SAOIRSE32

For some time today, Blogsome was down. Now it is a bit ‘iffy’. For today, please read all other posts at this alternate location:

SAOIRSE32

Some of today’s articles ARE here, however.

Thanks!

Irelandclick.com

Shocking new figures for West Belfast

by Damian Carney

Grosvenor - photo from >>here

Figures released yesterday by the Police Ombudsman show that the number of allegations against the PSNI has sharply increased in the last year. In the period of April 2004 to March 2005 the number of allegations has risen by 44 per cent.

Grosvenor Road barracks topped the poll for the station with most allegations against the PSNI in West Belfast. From April 2004 to March 2005 there were 90 allegations by members of the public concerning their treatment by PSNI officers based in the barracks. Woodbourne didn’t fare much better with 67 allegations in the past year.

Woodbourne - photo from >>here

Worryingly, the majority of the allegations against the PSNI in the West of the city were serious in nature. There were 101 allegations against PSNI officers of what the Police Ombudsman terms ‘oppressive behaviour’, amounting to 46.8 per cent of the allegations. Oppressive behaviour is the most serious type of allegation and includes assault, intimidation and harassment.

With 37 per cent of allegations being for failure in duty by PSNI officers, this accounts for the second largest type of allegation. There were 80 such allegations against the PSNI in West Belfast – a staggering rise of 100 per cent on the year before. Lower Falls Sinn Féin Councillor Fra McCann said that the figures reveal a continuing trend of unacceptable PSNI behaviour.

“The figures show that young nationalist males are the main victims of oppressive PSNI behaviour. This is evidence that the behaviour of the PSNI falls well short of anything that represents a new beginning to policing in the North. This type of policing has no place in an impartial non-sectarian society.

I have to question why there is an increase in such allegations. Is it because they know they can get away with it because the accountability mechanisms are too weak?”

Commenting on the Ombudsman’s figures, SDLP Upper Falls councillor Tim Attwood accepted that although the figures were up from the previous year, he noted that allegations in West Belfast were down from a high of 239 in 2002.

“The SDLP has absolute confidence in the Police Ombudsman and would encourage anybody who has a complaint against the police to contact the Police Ombudsman. The Police Ombudsman has a proven record of independence and will investigate all complaints comprehensively,” said Cllr Attwood.

The Grosvenor Road barracks may have had the worse record in West Belfast, but it was pushed into fourth place for PSNI barracks in the whole of Belfast. Strandtown barracks in East Belfast had 186 allegations against it, and in the North of the city Antrim Road and Tennent Street fared poorly with 144 and 131 allegations respectively. Musgrave Street barracks in South Belfast had 132 allegations against it.

Journalist:: Damien McCarney

Irish Independent

AN explosion at the Corrib Gas pipeline in north Mayo would kill everyone within one mile, an explosives expert warned yesterday.

The force of the explosion would be so massive it would be equal to about a quarter of the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in the Second World War, retired electronic warfare engineer Dave Aldridge insisted.

Mr Aldridge, who was employed by the US Dept of Defence and served for years with the US Navy, was addressing a public hearing into the safety of the controversial Corrib Gas field project.

Now living in Charlestown, Mr Aldridge said he had taken the technical dimensions of the pipeline and the volume of gas passing through it from the wellhead to the refinery and concluded it would contain the equivalent energy of 3,500 tons of TNT, if released under the worst case scenario.

“This would kill anyone within one mile of the pipeline. It would destroy anything within 250 yards,” he added. “On that basis, I concluded it should not be going through a village. I concluded it is not safe.”

Mr Aldridge also pointed out that available statistics indicated a failure rate of a gas pipeline at one every 21 years. Given that the lifespan of the Corrib field was 20 years, it could reasonably be expected there would be a failure.

“I wouldn’t like to be within 10 miles of it,” he added.

The hearing, being chaired by senior counsel John Gallagher, was established by Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources Minister, Noel Dempsey, to allow objectors to the Corrib Gas field project to voice their concerns.

It forms part of the independent safety review being undertaken by UK engineering consultants, Advantica.

RESOLVE

Dr Mark Garavan, spokesman for the Rossport Five, said the men wanted to acknowledge the principle of consultation and to demonstrate their willingness to engage constructively in resolving the Corrib Gas crisis.

Dr Garavan said added that the men wanted to stress that public consultation was required prior to important decisions on the project being made and not afterwards.

It was therefore unclear to them what purpose the hearing had, other than to attempt to retrospectively suggest that consultation had occurred and to provide justification for decisions already made.

Dr Mike Acton, an Advantica engineer with responsibility for hazard and risk management, told the hearing the proximity to housing and the consequences of a pipeline failure would form part of the company’s report.

Meanwhile, the Government is in hot water with the EU over the laying of the pipeline amid claims it breached environmental laws, writes Conor Sweeney.

The European Commission has complained that large-scale projects, like the pipeline, should not be broken into small parts to “escape” EU law.

In reply to Sinn Fein’s Bairbre de Brun, Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, was highly critical of how the pipeline won planning approval.

Brian McDonald

BBC

Young people in Northern Ireland are to give their views on how to improve the police and justice system.

The two-day Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Youth Justice Conference is taking place in Northern Ireland for the first time.

International delegates will discuss ways to improve the criminal justice system’s engagement with young people.

Research indicates that young people are more likely to be victims of crime, especially threats or assaults.

The conference brings together those who work with young people, including police officers, youth offending teams, local authorities, magistrates, probation officers and social workers.

Drama

Representatives from the community and voluntary sectors are also taking part.

The conference will examine public perceptions about crime and how their interactions with criminal justice agencies can be improved.

Actors from the Youth Action Northern Ireland’s Rainbow Factory will perform a number of dramatisations of various scenarios.

ACPO Youth Issues Group chairman, Essex Deputy Chief Constable Charles Clark, said young people were significantly involved in the criminal justice system, “both as victims and offenders”.

PSNI Deputy Chief Constable Paul Leighton, who will open the conference, said: “No-one has all the answers to the problems which we face in this challenging area, but ideas and exchanges nurtured in Belfast will hopefully assist practitioners in Northern Ireland and beyond to provide some of the solutions.”

BreakingNews.ie

12/10/2005 - 23:19:23

One of the independent church witnesses to IRA decommissioning tonight compared the unionist community to Nazis for their treatment of Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Father Alec Reid was involved in angry exchanges with several members of the audience at a public meeting in Belfast.

The Catholic priest said: “The reality is that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland were treated almost like animals by the unionist community.

“They were not treated like human beings.

“They were treated like the Nazis treated the Jews.”

Willie Frazer, of the victims group Families Acting For Innocent Relatives, claimed Protestants were butchered by Catholics during the Troubles, before storming out of the meeting at the Fitzroy Presbyterian Church.

Tempers flared after an audience member began talking about restrictions on Orange marches as he asked a question.

A number of people interjected as Fr Reid attempted to answer the point.

The Redemptorist order priest, who is based at Clonard Monastery, raised his voice to tackle his detractors and said: “You don’t want the truth.”

He was then heckled by some of the 200-strong crowd after he made his controversial remarks.

As the debate continued one audience member told Father Reid: “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

After the 90-minute meeting, Mr Frazer said he was incensed by the priest’s remarks.

He said: “I did fly off the handle but I could not sit there and allow him to accuse the unionist people of persecuting the Roman Catholic community for the last 60 years. That is far from the truth.

“That is not to say Catholics have not suffered but so have the Protestant community.

“He was wrong and bitter and his republican attitude came out when he called us Nazis.”

Mr Frazer, who lost five members of his family including his father during the troubles, added: “Two of my uncles fought in the Second World War.

“It is an insult for that man to call my family Nazis and the people of my community Nazis.”

He said he would be raising Father Reid’s comments with unionist politicians.

Father Reid’s comments overshadowed a public meeting on the decommissioning process which was also attended by the other independent church witness the Rev Harold Good.

Before the meeting descended into a shouting match, Fr Reid revealed the men who had overseen IRA decommissioning were guarded with a loaded Kalashnikov.

The gun then became the last weapon in the terror group’s vast arsenal to be put beyond use.

The priest vividly described the final act in the historic process which was carried out by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.

He told the audience: “Everywhere we went this Kalashnikov was there and I could see it was loaded.

“I was beginning to wonder if they were afraid dissidents were coming.

“They were providing a bodyguard for us, if you like.

“The very last act was this gun.

“The bullets were taken out of it and it was handed over to General (John) de Chastelain (head of the IICD).
“It was handed over to him by a senior IRA man. It was a significant moment. This was the last gun.

“The man handed it over and got quite emotional. He was aware that this was the last gun.”

On the enormity of the occasion, Fr Reid said “We saw the gun being taken out of Irish politics, from a nationalist point of view.”

Once calm restored to the meeting, Fr Reid attempted to make amends for his controversial remarks.

But there was a prevailing sense in the tightly-packed church hall that the damage had been done.

The priest said: “I have said some very hard things about the unionist community, which I think are true.

“There is something else I believe.

“Their history in the last 60 years put them in a position after partition that they did not want.

“They were forced to treat nationalists the way they did.”

Fr Reid told the audience that the nationalist community would have acted in the same way, had the roles been reversed.

Mr Good declined to reveal any more information about the decommissioning process.

He told the audience: “We have already made it clear publicly that it is not for us to go into detail about what we saw.

“Not because we want to be difficult, or devious, nor because we were asked to sign or agree to any secrecy clause.

“There was an understanding between us and the task that we shared that we would respect the confidentiality agreed to by the IICD and the IRA as part of their process.

“We also respected the reasons for that undertaking.”

The former president of the Methodist church added: “Our focus was on the what rather than on the how.

“The outcome is much more important that the detail.”

Mr Good praised General de Chastelain and his two fellow commissioners for their integrity and the thoroughness with which they went about their work.

The audience raised a number of issues ranging from the threat posed by dissident republicans to the key matter of trust.

But, in a bid to reassure the doubters, Mr Good said: “We saw a decommissioning of the intention to return to an armed conflict.”

On the enormity of the act which was announced on September 26, he added: “A huge amount of potential grief has been removed from the equation.”

Fr Reid praised Mr Good‘s trustworthiness and ability when a man asked why he had been chosen to oversee the process.

In one of the lighter moments of the meeting, the priest said: “If he was in our church we would have no problem in making him Pope.”

BreakingNews.ie

12/10/2005 - 22:35:04

Irish Workers’ Party president Sean Garland has been indicted in the US on charges he conspired with North Korea to circulate millions of dollars in phony US currency, prosecutors said.

The indictment of Garland (aged 71) and six other men by a federal grand jury in Washington marks the first time in a 16-year investigation that the US government has alleged in court documents that North Korea plays a major role in counterfeiting US$100 bills, known as Supernotes.

Garland was arrested on Friday in Belfast, where he was attending a party conference.

The indictment was returned on May 19 and unsealed following Garland’s arrest.

The US is seeking to extradite Garland. He pleaded innocent to the charges at a court appearance in Belfast and has been released on bail.

The high-quality fake US$100 bills were made in North Korea, at the government’s direction and carried around the world by government officials, the indictment said.

Investigators have long believed North Korea was the source of the counterfeit money, which first entered circulation in 1989.

When US authorities broke up an international smuggling ring in August, officials said that the US$4.4m (€3.66m) in counterfeit money seized at the time appeared to have come from North Korea.

Garland, working with the other defendants, purchased, transported and resold up to US$1m (€0.83m) worth of the phony currency between 1997 and 2000 and also worked to conceal North Korea’s role in the enterprise, the indictment said.

The bills were put into circulation in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, it said.

The others charged in the indictment were: Christopher John Corcoran (aged 57), of Dublin; David Levin (aged 39), of Birmingham and London; Hugh Todd (aged 68), of South Africa; Terence “Terry” Silcock (aged 50), Mark Adderley (aged 47), and Alan Jones (aged 48), all of Birmingham.

Prosecutors are seeking their arrest and extradition, said Kenneth Wainstein, the US Attorney in Washington.

All the defendants face maximum prison sentences of five years and fines of US$250,000 (€207,885) if convicted.

BBC

**Let’s hope Fr doesn’t back down and kiss loyalist arse, like Mary McAleese, did for speaking the truth

Fr Alec Reid said Catholics had been treated ‘like animals’

The Catholic priest who witnessed IRA decommissioning has compared the unionist community to Nazis for their treatment of Catholics in the past.

Father Alec Reid’s remarks were made at a public meeting in south Belfast also attended by Reverend Harold Good, the Protestant decommissioning witness.

“They (Catholics) were not treated like human beings. It was like the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews,” he said.

Willie Frazer of the victims group Fair walked out of the meeting in protest.

Fr Reid said that not only unionists had grievances over the past, nationalists had them too.

“The reality is that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland were treated almost like animals by the unionist community,” he said.

The meeting was being held at Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, and about 200 people were in the hall to hear what the witnesses had to say.

Victims representative William Frazer walked out

After Wednesday night’s 90-minute meeting Mr Frazer - who claimed Protestants were butchered by Catholics during the Troubles before storming out - said he was incensed by the priest’s remarks.

“I did fly off the handle but I could not sit there and allow him to accuse the unionist people of persecuting the Roman Catholic community for the last 60 years. That is far from the truth,” he said.

“That is not to say Catholics have not suffered but so have the Protestant community.

“He was wrong and bitter and his republican attitude came out when he called us Nazis.”

‘History’

Mr Frazer, who lost five members of his family including his father during the Troubles, added: “Two of my uncles fought in the Second World War.”

After Mr Frazer left Fr Reid told the audience he had “said some very hard things about the unionist community, which I think are true”.

“There is something else I believe. Their history in the last 60 years put them in a position after partition that they did not want.

“They were forced to treat nationalists the way they did.”

Fr Reid told the audience that the nationalist community would have acted in the same way, had the roles been reversed.

‘Last gun’

Last month Fr Reid and Rev Good acted as witnesses to the republican paramilitary group’s final act of disarmament.

The head of the arms decommissioning body, General John de Chastelain, said that he was satisfied the weapons “put beyond use” represented “the totality of the IRA’s arsenal.

Referring to this Fr Reid told the meeting the men who oversaw IRA decommissioning were guarded by a man with a loaded assault rifle.

The gun then became the last weapon in the terror group’s vast arsenal to be put beyond use.

“The man handed it over and got quite emotional,” he said. “He was aware that this was the last gun.”

Fr Reid is a long-time confidant of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

He arranged ground-breaking talks between Mr Adams and then SDLP leader John Hume.

This led to a common nationalist approach and, in time, to the 1993 Downing Street Declaration.

BBC ON THIS DAY

Believe it or NOT…

13 October 1994

Gusty Spence said that the truce would be linked to the IRA’s ceasefire

Northern Ireland could be on the brink of peace after the three main loyalist paramilitary groups announced a ceasefire in Belfast.

The move comes after the IRA declared a similar truce seven weeks ago.

A statement by the Combined Loyalist Military Command, an umbrella group for the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association and the Red Hand Commando, was read by Gusty Spence, a convicted terrorist who was sentenced to 20 years in 1966 for killing a Catholic barman.

Read on>>

BBC ON THIS DAY

13 October 1971

The new strategy is meant to reduce IRA gun-running

British Army engineers have begun systematically to blow up several minor roads crossing from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland.

Shots were fired from across the border during the operation and one soldier was injured.

The destruction of the roads forms part of new security measures announced in Stormont yesterday by Ulster Prime Minister Brian Faulkner.

Border security will also be reinforced by increased patrols of regular troops and the part-time Ulster Defence Regiment.

The Ulster-Eire frontier is criss-crossed by dozens of narrow roads and tracks which paramilitaries often use to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland.

Senior military sources say the number of tracks and trails make security along the 335 mile border difficult to enforce.

Soldiers began work this morning with plastic explosives to destroy between 20 and 50 of the frontier’s 200 ‘unapproved routes’.

They used plastic explosives to blow holes approximately 10 feet (3m) deep and 20 feet (6m) wide.

In one incident a sniper’s bullet hit the rifle of a soldier guarding a team of sappers near Rosslea, County Fermanagh.

Asked whether the measures would be effective in stopping gun runners and bombers, Colonel Simmonds of the Royal Engineers appeared confident:

“Nobody is going to use this road for some time without a major piece of engineering repair work,” he said.

The decision to tackle cross-border smuggling of arms through the systematic destruction of minor roads was approved in a meeting between Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Brian Faulkner last week.

But local residents on both sides of the border are likely to find the ‘cratering’ a major inconvenience.

A loss for words

One local farmer looked at a gaping hole between himself and his farm further down the road. Asked how he was going to get to it he was at a loss for words. He shrugged.

In past incidences roads blown up that are regularly used for access have simply been refilled.

Republican Taoiseach Jack Lynch has made it clear he disapproves of the measures.

In a statement today he said they were directed at the wrong problem in the wrong place and that they were unlikely to succeed in their “overt intention”.

In Context

By 19 October, nine roads had already been repaired by local people.

But the UK’s official policy of cratering border roads was not only resented by local communities.

Off the record it was also criticised by senior British army officers and senior figures within the British Government.

Disputed roads marked by the British army for destruction caused frequent stand-offs between British and Republic of Ireland soldiers.

By the late 1970s it was generally accepted that the policy was not a success and it was largely abandoned.

In 1971 the situation in Northern Ireland was rapidly deteriorating. Some 174 people died that year in Troubles related violence.

There were 11,800 British Army personnel in Northern Ireland. That number was to double in 1972.