SAOIRSE32

Daily Ireland

04/02/2006

Ninth report of the Independent Monitoring Commission. Presented to the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of Ireland under articles 4 and 7 of the International Agreement establishing the Independent Monitoring Commission.
(It is our hope that most people reading this will take that ‘International Agreement’ bit to mean the Good Friday Agreement, even though we have nothing to do with the Good Friday Agreement.)
First of all we would like to say a few words in the most long-winded and pompous style imaginable in order to suggest to the average reader that we know what day it is. When in fact we don’t.
Actually we’re four old buffers who don’t know the difference between Ballymurphy and the Bogside, but it is our fervent hope that the public will be mightily impressed by our intellectual effervescence if we churn out a lot of guff like this. And this.
The governments have requested this additional report on the activities of the PIRA. Of course, PIRA is a secret organisation about which we know nothing, so the governments have very kindly agreed to let us speak to their people, who do know something about PIRA. We have now spoken to the governments’ people who have told us what they know about PIRA and that information we now duly present to the governments in this report the information that the governments’ people have told us.
As usual we will begin with a few embarrassingly wee paragraphs about how far we’ve come along the road to peace and how things have improved considerably since our last report, but not considerably enough.
In our last report we were criticised for patronising Catholics in our reference to places where the ‘culture of lawfulness’ does not obtain. It was not our intention to denigrate a particular community, but we would be foolish to ignore the reality that no one in west Belfast pays their TV licence and the coal they keep in the bath is in all likelihood smuggled. The sooner they adopt a culture of lawfulness the better. We suggest they take a look at leafy south Belfast where the lawyers and doctors all live and which has the highest crime rate in the country.
We urge the ordinary decent Catholic people of priest-ridden bandit districts like Ballylodge and Turf Murphy to stay in their cottages when there is unrest at the crossroads and not to vote for anyone with a funny Irish name.
We have noted a growing willingness to engage with the PSNI on the part of Catholics as they make their way to the dole or the snooker hall.
The more they do this, the less paramilitary groups will be able to exercise the community control to which they have for long been accustomed.
Granted, not one of us has ever set foot in the communities to which we are referring, but we hope in the future to be able to travel to such places when the roads are better and electricity is installed.
We turn now to PIRA and at the outset we want to welcome the very significant act of decommissioning that took place last year witnessed by a minister and a Romish priest.
Clearly this was a momentous event but it is our duty to state our sincerely held opinion the clerics were telling lies when they described what they had seen. The evidence that PIRA are still armed is overwhelming. We were standing outside Deane’s restaurant waiting for a taxi just after Christmas when we heard a bloke behind us remark that it was entirely possible that PIRA had kept some guns, although he wasn’t clear on the exact amount because, to be honest, he was absolutely bladdered.
And we have received entirely credible reports (printed first in the Sunday Times, Sunday Independent and Sunday Telegraph) that PIRA are still tooled-up and dangerous.
PIRA are still heavily involved in criminality. We ourselves visited a sweetie shop near the border which has collection boxes for Irish language schools beside their tills and which put ads in their windows for Gaelic sporting events.
We urge the Chief Constable to look into this very serious matter. A chap in Thiepval barracks called Nigel (green jumper with patches on the shoulders) told us this shop is a front for an international money-laundering ring stretching from Hong Kong to the Cayman Islands and back to Jonesboro.
The UDA and UVF continue to murder people for looking sideways at their members in pubs. Loyalist communities are awash with drugs. We commend those loyalist paramilitaries who are trying to steer their groups on to a more peaceful path (one is now living in Australia, the other one is expected to be taken off the ventilator later this year).
We note that the situation on the ground in loyalist areas is much improved since our last report – the number of murders has dropped by 0.4 per cent, arson attacks are down and in the past three months there were no deaths associated with the consumption of class A drugs.
Finally, we turn our attention to community workers who volunteer to mediate in disputes – clearly the single biggest danger to society extant today.
Community Restorative Justice is clearly the spawn of the devil and is tighly controlled by PIRA. We reject utterly the suggestion that such community workers might be shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries if we say they’re working for PIRA.
That is a mischievous suggestion and fails to reflect the huge strides being made by loyalist paramilitaries in moving away from violence, as evidenced by the UPRG statement last month (“Give us a few quid and we’ll think about easing up a bit.”).

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes
04/02/2006

A bomb that exploded outside a Sinn Féin office in Monaghan town in 1997 had been handled by both the British army and RUC before being planted, Daily Ireland can reveal.
Security sources confirmed yesterday that, after the bomb had been made in west Belfast’s Shankill Road, it was handed to a notorious Ulster Volunteer Force killer, who is also a long-standing police informer.
He gave the device to his RUC Criminal Investigation Department handler, who gave it to the British army.
According to security sources, the bomb was “disabled” before being returned to the CID detective, who gave it back to his UVF informer.
The paramilitary and two UVF colleagues from the loyalist Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast, who unbeknown to him were also both police informers, then made an uninterrupted 60-mile (97-kilometre) journey to Monaghan, where they planted the bomb.
On March 4, 1997, the 25 sticks of Powergel exploded, causing minor damage to the town’s Sinn Féin offices.
The explosives had been hidden inside a pink holdall. Believing the bag contained rubbish, Sinn Féin workers had moved the holdall on two occasions. Security sources told Daily Ireland the RUC had let the UVF gang carry out the attack in order to protect its three informers within the organisation.
They claimed that, because the British army had “disabled” the bomb, senior officers were confident the explosion would not result in lives being lost.
The Monaghan bombing is being investigated as part of a Police Ombudsman probe into attacks carried out by Special Branch UVF informers during the 1990s.
A spokesman for the Police Ombudsman’s office said: “Our investigation is wide-ranging and ongoing. At this stage, it would be inappropriate to comment on specific aspects.
Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, who was the target of the UVF gang, has called for a full public inquiry into the cross-border bomb attack.

Belfast Telegraph

By Sarah Brett and Brendan McDaid
03 February 2006

A Derry man whose family home was targeted in an overnight blast bomb attack today said he believes loyalists were responsible.

James Poole, who has lived in his house at Benview in Coshquin for 45 years, said his wife’s nerves were shattered since the midnight attack when the bedroom window was blown in by the blast.

Their 10-year-old daughter Ruth was asleep in the back of the house, near the border with Donegal, when the bomb exploded.

None of the family was injured in the incident.

He said: “I’m just shocked. I was in the front room watching the TV. I’d just taken the wife down a water bottle when there was a bright orange flash and then a bang. The windows were put in and then I saw a bolt on the floor.

“These people are all cowards. They came at night so as not to be seen. I’ve lived here for 45 years. I’ve been threatened by loyalists in the past, in August or September, one came up to the house and hit me a slap in the mouth.

“I’m not prepared to say why but it’s just a dispute with somebody and they’ve gotten loyalists involved somehow.”

Mr Poole told how his wife was partially protected by curtains when the bedroom window shattered.

Two large chunks of masonry were taken out of the wall.

A neighbour who was wakened by the blast said: “I was in bed and I just heard a loud bang. It was a scary experience. I didn’t know what it was.

“There has been quite a lot of activity here ever since.”

A spokesman for the PSNI said today: “A couple and a 10-year-old girl were in the house at the time, but there are no reports of any injuries.

“A motive for the incident has not yet been established.”

Daily Ireland

**Via Newshound

by Ciarán Barnes
03/02/2006

GardaÍ have warned a Co Kerry republican that his life is under threat from the Continuity IRA.
Detectives called to John O’Shea’s home in Ballylongford last week to warn him of the death threat.
They said he was being targeted by dissident republicans.
The 45-year-old is a former member of Republican Sinn Féin, the Continuity IRA’s political wing, who resigned in the summer.
Mr O’Shea quit after a dispute over funding for Continuity IRA prisoners jailed on Portlaoise’s E4 landing.
Last August, ten of the inmates resigned from the Continuity IRA complaining their families were not getting financial help from Republican Sinn Féin.
Their departure caused a major split in Continuity IRA and Republican Sinn Féin ranks with mass resignations throughout Ireland.
The entire Republican Sinn Féin cumann in Ballylongford left the party, joining the new Concerned Group for Republican Prisoners (CGRP).
Since joining the CGRP, Mr O’Shea says he has received threatening telephone calls from Continuity IRA members.
At Christmas, he was forced to change his home telephone number because of the frequency of the calls. Undeterred though, he continues to collect money for the families of inmates on E4.
Mr O’Shea told Daily Ireland that although worried by the death threats he has no plans to end his prisoner work. He said: “I’ve been part of the republican movement since I was 16 years-old and I’m not going to walk away now.
“I’m taking these latest threats seriously, but I will not allow the Continuity IRA to stop me working for the E4 prisoners.
“I am calling on those targeting me to leave me alone. I pose no threat to anyone.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
03 February 2006

The family of Pat Finucane and Secretary of State Peter Hain will meet next week about the controversial terms for the inquiry into the solicitor’s murder.

Mr Finucane’s widow Geraldine and other family members will meet Mr Hain on Tuesday and testify before the Dail’s foreign relations committee two days later.

The family and the Government are in dispute about the terms for holding the inquiry into collusion between Mr Finucane’s UDA killers and the state.

Last week Mr Hain said that the inquiry will be held under the controversial Inquiries Act or there will be “none at all”.

The family have campaigned for almost 17 years for an inquiry into the murder, but say they “can not take part in any inquiry set up under the Inquiries Act”, arguing that it destroys the independence of the tribunal investigating the case.

The new law gives Ministers the power to withhold information.

“The truth of what happened and why is located in the secret corridors of Whitehall.

“The family cannot get involved in any inquiry in which the Ministers in charge of those very same corridors will be in charge of Pat’s inquiry.”

The family have led an international campaign to convince judges to refuse to take part in the inquiry under the present terms.

So far the Government has been unable to find a judge to take on the case.

The judges in charge of the Bloody Sunday Tribunal and retired Canadian Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory, who recommended the inquiry into the 1989 Finucane murder, have indicated that the conditions imposed by the Inquiries Act are unacceptable.

Mr Hain says the Act would guarantee the co-operation of MI5 agents in the collusion inquiry because it would protect their sources.

“It will enable the security services and police to give evidence in a frank way and help find the truth,” he said.

Belfast Telegraph

By Fiona McIlwaine Biggins
04 February 2006

A USPCA vehicle was out of service for 24 hours this week after a boulder was thrown through the windscreen during a call in Belfast.

Around £300 worth of damage was caused to the van on Thursday afternoon while the animal welfare officer was away from it, helping the PSNI during a call to a house at Unity Flats in the city.

During a previous visit to the property a police officer had been bitten by the family’s dog.

The USPCA had been called in to look after the pet during the follow-up call.

After completing the visit, they returned to find that a crowd had gathered around the vehicle and that the windscreen had been smashed with large rock.

However, when the police requested witnesses to the incident no one came forward.

A spokesperson for the USPCA said they believe that they were targeted because they were assisting the PSNI at the time.

“This has happened two or three times and as a charity focused on the welfare of animals we must now use some of our resources to foot the bill of around £300 to repair the damage to the vehicle.

“At one time we were seen as an impartial organisation, like the Ambulance or Fire Services.

“But social attitudes are changing to us all now.”

The animal charity said it would like to see the culprits identified and made to pay for the damage they have caused.

BN.ie

04/02/2006 - 12:05:47

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain was today accused of acting like a spin doctor for the IRA.

In a hard-hitting attack on a range of political opponents in the North, Democratic Unionist deputy leader Peter Robinson told his annual conference in Belfast that the British government should be ashamed of how it handled concerns about ongoing IRA criminality, violence and allegations that they had held on to their weapons.

And with the party due to head into talks on Monday with the British government, the East Belfast MP dismissed nationalist claims that the only way forward was through the Good Friday Agreement. He told them: “Read my lips – the Belfast Agreement is dead.”

The DUP deputy leader said last Wednesday’s Independent Monitoring Commission report on paramilitary activity had shown that the IRA had still a very long way to go before republicans could democratise.

“Democracy cannot tolerate a situation where criminality is institutionalised at the heart of the state and that is exactly what would be done if we were to permit an organisation like Sinn Féin which is still seamlessly linked to paramilitary and criminal activity into government,” he said.

“It will not happen. But, in truth, I do not need to argue the case that Sinn Féin has not passed the entry test.

“Bertie Ahern has pronounced upon their fitness for government. He says he would not countenance having them in government in the Irish Republic. You can be certain that neither Tony Blair nor George Bush would consider sharing power with the Provos for a second.

“Let me give them a clear message: Don’t ask us to do something you would not do yourselves.”

The former Stormont Regional Development Minister noted it had taken 11 years from their first ceasefire for the IRA to carry out significant disarmament but he said it was also clear that their fingers could not be prised away from their weapons.

He continued: “Without there being even a single IMC report suggesting the IRA has given up its illegal activities it is quite simply preposterous and outrageous to expect unionists to move.

“The government should be ashamed of itself. Instead of piling pressure on republicans to make good their promises, Peter Hain has been acting as chief apologist and spin doctor for the IRA.

“He has attempted to dilute the exposure of their wrongdoing and spin the areas where the IMC reported any positive change.”

BN.ie

04/02/2006 - 13:53:09

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams today called for an end to the rhetoric surrounding the peace process, insisting devolution had to be restored within a short time-frame.

With all-party talks planned for Monday, Mr Adams said the Democratic Unionist Party had to be given the chance to voice their ideas and concerns and added that republicans were willing to listen attentively.

“This party stands ready to work with the DUP. We do so already in Councils across the North and we did in the Assembly when it functioned,” Mr Adams said.

“Each day British direct-rule Ministers take decisions on spending reviews, health, education, the environment, energy and other matters which adversely effect every citizen in the North and have a knock-on effect throughout the whole island.

“The DUP’s refusal to work with Sinn Féin in government is allowing this to continue.”

In an address to the national conference of Ogra Shinn Féin in Dublin, Mr Adams noted that a new round of talks would begin in earnest on Monday. And he said Sinn Féin would listen to the concerns and ideas of the DUP and the other parties.

“But the main objective of these talks has to be to end the suspension of the political institutions within a short time-frame,” the Sinn Féin leader insisted.

“The two governments have received that very clear message from us. Now is the time for the two governments to act. Rhetoric is not enough.”

Mr Adams made his comments as the DUP met in Belfast for their annual party conference. The Reverend Ian Paisley told delegates that the party would work with all democrats regardless of their background but not those with links to criminality and terror.

Challenged with Sinn Féin claims that the DUP was not interested in working with Catholic politicians in the North he said: “To those who say we will not work with our Roman Catholic fellow countrymen, let me say that we will work with all democrats, regardless of where they come from, but we will have no truck with those who pursue terror and criminality.”

BBC

The remains were uncovered on Rathlin Island

Human remains dating back almost 4,000 years have been uncovered on Rathlin Island off the County Antrim coast.

Senior archaeologists are investigating the remains of a man who could have been buried in the Bronze Age.

The skeleton was found in a crouched foetal-like position, which would indicate a cist burial in about 2000 BC.

The body was accompanied by a food vessel. The remains were uncovered on Monday on the north coast, close to Rathlin Island’s only pub, during work.

Local people said they believe the bones are very old, and are similar to others which have been uncovered in the area over the years.

Declan Hurl, a senior archaeologist with the Department of Heritage and Environment and Dr Colin Breen from the Centre of Marine Archaeology at the University of Ulster, are investigating the find.

A spokesman for the Department of Environment stressed it was very early to give details but said this looked like a very significant discovery.

“What they (the archaeologists) are looking at is the possibility of an early Bronze Age site,” he told the BBC News website.

“The find has just been identified in the past 24 hours. An initial report will determine whether the site can sustain excavation, given its precarious location,” he said.

People have been sailing to Rathlin for thousands of years.

Other recent archaeological discoveries indicate the island may have been settled as early as 7000 BC, placing it among the oldest such sites in all of Ireland.

A Neolithic stone axe factory uncovered on the pistol-shaped island’s western tip dates from at least 4000 BC.

Irish Examiner

By Harry McGee, Political Editor
04/02/06

WHEN you talk about the end of conflict, it depends what conflict you are talking about.

There is another war going on, the one that’s not being waged by diehard republican splinter groups or by drug-fuelled loyalist hoods.

No, this is a horse of a different colour. It’s the war on the ideological front. And for some of its generals, this war will never be over.

The film Magnolia has a recurring motif about outlandish coincidences.

One tells the story of the young man who decides to end it all by throwing himself off the roof of his apartment building.

At the same time, in the family apartment below, his parents are having a violent row.

His mother grabs a gun and shoots at the father but misses. The bullet passes through the window and kills the young man as he plummets towards the ground.

For some strange reason, I was reminded of that on Wednesday, when the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) report was published.

The IMC wasn’t yet ready to award any gold stars to the IRA. One of the negatives it dwelt on was money-laundering.

By a curious coincidence, the authorities on both sides of the Border chose that very day to make very public a series of raids they had carried out targeted at - you’ll never guess - IRA money-laundering.

Did Justice Minister Michael McDowell have anything to say about all that? Well, diligent reporters managed to coax a few words out of him.

“The good news from today’s story is that the battle to get those assets into safe hands and to deprive paramilitary and subversive people of their use for whatever purposes is ongoing and succeeding,” he said.

For some, the war will never be over. For McDowell and his predecessor in justice, John O’Donoghue, the republican movement will remain a threat to the State irrespective of its mode. The private army will remain the private army even if its arsenal is composed of ballot boxes and bulging war chests.

All of this shows up the internal imbalance in the Government’s response to republicanism and its journey away from violence.

Even a cursory study of the IMC report on Wednesday will have told you why Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair went to so much trouble the previous week.

You can’t expect everything to happen immediately, they said then. Look at the big picture - July 28 IRA statement and full decommissioning. You can’t deny that they weren’t significant, Blair said in his sugary-sincere way.

Preempting the IMC report did not fully soften its sting. The report was more negative than what Ahern and Blair had braced us for.

The IRA still held a “range of different kinds of weapons and ammunition” that should have been decommissioned, it surmised. It dwelt on money-laundering, on intelligence gathering, hinted that the Provos were exerting a sinister influence on community restorative justice programmes in some areas.

Ahern & Ahern did their best to gloss over these things. But the IMC itself did not seem as enthusiastic; John Alderdice pointedly said he was not as confident as John de Chastelain that the IRA had not retained guns.

And what were we to make of the CAB raids? Is the Government operating a dual strategy of simultaneously giving the IRA a slap on the back and a kick up the backside? Are the divergent approaches of the Aherns and McDowell all accommodated to coax republicans to peace, and tear them to pieces (morally and electorally)?

Yes, there needs to be accountability. And yes, republicans will have to fully embrace the democratic institutions and the rule of law. But what are people going to do about the big dark chasm that is the world of loyalist paramilitarism and criminality?

The most extraordinary - but seldom mentioned - statistics the IMC reports contain are those related to loyalist violence. There were zero republican shootings last Autumn. There were over 20 involving loyalists, who have carried out at least twice as many assaults as republicans since 2003.

Do the unionist parties, especially the DUP, have no responsibility at all in dealing with that crisis?

Or does the never ending ideological war have only enough room for one never-ending enemy of the people?

BBC

3 February 2006

Lawyers representing a solicitor held by police are to seek a judicial review of the circumstances of his arrest.

Limavady solicitor Manmohan Sandhu was arrested on Tuesday and is being held in Antrim police station over allegations of serious crime.

His lawyers claim police secretly taped conversations between him and clients.

The High Court will be asked to look at the legality of the bugging devices allegedly used to record confidential conversations at Antrim police station.

Detectives on Thursday successfully applied for another 48 hours to interview Mr Sandhu. The extension runs out at 1000 GMT on Saturday.

It is understood police will seek another extension at the High Court. This is likely to happen after the judicial hearing.

The Law Society, the body which represents the legal profession, is to take the case up with the chief constable.

Law Society chief executive John Bailie is to meet Hugh Orde in Belfast on Monday.

Mr Bailie said that the allegations of covert taping by police represented an “intrusion into the solicitor-client relationship”.

“A client in these circumstances - who is arrested and in police custody, suspected of having committed a criminal offence - needs to be able to speak to his solicitor candidly,” he said.

“It is the first occasion of which I am aware in Northern Ireland that there has been this kind of intrusion into the solicitor-client relationship”.
John Bailie
Law Society chief executive

“The administration of justice requires that should happen: he needs to be guaranteed that it is kept confidential.

“I think also the reason why we are taking this so seriously is that it is the first occasion of which I am aware in Northern Ireland that there has been this kind of intrusion into the solicitor-client relationship.”

Mr Sandhu’s solicitor, Joe Rice, wrote to the Law Society to complain about how, he claims, the police gathered evidence by covertly taping confidential conversations.

Mr Rice alleges the conversations, allegedly taped at Antrim police station, led to Mr Sandhu being questioned about serious terrorist activity including membership of a loyalist paramilitary organisation.

‘Sad day’

The letter from Mr Rice to the Law Society’s chief executive also said: “It is a sad day for our criminal justice process that a solicitor cannot guarantee that his advices to his client in a police station may not be free from state interference.”

He also stated: “I am sure you will share my concern that the right to confidentiality that must exist between solicitor and client has now been eradicated.

“This is a deliberate move by the authorities and no solicitor can at present guarantee his client that any pre-interview or indeed post-interview consultations at police stations in Northern Ireland are private and confidential.”

Police refused to confirm or deny the identity of Mr Sandhu, but confirmed on Thursday they have been granted another 48 hours to question a man at Antrim police station.

Irish Independent

Caitriona Palmer, in Washington

THE family of Joseph Rafferty, the Dubliner allegedly murdered by republican elements, are due to arrive in New York today in advance of a series of meetings with senior US politicians to call attention to the case and to bring his killer to justice.

Beginning on Monday in Washington DC, Mr Rafferty’s relatives are scheduled to meet with a series of high profile political figures including Senators Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy.

The family is also due to meet with several Democratic and Republican members of the US House of Representatives, senior diplomats in the State Department in charge of Ireland and Irish embassy officials.

Rafferty, a 29-year-old father of one, was shot twice by a gunman as he left his home in Clonee, West Dublin in April 2005. His family allege that his killer is a known member of the IRA and that Sinn Fein officials are protecting his identity.

This campaign follows a similar effort by the family of Robert McCartney, the 33-year-old Catholic man stabbed to death outside a Belfast bar in January 2005 by alleged members of the IRA.”We’re not trying to bring down Sinn Fein,” said Esther Uzell, a sister of Joe Rafferty, speaking on the eve of her US visit.

Irish Independent

Ralph Riegel

THE parents of slain schoolboy Robert Holohan have written to the Cork county coroner asking that his killer be summoned to appear at the inquest into his death.

The Holohans want Wayne O’Donoghue to answer the questions that have tortured them since his trial.

Majella Holohan has confirmed she wants to see O’Donoghue personally respond to a number of issues she raised at his sentencing hearing, and to be cross-examined by their solicitor. “We have questions that we want answered,” she said.

O’Donoghue received a four-year prison sentence for the manslaughter of Robert on January 4 2005 after being acquitted of the boy’s murder.

Robert died from asphyxia due to neck compression after being placed in a head-lock and caught by the throat by O’Donoghue.

The Holohan family last week wrote to the DPP pleading that what they claimed to be the undue leniency of the sentence be appealed.

Cork county coroner Frank O’Connell has said that no details of the inquest, either its date or the potential witnesses to be summoned, will be discussed until after the 28-day statutory appeals period expires.

That is on February 21, and, if there is no appeal against his sentence, Mr O’Connell will then liaise with the various interested parties about the date and running order.

O’Donoghue’s solicitor, Frank Buttimer, last night said he had no further comment to make.

Mr Buttimer has already insisted that his client will do “everything humanly possible” to assist the inquest and the Holohan family.

However, he said that his client will refuse to attend the inquest if there is any question of his name being further blackened or if he is to be subjected to any attempted re-run of his trial.

Mr Buttimer stressed that this is not the function of such inquests, whose purpose is to record matters of fact such as the identity of the deceased, the place and time of death as well as the actual cause of death.

This is to allow the release of a death certificate to the family.

Mr Buttimer said he would find it “extraordinary” if his client was summoned to appear to the inquest in light of the detailed information already given to the original 10-day Central Criminal Court trial.

It remains unclear whether the State Pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, whose trial testimony was crucial, will be asked to offer evidence at the inquest.

‘Nightmare’

Yesterday, Majella Holohan said the family’s ordeal over the past two months has been “a living nightmare”.

“You just have to keep it together for the kids (Emma and Harry).

“They have good days and bad days like myself. But you have to just keep going. There’s nothing else you can do.”

With her husband, Mark, she is trying to offer their two children as normal a life as possible in the circumstances. To that end, they are now in the process of selling their home and moving to another part of Midleton.

“There are just too many memories and reminders here in Ballyedmond.”

World Socialist Web Site

By Paul Bond
4 February 2006

The Spanish High Court has renewed its legal ban on the Basque separatist party Batasuna. The decision prompted a demonstration in the Basque region called in defence of “civil and political rights.”

Batasuna, a parliamentary party calling for the formation of a Basque national state, was proscribed by the Supreme Court in 2003 on the grounds that it constituted the political wing of the armed group ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna—Basque Homeland and Freedom). Prior to the ban, Batasuna had received some 12 percent of the regional vote.

Although the party remains illegal, a previous court order prohibiting its activities had recently expired. Batasuna had called a rally in Barakaldo, near Bilbao, which it described as the party’s first national assembly since its proscription.

The presiding judge, Fernando Grande-Marlaska of the National Court, said that Batasuna had periodically been allowed to hold rallies and meetings since the ban. (A march in August was allowed to go ahead, for example, but along a different route from the one originally proposed.) But the judge said a congress called to elect a new executive committee would be going too far. Banning the proposed rally, he also extended the ban on Batasuna’s “public, private and institutional” activities for another two years. He described the organisation as “a structure controlled by the leaders of ETA.”

Police immediately moved to close down any remaining premises used by Batasuna. The party’s offices in Pamplona were sealed by police the day after the judgement. On January 19, some 20 police officers shut down premises in Donostia, which the party had used for press conferences.

Basque nationalists promptly called a demonstration outside the Bilbao Exhibition Centre in Barakaldo, where the rally was to have been held. The decision to allow the rally to proceed was taken by the regional government, a coalition of nationalist parties. The regional justice minister, Joseba Azkarraga, argued that Batasuna’s supporters should be allowed to express themselves. The other nationalist parties condemn ETA, but say that Batasuna will need to be included in any peace process. On the morning of the demonstration, the National Court ordered police to intervene if there were any chants or banners supporting ETA.

Reports of the attendance at the rally ranged from 8,000 according to El Pais, the daily paper closest to the PSOE government, to 20,000 cited by nationalist sources. The main speaker was Batasuna’s leader, Arnaldo Otegi. Other Batasuna leaders were also on the platform, along with Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein parliamentary deputy, Aengus O’Snodaigh. Batasuna holds up the negotiations between the British government and the Irish republican movement as the model for the deal they wish to do with the Spanish state.

In his 13-minute speech, Otegi talked of new provocations and obstacles to the peace process in the Basque region. He again stressed the party’s determination to participate in any further discussion on the region’s status, saying that “a process which will provide solutions to the conflict” was within reach.

Otegi said more about this in a recent interview with Radio Euskadi. He appealed to the “good will” of all parties in the region to collaborate in the development of a regional plan, describing the ban on Batasuna as an attempt to disrupt the unofficial relations the party had forged with other nationalist parties in the region.

For the ruling Basque National Party (PNV), the initial composition of any Basque homeland would be the three Basque provinces in Spain. Batasuna (and ETA) have always insisted that it must also include the Basque province within France. In his radio interview, Otegi was at his most conciliatory towards the PNV. He said that he had met with the PNV’s Juan José Ibarretxe after Grande-Marlaska’s judgement, and that they had a common understanding of the intentions behind it.

In 2003, Ibarretxe put forward a plan for extending Basque autonomy. Otegi told Radio Euskadi that Ibarretxe faced “structural difficulties” in implementing a peace process because of his restriction to three territories. At the same time, though, Otegi said that Ibarretxe could “contribute importantly” to any plan, which would only be realised through the collaboration of “all parties” in the region.

Patxi Lopez, head of the Basque Socialist Party (PSE—the regional sister party of the ruling national PSOE), said that the only obstacle to peace was the continued existence of ETA. Its disbanding was a prerequisite for any talks with Batasuna, he said, and Otegi had missed an “excellent opportunity” to call on ETA to disarm.

Successive Spanish governments have continued to use the Basque region as a testing ground for undemocratic measures aimed at suppressing any domestic political unrest. The banning of Batasuna, which disenfranchised large sections of the Basque country, was the first time a political party had been outlawed in Spain since the end of the dictatorship of General Franco.

The banning of Batasuna was initially carried out by the right-wing Popular Party (PP) government of José Maria Aznar. The PP, now in opposition, had demanded the banning of the Batasuna meeting. After the rally, local PP leader Carmelo Barrio said that it had “served only to promote the ideals of ETA-Batasuna.” Urging greater intervention, he said that “the weakness of our leaders is directly proportional to the arrogance with which the terrorists and their supporters brandish their antidemocratic arguments.” The PP demanded an investigation into the rally, describing it as a front for ETA.

At the same time, the rightist public employees union Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) filed charges against local government officials for “consenting” to the rally in the face of Grande-Marlaska’s judgement. Also filing charges against the rally’s “chief protagonist,” Otegi, Manos Limpias demanded legal action from the public prosecutor, whose “mission is to promote justice in defence of legality… and the public interest.”

Such police and court powers, having been tested in the Basque region, will be used against the whole Spanish working class. Batasuna seeks to exploit this to justify their separatist agenda, which can only further the division of the Spanish working class along regional lines and strengthen the right wing.

PSOE Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was in favour of letting the meeting go ahead and has already offered talks if ETA disarms. He too has learned from the way Britain’s Labour government has worked with Washington and Dublin to bring Sinn Fein into a devolved executive, in order to better police the Catholic population in Northern Ireland and ensure that the basic requirements of global investors for stability are met and cuts in government expenditure are pushed through.

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes
03/02/2006

Royal Mail’s insistence on a postman handing over a diary containing allegations of harassment sparked this week’s postal strike in Belfast.
The incident, which occurred on Monday, led to postal staff from north, south and west Belfast downing tools.
For the past three days more than 200 Royal Mail staff have staged a demonstration outside the firm’s Tomb Street offices.
The Communications Workers Union (CWU) said the strike is set to continue, despite requests from management for staff to return to work.
A CWU official also warned the strike could spread to Royal Mail’s main sorting office at Mallusk on the edge of north Belfast. Any disruption to the operation there could cripple postal services throughout the North.
Striking postal workers told Daily Ireland they will remain on the picket lines until threats of disciplinary action are lifted against the member of staff whose diary was confiscated.
The postman, who has worked in Royal Mail for 20 years, had been noting claims of harassment of staff by management since October.
His bosses confiscated the diary after learning of its existence on Monday. It is understood they photocopied numerous pages before handing it back to him.
The postman was subsequently accused of harassing his bosses. This led to his colleagues in north, south and west Belfast taking unofficial strike action. A CWU official said: “The postman who was keeping the diary faces dismissal or removal from the north Belfast division. Although he has done nothing wrong he has been charged with harassing the manager he was keeping notes on. This postman has been with Royal Mail for 20 years. He has an unblemished record of service, his treatment is scandalous.”
The union official said staff would continue to strike until the threat of disciplinary action against their colleague was lifted. He said other issues regarding overtime and working conditions needed to be resolved before the picket ended.
Royal Mail commercial manager David Peden said: “The CWU has acknowledged that this continuing walkout is illegal and has no union backing, but there is no evidence of any will to end this dispute, which becomes more damaging by the day,” said Mr Peden.
He also repeated Royal Mail’s guarantee that 11-plus test results, which are due to be delivered on Saturday, will reach children on time.