek justice,” he told us. “I, too, believe in justice and seek justice… Further violence in Ireland will only drag down to ruin the land you claim to love and the values you claim to cherish.”
I waited for some analysis — however superficial — of the causes of violence, about the inequalities caused by partition. He referred to Oliver Plunkett’s head but not to the people who cut it off.
He addressed the politicians. He started off with a token pretence to equivalence of treatment: “To all who bear political responsibility for the affairs of Ireland, I want to speak with the same urgency and intensity with which I have spoken to the men of violence.” But it was only advice he wanted to give them: “Do not cause or condone or tolerate conditions which give excuse or pretext to men of violence.”
Bishop Cahal Daly’s fingerprints were all over the speech, and an opportunity was squandered to put pressure on the British government to resolve the prison crises and encourage republicans to view an alternative to armed struggle.
In June 1981, after the deaths of the first four hunger strikers, Cardinal Ó Fiaich went to Margaret Thatcher and appealed to her to make some changes in the prison regime to resolve the hunger strike. She said it would be wrong to give any concessions to the prisoners and fulsomely quoted the Pope’s 1979 speech on the “men of violence” to justify her position. Subsequently, British governments were to quote Cardinal Cahal Daly’s stance in refusing to meet with the Sinn Féin president and MP for west Belfast, Gerry Adams, as part justification for their refusal to talk to Sinn Féin.
“Men of violence” was a phrase coined by Brian Faulkner when he introduced internment in 1971. After direct rule in 1972, it was used extensively by British secretaries of state and prime ministers. It was a phrase that had pro-British and anti-republican connotations. By no stretch of the imagination was the Pope’s use of this phrase simple naivety or coincidental.
And so, despite the Falls curfew, internment and Bloody Sunday, the British men of violence were allowed off the hook and were not asked to account for the children, women and men they had killed, for the prisoners they had tortured. Papal excoriation was for one side only — the weakest side, the oppressed.
Yet an obvious disparity between the Pope’s criticism of the IRA and the reality of the wider nature of the conflict came at the youth Mass on the Sunday. Two teenage victims of British and loyalist violence were introduced to the Pope. He warmly greeted 19-year-old Richard Moore, who had been blinded when he was 11 by a British army rubber bullet, and 16-year-old Damien Irwin, who had lost a leg when loyalists bombed the route of an Easter parade in Belfast in 1977. But their details and the causes of their suffering were never included in any speeches the Pope made because to have done so would have been to raise questions about the nature of the conflict and why he had condemned only one side.
John Paul II also urged adherence to traditional Catholic moral values and denounced abortion, divorce, contraception, sexual promiscuity and drugs — thus calling into line the changing and changed morality of most Irish Catholics.
However, it was typically his denunciation of the armed struggle that was given most prominence. And so we had discriminating editorials like that in The Irish Times, which called on the IRA to say: “The Pope was right. There is another way” — but did not make the same call to the 400,000 Irish women on the pill.
Two days after the Pope left Ireland, loyalist gunmen burst into the home of 42-year-old Sadie Larmour, just off west Belfast’s Falls Road, at around tea time and shot her twice. Her sister and her 78-year-old mother were also fired on but escaped injury.
Sadie Larmour died 15 minutes later. When her death was announced on the radio, loyalist prisoners in Crumlin Road jail cheered and whooped with joy.

Danny Morrison is a regular media commentator on Irish politics. He is the author of three novels, three works of non-fiction, and a play about the IRA, The Wrong Man.

Guardian

BNP leader faces race hate charges

Press Association
Wednesday April 6, 2005

The leader of the British National party was today charged with four race hate offences, police said.

Nick Griffin, 45, was arrested at his home in mid-Wales last December by West Yorkshire police as part of a long-running investigation into the BBC programme Secret Agent.

Mr Griffin answered his bail today at Halifax police station and was charged with four offences of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.

The Secret Agent documentary, screened in July last year, featured undercover filming of BNP activists.

Mr Griffin will appear before Leeds magistrates court tomorrow.

Earlier today, the BNP founding chairman, John Tyndall, was charged with two offences of using words or behaviour intended or likely to stir up racial hatred.

Mr Tyndall, 70, of Brighton, was arrested in December last year following a speech he made in Burnley in March 2004 as part of the same investigation into the BBC documentary. He will also appear before magistrates in Leeds tomorrow.

More than 250 BNP supporters from all over the country, draped in Union and St George’s flags, gathered outside the police station as Mr Griffin answered his bail this afternoon.

The party had organised what it described as “a freedom of speech” rally, to highlight what it claimed was a campaign to stop it speaking about immigration.

Mr Griffin arrived at the police station to loud cheers from supporters.

The crowd chanted “Freedom, freedom” as he launched an attack on the government and West Yorkshire police.

Before he was charged today, Mr Griffin told protesters: “We’re not going to protest by rioting. We will leave that to the far left and the Muslims.”

People of all ages held “Fighting For Democracy” placards and cheered as a bagpiper played.

More than a dozen police officers monitored the demonstration.

Mark Collett, 24, a BNP activist from Leeds, has also been charged today with eight counts of the same offence and will be appearing at Leeds magistrates court tomorrow with both Mr Griffin and Mr Tyndall.

The charges follow a joint investigation by West Yorkshire police and the Crown Prosecution Service casework directorate.

Later Mr Griffin emerged from the police station and made the victory sign to the crowd. He told them that he had been charged for telling the truth and would use his trial as a platform for defending the party’s belief.

He said: “Whether I am found guilty will depend on the jury and whether someone should be jailed for telling the truth.”

Mr Griffin told reporters that he had “no regrets” and “would continue to tell the truth” even if he had to go to jail.

Mr Griffin led a rendition of Jerusalem followed by the Lord’s Prayer before leaving in a people carrier.

Sinn Féin

An Address to the IRA

Published: 6 April, 2005

The following is the text of a speech by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams.

I want to speak directly to the men and women of Oglaigh na hEireann, the volunteer soldiers of the Irish Republican Army.

In time of great peril you stepped into the Bearna Baoil, the gap of danger. When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.

Against mighty odds you held the line and faced down a huge military foe, the British crown forces and their surrogates in the unionist death squads.

Eleven years ago the Army leadership ordered a complete cessation of military operations. This courageous decision was in response to proposals put forward by the Sinn Fein leadership to construct a peace process, build democratic politics and achieve a lasting peace.

Since then despite many provocations and setbacks the cessation has endured.

And more than that, when elements within the British and Irish establishments and rejectionist unionism delayed progress, it was the IRA leadership which authorised a number of significant initiatives to enhance the peace process.

On a number of occasions commitments have been reneged on. These include commitments from the two governments.

The Irish Republican Army has kept every commitment made by its leadership.

The most recent of these was last December when the IRA was prepared to support a comprehensive agreement. At that time the Army leadership said the implementation of this agreement would allow everyone, including the IRA, to take its political objectives forward by peaceful and democratic means.

That agreement perished on the rock of unionist intransigence. The shortsightedness of the two governments compounded the difficulties.

Since then there has been a vicious campaign of vilification against republicans, driven in the main by the Irish government. There are a number of reasons for this.

The growing political influence of Sinn Fein is a primary factor.

The unionists also for their part, want to minimise the potential for change, not only on the equality agenda but on the issues of sovereignty and ending the union.

The IRA is being used as the excuse by them all not to engage properly in the process of building peace with justice in Ireland.

For over thirty years the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms. You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence. Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice.

Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought the freedom struggle towards its fulfillment.

That struggle can now be taken forward by other means. I say this with the authority of my office as President of Sinn Fein.

In the past I have defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle. I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee, or turn a blind eye to oppression, or for those who wanted a national republic.

Now there is an alternative.

I have clearly set out my view of what that alternative is. The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

I want to use this occasion therefore to appeal to the leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann to fully embrace and accept this alternative.

Can you take courageous initiatives which will achieve your aims by purely political and democratic activity?

I know full well that such truly historic decisions can only be taken in the aftermath of intense internal consultation. I ask that you initiate this as quickly as possible.

I understand fully that the IRAs most recent positive contribution to the peace process was in the context of a comprehensive agreement. But I also hold the very strong view that republicans need to lead by example.

There is no greater demonstration of this than the IRA cessation in the summer of 1994.

Sinn Fein has demonstrated the ability to play a leadership role as part of a popular movement towards peace, equality and justice.

We are totally commited to ending partition and to creating the conditions for unity and independence. Sinn Fein has the potential and capacity to become the vehicle for the attainment of republican objectives.

The Ireland we live in today is also very different place from 15 years ago. There is now an all-Ireland agenda with huge potential.

Nationalists and republicans have a confidence that will never again allow anyone to be treated as second class citizens. Equality is our watchword.

The catalyst for much of this change is the growing support for republicanism.

Of course, those who oppose change are not going to simply roll over. It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo. But if republicans are to prevail, if the peace process is to be successfully concluded and Irish sovereignty and re-unification secured, then we have to set the agenda - no one else is going to do that.

So, I also want to make a personal appeal to all of you - the women and men volunteers who have remained undefeated in the face of tremendous odds.

Now is the time for you to step into the Bearna Baoil again; not as volunteers risking life and limb but as activists in a national movement towards independence and unity.

Such decisions will be far reaching and difficult. But you never lacked courage in the past. Your courage is now needed for the future.

It won‚t be easy. There are many problems to be resolved by the people of Ireland in the time ahead. Your ability as republican volunteers, to rise to this challenge will mean that the two governments and others cannot easily hide from their obligations and their responsibility to resolve these problems.

Our struggle has reached a defining moment.

I am asking you to join me in seizing this moment, to intensify our efforts, to rebuild the peace process and decisively move our struggle forward.

BreakingNews.ie

Borrell to hold taks over ‘wall of silence’

06/04/2005 - 16:00:41

European Parliament President Josep Borrell is holding talks with senior Euro-MPs tomorrow in a bid to break the “wall of silence” surrounding the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney.

The move was announced after Mr Borrell met three of Mr McCartney’s campaigning sisters in Brussels this afternoon.

Catherine, Paula and Gemma McCartney had spent the morning in a series of meetings with Euro-MPs explaining that their search for justice in Northern Ireland was running into the ground.

Catherine McCartney described how the family was confronting a “wall of silence which is as strong today as it was on the day Robert was murdered“.

Gemma McCartney described it as a “conspiracy of silence“.

Their 33-year-old brother was stabbed after a row in a bar in Belfast city centre on January 30.

This afternoon Mr Borrell said the family had full European Parliament support in their campaign and he had been “honoured to meet the three sisters”.

He went on: “I am deeply impressed by the bravery they have shown in standing up to impunity and by the campaign for Justice they are leading.

“The rule of law must prevail in all countries of the EU and in all circumstances. Justice must prevail for all victims of violence – it cannot be partial or sectarian.”

Then Mr Borrell said: “The doors of the European Parliament will always be open to those who need a public tribune to fight any kind of injustice and I will discuss tomorrow with the group chairmen what we – as an institution representing all European citizens – can do to help to break the ’wall of silence’ surrounding Robert’s murder.”

Group chairmen are the leaders of the various political groupings in the European Parliament, who had earlier heard Catherine McCartney urge financial backing to launch a civil action against those the family believe were responsible for Robert McCartney’s murder.

She said police efforts and the intervention of the ombudsman had produced no results and there was “no sign of a breakthrough“.

The alternative was a civil action – but that required money the McCartneys do not have.

Mr Borrell’s talks tomorrow will look into whether there are ways to use the Parliament budget to help individual cases.

Leader of the British Labour MEPs Gary Titley said it might not be possible to use Parliament funds directly to finance an individual legal action, but he suggested MEPs across the board would be willing to contribute from their own pockets.

BBC

Adams urges IRA to embrace peace

Mr Adams said text had been given to the IRA

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has appealed to the IRA to help rebuild the Northern Ireland political process.

In a direct call to members of the terror group, he asked them to “fully embrace and accept” democratic means.

He said the text of his statement had been given to the leadership of the IRA.

Mr Adams said he wanted to speak directly to members of the IRA, describing them as “courageous” and praising its ceasefire.

It had “kept every commitment made by its leadership”, he said.

The struggle had reached a defining moment and he appealed to members of the IRA to move forward.

“For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms. You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence.

“Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice. Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought that freedom struggle forward towards its attainment.

“That struggle can now be taken forward by other means. I say this with the authority of my office as president of Sinn Fein.”

Mr Adams said that in the past he had defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle.

“I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee or turn a blind eye to oppression or for those who wanted a national republic.

“Now there is an alternative. I have clearly set out my view of what that alternative is. The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.”

Sinn Fein has been under pressure and was recently snubbed in the US over claims of IRA criminality.

Mr Adams said text had been given to the IRA

However earlier on Wednesday, DUP leader Ian Paisley said that Sinn Fein had put themselves beyond the pale as far as the political process was concerned.

“It’s goodbye as far as we’re concerned to them. We’re not having any more discussions until the British government say there’s no place for people who put themselves outside the pale,” he said.

SDLP deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell said the public would be sceptical of any promises from Sinn Fein in the run-up to polling day.

“People now see very clearly that a vote for Sinn Fein gives the IRA no incentive to clean up its act,” he said.

‘Ongoing criminal activity’

Talks last year failed to restore devolution, which stalled amid claims of IRA intelligence gathering at Stormont in 2002.

Since then there have been claims that the IRA was involved in the £26.5m Northern Bank raid.

The party has also been under pressure over the murder of Short Strand man Robert McCartney in December. His family have claimed IRA members were involved in the killing.

Senator Edward Kennedy to refuse to meet Adams during the St Patrick’s week celebrations because of the IRA’s “ongoing criminal activity”.

Republicans have been under pressure since January to try to end the IRA activities following December’s £26.5m Northern Bank raid in Belfast and the murder on 30 January of father of two Robert McCartney outside a bar in the city.

The IRA expelled three members over the murder and Sinn Fein subsequently suspended seven of its members.

Newshound

Confusion still remains over role of the UDA

(Susan McKay, Irish News)

“To dispel any confusion,” the statement said, “the east Belfast UDA are now under direct command of the Inner Council.”

The trouble with the UDA’s statement about the getting rid of Jim Gray is that the confusion remains. What was his job? What sort of commands will the ‘Inner Council’ issue, now that Doris Day has packed his floral shirts and headed for Cherry Valley or the Costa Del Sol?

Who needs the UDA?

The notion is that there is the good UDA, and the bad UDA.

Jackie McDonald is good UDA. He is a community worker. He is embarrassed when the President of Ireland says some Protestants bring their children up to hate Catholics but he forgives her when she says it was a mistake. He plays golf with her husband.

Jim Gray is bad UDA because he was a criminal. He was a drug dealer who was out of his head on cocaine and therefore paranoid, angry and violent. According to one UDA source his ousting last week was “the most popular thing in east Belfast since the launching of the Titanic.”

Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair thought Gray was bad for loyalism because of his powder pink cashmere sweaters but he doesn’t count any more.

The trouble with this is that McDonald and Gray both style themselves brigadiers in an army that says it won’t go away until it is no longer needed. It says it won’t disarm or disband until the IRA does.

Gray has already been replaced.

The UDA harks back to the ‘proud old days’ when it served God and Ulster.

We are meant to believe that there has been a decline, during which corrupt tyrants like Gray have flourished.

Under the ‘John Gregg Initiative’ the UDA is, we are told, going to commit itself to peace. (Gregg, who had a full colour tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his back, must be turning in his grave.) Some of those backing this initiative undoubtedly mean it and all moves in that direction are to be entirely welcomed.

But we have heard it all before.

The initiative can’t work unless the UDA faces up to itself and until unionism and the British government take responsibility for the monster they created.

The UDA went about sledgehammering doors and shooting unarmed Catholics for 30 years. It was given names and photomontages by the British army.

It was given support, sometimes tacit, sometimes overt, by unionist politicians, who then shunned it after it carried out its

appaling acts. Loyalist areas have been turned into miserable fiefdoms under UDA control. Get drunk in a shebeen. Get a taxi home. Go to a brothel. Get a television. Get drugs. Get a loan to pay for it all. The UDA provides all these services. And if you can’t pay it back? Get ready for the heavies to arrive on your doorstep.

The Housing Executive is spending a fortune rehousing families driven out by UDA thugs whose life skills extend to sinking a dozen or so pints, breaking down a door and shouting, “get out fenian bastards”. After such an incident recently, a local DUP representative stated that there was “no problem with sectarianism in

the town”. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Secretary of State blithely wrote off Judge Peter Cory’s outrage over the fact that the Inquiries Bill will make finding the truth about British collusion with the UDA in the murder of Pat Finucane impossible. The Orange Order still refuses to talk with nationalist residents associations yet hires bands which can’t play music and are essentially local militias.

Many of the ‘young defenders’ and ‘young conquerors’ who will stagger about again this summer ahead of the dignified-in-sashes brigade, will carry UDA flags. Nothing we can do about it, the Order says. Attempts to politicise the UDA have failed – Davy Adams of the now defunct Ulster Democratic Party was recently sent a pig’s head by those to whom he used to offer political analysis. Johnny Adair looked comical in that suit. Redundant UDA men need to become ordinary citizens.

It is probably safe to assume the UDA got to Gray just before Alan McQuillan and his Assets Recovery Agency. It is to be hoped that the police too will help the UDA along this time in its alleged project of marginalising the “criminal element”.

Seize, arrest and prosecute.

The time for denial is over. The UDA was always paranoid, angry and violent.

It never protected anyone.

No-one needs it any more.

April 6, 2005
________________

This article appeared first in the April 5, 2005 edition of the Irish News.

Irish Independent

Provos set to make major pre-election peace gesture

THE Provisional republican movement is on the brink of making a major gesture to help the North’s peace process in a bid to boost their prospects in next month’s elections.

Last night, the Irish and British governments were awaiting what was expected to be a highly significant announcement from either Sinn Fein or the IRA.

The contents of the imminent announcement are not known but will be linked to existing electoral strategies.

Official and republican circles in Belfast were last night awash with rumours about the gesture, which is confidently predicted to have a positive impact on the peace process.

Sinn Fein has been under heavy pressure in Belfast and other parts of the North following the disclosure that senior IRA men were involved in the brutal murder of Robert McCartney in a pub last December.

The fallout from the €38m Northern Bank raid in Belfast and the subsequent revelation that some of the stolen cash was being laundered in an IRA operation based in Cork also added to the pressure.

The declaration is being seen as a bid to recover perceived lost ground and boost their pavement politics campaign, which will be waged on local issues such as drugs and anti-social behaviour. If the gesture is political, it is likely to involve a big step forward by Sinn Fein - such as deciding to take part in the Northern policing boards. A paramilitary gesture from the IRA could result in a major act of arms decommissioning or a firm indication that the movement’s military wing was prepared to wind down its activities if substantial progress was achieved in other areas.

Sinn Fein has already launched a massive campaign on the streets in the North ahead of the local as well as the Westminster elections and the timing of a big gesture from the Provisionals will be crucial for their electoral prospects.

Tom Brady
Security Editor

BreakingNews.ie

Paisley rules out power-sharing with SF

06/04/2005 - 11:31:31

Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley has vowed never to speak to Sinn Féin under to any circumstances.

Speaking at the launch of his party’s general election campaign in Belfast, Dr Paisley categorically ruled out any negotiations between the DUP and Sinn Féin after the May 5 British general election.

The 79-year-old said he would never share power with what he called a “terrorist organisation” and there was nothing republicans could say that would alter that.

His comments come ahead of a speech later today by Gerry Adams in which he is expected to outline the difficult choices faced by republicans if they want the peace process to continue.

Belfast Telegraph

SF chief helps launch anti-racist advice pack

By Deborah McAleese
06 April 2005

West Belfast MP Gerry Adams has helped launch a welcome pack in a bid to battle racism in his constituency.

The advice pack - Comhar na gComharsan - offers help to members of ethnic minority communities living in the area.

It includes information on minority ethnic organisations, community groups and advice centres, as well as advice on personal safety and racial discrimination. It also contains background on life in west Belfast.

The pack was developed by the West Belfast Anti-Racism Network (WARN) along with a host of other organisations in the area.

“Comhar na gComharsan under-pins the ethic as to how we want to live. From our taxi service to our community groups and right across the board, this is the ancient law of helping our neighbour,” said Mr Adams.

Sara Boyce of WARN said the pack was a response by the community to racism.

She added: “One only has to look at the living conditions of the travellers to witness institutionalised racism over the past 30 years.”

Donal McKinney of the Falls Community Council said the community’s response to racism can be measured by the effort it makes to tackle the problem.

News Letter

UDA To Oust Two More Chiefs After Gray’s Expulsion

Exclusive By Gemma Murray Security Correspondent
Wednesday 6th April 2005

Two more of the UDA’s so-called inner council are set to be ousted from the paramilitary organisation.

The News Letter can reveal that so-called brigadiers Andre Shoukri, who operates in north Belfast, and Jim Spence, who operates in the west of the city, will be thrown out of the organisation in the next six weeks.

The expulsions leave only three existing members of the inner council in place, in south Belfast, east Antrim and Londonderry and north Antrim.

Last week Jim Gray, 43, also one of the so-called brigadiers on the inner council of Ulster’s largest loyalist terror grouping, was deposed along with other members of his east Belfast unit.

A well-placed loyalist source said yesterday that Shoukri and Spence had been warned to clean up their act, but had failed to do so.

“You will see two more fall from their thrones in the next six weeks,” the source said. “Shoukri is likely to be stood down first because he’s in serious trouble.

“He has been gambling and hogging the limelight - everything seems to be about him and not the organisation. That is also the reason Doris [Jim Gray] had to go.

“The brigadiers are supposed to be taking a back seat, but Shoukri likes the spotlight. He’s been told the same as Spence - to stay out of the limelight and stop making the headlines, but they have not listened.

“We are trying to get the organisation cleaned up and get the deadwood thrown out. They were told to start cleaning up their act a couple of months ago, so they have been given time.”

Sources said Gray’s bleached hair, gold jewellery, year-round tan and lavish lifestyle were an increasing source of embarrassment to the UDA as it tried to restore its tattered image.

The east Belfast branch of the organisation is now under the direct command of the inner council, which is trying to restore its credibility.

The source said: “Gray is in Marbella in Spain in one of his properties at the moment. No-one has been appointed yet to replace him, and the east is being run by the inner council.

“It all depends on what Jackie McDonald [commander in south Belfast] decides to do. He is running the show at the moment.”

The UDA claims to have been on ceasefire for two years, but many remain sceptical about its commitment to peace.

g.murray@newsletter.co.uk

IRA2

New Special Forces unit will spy on the ‘terrorists’

By Thomas Harding
(Filed: 06/04/2005)
Daily Telegraph

The Army’s first new regiment in more than three decades begins operations today to provide covert surveillance for Special Forces fighting the international terrorist threat.

The Special Reconnaissance Regiment will draw on the experience of undercover soldiers who have conducted successful operations in Northern Ireland.

The new unit, the first to be formed since the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1970, will have an international and domestic role to provide intelligence to fight terrorism.

Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said yesterday that the unit was been formed to meet a worldwide demand for “special reconnaissance capability”.

It will incorporate the surveillance skills learnt by the SAS and other units over decades of carrying out close target reconnaissance missions in enemy territory.

The formation of the regiment will free up a large portion of elite fighting troopers in the SAS and Special Boat Service to carry out the “hard end” of missions.

The SAS is finding it difficult to recruit enough soldiers to pass its tough selection course. But an equally rigorous selection test is likely to be used by the new unit, whose troops will have to undertake the arduous task of acting behind enemy lines.

It will absorb the 14th Intelligence Company, nicknamed “14 Int”, which was formed to gather intelligence on Ulster terrorists. Recruits undergo a rigorous selection course, equivalent to the Paras’ “P Company” training, and are trained by the SAS in close quarter battle.

The detachment, which is still operating in Ulster and the Balkans, recruited men and women from all three Services. At its height, 14 Int numbered about 200 troops. The new regiment could have up to 300 troops and will be based alongside the SAS.

The new cap badge shows a Corinthian helmet with a sword inserted in the mouth and coming out of the back of the head. A scroll reads: “Reconnaissance”.

The Ministry of Defence said the cap badge design was related to the SAS and SBS badges, “ensuring conformity within the Special Forces Group.

“The Corinthian-style helmet, favoured by the ancient Greeks from the early 7th to 4th centuries BC. The helmet faces forward and suggests the viewer is being watched while the wearer behind the mask is anonymous.”

BBC

Four held in 1974 murder inquiry

Searches were organised to look for missing man

Four men have been arrested by police investigating the murder of a Tyrone councillor more than 30 years ago.

Patrick Kelly, a nationalist member of Omagh District Council, was shot dead in July 1974 after locking up a bar.

His body was found in a lake in County Fermanagh several weeks later. Four men were arrested in their homes on Tuesday and are being questioned in Antrim.

The murder was admitted by the UFF. The inquiry was re-opened in 2003, led by an officer from the West Midlands.

Mr Kelly, 33, was shot on the Badoney Road as he drove to his home at Golan on 24 July 1974.

That same night, bloodstains, shirt buttons and cartridge cases were found on the roadside a mile from Trillick, where it is believed he met his killers.

His body was found three weeks later, 10 miles away in Lough Eyes in Fermanagh. He had been shot several times and his body had been weighted down.

A major search was launched after the roadside discoveries, but it was called off a week before Mr Kelly’s body floated to the surface of the lake.

Police had been under intense pressure to launch a fresh investigation amid claims of collusion between the killers and the security forces in the murder.

His family want an independent inquiry into his death.

BreakingNews.ie

EU accused of complicity in mistreatment of live exports

06/04/2005 - 07:40:35

Compassion in World Farming has accused the European Union of complicity in the mistreatment of livestock exported to the Middle East.

The organisation claims to have documentary evidence proving the ill-treatment of livestock in transit and on arrival in non-EU states.

It is due to present the evidence to members of the European Parliament in Brussels later today.

Speaking ahead of the presentation, spokesperson Mary-Anne Bartlett said EU taxpayers were unwittingly subsidising such cruelty.

“Every animal that goes out receives a subsidy of around €200 per head,” she said.

Belfast Telegraph

Adams faces up to republican fall-out
Key speech as polls test credibility

By Noel McAdam
06 April 2005

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was moving today to seize the initiative back for republicans after weeks of political deadlock and sustained pressure over IRA criminality.

Party sources said his speech would be one of his most important for many years, although - while waiting to hear the full text - political opponents said they feared the exercise would prove entirely opportunistic.

In a keynote speech later today, Mr Adams was expected to spell out in some detail the “necessary next steps” the republican movement must take.

But senior party sources stressed there would be no formal announcement on the future of the IRA or any decisive move towards joining the Policing Board.

Talking up the significance of the address in west Belfast, however, a senior Adams aide said it would be “probably among the most important remarks of the last 30 years”.

The comments were not expected, however, to spark a new sequence, including decommissioning towards restoring devolution, but could, Sinn Fein argued, “create the potential for movement in the period ahead”.

Officials from both the British and Irish governments were waiting to judge the substance and tenor of Mr Adams’ words.

The speech came as the sisters of murdered Belfast man Robert McCartney met senior European Union figures and a Londonderry family asked Mr Adams to expel the man convicted of the manslaughter of their son.

But Sinn Fein denied Mr Adams’ planned remarks resulted from pressure the party is under over the McCartney murder, alleged IRA involvement in the Northern Bank raid - or the elections four weeks tomorrow.

“Many of the commentators and pundits are saying we are likely not just to hold onto our existing seats but perhaps to take Newry and Mourne. So Sinn Fein could sit back and do nothing,” a senior source said.

“So it is not about pressure, it is not about the election, it is about the process and the fact that without renewed momentum the process is likely to go into terminal decline.”

Mr Adams was expected to build on his ard fheis speech last month when he warned republicans they face hard choices and decisions.

Then, in a speech over Easter, the West Belfast MP posed the question whether the movement was ready for further risks and said he intended to return to this issue in the short term.

A party source added today: “Most people seem to believe that as things stand there will be no movement immediately after the election, then we will be into the marching season and the earliest we could return to this is early September or October.

“The problem with that is that it leaves us all hostages to fortune. Who knows what would happen in that time? This is a process which is in deep crisis.”

Mr Adams was also due to meet the McGinley family from Londonderry today who will ask him to lift an alleged threat against them.

Eileen McGinley will also urge Mr Adams to expel Bart Fisher, the Derry man convicted of her son James manslaugher.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, as they prepared to meet the president of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, the McCartney sisters said they hoped to find out what practical help the European institutions could provide to their campaign to bring their brother’s killers to justice.