SAOIRSE32

BN.ie

19/04/2006 - 15:33:21

Three men were being questioned today about a loyalist paramilitary murder in Belfast.

They were arrested by detectives investigating the killing of Jameson Lockhart, 25, in the east of the city last July.

Mr Lockhart, from north Belfast, was gunned down at the wheel of a lorry on the lower Newtownards Road.

His killing was blamed on the Ulster Volunteer Force, which at the time was locked in a deadly feud with the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force.

Mr Lockhart had been clearing rubble from the demolished Avenue One Bar when the gunmen struck.

The arrests were made in the Belfast area, a Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman confirmed.

He added: “Police are continuing to appeal for information that can assist their inquiries.”

Daily Ireland

By Connla Young
19/04/2006

Solicitors acting for members of an Irish family set to be deported from the US are hopeful the controversial ruling will be overturned.
Belfast man Malachy McAllister and two of his four children were told last week that they may be deported from the US within months after an appeals court in Philadelphia upheld a decision to deport them.

Photo: Malachy McAllister - click to view

However, in an unprecedented move one of the three appeal judges made an impassioned plea for US Homeland Security chiefs to allow the family to stay in the US.
Unless a last ditch appeal to the US Department of Homeland Security succeeds, Mr McAllister his 20-year-old daughter Nicola and son Seán (19) will be forced to return to Ireland before the summer. Two remaining sons who have US residency and are married to US nationals will be allowed to remain in the country.
Mr McAllister was sentenced to seven years in prison in 1981 for his part in an INLA attack on an RUC man in Belfast. The Lower Ormeau man was released after three years.
In 1988 the Belfast man emigrated with his family to Canada after his home was raked with gunfire in a loyalist attack. After being denied asylum in Canada in 1996, the family moved to the US.
In 2001 Mr McAllister’s wife Bernadette and the couple’s four children were granted political asylum after a judge ruled that they were persecuted while living in the North. However, the Board of Immigration Appeals later overturned the asylum award. Mrs McAllister died in the US in 2004.
Speaking to Daily Ireland last night the McAllister family attorney Eamonn Dornan said their long battle to remain in the United States was not yet over.
“The decision now rests with the Department of Homeland Security and I’m quietly hopeful something might be worked out. When you get a ruling as eloquent as Judge Barry’s you would hope that the department would not ignore it. Malachy was almost deported two years ago but Irish America managed to rally around him and face Homeland Security down. The effect of that allowed the space to follow an appeal through the courts.”
The controversial court ruling upheld the US government’s right to deport the family under strict anti-terror laws introduced in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
In an emotional address, one of three federal court appeals judges called on the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to intervene and allow Mr McAlliser and his children to remain in the US.
Federal appeals judge Maryanne Trump Barry, a sister of property tycoon Donald Trump, expressed her deep sympathy for the McAllister family.
“I refuse to believe that ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ is now an empty entreaty. But if it is, it’s a shame. I cannot find a way to keep the McAllisters in this country, and I have surely tried,” she said.
“We cannot be the country we should be if, because of the tragic events of September 11, we knee-jerk remove decent men and women merely because they may have erred at one point in their lives.”
Long Island Republican congressman Peter King, who also chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, has urged Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff to grant the McAllister family political asylum in the US.
In a letter sent to Mr Chertoff last week the seasoned politician claimed Mr McAllister “has proved himself to be absolutely no threat to this country”.
A number of powerful Irish-American organisations including the Brehon Law Society have thrown their weight behind the McAllisters’ campaign to remain in the US.

Daily Ireland

Campaign to get prisoner sent home

By Connla Young
19/04/2006

A high-ranking Irish embassy official is to visit a seriously ill Irish prisoner waiting for a transfer back to Ireland.
John Neville, first secretary of the Irish embassy in London, has agreed to meet the Co Louth man Aidan Hulme just days after the prisoner was forced off a four-day hunger strike because of medical complications.
Mr Hulme launched the hunger strike to raise awareness of his ongoing medical condition
News of the impending visit came as prison campaigners revealed plans to hold a protest to demand the 27-year-old’s transfer to Ireland.
Earlier this year, medical experts told the Dundalk man that he would need to have his right leg amputated. Mr Hulme injured the leg during a motorbike accident in 2000.
He was given a 20-year jail term in 2001 after being convicted of involvement in a series of Real IRA bombings in London. The Louth man has said he wants to return to Ireland before doctors remove his damaged leg. Detained in Full Sutton Prison, Mr Hulme is unable to leave his cell because of his condition. He relies on the goodwill of fellow prisoners for food.
Prison authorities in Britain have faced criticism for failing to offer Mr Hulme, who is on 23-hour lock down, adequate medical attention.
British authorities say the relevant transfer papers were sent to the Irish Department of Justice last September and the delay in Mr Hulme’s transfer is down to that department.
Earlier this year, SDLP leader Mark Durkan wrote to justice minister Michael McDowell in a bid to speed up the republican’s transfer application.
Paul Doyle of the New Republican Forum, which has organised this week’s protest at the Department of Justice in Dublin, said urgent action should be taken to return Mr Hulme to Ireland. “We are expecting support from different groups and hopefully this will put pressure on the department. The position Aidan is in is fairly dire. We are pushing for as many people as possible to get involved in the campaign to bring him home,” said Doyle.
A picket will be held outside the Department of Justice at 94 St Stephen’s Green this Friday between 5pm and 6pm.
Other pickets are expected to be held in London and Chicago to coincide with the Dublin protest. The New Republican Forum intends to present an online petition to Department of Justice officials in Dublin.

Daily Ireland

‘Northern Ireland is in great danger of being left behind’ – Hain

By Eamonn Houston
19/04/2006

Nationalist leaders last night warned the British government that the Good Friday Agreement cannot be revised or diluted.
Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin and SDLP leader Mark Durkan cautioned direct-rule secretary of state Peter Hain against amending the 1998 agreement in an effort to appease the Democratic Unionists.
The British House of Commons heard yesterday that Tony Blair’s government is to push emergency legislation through the parliament to recall the North’s mothballed assembly.
Mr Hain told MPs that an emergency bill would enable 108 assembly members to gather at Stormont on May 15 for a first round of talks aimed at reviving devolution.
The North’s assembly was suspended amid allegations of a republican spyring in October 2002 with nationalist parties demanding its revival ever since.
Mr Hain has threatened MLAs with a salary ban and no elections to the body beyond this year. The Irish and British governments have also indicated that they are prepared to “go it alone” on a partnership basis in the absence of political agreement in the North. He said that the North was in danger of being “left behind”.
Mr Hain said yesterday: “The experiences of devolution in Scotland and in Wales have demonstrated the huge benefits which local politicians exercising locally accountable power can reap.
“Both nations have seen increased self-confidence, increased economic growth, increased social cohesion and an increased international profile.
“Northern Ireland has also undergone a positive transitional experience but the potential of full devolution remains tantalisingly out of reach.
“The blunt truth is that Northern Ireland is in great danger of being left behind as, not only the rest of the United Kingdom strides on successfully, but as the Republic of Ireland continues to be one of the biggest global success stories of our generation.
“It is now for Northern Ireland’s politicians to catch up and catch up fast.
“Northern Ireland’s people demand nothing less.”
Sinn Féin chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said last night that his party will enter the May talks arguing that the Good Friday Agreement should remain intact and for the immediate election of a first and deputy first minister.
“As we have said before, it is up to Peter Hain, the Taoiseach and Tony Blair to form a power-sharing executive. Sinn Féin’s sole intention for May 15 is the election of a fully functional executive and assembly. We don’t want a half-way house or a shadow assembly. Our position is clear.”
With the Assembly being recalled on May 15, Mr Hain said the bill which would be introduced this week was designed to enable the 108 MLAs to take up their responsibilities next month with the express purpose of electing first and deputy first ministers on a cross-community basis and a multi-party executive within six weeks.
If that could not be achieved, MLAs would be given a further 12-week period to form a devolved government.
The deadline for the restoration of the institutions is November 24.
SDLP leader, Mark Durkan welcomed the moves, but warned against the DUP being allowed to block political progress.
“The DUP have, of course, the right to seek changes to it and agree them with the rest of us. But they do not have the right to block devolution and the Agreement.”
Mr Durkan said that the mandate for the Agreement outweighed the mandate of the DUP.
“The truth is, as the Secretary of State full well knows, it wasn’t anything to do with the institutions of the Agreement that brought about suspension. It was the failure to end paramilitary activity and the failure to share power.
“The two governments must stand strong for the Agreement and not for the DUP. The SDLP expects the Irish government, in particular, to be vigilant against DUP demands to upend it.”
East Belfast DUP MP Peter Robinson claimed that one of the weaknesses in the two governments’ plan for reviving devolved government was its belief that unionists could be forced into a government featuring Sinn Féin by imposing a timetable for progress.
“The issue is not to be determined by the clock but whether various conditions have been met,” he said.
“It will be determined by whether paramilitary and criminal activity has ended and that is the critical factor as far as this party is concerned. We want to move into devolution. We want to have an executive in Northern Ireland but the principle of the mandate that we have indicates that we can only share power with those who are committed to exclusively peaceful and democratic means.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Claire Regan
19 April 2006

Preparations are being made at Belfast City Hall for an exhibition of art by a host of celebrities from the worlds of sport, art and entertainment.

Works by the likes of Bono, Jude Law, Joan Rivers and Rio Ferdinand go on show there from Monday for five days only, after which they will be auctioned off in aid of local charity WAVE.

Popular Ulster actor James Nesbitt is the driving force behind the Art WAVE Celebrity Auction which will raise funds to help the charity use the arts as effective therapy for those traumatised as a result of the Troubles.

Nesbitt, WAVE’s patron, has enlisted the help of celebrity friends such as Robbie Williams, Neil Morrisey, Bill Wyman and Chris Evans, who are among those who have created pieces of art for the auction.

BBC

The material was found during police searches

Suspected bomb-making material has been uncovered during a major security operation in County Armagh.

The items and a quantity of fertiliser were found during police searches in the Antrim Road area of Lurgan.

Four men, aged 22, 26, 36, and 46, have been arrested and are being held under the Terrorism Act.

Police have confirmed they are linking the find to dissident republicans. It is reported that the intended device could have been up to 200lb in weight.

SDLP assembly member Dolores Kelly said she believed that police had foiled a major attack.

The discovery is understood to have been made at a vehicle breaker’s yard on Wednesday.

Bomb disposal officers are at the scene and part of the town is cordoned off.

The search is believed to involve dozens of officers and police sniffer dogs.

Dissidents republicans are opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process. They have been blamed for a number of attacks and attempted attacks on the security forces over recent years.

Newshound

(Barry McCaffrey, Irish News)

A man shot dead by police while he was driving a stolen car had previously been jailed for threatening to shoot a constable.

Steven Colwell (23) was also a close friend of loyalist leader Johnny Adair’s son and, although from a Protestant background, received the Last Rites because he was wearing a Celtic football top.

He was fatally wounded after police opened fire on the stolen BMW in Ballynahinch, Co Down, on Sunday morning.

In February 2001 Colwell was jailed for three years after he and a friend threatened to shoot a policeman while helping a third man to escape from police custody at a Belfast hospital.

Colwell and an accomplice, Ronald Allen, were jailed after the incident at the Mater Hospital in north Belfast where an associate, William Paul, had been taken by police after claiming to have taken drugs.

Paul had been under arrest at the time on suspicion of stealing a bottle of vodka.

A gun was pointed at a police constable who was ordered to let Paul go or be shot.

Colwell was arrested soon afterwards while Paul and Allen were picked up 10 days later.

Originally from Battenberg Street in the Shankill area of west Belfast, Colwell, then aged 18, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the escape, assaulting police and possessing a firearm.

In August 2001 he went on the run from Hydebank Young Offenders Centre after being released on home leave.

It is understood he had been living in Cullybackey, Co Antrim, after being the victim of so-called punishment beatings from both the UVF and UDA.

The car he was driving on Sunday is understood to have been stolen from a Co Down car dealership early that morning.

Catholic priest Canon Gerry McCrory was called to give the Last Rites after Colwell was mistaken for a Catholic because of his Celtic jersey.

The tradition of young loyalists from the Shankill wearing Celtic tops is believed to have originated with Johnny Adair, who wore Celtic jerseys while travelling through nationalist areas to plan attacks on Catholics.

It is understood that the dead man and Adair’s son were close friends.

A relative of Adair’s was in the car at the time of the shooting.

Speaking from England last night Adair said: “I felt sorry for the young guy because he had a lot of problems. His parents were both dead and he had got into a lot of trouble with the paramilitaries.

“I have been told they had stolen a car and were being chased by police.

“They didn’t know the police had opened up on the car until Steven got out of the car shouting he’d been shot.

“It is a tragic loss of life.”

April 19, 2006
________________

This article appeared first in the April 18, 2006 edition of the Irish News.

RTÉ

19 April 2006 10:46

The prospect has been raised of a possible delay in the holding of Northern Ireland’s Assembly elections to give any new Stormont Executive some breathing space.

RTÉ’s Northern Editor Tommie Gorman understands that this idea may be contained in emergency legislation to be put forward by the Northern Secretary, Peter Hain, in the House of Commons next week.

While the expectation is that fresh Assembly elections will be held next year, it is understood that Mr Hain wants to explore a different possibility.
Advertisement

The British government, supported by the Irish Government, has set 24 November as the deadline for having a full power-sharing administration in place.

Mr Hain is understood to favour giving any new power-sharing administration breathing space, perhaps until 2008, to establish its worth.

Mr Hain told the House of Commons yesterday that talks on recalling the Assembly on 15 May are to begin next week.

He said that it was for Northern Ireland’s politicians to complete the process of devolution.

The last Assembly elections were held in November 2003.

BN.ie

19/04/2006 - 10:48:44

The PSNI has apparently foiled a planned bomb attack by dissident republicans.

SDLP MLA Dolores Kelly said today that PSNI officers had discovered four suspected members of the Continuity IRA manufacturing a 200lb bomb during a raid on a scrap yard in Lurgan, Co Armagh.

The police have confirmed that they are carrying out a planned search operation in the town, but have disclosed no further details.

Ms Kelly said the device being manufactured was in an advanced stage of preparation and was due to be detonated in an unknown location later today.

She has condemned those responsible, saying they were constructing the bomb in a heavily residential area of Lurgan town centre and close to commercial premises that are extensively used by local people.

BBC ON THIS DAY

19 April 1972

The British army has been largely exonerated of blame for Bloody Sunday which ended in the deaths of 14 civilians in Northern Ireland.

The deaths followed a civil rights march in Derry

A report into the events which followed a civil rights march in Derry in January said the Army’s operation was justified.

The report by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, stated that if the illegal march - protesting against internment without trial - had not taken place there would not have been any deaths.

The trouble began after the crowd of between 7,000 and 10,000 demonstrators was halted at an army barricade.

Lord Widgery accepted the Army’s claims that the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment came under fire before soldiers retaliated and that some of their victims had been armed.

“There is no reason to suppose that the soldiers would have opened fire if they had not been fired upon first,” he said.

However, his report also said their firing had “bordered on the reckless” and criticised individual, but unnamed, soldiers.

‘No disciplinary action’

The report has been welcomed by the British Government.

The Defence Secretary, Lord Carrington, said in the light of the report’s findings no disciplinary action would be taken against any individual.

There are also no plans to modify the soldiers’ “Yellow Card” which sets out instructions as to when they may fire their weapons.

However, Lord Widgery’s report has been condemned for inconsistencies and lacking eyewitness testimony.

SDLP MP John Hume said Lord Widgery’s conclusions were a “whitewash” and called for his resignation.

“I think within a very short time when the independent press gets to work on what actually happened that day and examines Lord Widgery’s conclusions he’ll find himself a very embarrassed man,” Mr Hume said.

A Catholic priest, Father Edward Daly, who took part in the march and gave evidence that soldiers had shot at unarmed men, said he was disappointed by the report.

“I think that Lord Widgery was biased in many instances,” Father Daly said.

In Context

The results of the inquiry were rejected by the Catholic community who began a long campaign for a fresh investigation.

In August 1973 an inquest jury returned an open verdict on the 14 people who had died.

The coroner, Major Hubert O’Neill, accused the British army of “sheer unadulterated murder”.

The inquiry, headed by Lord Saville, began hearing evidence in April 1998. It took statements from hundreds of witnesses including, in January 2003, the prime minister at the time Edward Heath.

The inquiry, headed by Lord Saville, spent two years taking witness statements. It ended in November 2004 and had cost about £150 million.

**Lord Saville’s final report and conclusions were not expected to be made public until summer 2005; however, that deadline was extended.

Mayo News Online

De Facto: Liamy McNally on the matters of fact and the facts of the matter

19 April 2006

The recently-appointed curator to the newly acquired Jackie Clarke Library in Ballina is Sinéad McCoole, author of ‘No Ordinary Women’, a book on female activists in the revolutionary years 1900-1923. Writing in The Irish Times recently, Ms McCoole highlighted the suffering of the women in 1916 and the years following the Easter Rising. She is currently working on ‘Easter Widows, the Story of The Wives of the 1916 Leaders’. She wrote that in the aftermath of the Rising the widows were used for propaganda purposes, the Black and Tans raided their homes; during the Civil War soldiers from the Irish Free State singled the widows out for attack because they represented ‘the Republic’.

It is difficult to comprehend that widows of men who gave their lives for their country could be treated so unjustly by the state. Later on, with de Valera in power, these same women witnessed the State intern and shoot their former comrades. They saw the state preside over hunger strikes to the death. Where men were once comrades in arms they ended up killing each other, replicating the Civil War hatred.

90 years on

This week commemorates the Easter Rising and the seven signatories of the Irish Proclamation are usually centre stage, yet 15 men were executed by the British in the wake of the Rising, including Westport’s Major John Mac Bride. His death certificate, along with a few more, is on view in the Rising exhibition currently on show in Collins Barracks, Dublin. (The exhibition is too cramped and one wonders if it was more a gesture rather than a full-blooded attempt at commemorating people who paid the ultimate price for their country.) Seventy-eight Volunteers were killed in the Rising with about 2,000 interned afterwards.

Many men and women of the time ridiculed those who were engaged in the Rising. The Easter Rising was an exercise in failure from the start, according to many people. What it achieved has been questioned since. Claiming the Easter Rising as a political heritage has been the wont of many political parties. They all want to declare, ‘Our men were there’. They claim it when it suits them and ignore it when it does not.

The politics of blood

All of the country’s major parties are steeped in the politics of blood, not the politics of diplomacy. To listen to some of the pious pandering, emanating from the corners of politicians mouths one would think that some parties were founded in the Vatican. Irish politics is rooted in the bullet and in blood. Regardless of the week that is in it – the blood politics did not start and end in 1916. It was there beforehand and long afterwards.

The Irish Free State would have given many crack-pot rulers a run for their money with their decisions to kill their fellow countrymen. These decisions were taken by the political ancestors of both major parties – Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. One does not have to go back to the 1920s for such brutality. It also occurred in the 30s and 40s. Some will argue that it occurred much later while more will claim the state’s abuse of its position is still going on. Rather than become engaged in the verbiage of which party was whiter than white now might be the opportune time for them all to ask forgiveness for the ‘sins of their fathers’. No one party has a monopoly on innocence. No one party can afford to throw brickbats at any other party.

What is rather galling is to listen to the whiter than white brigades (from many parties) claim that the violence of 1916 cannot and should not be commemorated. It is not the violence that is being honoured but the bravery. Anyone who is willing to give up his life for his country cannot be simply dismissed. While some people might not understand the reasoning behind some action it does not make that action any less brave.

Jackie Clarke

Other people also carry out deeds of selflessness for their country. One such person is the late Jackie Clarke from Ballina. His collection, the Jackie Clarke Library, has been handed over to Mayo County Council by his family for the people of Ballina and Mayo. This collection is unique. Regardless of its value it is the selfless act of what has occurred that is important. The collection contains books, manuscripts, proclamations (including 1916 and the rarer 1917), maps, pictures, pamphlets, letters, etc. It dates from the 1600s to the present – 400 years of Irish history contained in 15,000 documents and over 200 boxes, collected over a lifetime and handed over for the enjoyment of everyone.

The collection has been dubbed as ranking next to the National Archive and Kilmainham Jail collections. It is a joy to hear the Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council, Cllr Henry Kenny, Fine Gael, describe the collection in the magnanimous terms he has. His heart ‘burns within him with joy’ when he is asked to describe the collection!

Hopefully, what this generous act of the Clarke family will do is encourage other families in Mayo to hand over personal collections to be shared with people from the county and beyond. The Jackie Clarke Library could easily have been sold off like so many items were over the past two weeks in auctions in Whytes and Adams. The late Jackie Clarke and his family had other ideas. He collected items when it was not popular to do so. He put his money where his mouth was. He disregarded the signs of the times when everything swayed against any sense of nationalism. Jackie Clarke stuck by his beliefs. He was Republican all his life and one of his finest acts is now being completed. He was often criticised unfairly in his lifetime. His collection is his reply.

Mná na hÉireann

The people, apart from Jackie Clarke, who made the transition to Mayo County Council possible, were his family, especially the women, his wife Anne and sister, Loretta. The women are again to the fore! Sinéad McCoole has been appointed Curator for the collection for the next three years. This trinity of women is central to the collection. Mayo County Council will be worthy hosts. The Council is the only body that could act as ‘guardian’ to such a wonderful collection. Mayo County Council will come into its own in this project, with great support from senior Council officials, from Des Mahon as County Manager to Séamas Granahan as Director of Services and Austin Vaughan as County Librarian.

There is still much work to be done in cataloguing and in the lay-out of the library, but it will be done. Ballina will become the centre of research for any serious historical student. Down the road is the birthplace of Dr Kathleen Lynn, a prominent woman of 1916 woman and close friend of Éamon de Valera. Her baptismal font has recently been ‘unearthed’ in north Mayo. Dr Lynn’s story is also most fascinating and will become the next serious project that will be spearheaded by the women of north Mayo - the new Mná na hÉireann. No ordinary women.