SAOIRSE32

BBC

When the IRA gives its response to Gerry Adams’ call for it to abandon armed struggle many people are hoping the organisation will announce it is disbanding.

But as the BBC’s News website’s Marie Irvine reports, there could be clues in the past about the IRA’s likely future response.

If there are hints in history about the move the IRA will make they are perhaps found 50 years back as its last campaign was coming to an end.

The border campaign of 1956-62 was also known in the planning stages as Operation Harvest. It was mainly confined to border areas and saw gun and bomb attacks on police stations and British military installations.

The BBC was even attacked in December 1956 as IRA men blew up a transmitter in Londonderry.

Training camp

But the violence was contained by the Irish and British governments of the day which both introduced internment for a time.

Most importantly it drew dismally little support from the beginning among the public and, on the ground, among republican sympathisers.

Veteran IRA man Joe Cahill who died in 2004

As IRA leader Joe Cahill, now dead, told the BBC many years later, this was their biggest problem: “We didn’t have the support of the ordinary people and without the support of the ordinary people we were doomed to failure.”

John Kelly was an 18-year-old IRA “volunteer” in the summer of 1956.

He knew something was up when he was sent to a training camp in the Wicklow Mountains and his hunch was right.

“I was based in County Tyrone, totally different to Belfast where I was reared but I was the only person prepared to go on active service from round my area.”

In Tyrone he organised other volunteers for the campaign but a few months into it he was arrested in Pomeroy while lying out with his unit in an abandoned cottage.

Attempted escape

“We had no billet, nowhere to stay,” he says, referring to the lack of “safe houses” available to the IRA at that time.

After his arrest, John Kelly spent the rest of the campaign in prison, trying and failing to escape from Crumlin Road prison on one occasion.

But he remembers wide consultation within the IRA before it finally called off the violence in 1962.

A public statement was drafted by Chief of Staff Ruairi O’Bradaigh and released to the media on 26 February 1962.

It said: “Instructions issued to Volunteers of the Active Service Units and of local units in the occupied area have now been carried out.

“All arms and other material have been dumped and all full-time Active Service Volunteers have been withdrawn.”

The statement later continued: “Foremost among the factors motivating this course of action has been the attitude of the general public whose minds have been deliberately distracted from the supreme issue facing the Irish people - the unity and freedom of Ireland.”

‘Pike in the thatch’

But the statement also referred “with confidence to the final and victorious phase of the struggle for the full freedom of Ireland.”

In other words no disbandment.

Now veteran republican John Kelly, who parted company with Sinn Fein several years ago over what he sees as their “deceit and philosophy of creative ambiguity”, has definite views on what the IRA might say or not say this time.

“They will never use the word disband,” he says.

“The semantics will have to be of the nature that they are not surrendering and they might want to hold onto some of their structures, the “pike in the thatch”.

It’s an old republican expression, he says, which implies there always needs to be a fall-back position.

But perhaps now, unlike then, politics is the fall-back position?

In the 1950s Sinn Fein won the two Westminster seats of Mid-Ulster and Fermanagh-South Tyrone. They also won four seats in the Irish parliament, the Dail.

But by 1961, all the seats were gone. There was no electoral success for republicans to build on in their goal of a united Ireland.

At the present time, Sinn Fein has five seats in the Dail and five at Westminster. Its political fortunes have never been stronger.

Within republicanism there is an appetite for politics and outside the movement in the wider community there is a hunger for it to entirely embrace democratic methods.

Denials

John Kelly thinks the main difference between the past and the present day is the mistrust with which he says the Sinn Fein/IRA leadership is held by the wider community.

“The view I have about that is that in 1962, people accepted the honour of the republican movement.

“People don’t believe them any more - that’s the dreadful position they’re in because of the denials over things like the Northern Bank robbery and the Disappeared.”

Kelly believes the IRA should have stood itself down in 1994 when it called its ceasefire and says they must now finish the job they started in 1994.

“They should have said then what they are going to have to say now.”

Although reticent to comment, many republicans will disagree with John Kelly’s assessment of the level of trust in the leadership.

They point to the increased electoral mandate of Sinn Fein as evidence to the contrary.

A senior republican told the BBC news website: “It’s going to be a managed disengagement by the IRA. They aren’t just going to switch off the light and leave the stage.

“Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness with the IRA army council have to manage their departure.”

BBC: ON THIS DAY

28 July 2000

Nearly 80 men imprisoned for terrorist offences have been freed from the Maze prison in Northern Ireland.

The release of the 52 republican and 26 loyalist paramilitaries from the County Antrim jail marks the final phase of the Good Friday peace accord scheme to set free 428 inmates early.

Some of the most prolific bombers and gunmen involved in the Troubles have been imprisoned in the Maze - originally called Long Kesh - since it opened in 1971.

“The prison struggle was a microcosm of the larger struggle.”
Sean Lynch, ex-Maze inmate

One of the freed republicans, Sean Lynch, described what he saw as the real and symbolic importance of the Maze.

“We had achieved the status of political prisoners even if the British Government never admitted it. The prison struggle was a microcosm of the larger struggle,” he said.

Founder member of the Ulster Defence Association Thomas McKeown - released in 1990 - was one of over 10,000 loyalists sent to the jail.

He reflected: “We had it pretty easy. We made replica weapons and instruments from wood and conducted military parades and drill every morning. There were also political classes and other sorts of education.”

After the H-block hunger strikes of the 1980s there were numerous escape attempts and by 1994 the authorities had given in to many of the prisoners’ demands for freedom of association and high levels of autonomy.

A total of 2,700 incidents of officers being threatened or attacked have been reported.

A granite memorial outside the gates bears the names of the 29 prison guards murdered over the past 30 years.

The British and Irish Governments want the 130-acre site closed by January 2001 when the remaining 16 inmates will be moved to nearby Maghaberry Prison.

Redundancy packages have been arranged for staff. These were accepted by 300 who left in June.

The future of the buildings is uncertain, but some republicans want it to be turned into a museum to commemorate their struggle.

In Context

The Maze was closed in September 2000.

In July 2002 the Patten Report on police reform in Northern Ireland recommended the Maze as a training centre for the Northern Ireland Policing Board. A decision - resting with the Northern Ireland Secretary - has still not been made.

Despite the Good Friday peace agreement, sectarian violence continues throughout Northern Ireland.

BBC

The last time the IRA stood down its “volunteers” was in 1962 when it called an end to its border campaign.

A statement released to the media on 26 February 1962 went as follows: “The leadership of the resistance movement has ordered the termination of the campaign of resistance to British occupation launched on December 12th, 1956.

Reporting the end of the IRA’s border campaign

“Instructions issued to volunteers of the active service units and of local units in the occupied area have now been carried out.

“All arms and other material have been dumped and all full-time active service volunteers have been withdrawn.”

So how was the ending of this IRA campaign reported?

Fyffe Robertson of the BBC’s Tonight programme presented a special report in 1962 on the ending of the campaign, during which he heard from two IRA men.

Armagh raid

One of them was Joseph Christle, aged 33. He is described as a qualified barrister and accountant who joined the IRA at 20 while a university student in Dublin.

He was believed to have taken part in a raid on Armagh barracks during the border campaign and was wounded in another raid.

On camera: IRA man Joseph Christle

He was also believed to have been court-martialled by the IRA because he disagreed with its policy on violence.

In fact, at the time of the interview, he was thought to be leading what Robertson described as a splinter group he had formed.

Christle was perhaps the 1962 equivalent of a dissident republican.

Despite the nature of their politics the report clearly labels both men, who appear in civilian clothes, as IRA volunteers.

Guerrilla warfare

Details of their day jobs were given and viewers were told Christle worked for the Electricity Supply Board.

In response to a question about whether he believed the IRA had ended its campaign for good, Christie was emphatic that the IRA had not gone away for good.

“That is an absolutely ridiculous statement to make because the Irish people have never abandoned their nationality.”

Asking the questions: The BBC’s veteran reporter Fyffe Robertson

He went on to say that he still believed violence was justified and made it clear he would support any new violent campaign.

“I would like to see it run on the lines of violent, well-planned action in terms not merely of guerilla warfare but aimed at disrupting civil government in the six counties,” he says.

The second IRA man featured in the report was a former chief-of-staff, Tomas MacCurtain, whose links with the organisation ended around the end of the border campaign.

On the blanket

MacCurtain was imprisoned for killing a policeman in the 1940s, and was now working as a “commercial traveller for a washing powder firm”.

In a protest which would be repeated during the later Troubles, he tells how he spent seven years of his jail sentence dressed only in a blanket for refusing to wear prison clothes.

He tells Fyffe Robertson that the only fault he would find with the 1956-62 campaign was that it failed and blamed this on the Irish government of the day.

Former IRA chief of staff Tomas MacCurtain

“The 26 county government, far from helping, did everything possible by imprisoning anybody they could catch, thus stultifying the efforts of the IRA,” he says.

Like Crystal, MacCurtain suggested that the IRA’s war was not over for good. He also believed violence was the only way for it to succeed.

He cited other examples of “independence struggles” which had taken place since the end of World War II, including those in Cyprus and the Middle East.

“There is a Jewish home and a Jewish state in Israel after how many hundreds or thousands of years? Did they get it by talking?”

Of course the words of both men were to be proved correct in that the IRA would re-emerge in the 1970s as the armed Provisional movement for the bloodiest part of its war yet.

BreakingNews.ie

27/07/2005 - 19:50:01

Detectives investigating loyalist criminality today arrested 13 people during a series of searches across Northern Ireland.

Nine men and four women were detained following raids by the Organised Crime Task Force on more than 30 properties in Counties Antrim, Armagh and Tyrone.

Officers investigating the 1997 loyalist murder of a GAA official also took part in the operation.

Sean Brown, 61, was shot dead by the Loyalist Volunteer Force who seized him as he locked up the gates of a Gaelic football club in Bellaghy, Co Derry.

Police said no arrests were made in connection with the case during today’s searches, when a number of unrelated items were seized.

A firearm, a small quantity of ammnition, a substantial quantity of cash, £100,000 of vehicles, computers and a number of offensive weapons, including crossbows and baseball bats were found.

A police spokeswoman confirmed eight men and one woman have been arrested under terrorist legislation.

Three women and one man have been detained under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The Brown murder case was reopened by Northern Ireland chief constable Sir Hugh Orde after appeals from the victim’s family.

Last month the BBC’s Crimewatch programme featured a reconstruction of Mr Brown’s last movements, which included new information about the route used by the suspects on May 12 1997.

Mr Brown’s body was later found with his burnt-out car near Randalstown.

The programme also featured personal appeals by Church of Ireland Archbishop Robin Eames and poet Seamus Heaney, a friend of the Brown family.

BBC

Shankill bomber Sean Kelly has been released from Maghaberry prison.

The BBC has been told he has been freed on what is called temporary release pending an application to the Sentence Review Commission.

Kelly was one of two men who left a bomb in a Shankill Road fish shop in 1993. Nine civilians died, as did Kelly’s IRA accomplice.

Freed in 2000, he was returned to jail in June when Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain suspended his licence.

The application to the commission, which rules on alleged breaches of a prisoner’s licence, will be forwarded on Thursday morning.

BBC Northern Ireland security editor Brian Rowan said the move is likely to be seen as paving the way for an expected IRA statement on its future on Thursday.

“Republicans have been demanding that Kelly should be freed now he has been let out of Maghaberry jail in what has been termed as temporary release,” he said.

He received a total of nine life sentences but was freed early from prison in July 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement.

His early release licence was suspended by Mr Hain after security information indicated Kelly had become “re-involved in terrorism”.

RTE

27 July 2005 22:12

It has been announced that Seán Kelly, the IRA Shankill bomber who was returned to jail in controversial circumstances, has been freed.

Mr Kelly had been serving life sentences for his part in the bomb attack that killed nine civilians and his accomplice, but was freed early under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

He was returned to prison on the orders of the Northern Secretary, Peter Hain, who said there was evidence he had been involved in terrorist activity.

His release comes as US congressman Peter King - who is dedicated to Irish-American affairs - says he is certain that a statement from the IRA will be issued very soon.

Mr King said he believes it will be extremely positive and a dramatic turning point in Irish history.

Earlier, the Taoiseach said he believes we are within days of seeing an enormous change in the situation in Northern Ireland.

Speaking in Galway, Bertie Ahern said he was hopeful that within the next 24 or 36 hours significant progress would be made towards full and final IRA decommissioning.

He said he was not aware what the expected IRA statement would contain.

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin’s Chief Negotiator, Martin McGuinness, has refused to be drawn on the timing or content of the expected statement.

However, Mr McGuinness said he believed the republican movement was up to the challenge of moving the peace process forward.

He was speaking at Dublin Airport prior to his departure for Washington with the Sinn Féin representative in the US, Rita O’Hare. The visit is seen as further confirmation that an IRA statement is imminent.

Mr McGuinness said he believed that the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement was imperative.

Asked about comments by the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, yesterday on the alleged recent departure from the IRA Army Council of certain elected politicians, he said that the less said about Minister McDowell the better.

Mr McGuinness also refused to be drawn on the minister’s remarks about IRA funding.

Asked about parallels between his visit to the US and that of the late IRA leader Joe Cahill to the US a decade ago, Mr McGuinness said he was not interested in history and that the worth of his visit could be judged on his return.

In 1994 Mr Cahill was given a US visa after the then Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and others petitioned US President Bill Clinton in Washington.

Mr Cahill’s arrival in the US coincided with the first IRA ceasefire.
A statement by the IRA about its future could be as important as the ceasefire announcement of 1994.

But there is guaranteed scepticism from unionists regardless of what the IRA says or does in the coming days.

It is thought the DUP and the Ulster Unionists will wait months before showing any willingness to consider power-sharing with Sinn Féin.

BBC

A security operation is under way in County Down in connection with the loyalist feud.

Three police and Army checkpoints have been set up around the White City estate in Holywood.

Police said the operation was to prevent a repeat of scenes in the Garnerville estate in east Belfast when the UVF forced LVF members to leave.

They said they were in the area to “disrupt the activities of those intent on increasing fear and intimidation”.

Superintendent Graham Shields said: “It is the role of the police to uphold the law and protect life and property.

“I would like to reassure the public that police are working to help bring this feud to an end.

“I would ask those with influence in local communities to do the same.”

Over £1m has been spent policing the feud over the past six weeks and police have appealed for help from the public to bring it to an end.

Meanwhile, a number of overnight petrol bomb and gun attacks in County Antrim have been linked to the feud, according to the police.

A family of four escaped injury after 10 shots were fired into their house at Station Road, Newtownabbey.

Two adults and two children were at home. Some of the shots hit the front of the house but a number of bullets went through a window at 2300 BST on Tuesday.

In a separate incident, a woman and two children escaped injury in a petrol bomb attack in north Belfast.

They were wakened by the device hitting a window of their house in the Silverstream area at about 0330 BST on Wednesday.

Shots were also reported to have been fired.

A short distance away, three petrol bombs were thrown at another house. Two failed to ignite, but a window was smashed.

The third did catch fire and caused scorch damage to the front door.

::: u.tv :::

Ulster Defence Association chiefs will order their men to intervene in a feud between rival loyalist paramilitaries if deposed terrorist Johnny Adair returns to Northern Ireland, it was claimed today.

By:Press Association

The organisation`s leaders have met in Belfast to discuss becoming involved in an underworld dispute that has already claimed two lives, sources disclosed.

A decision was taken to keep out of the shooting war between the Ulster Volunteer Force and the splinter Loyalist Volunteer Force for now.

But that will change should Adair end his exile in Lancashire.

The shaven-headed ex-UDA commander set up home in Bolton after being released from jail in January.

He has since been spotted back in Northern Ireland, with some suggesting the visit was to develop links to the LVF, a smaller grouping steeped in murder, drugs and prostitution.

Adair has never been forgiven for his involvement in an earlier power struggle that led to UDA commander John Gregg`s assassination in February 2003.

“If he came back and aligned himself with the LVF that would bring the UDA into it,” one of those close to the situation said.

The UVF-LVF feud shows no sign of relenting.

Police believe a new series of gun and petrol bomb attacks on homes in north Belfast and Newtownabbey may be linked to escalating tensions within loyalism.

Earlier hundreds of masked UVF men also laid siege to a housing estate in east Belfast as they forced up to six families associated with the LVF to flee their homes.

Two men, Craig McCausland and Jameson Lockhart, have been shot dead in the city in attacks blamed on the UVF.

Several homes and a taxi depot have also been targeted by gunmen and blast bombers.

All attempts to call a truce have failed, with UVF chiefs demanding their rivals disband before agreeing to silence their guns.

“The threat of the LVF starting this up again in six months time is one of the reasons stopping them going forward into peaceful mode,” an informed source said.

“They want to deal with them once and for all.”

Any intervention by Adair would only intensify the mutual hatred.

The LVF is understood to be split between those who realise he would draw UDA men bent on revenge and others searching for an iconic figure to rally round.

The organisation has failed to identify anyone with enough public notoriety since its former leader Billy “King Rat” Wright was gunned down inside the Maze Prison in 1997.

UDA sources insisted Adair would be foolish to come back to Northern Ireland regardless of his intentions.

“He`s outside any agreement, whether he aligns himself to the LVF or not,” one said.

“It would be madness. Where can he go, what can he do, or who could he trust ?”

::: u.tv :::

After another night of violence which has been linked to the loyalist feud, a major police operation is under way in Holywood.

Officers have moved into the Loughview estate, where some of the men exiled from Garnerville earlier in the week, had moved.

The operation comes as PSNI have revealed that in the last six weeks the cost of policing the loyalist feud has averaged £30,000 a day.

Daily Ireland

DANNY MORRISON
To comment: columnists@dailyireland.com

Four years ago, in January 2001, Leila Khaled, a member of the Palestinian National Council, was, after some lobbying, given a seven-day visa to enter Britain. In the House of Commons she addressed a meeting organised by George Galloway (then a Labour Party backbencher). Later, she gave a lecture at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Khaled was back in London in May 2002 and addressed an anti-Iraqi war rally in Trafalgar Square.
Next week, during Féile an Phobail, she was scheduled to address a meeting on the Falls Road – Palestine Today – The Peace Process and Hopes for the Future.
However, Leila Khaled has been refused a visa by the British embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman, where she lives with her teenage sons.
In other words, she has been banned from entering Britain. We in this part of Ireland are banned from hearing her important views on peace and she is banned from hearing about our peace process. This is the way Tony Blair encourages Palestinians in the peaceful pursuit of their cause.
Leila Khaled was born in 1944 in Haifa which was then part of the British Mandate of Palestine. When Palestine was partitioned she and her mother, including seven other siblings, were driven out by zionists. Her father stayed behind in the resistance. The world then largely forgot about the displaced Palestinians who were scattered in refugee camps throughout the Middle East. At the age of 15 Leila joined the Arab Nationalist Movement which became the the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP) after 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza.
She said: “We wanted to put the Palestinian question in front of international opinion. All the time we were being dealt with as refugees who only needed human aid. That was unjust. Nobody had heard our screams and suffering. All we got from the world was more tents and old clothes. After 1967 we were obliged to explain to the world that the Palestinians had a cause. We wanted to go back to our homeland. We also wanted to release our prisoners from Israeli jails.”

In August 1969 Leila Khaled became the world’s first female airplane hijacker when she seized a TWA plane on its way from Rome to Athens and diverted it to Damascus. Passengers were released in exchange for political prisoners and the plane was blown up. She was arrested by Syria but was released after 45 days. Because her photograph was published in the international media, compromising her anonymity, she underwent several plastic surgery operations to change her appearance.
The following year, September 1970, at the age of 26, she was involved in a much more ambitious plan – the simultaneous seizure of several planes which were to be flown to Dawson’s Field, a former RAF airbase in Jordan, as part of a demand for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Germany, Switzerland and Israel. Her mission was the most dangerous because she and her companion, Patrick Arguello from Nicaragua, knew that armed guards flew on Israeli civilian flights. They tried to hijack an Israeli El Al flight out of Amsterdam but air marshals opened fire, fatally wounding Arguello. Leila, who had two hand grenades, was overpowered and badly beaten.
Britain became involved because the plane was in British airspace at the time and it then landed at Heathrow where she was arrested. A few days later a fourth plane, from Bombay to Beirut, was then hijacked, apparently in response to her arrest. The PFLP then demanded her release and the British government secretly negotiated through intermediaries and secured the release of many passengers, 65 of whom were British. However, to press the point and expedite the prisoners’ release the PFLP evacuated the remainder of the passengers from the planes before destroying them, and a third in Cairo. After 28 days, Leila Khaled and six other Palestinian prisoners were released.
However, to counter growing Palestinian activity, particularly from the mainstream Fatah, on Jordanian territory, King Hussein (secretly armed by Israel) launched a wave of attacks on refugee camps and bases, killing thousands and further scattering Palestinians throughout the Middle East, in what became known as ‘Black September’.)
Later, explaining why the PFLP had hijacked civilian aircraft, Leila Khaled said: “At the beginning of our revolution we had to create publicity for our struggle. I think that by using these tactics we succeeded in putting our message in front of the whole world.”
She says, “We had very strict instructions: don’t hurt the passengers. Only defend yourselves. I did not want to blow up the plane. It was only to threaten.”
The PFLP abandoned the tactic of plane hijacking in 1971.
Challenged in an interview two years ago whether she was a ‘terrorist’ she replied: “Who planted terrorism in our area? Some came and took our land, forced us to leave, forced us to live in camps. I think this is terrorism.”
She said that they hijacked planes – in operations in which no civilians lost their lives – “because the whole world was deaf. We said why we were doing the operation. Those who killed themselves and others in New York [on 9/11] had no cause.”
She does not believe that hijacking is a legitimate form of protest today but warns that violence inevitably will continue in response to oppression and injustice, which hardly amounts to her threatening Britain. For the past 25 years Leila Khaled has devoted her energies to the political struggle but is critical of the negotiations in the 1990s which she believes weakened the Palestinian position, particularly on the refugees’ right of return.
“It’s not a peace process. It’s a political process where the balance of forces is for the Israelis and not for us. They have all the cards to play with and the Palestinians have nothing to depend on, especially when the PLO is not united,” she said.
The banning of Leila Khaled cannot be on the grounds of security – given that she has been allowed in Britain since 9/11.
It cannot be because she supports suicide bombings: she has condemned 9/11. It cannot be because she supports Islamic fundamentalism – she was a member of the secular PFLP, rejected the patriarchal restrictions of Arab society and asserted the role of women in activism and leadership.
The only reason for this purely punitive ban is cosmetic – to give the bruised British public the impression that Tony Blair is keeping them safe and sound – having endangered them a thousandfold with his imperialist escapades.

Daily Ireland

As we await the expected IRA response this week to Gerry Adams’ call on the organisation to take a peaceful and democratic path, it seems a wonder that the IRA is still even considering such a move, given the dizzying upsurge in loyalist violence and – just as worryingly – the official response to it.
In our paper today we draw a frightening picture of the amount of illegal arms sloshing around in unionist districts. Add to that deadly arsenal the vast stockpiles of legally-held weapons and large tracts of the North begin to resemble the Wild West.
Tooled-up and spoiling for a fight, loyalists go on the rampage in Belfast and Ballymena, shooting up our second city in a bitter feud over drug revenues, and doing what they do best in the north Antrim Bible Belt – putting uppity Fenians in their place by attacking their churches and gathering places.
Against that background it might be hoped that some kind of meaningful response could be mustered by unionist elected representatives who find themselves in the middle of this madness, but not a bit of it. As pools of young men’s blood flow into the gutter in Belfast, the stock unionist response is to express the vague hope that the UVF and the LVF will get together to sort out their differences before anybody else is hurt. In Ballymena, unionist politicians and the PSNI collude in the disgusting lie that the weekend attacks on churches and pubs are the result of a proposed republican parade in Ballymena next month, as if loyalists in Ballymena need any excuse to target their Catholic neighbours. What of the UVF taking over the Garnerville estate in East Belfast? Why, that only happened, we’re assured, because the PSNI isn’t doing its job right and that paramilitaries will always thrive in a policing vacuum.
The ability of unionists to see things in the round, to parse and analyse events on the street in the context of current developments, disappears when those firing the shots aren’t wearing union jack baseball caps. Even before the IRA has given its answer to Gerry Adams, even as the IRA considers a historic and decisive statement on its future, unionists have had their say and – surprise, surprise – they’re just not interested.
No talk of giving the IRA the same time and space to sort things out that unionists have given to loyalist triggermen in the latest feud, just a flat rejection of something they haven’t seen. That’s a depressing reminder of what we heard when the IRA called its first cessation – that peace is just too destabilising for unionists to consider.
This unionist Jekyll and Hyde act is nothing new – leading unionist politicians stood shoulder-to-shoulder with thugs in sunglasses when loyalist paramilitaries were slaughtering Catholics in their beds. That is a hypocrisy that unionists might justify in their own minds, but as we look forward to a positive statement from the IRA – whether it comes this week or at a later date – that hypocrisy must be seen for what it is by Dublin and London.

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes
c.barnes@dailyireland.com

The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is preparing to move hundreds of men into north Belfast to drive the last remnants of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) out of the city, senior loyalists claimed yesterday.
The LVF members who fled their homes after 150 UVF men took over the Garnerville estate in east Belfast on Sunday are now staying in the Ballysillan area – the last remaining LVF stronghold in the city.
Loyalist sources told Daily Ireland that the UVF is now gearing up to push them out of Belfast for good.
“There are about a dozen LVF men holed up at houses occupied by members of an LVF family from Ballysillan,” said one loyalist.
“They are finished. They are in an even weaker position than they were up in Garnerville. If these guys stay in Ballysillan they will be killed. The UVF is preparing to move in there and get rid of them for good.”
Attempts by churchmen and community workers to broker an end to the feud, which has claimed two lives, have so far failed.
The Reverend Mervyn Gibson, who chairs the Loyalist Commission and whose mediation offers have been rejected, said both organisations were not ready for peace. He said: “Things aren’t good at the minute. I fear, although I pray it will not happen, that someone else is going to be killed.”
The UVF continued to maintain a large presence in the Garnerville estate yesterday, determined not to allow any of those forced from their homes to return. There was also a noticeable increase in PSNI patrols around Ballysillan as the focus of the feud threatens to shift to north Belfast.
The Ulster Defence Association (UDA), which has been involved in several bloody feuds with the UVF, controls large parts of Ballysillan. UDA figures have said they will support the UVF if it attempts to force the LVF out of Ballysillan.
An attempt on Monday by the LVF to bomb the home of senior UDA figure Jim Spence has soured relations between the groups. Before Christmas, Spence was involved in a dispute with a senior LVF figure originally from the Shankill Road. It is believed this is the reason why his home was targeted.
On Monday, the LVF also attempted to burn down the Sunningdale cab company on the Ballysillan Road. The business has been targeted several times by the LVF over the past year.
With the UVF still present on the streets of Garnerville and threatening to move in on Ballysillan, the PSNI has been criticised for its policing of the situation.
SDLP Policing spokesman Alex Attwood said it had been a “bad day” for policing, while DUP MP Sammy Wilson said the PSNI’s failure to tackle the UVF undermined confidence in policing.
The PSNI denied it has lost control of the situation. East Belfast District Commander Henry Irvine said: “These situations cannot be solved by policing alone. My officers are on the ground and working hard to reduce tensions.”

Daily Ireland

By Jarlath Kearney
j.kearney@dailyireland.com

Official statistics obtained by Daily Ireland have thrown a new spotlight onto the failure of unionist paramilitary organisations to decommission.
It can be revealed that in the six years after the Good Friday Agreement, approximately 529 illegal firearms were discovered in mainly unionist parliamentary constituencies across the North.
Human rights organisations estimate that more than 700 grenade and pipe bomb attacks were launched against Catholic and nationalist homes during the same period, from 1998 to 2004.
In the context of the role played by British intelligence and RUC/PSNI Special Branch in managing key loyalist agents, the new statistics demonstrate the frightening extent of illegal weaponry in the hands of the unionist community.
Today’s news emerged as speculation mounted that the IRA is considering an unprecedented fourth act of putting weapons beyond use in the near future.
Under the terms of the 1998 Agreement, acts of decommissioning should comply with arrangements agreed between the relevant paramilitary organisation and General John de Chastelain’s Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IOCD).
Only one minor act of decommissioning by loyalist paramilitaries has ever been carried out. In what was widely regarded as a publicity stunt, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) publicly destroyed a number of old guns in the presence of General de Chastelain on December 18, 1998.
In recent weeks, loyalist paramilitaries have murdered two Protestant men, exploded blast bombs in unionist areas and attacks on nationalist homes and issued death threats against prominent republicans.
Automatic weapons were also fired publicly at July 12 bonfires in unionist areas, accompanied by statements of intent to commit further violence.
Earlier this week, the PSNI and British army caused outrage by passively observing as scores of hooded UVF members gathered at Garnerville in east Belfast. The UVF had earlier escalated its feud with the rival LVF by intimidating a number of families from their homes on Sunday night.
In the late 1980s, a massive haul of South African weapons was brought into the North under the direction of British agent Brian Nelson. The haul was divided into three sections, for the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Resistance respectively.
Ulster Resistance was formed with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in November 1986, but none of the organisation’s illegal South African weapons has ever been recovered.
According to the latest official statistics, Belfast North, East Antrim and Lagan Valley were the constituencies where the highest proportion of illegal firearms was found. The firearms found in the these areas account for approximately 32 per cent of all illegal weapons recovered – approximately 230 out of 711.
In total, approximately 124 illegal firearms were recovered in the Border nationalist constituencies of Foyle, West Tyrone, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Newry and Armagh, and South Down. Approximately 13 illegal firearms were found in Mid-Ulster between 1998 and 2004.
Daily Ireland’s figures are based on official PSNI statistics which indicate that 711 illegal firearms were recovered across the North between 1998 and 2004. Local district-level information has been surveyed by reference to parliamentary constituencies. This analysis concluded that approximately 74 per cent of all illegal firearms recovered between 1998 and 2004 was found in unionist parliamentary constituencies.

BBC

Detectives investigating the 1997 murder of a GAA official killed by loyalists have arrested 13 people.

Sean Brown, 61, was shot by the Loyalist Volunteer Force after being abducted in Bellaghy.

Police have seized £100,000 worth of vehicles in searches in counties Armagh, Antrim and Tyrone. Guns, ammunition and money were also found.

Detectives are being supported by the organised crime branch’s operation against unrelated loyalist criminality.

This investigation is into a number of suspected money laundering offences not related to the murder.

One woman and eight men are being detained are being held under terrorism laws while one woman and three men are being under proceeds of crime legislation.

Last month, the BBC’s Crimewatch programme reconstructed Mr Brown’s murder and a GAA match was recreated.

‘Team of investigators’

Last year, Sean Brown’s family reached agreement with the PSNI chief constable on how a new investigation should proceed.

It followed a critical report from the police ombudsman on the original RUC investigation into the 1997 killing.

In January 2004, Nuala O’Loan said she had upheld two complaints from Mr Brown’s family about the RUC inquiry into his murder.

These were that the investigation had not been “efficiently and properly carried out” and that “no earnest effort was made to identify those who had carried out the murder”.

A new team of investigators, including officers from outside forces, is carrying out the investigation.

Guardian

Vikram Dodd and Michael White
Wednesday July 27, 2005
The Guardian

Police have been given permission to shoot dead suspected suicide bombers without any verbal warning, the Guardian has learned.

The killing of an innocent Brazilian man in a London underground station on Friday has focused attention on new guidelines to defend against terror attacks.

Operation Kratos tactics say suicide bombers who are about to explode their devices can be shot in the head.

There is still confusion over whether Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot eight times, received a verbal warning.

A police source has told the Guardian that there is no need for officers to verbally warn a suspect before opening fire.

The source said: “If the firearms team are reasonably certain the person is a suicide bomber then there is no need to issue any warning.

“Experience from other parts of the world shows that if a suicide bomber knows they are being followed by police, they will detonate.”

Yesterday, Barbara Wilding, the chief constable of South Wales police and one of the architects of the shoot-to-kill policy, said old guidelines telling officers to fire at the upper chest were redundant in the face of the dangers posed by suicide bombers.

She told the BBC that criminal law still governed officers’ actions: “We always have to be able to answer, have we used reasonable force in the light of intelligence of the situation and the risk?”

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said there had been 250 incidents since the attacks when police thought they may have been dealing with a suicide bomber. And he indicated that on seven occasions police had been on the brink of acting.

“I know there have been 250 incidents since July 7 where we have considered whether we are seeing a suicide bomber,” he said. “I know that when I last saw it there had been seven times when we have got as close to calling it as ‘that’ and we haven’t.”

Insiders say there may have been flaws in the operation that led to Mr De Menezes’s shooting, which is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

There are questions about why the intelligence was so faulty and about the identification of Mr De Menezes as a target. The decision to let him run and get on a bus is also suspect, although it may have been taken in the hope of finding out who he might meet.

One officer said an examination of the intelligence used, the decision making and identification of the supposed suspect “may reduce the culpability [of the officer who fired] quite significantly”.

Another senior Met insider said: “When the truth comes out it is going to be horrific.”