SAOIRSE32

Derry Journal

24 March 2006

Members of the ATO arrive at the bottom of Fahan Street after the discovery of the suspect package

SCHOOL KIDS are being blamed for bringing parts of the Bogside to standstill for more than three hours yesterday and for the hoax bomb attack on the home of SDLP MLA, Pat Ramsey, earlier this week.
Sinn Fein Colr. Peter Anderson said those behind the incidents ‘represented no one’.
British Army bomb disposal experts were called to Fahan Street yesterday where a suspicious object had been discovered. A controlled explosion was carried out on the object which was later described as an “elaborate hoax.”
The road was re-opened to traffic shortly after 12.30pm. During the security alert, residents of nearby St. Joseph’s Place were advised to stay at the front of their houses.
Condemning yes-terday’s bomb scare, Councillor Peter Anderson said that he believed that young people were to blame for placing the hoax device in a bid to lure security forces into the area to attack them.
“In my view, the people responsible for this are young people, possibly young school-children. They represent no-one and the only people they are hurting are the people in Fahan Street, including many elderly people, and the people of the Bogside. A few days age we had the hoax bomb outside Pat Ramsey’s house which caused problems not only for the Ramsey family but also for people living in the surrounding area.
“I would imagine that the same people responsible for causing the hoax outside the Ramsey house are the same people who left this hoax in Fahan Street. I also believe that these are the same people who have been attacking the Fountain.
“Now that republicans and local residents have set up a rota which has stopped the majority of attacks on the Fountain, the young people who are involved in those attacks are now trying to lure the police and the army into the area to attack them,” he said.
Councillor Ander-son also said that those responsible for the series of hoax bombs could not claim to be republicans.
“The element who are carrying out this type of thing probably think they are republicans. Most likely they are young people and my advice to them, given the fact that we are approaching the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising, would be to look in their school books and read the Proclamation and hang their heads in shame,” he said.
SDLP MLA Mary Bradley also condemned the incident and said that the people who planted the hoax device showed “contempt” for residents of the area. “I have nothing but total condemnation for this attack. This is the second hoax attack we have seen in recent days and I had hoped that we had left this type of thing in the past. This is a residential area and it is also an area that is used by pedestrians on their way to and from the town.
“The people who left this hoax in Fahan Street probably wanted to attract the security forces into the area because they think it is fun to throw petrol bombs and paint bombs at them but I can say that it is certainly not fun for the people living in Fahan Street to have their street cordoned off and traffic disrupted because of a bomb scare.

Daily Ireland

Jarlath Kearney
24/03/2006

The British government’s refusal to impose basic equality obligations on the BBC in the North has been criticised by victims of state violence.
The Belfast-based group Relatives for Justice, which represents scores of families affected by state violence, contrasted the British government’s treatment of the BBC with large-scale structural changes to other public-sector institutions in the North.
Earlier this week, secretary of state Peter Hain announced the latest stage of the Review of Public Administration.
However, the Northern Ireland Office has refused to apply basic equality provisions introduced under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement to the BBC.
Relatives for Justice spokesman Mark Thompson said it was ironic that the BBC reported extensively on major changes to the public sector, when the broadcaster itself was not bound by basic public-sector equality duties.
“From our perspective, the BBC is the second largest public body in the North and, under equality legislation, it is our understanding that the BBC should have been designated under the Good Friday Agreement,” Mr Thompson said.
“We feel that there is a vested interest on the part of the NIO and British government in not designating the BBC.
“There has been a very close relationship down the years whereby the state broadcaster has largely reflected the views of the state itself.
“This is particularly concerning given that we are emerging from a conflict in which the state has been a central protagonist.
“Undoubtedly such a relationship must be challenged.”
Mr Thompson said the Northern Ireland Office’s failure to designate the BBC under equality legislation was “deeply concerning”.
“In terms of the experience of victims of state violence, it has been one in which the BBC has largely marginalised and isolated them. They are not afforded the same space or given the same attention as other actors in the conflict in terms of the presentation afforded by the BBC,” Mr Thompson said.
Mr Thompson complained that the BBC has failed to cover a range of events organised by RFJ and the anti-collusion group An Fhirinne over the last year.
He said this included a major conference launch which was attended by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, as well as subsequent events.
“In contrast, we feel other victims of the conflict who espouse an agenda compatible with the British government and certain elements of the BBC find it much easier to air their concerns.
“It is notable that, despite a highly critical report by Abid Hussein, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression about partial BBC coverage in the North, the organisation is still not subject to basic equality laws which apply across the public sector.
“There are questions for the Equality Commission over their failure to insist such equality legislation is implemented by the NIO, as was intended under the agreement,” Mr Thompson said.
Responding to RFJ’s criticisms a BBC spokesperson issued the following statement to Daily Ireland: “The BBC is regulated by an agreement under its charter which upholds the BBC’s political and editorial independence.”
The Equality Commission declined to comment at this time.
The same space or given the same attention as other actors in the conflict in terms of the presentation afforded by the BBC,” Mr Thompson said.
He complained that the BBC had failed to cover a range of events organised by Relatives for Justice and the anti-collusion group An Fhírinne over the last year.
He said these included a major conference launch that was attended by former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, as well as subsequent events.
“In contrast, we feel other victims of the conflict who espouse an agenda compatible with the British government and certain elements of the BBC find it much easier to air their concerns.
“It is notable that, despite a highly critical report by Abid Hussein, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, about partial BBC coverage in the North, the organisation is still not subject to basic equality laws which apply across the public sector.
“There are questions for the Equality Commission over their failure to insist such equality legislation is implemented by the NIO, as was intended under the [Good Friday] Agreement,” Mr Thompson said.
Responding to these criticisms, a BBC spokesperson issued the following statement to Daily Ireland: “The BBC is regulated by an agreement under its charter, which upholds the BBC’s political and editorial independence.”
The Equality Commission declined to comment at this time.

BN.ie

24/03/2006 - 17:00:05

The Independent Mediator appointed to draw both sides together in the Corrib gas pipe dispute has drawn up and submitted a set of ground rules for formal mediation.

Peter Cassells has given the Rossport Five and Shell a guarantee that the mediation process will be carried out properly, professionally and in an independent manner.

The purpose of his appointment was to reconcile the interests of both sides in bringing the gas from the Corrib gasfield to the market while ensuring the highest standard of safety.

The ground rules call for complete confidentiality throughout the process, meaning no information will be issued to the press.

Peter Cassells will meet the Rossport Five next week and Shell at a later date.

CNN.com

**Interesting for its analysis

Friday, March 24, 2006
Posted: 1643 GMT (0043 HKT)

September 11 changed everything

DUBLIN, Republic of Ireland (AP) — Not so long ago, when a bomb went off in London, you could be sure it was the Irish Republican Army. If the target was Madrid, that meant the Basque separatist group ETA.

But al Qaeda has shattered the old certainties — and accelerated the decline of European paramilitary groups that peg their survival to a bedrock of public support. The continent’s two most entrenched bands of outlaws, the IRA and ETA, have taken their biggest peacemaking steps in the shadow of al Qaeda carnage.

“The old terrorist groups, at leadership level, would not want to be linked in the public mind with this new type of terror. They wouldn’t want to be seen to be competing for attention with it,” said Christopher Langton, an analyst at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.

“With the IRA and ETA and others, they call cease-fires and want to be negotiated with,” said Langton, a retired British army colonel. But with al Qaeda, he said, “there’s nobody to negotiate with.”

He and Jonathan Stevenson, an anti-terrorism specialist at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, agree that the al Qaeda threat has greatly increased Western governments’ willingness to share intelligence, toughen anti-terrorism laws, and tolerate repressive measures. Previously, Britain and Spain faced international criticism when they cracked down on the IRA and ETA, whose members were easier to identify and arrest.

“September 11 and the rise of the new terrorism hardened governments against dealing with groups that commit terrorist violence,” said Stevenson, an expert on conflicts from Northern Ireland to Somalia.

He said al Qaeda’s “mass-casualty agenda” meant that the violence committed by the IRA and ETA no longer had “stun value.”

In its peace declaration this week, ETA — which killed about 800 people from 1968 to 2003 in hope of pressuring Spain into granting independence to the Basque region — pledged its cease-fire would be permanent and demanded only admission to negotiations in return, a remarkable climbdown. The group hadn’t killed anybody since March 11, 2004, when Moroccan radicals killed 191 people with blasts on Madrid commuter trains, an atrocity that the Spanish government of the day tried to pin on ETA.

The IRA, which killed 1,775 people during a failed 27-year campaign to wrest Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, began disarming just six weeks after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. And just a few weeks after suicide bombers killed 56 people in London, the IRA formally instructed its members to renounce violence for political purposes and to dump their weapons for collection by disarmament officials.

The IRA had ruled out both moves for a decade. Analysts and IRA members alike say that growing international impatience, particularly in the United States after September 11, helped make the unthinkable inevitable.

“Al Qaeda did change things for us,” said an IRA veteran, speaking on condition of anonymity because IRA membership remains an imprisonable crime in both Britain and Ireland.

He told The Associated Press that the September 11 attacks made it politically impossible for the IRA to break its 1997 cease-fire. He contrasted that with the fate of the IRA’s previous 1994 truce, which ended with a two-ton truck bomb on the City of London, Britain’s financial district, that caused vast economic damage and killed two men. The low death toll reflected the IRA policy of phoned warnings and followed two similarly massive strikes on the City of London in 1992 and 1993.

“Up to then, we could expect a certain level of sympathy internationally when we bombed the City of London. Those operations used to be, far and away, the most effective thing we did, the thing that really hit the Brits in their wallets,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect too many Irish-Americans in New York to cheer us if we did that today — not after what happened to the twin towers.”

Most of Europe’s terror-practicing groups rose amid the radical chic and student protests of the late 1960s, when the continent was divided by the Cold War. Germany’s Red Army Faction, Italy’s Red Brigades and Greece’s November 17 kidnapped, assassinated and bombed as they dreamed of Marxist revolution and the collapse of NATO.

Because they lacked any popular base, these small groups proved vulnerable to leaders’ arrests. Once the Warsaw Pact collapsed, they disintegrated or lost their direction.

Fred Halliday, a human rights professor at the London School of Economics, said the end of the Cold War undermined virtually all of Europe’s paramilitary movements; the IRA, for instance, received Warsaw Pact weaponry through Libya and claimed to be fighting to create a socialist republic.

Halliday cited several factors that drove the IRA, then ETA, toward peace long before al Qaeda appeared. He said the IRA’s Sinn Fein party was deeply influenced by the African National Congress’ renunciation of “armed struggle” in the early 1990s. Then Sinn Fein jumped at the chance, in 1994, to enter mainstream politics with crucial encouragement from former U.S. President Bill Clinton. ETA, in turn, sought to emulate Sinn Fein’s truce-for-talks strategy.

But he said the IRA’s and ETA’s long road to peace illustrated how long it would take to come to terms with al Qaeda as well as Hamas, the militant Palestinian movement. He said it was inevitable that, someday, the West would end up negotiating with the political descendants of both forces.

“The IRA and ETA must have realized 10, 20 years before their cease-fires that their war wasn’t going anywhere. It took their leaders that long to shift their movement towards reality,” Halliday said. “How long will it take al Qaeda and Hamas to travel the same journey? It’s depressing.”

Village Magazine

**Via Newshound

by Vincent Browne
Thursday, March 16, 2006

Phil Flynn’s account of his role in Chesterton Finance, the ‘weapons’ charge and the infamous trip to Bulgaria

“Former aide Flynn faces gun charges” was the front page headline in the Irish Independent on 12 August last. “Flynn faces weapon charges after Garda inquiries” headlined the Irish Times. “Proof” that Phil Flynn, former President of ICTU, head of the Government’s decentralisation committee, serial fixer of disputes in the public service and former vice-president of Sinn Féin, was deeply implicated in the money-laundering, bank robbing, and associated criminality ascribed to the IRA in early 2005. He had been “outed” on the previous 12 August as implicated in laundering the €28m which the IRA allegedly robbed from the Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004.

“Proof” that government ministers in the last 30 years, notably Patrick Cooney, Fine Gael Minister for Justice from 1973 to 1977, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in that same government, and Barry Desmond, Minister for Health from 1983 to 1987 had been right all along in regarding him as a political leper because of his republican associations.

The “weapon” had been found in a drawer in his office desk when members of the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) came to search the place in February 2005.

“I got a phone call from my secretary to say that there were a number of people at my office with a search warrant and she wanted to know what she should do and I said, let them in. And I headed back there as quickly as I could. And when I got there they said they were going to have to break into my house. I said there was no need, I would let them in after they had completed the search of my office.

“They took away a significant amount of documentation from both the office and my home, documents that had nothing to do with money laundering or illegality of any kind. They took a file on my consultancy for Mary Lou McDonald’s European election campaign – I had been asked by Sinn Féin to do that assignment and later asked by Gerry Adams to do a report on the organisation of the Sinn Féin head office. They took that file too. And then they came across this pen-gun in a drawer in my office desk.

The ‘weapon’

“It was given to me by a Dutch journalist during the Herrema kidnapping (an IRA kidnapping of a Dutch citizen Tiede Herrema) in 1976. What happened was at the time, I was being threatened by a right-wing Dutch organisation. Because of my role as an intermediary between the government and the Herrema kidnappers, notably, Eddie Gallagher (one of the kidnappers of Herrema). I had got some publicity in Holland and arising from that got a few death threats in the post from right-wing organisations there. I mentioned this to a Dutch journalist in an interview and he came back to me with this antique pen gun as a souvenir – the gun was capable of firing a tiny amount of gas, which might stun an attacker but more likely would stun the person firing the thing.

“I put this in the top left-hand drawer of my office desk at the time, along with other mementoes and every time I moved office since then I put all the mementoes in an envelope and when I got to the new office I poured them into the left-hand top drawer in the new desk and that was it.

“I was charged with not having a license for the memento because, technically, it was a firearm. The judge applied the Probation Act because clearly the prosecution was silly, designed to harm me and implant in people’s minds that I was a terrorist and involved in criminality. I got a phone call from an old lady down in South Tipperary whom I’ve known for years and years and she said to me, ‘My God Philip, what were you doing with all them guns in your office?’.

“At any time during all this the gardaí or the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform could have come out and said they accepted I did not have a firearm in my office and that I was not involved in money laundering. But they chose to remain silent even though they knew this was the truth. Instead very damaging innuendoes were leaked to the media about the significance of my involvement in Chesterton Finance in Cork and in the trip to Bulgaria. So let me explain.

Money laundering

“Ted Cunningham came to me in late 2004 in my capacity as chairman of Bank of Scotland Ireland. He wanted to explore the possibility of a link-up between Bank of Scotland Ireland and Chesterton Finance. I said I did not think the bank would be interested and this proved to be the case. He then asked me to assist him in getting his venture off the ground and I did so. He offered me a fee which I declined and instead he issued me with ten per cent of the shareholding in the company.

“I had a ‘due diligence’ done on the company and was satisfied it was ‘clean’. I gave him some advice on what I thought he needed to do and I went out and got some investors for them. I agreed to become a director but in fact the directorship was not registered with the Companies Office by the time this money-laundering story broke.

“I have asked him since about a large amount of cash that apparently was found by CAB in the company in February of last year. He has given me an explanation which I find satisfactory but whether the authorities do is a matter for them. I am not going to disclose what he said to me about this. If he wants to do that himself, that’s fine and I am sure he told the same to the gardaí.”

The Bulgarian trip

There were several reports in the media that Phil Flynn and Ted Cunningham of Chesterton Finance had gone to Bulgaria and had been in touch with financial institutions there. The suggestion was they were assisting the IRA to launder money

“The Bulgarian trip, it was my idea. I had had contacts with Bulgaria for several years previously. At one time, actually, I was asked to become the Bulgarian honorary consul in Ireland – this was before they opened an embassy here. But I had been to Bulgaria a number of times and had contact with the embassy in London. The Bulgarian Minister for Finance came to Ireland and an official dinner was organised for him in one of the clubs on St Stephen’s Green. This was attended by officials from the Department of Finance, the Treasury Management Agency and the Department of Foreign Affairs. I was invited to the dinner because my interest in Bulgaria was known, including my interest in getting involved in business there. So there was nothing covert about this.

“I believed there was an opportunity to establish the equivalent of a building society there – there were no building societies there. I thought there were opportunities in the property business there and in investment in the national airline. So I got about 12 people to come to Bulgaria with me. These included Ted Cunningham, two solicitors, two bankers, several people in the property business in Ireland and others.

We spent about eight days there and before we left Ted Cunningham and I opened an office there and recruited someone to manage the office – she left her job to join us. Channel 4 made a big issue of a meeting we had with one person, only one. They said we had wanted to buy a site this person had for €25 million. We never saw the site and as far as I know it is distant from Sofia – two or three hundred kilometers. They did a presentation for us. We said we would take the proposition back to Ireland and revert to them but I didn’t think it was a runner. Incidentally, while we were there, we were told, of all the people we met, that we shouldn’t do business with them for reasons I can’t say on the record.”

The fallout

Did the publicity surrounding the CAB searches of his office and home and the “weapons” charge affect his business much?

“It did initially and I’d be telling you lie if I said that I didn’t miss the bank. I’d like to have stayed with VHI, you know, through its current stage. I’d like to have seen the decentralisation through to a point of no return. But, it’s a funny old world. What’s happened is, other things have popped up, other people have popped up and have offered me jobs and have offered me opportunities so, on a personal level, the worst part of it was my family, you know. They put my brother out of business. My brother, James Flynn, is apolitical. He was a financial broker in Dundalk. CAB raided him and took away his computers, his systems, everything. They put him out of business. They literally put him out of business.

BN.ie

24/03/2006 - 14:49:44

Northern Secretary Peter Hain said today he viewed calls by the Rev Ian Paisley for his resignation as a badge of honour.

In a speech to Labour activists in Wales, Mr Hain laughed off criticism levelled at him in Northern Ireland by loyalists and republicans.

He told the Labour Party in Wales’ annual conference in Swansea a republican mural in Belfast claimed ‘Hain was insane’, while a loyalist mural read ‘Shin Hain’.

Mr Hain, who is also the Welsh Secretary and who represents Neath in the House of Commons, said: “Ian Paisley called for my resignation last month. It’s really a badge of honour.

“He knows how we transformed Northern Ireland.”

In a speech focussing on his own party, Mr Hain said Labour needed to renew itself and get back in touch with its grassroots.

And he warned Welsh Labour’s annual conference in Swansea not to underestimate the threat posed by the Tories.

Mr Hain said Labour had to recapture the high ground of progressive politics and needed to re-inspire huge numbers of floating voters.

“We must renew ourselves as the guardian of progressive values,” he said

With Welsh Labour activists warning during their conference of an unholy alliance between the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and a resurgent Conservative Party, the Northern Ireland Secretary said a Tory-led coalition was the only alternative to a Labour Assembly Government.

He warned there was a real danger of a Tory First Minister in Wales after next year’s Assembly elections.

“Never, ever underestimate the Tories,” he said.

“They are the oldest and most successful election winning political party in the world.”

The minister also dubbed Tory leader David Cameron Mr Floppy and warned he would jeopardise hard-won economic recovery under Labour.

BBC

Irwin was convicted of the Greysteel killings

Convicted loyalist murderer Stephen Irwin is expected to remain behind bars for many years after he abandoned an appeal in the High Court.

He is to serve out the eight life sentences he received for the 1993 Greysteel atrocity.

Irwin, 32, had been released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

However, his licence was suspended after he slashed a football supporter with a knife during trouble at last year’s Irish Cup Final.

Irwin, with an address on Belfast’s Woodvale Road, was jailed for four years for the attack.

Eight people were shot dead when the Ulster Freedom Fighters opened fire inside the Rising Sun bar in the County Londonderry village of Greysteel at Halloween 1993.

One of the gunmen shouted “trick or treat” before opening fire on customers.

“This killer has demonstrated by his violence at Windsor Park that he is in no way reformed and must not earn any remission under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.”
John Dallat
SDLP

Irwin and three other UFF men were convicted and given eight life sentences for the murders.

On Friday, the Court of Appeal was told that Irwin’s solicitor had written a letter seeking leave to withdraw his appeal and it was formally dismissed by Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr.

The secretary of state will now liaise with Sir Brian before setting a tariff - the minimum term of imprisonment in respect of the Greysteel murders.

When the tariff expires, Irwin will not be automatically released. His case will then be reviewed by the Life Sentence Commissioners who can keep him locked up if they feel it would be unsafe to release him.

The SDLPs’ John Dallat welcomed the appeal withdrawal.

“This killer has demonstrated by his violence at Windsor Park, when he slashed another spectator with a (craft) knife, that he is in no way reformed and must not earn any remission under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement,” he said.

Belfast Telegraph

Premiers ready to test institution to destruction

By Brian Walker
24 March 2006

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern are expected to take the plunge today and propose the restoration of the Assembly in a few weeks’ time.

The Premiers were meeting on the margins of a European summit in Brussels to settle the details of a full Assembly recall which could give the parties up to five months of concentrated effort to try to reach a political deal.

Although Downing Street was declining to speculate about future moves ahead of the meeting, the Prime Ministers may fly to Belfast to unveil the plan in a fortnight.

Anticipating the move in a weekend interview, the Taoiseach said the prospect of an Assembly without an Executive “shouldn’t stop the Assembly operating for a period of time while there is work for it to do”.

Following the collapse of last month’s “shadow” Assembly plan after Mr Ahern talked Mr Blair out of it, it was Downing Street’s turn to adopt the more cautious approach.

Asked why it was the Taoiseach rather than the Prime Minister who seemed to be taking the lead, British sources replied: “It’s we who have to take the actual decision on the Assembly and we want to make sure all the pieces are there first.”

This time, Mr Blair and Mr Ahern are likely to present the parties with a “take it or leave it ” choice to test the institution to destruction.

They are not expected to propose conditions or a timetable for a shadow Assembly.

Parties in the full Assembly will be free to form an Executive if they wish.

The plan is understood to involve “rolling D’Hondt twice,” allowing the Assembly to sit for the six weeks laid down by law for electing an Executive and if that fails, suspending it for a period, perhaps over the summer, then reconvening it again in the autumn for a second try.

In the meantime the Assembly members would be able - but could not be compelled - to form committees to influence Peter Hain’s controversial reform programme for councils, schools and hospitals.

Sinn Fein and the SDLP remain cool, fearing a recall without a straight commitment to an Executive would create pressure to make Assembly committees the substitute for an inclusive power sharing government of Ministers, which is what the DUP wants.

Gerry Adams said: “There’s only one Assembly and that’s the Assembly as outlined by the Good Friday Agreement.

“There isn’t any half-way house, in-between, transitional, interim arrangement.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Kathryn Torney
24 March 2006

Until politicians are willing to share power, the Department of Education will continue to press ahead with its plans to scrap academic selection, it was confirmed today.

That was the hard-hitting response from the Government to a call from UUP education spokesman David McNarry for controversial education reforms to be put on hold until the Assembly is recalled.

Consultation on the Draft Order, which includes a ban on academic selection in schools, ended this month.

Mr McNarry said: “What is the connection between an Education Minister scheduled to introduce the Government’s Education Draft Order and the recent remarks of the Secretary of State talking up an enabling approach for the Assembly to be recalled to debate important issues including the proposals contained in the Education Order?

“It remains to be seen how the Education Minister will respond to the certain rejection of her proposals and when she will publicly release the reactions to the consultation document.”

He said Mr Hain had suggested that, should political talks yield sufficient agreement, the Assembly could be recalled, and that would put at risk the reforms.

However, when contacted by the Belfast Telegraph, a spokeswoman for the Department said: “The Draft Education Order will be laid before Parliament by June 2006 so that by the start of the new school year in September 2006 children will benefit from the curriculum changes.

“The Secretary of State has made it clear that he would prefer local politicians to be taking forward these reforms, but until they are willing to share power then the ministerial team will press on with their reform agenda.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
24 March 2006

The Orange Order has ruled out talks with Sinn Fein as it prepares for a groundbreaking meeting with the SDLP.

As Sinn Fein warned Mark Durkan’s party about the upcoming meeting with three loyal orders, Orange sources say the marching organisations are not prepared to discuss their position with Sinn Fein.

Several senior Orange figures have said they cannot foresee a time when they would be prepared to meet Sinn Fein, accusing the party of manufacturing the parades dispute.

One claimed Sinn Fein had started a “cultural competition for cultural dominance” against Protestants.

The Orange Order, the Independent Orange Institution and the Royal Black Institution invited the SDLP to a meeting earlier this month to explain their efforts to develop “a new legal framework” for parading. The institutions say the new framework should replace the Parades Commission, but they are not prepared to discuss proposals publicly.

The SDLP had not replied to the invitation this week, but a spokeswoman said they are prepared to meet the loyal orders.

“Our position is very clear on parades,” she said. “We believe that there needs to be face-to-face dialogue at a local level without preconditions. We also believe that everybody needs to work constructively with the Parades Commission.”

Sinn Fein’s John O’Dowd said: “It is important the Orange Order realise that talks with the SDLP are not a substitute for the sort of direct dialogue between the Loyal Orders and those communities they wish to parade through.”

RTÉ

24 March 2006 12:01

Gift bracelet Recalled by Reebok over lead

A child has died from lead poisoning in the US after apparently swallowing a link from a charm bracelet imported by sportswear firm Reebok.

Reebok recalled the gifts following the death of the four-year-old from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The jewellery contains high levels of lead, posing a risk of lead poisoning and adverse health effects to young children.
Advertisement

The company and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission have now recalled the bracelets, which have been in circulation for the past two years.

The Chinese-made bracelets, with a heart-shaped charm, were being given away free by Reebok with purchases of children’s footwear.

Up to 145,000 of the gifts were circulated in Britain and Ireland. A further 300,000 were given away in the US.

They are also to be recalled in Canada, the rest of the EU, Asia and Latin America.

Separately, discount retailer Dollar Tree Stores Inc was yesterday recalling 580,000 necklaces and rings due to high levels of lead.

No incidents or injuries had been reported in connection with the Dollar Tree products.

BBC

The two PMs held talks in Brussels

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern have discussed their latest blueprint for the NI Assembly’s restoration on the margins of an EU summit in Brussels.

It is understood the British and Irish prime ministers are planning to visit Northern Ireland in early April to unveil their proposals.

Irish sources said the visit was pencilled in for 6 April.

British and Irish officials are in daily contact on the details of the plan to revive the Stormont assembly.

It is believed the governments intend to call the parties back to Stormont for a six-week period prior to the summer marching season.

BBC NI political editor Mark Devenport said: “There is little expectation that the politicians will be able to form a power-sharing executive, but officials are considering emergency rule changes which would enable assembly members to conduct some work.

“Under the current procedures, David Trimble and Mark Durkan would be reinstated as acting first and deputy first minister - something any new rules will almost certainly change.

“Political sources suggest that the assembly would break over the summer and then reconvene in September.

“There are different estimates of how long the politicians might be given to form an executive - some sources say October will be a cut-off date, others indicate the deadline will be the end of the year.”

Devolved government at Stormont was suspended in October 2002 following allegations of a republican spy ring at the Northern Ireland Office.

However, doubt was cast on that after a senior Sinn Fein official acquitted of involvement said he had been a British agent for 20 years and that there was no spy ring.

BBC

Eta announced a ceasefire on Wednesday

It has been reported in Spain that senior Sinn Fein politicians were involved in the negotiations which led to the Eta ceasefire.

The ceasefire by the Basque terrorist group came into effect at midnight.

One newspaper, El Mundo, says that former Belfast Lord Mayor Alex Maskey was an architect of the process.

North Belfast assembly member Gerry Kelly is also said to have been involved. Belfast priest Father Alex Reid has confirmed he played a role.

Eta has been blamed for killing more than 800 people in its four-decade campaign for independence for the Basque region of northern Spain and south-west France.

In a statement released to Basque media on Wednesday, the group said its objective now was “to promote a democratic process in the Basque country”.

It urged both Spain and France to enter into peace negotiations.

The European Union on Thursday welcomed the ceasefire, saying it was a “very positive sign”.

An Phoblacht

Four on Hunger Strike

Belfast republican Bobby Sands completed his third week on hunger strike for political status in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh on Sunday 22 March 1981. His comrade Francis Hughes, from South Derry completed his first week on the strike on the same day. Also on that day Sands and Hughes were joined on their fast to the death by two other blanket men, Raymond McCreesh from South Armagh and Patsy O’Hara from Derry City.

Bobby Sands

Bobby Sands was born in Belfast on 9 March 1954. He became involved in active republicanism in his mid teens and when he was 18, was arrested in Lisburn and charged with weapons possession. He was sentenced in early 1973 to five years imprisonment which he served as a political prisoner in the cages of Long Kesh

After his release, in April 1976, Sands continued as an active republican, and was re-arrested six months later during an IRA operation.

After 11 months on remand, Bobby Sands was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. When he was moved to the H-Blocks in late September 1977, Bobby Sands refused to wear a prison uniform, and went on the blanket protest.

Later, under the pen name Marcella, he wrote articles for Republican News. In the H-Blocks Sands suffered the routine abuse from the prison administration and was forcibly bathed and scrubbed down with deck brushes on numerous occassions.

He was PRO of the Blanket men until he succeeded Brendan Hughes as OC when Hughes went on the first hunger strike in 1980.

Sands played a major part in leading republican resistance to crimialisation in the H-Blocks and conducted negotiations with the prison governor in attempting to resolve the prison crisis, which foundered when the British adopted an intransigent attitude

Francis Hughes

One of the most fearless and active young Volunteers in the armed struggle against British occupation, 25-year-old Francis Hughes from Bellaghy in South Derry joined the Hunger Strike on 16 March 1981.

Described Francis Hughes as “the most wanted man in the North”, Hughes was on the run for three years and despite thousands of wanted posters all over South Derry he remained in the area, often living out in the fields and hills while British forces scoured the countryside for him.

In March 1978 two IRA Volunteers dressed in military uniform were crossing a field when confronted by five undercover SAS soldiers. In the shoot-out that ensued two British soldiers were shot and the IRA Volunteers escaped the immediate vicinity. A full-scale manhunt was mounted by hundreds of British soldiers and RUC. Thirteen hours later Francis Hughes was found lying under gorse bushes. He was badly wounded and had lost much blood. On his military uniform the word ‘Ireland’ was emblazoned across the jacket. He was trailed out of the gorse but refused to answer any questions.

He spent ten months in the military wing of Musgrave Park hospital, and, as a result of his wounds, his thigh bone was operated on and reduced by one-and-a-half inches, leaving him with a steel pin in his leg and needing a crutch. (Click photo to view - Francis at capture)

In August 1978 he was taken from Musgrave Park to Castlereagh interrogation centre and for the next six days refused to answer any questions and refused to eat or drink in case the food or water was drugged. He was charged with organising and taking part in a number of IRA operations.

At his trial, which ended after 13 days on 18 February 1980, he was given several lengthy sentences including life imprisonment.

When brought to the H-Blocks, Hughes immediately went on the blanket.

Ray McCreesh

Raymond McCreesh was born in the village of Camlough in South Armagh, the second youngest in a family of four brothers and three sisters. After leaving school he attended Newry Technical College and served an apprenticeship as a sheet-metal worker.

At the age of 19, McCreesh was arrested after a shoot-out between the IRA and the British army near Beleek in South Armagh in June 1976. After nine months on remand he was sentenced in a non-jury court in March 1977.

By the time he embarked on the historic 1981 Hunger Strike, Raymond McCreesh had spent four years on the blanket protest, and during that time forfeited his visits rather than wear the prison uniform for the short half-hour visit per month. He only took his first visit with his parents in 1981 to inform them that he was going on the Hunger Strike.

Patsy O’Hara

Patrick O’Hara was born in Derry city on 11 February 1957. He was just 11 years old when, along with his parents, he took part in the big civil rights march in Derry, on 5 October 1968, which was viciously attacked by the RUC. A year later he again witnessed one of the milestones in the conflict when the RUC invaded, and were defeated, during the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969.

Patrick, known to everyone as Patsy, joined na Fianna Éireann in 1970 and, although under-age, he joined Sinn Féin in early 1971. A few months after the introduction of internment his eldest brother Seán was interned.

In 1974 his home was continually raided by the British army and he was frequently harrassed and beaten up by them, before being interned in October.

After his release in April 1975, O’Hara joined the Irish Republican Socialist Party, but within two months he was re-arrested and framed by the British army. He spent ten months on remand before being acquitted.

The British army and RUC continued to harass the O’Hara family in 1976, and Patsy’s brother, Tony, was arrested and charged with a political offence for which he was subsequently convicted on the basis of an alleged verbal statement.

Patsy was arrested again in September 1976 and charged with possessing arms and ammunition- this was really internment-by-remand and he was released after four months when the charges were dropped.

In June 1977 he was arrested in Dublin, interrogated for seven days, and charged with holding a Garda at gunpoint. He was released on bail six weeks later and in January 1978 he was acquitted.

Patsy was arrested once more in May 1979. He was charged with possession of a hand grenade and was convicted on the basis of accusations made by two British soldiers. He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in January 1980 and immediately went on the blanket protest.

This week 25 years ago saw four young men, from various parts of the Six Counties, on a hunger strike to the death in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and republican leadership urging the need for mobilisations and action in support of their demands for recognition as political prisoners.

Times Online

By David Sharrock and Graham Keeley in Barcelona
24 March 2006

JUST before the IRA hunger strike in 1981 Republican prisoners in the Maze nicknamed Alec Reid “Behind the Scenes” because he constantly assured them that “things are going on behind the scenes” and everything would be all right.

He was wrong. Ten men starved themselves to death and Father Reid, blaming himself, suffered a nervous breakdown.

But in recent years the 74-year-old Redemptorist priest from Tipperary has more than earned the sobriquet, playing a key role in persuading two of Europe’s most ruthless terrorist groups to abandon the gun and embrace politics.

The Basque separatist group, Eta, that will today begin a ceasefire it promises is permanent, having accepted the message brought from Ireland by the priest who laboured for more than a decade to convince Gerry Adams that the only solution to conflict lay in political negotiations.

Speaking from Bilbao, the Basque commercial capital, Father Reid was reluctant to take credit, but acknowledged he had “been here almost continuously for the past four years or so”, preaching the lessons of Northern Ireland. He had been “explaining especially that the only way you can solve such conflicts is through dialogue between all participants.

“There are no military solutions and we would say that the first thing you have to do is to take the violence away from the streets. You can’t solve it while it is on the streets. You have to bring it to the conference table.”

Self-congratulation is not the style of a man who, in spite of his sometimes controversial empathy with the Irish Republican movement, has demonstrated on many occasions the humanity at the core of his Christian mission to end violence.

When, in 1987, he delivered the last rites to two Signals corporals murdered by the IRA after they accidentally drove into a Republican funeral, the image of his stooping frame bent over their bodies went around the world.

A shy man, usually dressed in a black leather bomber jacket and jeans, Father Reid has been described as the inspiration of the Irish peace process.

The author Ed Moloney, an astute observer of the Provisionals for more than 30 years, credits him with having “initiated, devised and nurtured” the IRA away from the cycle of killing and down the road that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Fr Reid’s Basque mission began four years later when priests there invited him over in the hope that he could help to end their conflict as well.

A meeting in 2003 with the widow of a journalist murdered by Eta was a turning point. “She told me that every day when she wakes up and realises her husband is dead she does not want to go on living,” he told The Times yesterday. “At that moment I realised that we must act here immediately. As we said in Ireland, every second could cost another life.”

It was an encounter that echoed his decision to approach Gerry Adams in 1982 and plead with the Republican leader to intervene on behalf of the family of a British soldier who had been kidnapped by the IRA in South Armagh.

The soldier was subsequently murdered after being tortured, but the dialogue between the two men continued, eventually transforming itself into what became the peace process.

Father Reid has spent the past three years talking to all sides in the Basque country. Using the Bishop of Bilbao’s official residence as a base, he has met Eta leaders across the Pyrennean border in the French Basque country, as well as their political representatives in Batasuna and a range of civic and community leaders.

His inability to speak Spanish or Euskera, the Basque language, was never a handicap: those who met him were immediately impressed with his determination to succeed.

“I have known that the leadership of Eta wanted peace for the past three years but their problem has been convincing their supporters, as was the case with the IRA,” he said.

“People will not like me saying this, but I have a lot of respect for the leadership of Eta as well as the IRA. It is made up of some very intelligent people.”

In fact he has said far worse. Last October he created a furore when he lost his temper with a loyalist during a public debate and accused Northern Ireland Unionists of having treated Catholics as the Nazis treated the Jews.

When the last Eta ceasefire broke down in the late 1990s he told a Basque journalist he believed that the Spanish Government was “the real terrorists” because of its refusal to start a process of open dialogue.

And he has angered politicians on both sides of the Irish border with his ready acceptance of the Provisional IRA’s denial that it carried out the £26.5 million Northern Bank raid in December 2004.

Some mainstream Spanish and Basque politicians have privately voiced their occasional irritation with the priest. But his moral authority and track record has proved its worth with Eta, which tends to regard the IRA as a big brother.

Fr Reid was witness, along with a Protestant clergyman, to the decommissioning of the IRA arsenal last October. It is highly possible that he may soon find himself taking on a similar role in the Basque country. “This is the end of the physical-force tradition in Basque politics,” he said. “It’s the beginning of a whole new era.”

HELPING HANDS

Terry Waite Anglican envoy was taken hostage in Beirut in 1987 and kept for nearly five years

Canon Andrew White works in Baghdad for the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East

Monsignor Julio César Vidal Ortiz negotiates between the Colombian Government and right-wing death squads

Abuna Elias Chacour Palestinian cleric working in Israel to promote better relations between Israelis and Palestinians

Bishop John Magee pleaded in 1981 with the H Block hunger strikers to call off their protest