SAOIRSE32

BBC

Gerry Adams said the way the bodies were dealt with was wrong

The way the IRA dealt with the bodies of those they abducted and murdered was “wrong”, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has said.

New levels of cooperation between the IRA, Sinn Fein and the Irish government should see the recovery of the remaining five Disappeared, he said.

Mr Adams also revealed that IRA members involved in the killings have visited burial sites with a forensics expert.

The Sinn Fein president was speaking at a briefing for journalists on Tuesday.

“There were not primary sources involved in all cases because in some cases these people themselves had either died or been killed in the intervening years,” he said.

“By primary sources I presume that it is people who were there when the killings took place - either transporting those who were killed, or in fact killed those who were killed or buried those who were killed.”

‘Killers’

BBC Northern Ireland’s home affairs correspondent Vincent Kearney said Mr Adams revealed that the IRA has met a forensics expert seven times during a 10 month period.

He said they had also visited the sites where the IRA believes the five remaining bodies are buried.

“On some occasions, IRA members present included people who carried out the killings, people the Sinn Fein leader called primary sources,” he said.

“A forensic expert is said to have submitted a report to the Irish government in February, making a number of recommendations that he believes could lead to the bodies being found.

“Gerry Adams called on the government to act on that report, and acknowledged that what the IRA did was wrong.”

Jean McConville was abducted and murdered in 1972

Nine people murdered and secretly buried by the IRA during the 1970s became known as the Disappeared.

The remains of four have been found, the latest in 2003.

This was mother of 10 Jean McConville, who the IRA claimed at the weekend had been an “informer” who passed information to the British security forces.

On Friday Northern Ireland’s Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan said she had found no evidence that Mrs McConville had passed information to the security forces.

Beach

However, the IRA later insisted a “thorough investigation” confirmed that the mother of 10 “was working as an informer for the British army”.

In 1999, the IRA admitted they had killed Mrs McConville and several other of the Disappeared, but alleged some of them had been informers.

Mrs McConville, who was a widow, was killed after she went to the aid of a fatally wounded British soldier outside her home in west Belfast’s Divis flats.

Her remains were finally found at Shelling Hill beach in County Louth in the Irish Republic in August 2003.

Mr Kearney said that at Tuesday’s briefing Mr Adams “would not be drawn on the issue of Jean McConville”.

“The fact that Gerry Adams has gone public with details of this secretive process at this time clearly demonstrates that the fate of the disappeared is once again firmly on the political agenda, as DUP leader Ian Paisley has called for the recovery of the bodies,” he said.

“Republicans clearly know that to move forward, they have to be seen to be attempting to deal with the past.”

In a statement the Irish government said it was involved in discussions with the Northern Ireland Office about how to respond to the forensic report.

It said the families of the Disappeared will be informed of the outcome of these discussions “shortly”.

Danny Morrison

archive article

It is almost the Twelfth when Orangemen across the North march in their thousands to celebrate the victory of William of Orange over James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. It was three hundred years ago - but doesn’t it seem as if it were only yesterday?

If this celebration and those of the Apprentice Boys and the secretive Royal Black Preceptory were solely a bit of pageantry about historical events they would be fairly harmless and we could all join in, watch as spectators or simply pass by.

However, the Twelfth of July was never just about history but was a unifying force within unionism, an expression of sectarian triumphalism and exclusiveness. It was (Orange arches in the workplace – thankfully, now prohibited), and still is, aimed at alienating nationalists - thus the importance of parading through or close to nationalist areas and singing anti-Catholic songs to remind the besieged residents of their place in an Orange state.

Although the struggle for full and equal rights remains uncompleted and continues, the irony is that Orange and Apprentice parades have played a central role in the chain of events which have led to the undermining of unionism and the union and to the galvanising of the nationalist community.

A further irony is that any intelligent Orange representative who appreciates this fact and attempts a compromise with nationalists is ridiculed and scorned for being “in breach of Grand Lodge policy” when actually trying to improve the image of the Order. Earlier this year the Order severed its formal links with the Ulster Unionist Party whilst moving closer to the DUP.

In 1969 the Twelfth marches resulted in rioting in Belfast and Derry, almost as a prelude to the riot directly sparked by the march of the Apprentice Boys in Derry on August 12. That riot turned into The Battle of the Bogside. It was a major challenge to the authority of the unionist government at Stormont because nationalists were determined that the writ of the RUC would run no longer in ‘The Bog’. A few months earlier the RUC had gone on the rampage in the same area, assaulting people, including Sammy Devenney who died of his injuries in July.

The RUC in Derry were so exhausted after days of fighting that the government mobilised the B-Specials and planned to send in RUC reinforcements from other areas. Nationalist protests across the North were meant to tie down the RUC but in Belfast the B-Specials, loyalist mobs and the RUC reacted by attacking and setting fire to hundreds of Catholic homes, mostly in the Falls and in Ardoyne. Eight people were killed across the city. The ill-preparedness of the Republican Movement for those attacks contributed to the split in the IRA and the emergence of a Provisional Army Council.

But an IRA armed struggle was not inevitable, even if it was the strategic objective of some republican leaders. Only eight years earlier the IRA had been forced to abandon its border campaign for lack of support. And immediately after August 1969 support for the IRA was based overwhelmingly on it being a defensive body. Conditions were simply not there for an armed struggle, nor were republican Volunteers prepared or trained adequately for a campaign.

Again, it was Orange marches, and British army support for those marches, which were to trigger a series of events that were to create the necessary conditions for armed struggle.

On June 27 1970 in Belfast the Orange Order planned to march past Hooker Street on the Crumlin Road where Catholics homes had been burned down, and up Cupar Street past Bombay Street in the West which had been similarly razed to the ground.

We know from documents and records that both the British and unionist governments were told by their own advisors that these marches were provocative and would lead to widespread trouble. But we also know that the GOC of the British Army in the North, Sir Ian Freeland, made the following remark to the Joint Security Committee:

“It is easier to push them [ Orange marchers] through the Ardoyne than to control the Shankill.”

It spoke volumes for a mindset that still persists among many in the PSNI and the British administration. It explains why loyalists have been allowed to march past Ardoyne and feel no compulsion to negotiate. But it is an issue, like Garvaghy Road and the Lower Ormeau, which ultimately damages the cause of those the marching is meant to placate. Such pandering postpones the day of a settlement – based on the rights of residents and marchers alike.

As predicted, widespread rioting broke out on June 27 th and ended up in gun battles and loss of life in various parts of Belfast. In Ballymacarett a loyalist attack on St Matthew’s Church was repelled by members of the ‘Provisional IRA’ after the British army refused to intervene. Paddy Kennedy MP approached a British patrol for help and was told, “You can stew in your own fat.” Several men died, including a Catholic defender, Henry McIlhone, and Billy McKee, a senior IRA figure was wounded.

The Stormont government took no responsibility for what had happened and blamed republicans. At the next meeting of the Joint Security Committee, on July 1, it was decided that they had to “restore the military image” and put down trouble “with maximum force”.

Thus explains the Falls Curfew one week later and the raid and seizure of arms which had never been used against the British army but were there solely for the protection of people who had experienced terrifying government pogroms just ten months earlier.

The Curfew, by alienating and politicising a huge swathe of nationalist opinion, was to dramatically change the context of the political situation. When the British army first came onto the streets in 1969 they were welcomed by the majority of nationalists as their protectors. But over subsequent months this benign image rapidly changed as the Brits became a mere tool of unionist repression, then, later, the enforcers of British direct rule.

Stormont had also been dragging its heels on introducing reforms. Many nationalists – particularly among the working-class – were coming around to the republican view that they couldn’t get their civil rights until they got their national rights and that that would involve an armed struggle against the government and the system.

It was this mood that the Republican Movement tapped into and it was after the Curfew that the IRA slowly began its campaign, beginning with sabotage operations against key installations and using incendiary devices timed to go off at night in large downtown stores. All of its first military strikes were initially described as ‘reprisals’ for specific British army or RUC attacks on nationalists. There was no military blueprint: the campaign in its early days was largely a matter of improvisation. By the time the campaign was full-blown republican military structures were still only being put in place in many areas.

Orange marches (and, indeed, other protests such as those at Harryville and at Holy Cross) were to play their part again and again in influencing national and international opinion about the sectarian nature of unionism. But it was the Drumcree protest and the demand to get marching down the Catholic Garvaghy Road which probably did most to hurt the Orange Order, as well as demoralise its members over their failure. Supporters of their cause burnt three children to death and shot dead a Catholic taxi driver out of spite.

Yes, the Orange Order whose purpose was to galvanise Protestantism and unionism has certainly undermined the cause it espouses, though few of its members appear to appreciate this.

The Orange Order is truly a public relations disaster.

BN.ie

11/07/2006 - 10:16:35

Republicans were blamed today for attacking Orange Halls in south Derry.

Two outside Magherafelt were smeared with paint and a third in neighbouring Castledawson had windows smashed.

With tens of thousands of Orangemen due to attend Twelfth of July rallies across the North tomorrow, one community representative claimed the attacks were an attempt to heighten sectarian tensions.

Ken Wilkinson of the Progressive Unionist Party, the political wing of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force, said: “This is deliberately provocative action by republicans who are looking for a reaction. It’s been going on in the south Derry area for a number of months.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Debra Douglas
11 July 2006

The Fire and Rescue Service last night issued a stark warning about the serious dangers of bonfires and urged people to take extreme care when enjoying the Eleventh Night festivities.

A spokesman for the Service’s Community Development Department said: “Each year in Northern Ireland, hundreds of bonfires are lit and enjoyed in safety by many people. However, every year there are serious injuries and damage to property, which could have been avoided.”

Safety measures to take include siting bonfires well away from houses, garages, sheds, fences, overhead cables, trees and shrubs.

The distance from the bonfire to the nearest property should be five times the height of the bonfire and the stack should be built so it is stable and will not collapse.

Huts or dens should not be built inside the bonfire and foam-filled furniture, tyres, aerosols, tins of paint or bottles should not be burnt.

Responsible adults should look after lighting the bonfire and should check that no children or pets are hiding inside.

Buckets of water, a hose or a fire extinguisher should be ready in case of an emergency.

The spokesman added: “At any sign of danger, ring Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service.”

The spokesman also called on community leaders for assistance to ensure firefighters are able to carry out their job without fear of attack or harassment.

He added: “Firefighters are not there to spoil anyone’s fun. An attack on your firefighters is an attack on your community.”

Bowler and brolly essential tomorrow
By Claire Regan

Tens of thousands of Orangemen will be packing their brollies along with their bowler hats and sashes tomorrow after forecasters predicted a wet start to the Twelfth celebrations.

The 316th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne is to begin with spells of rain, although it will improve as the day progresses.

A spokeswoman for the PA Weather Centre said the morning is “not looking too brilliant” but promised an “improving picture throughout the day”.

“It will be a wet start with showers of rain across Northern Ireland but the conditions will clear as the day goes on and temperatures will reach a nice 20 degrees centigrade,” she added.

Lodges to converge on 18 centres
By Claire Regan

Up to 60,000 Orangemen were making final preparations today to join one of the many annual Twelfth demonstrations being held across Northern Ireland.

Members of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland and the Independent Orange Order - representing hundreds of district lodges - are getting set for tomorrow’s celebrations at 18 main venues in all six counties to mark the 316th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne.

A total of 1,400 lodges from Northern Ireland will be joined by marchers from Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and Leitrim along with other contingents from Scotland, England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

In Belfast, past Grand Master of Ireland, the Rev Martin Smyth, will be the main speaker at Barnett’s Demesne. Around 250 lodges from the nine Belfast districts will be headed by more than 100 bands as the main parade leaves Carlisle Circus at 10am and makes its way to the demesne via Donegall Street, Royal Avenue, Donegall Square, Bedford Street, Dublin Road, Lisburn Road, Balmoral Avenue and Malone Road.

In Randalstown, 86 lodges will take part in the East Antrim Combine’s demonstration. Brethren from a wide area will start parading at Shane Street at 11am.

The tiny village of Broomhedge is the venue for the South Antrim demonstration. Seventy-five lodges and 50 bands from the Lisburn, Aghalee, Glenavy, Magheragall, Ballinderry, Derriaghy and Hillsborough districts will take part.

Portglenone will co-host the Co Antrim ‘Triangle’ taking in the neighbouring districts of Ahoghill and Cullybackey. Seventeen lodges will take part in the parade which starts from Chesney Crescent at 1pm.

Thirty local lodges, headed by 17 bands, are to take part in the Ballymena festivities, making their way from the town centre to Waveney Road, through Harryville to Ballee.

This year’s Braid demonstration is in Broughshane, getting under way from The Commons at noon. Platform proceedings will start at 2pm.

Ballycastle will host the North Antrim demonstration taking in the neighbouring districts of Ballymoney, Rasharkin, Cloughmills and Bushmills. Fifty lodges leave Ramoan playing fields at 1pm.

The Co Armagh Twelfth demonstrations at Richhill will involve 170 lodges from 11 districts, starting in the village at 9.15am. Visiting districts are expected from Portadown, Loughgall, Tandragee, Armagh, Lurgan, Killylea, Keady, Newtownhamilton, Markethill and Bessbrook.

Gilford is the location for the South Down demonstration, involving 96 lodges, 50 bands and several dozen Lambeg drums. Districts taking part are Lower Iveagh, Lower Iveagh West, Rathfriland, Newry, Banbridge, Loughbrickland, Bann Valley and Gilford.

In Bangor, the five North Down districts will be joined by 67 lodges from east and mid Down.

The 15 Mourne district lodges and bands will converge on Kilkeel. Platform proceedings will be held at the field on the Manse Road.

More than 100 Fermanagh lodges will be joined in Maguiresbridge by lodges from neighbouring border counties. The Fermanagh County Grand Master, Thomas Elliott MLA, will chair proceedings.

And more than 60 South Derry lodges will be providing the festivities in Magherafelt. The parade will pass through the town centre at noon.

Coleraine’s Twelfth celebrations start at Killowen at 11.30am with 60 lodges and bands from three districts and the City of Londonderry Grand Orange Lodge making their way to the Showgrounds.

The Tyrone village of Castlecaulfield will host 65 lodges and 60 bands from the east and south of the county. The parade moves off at 12.30pm.

Meanwhile, 60 north and west Tyrone lodges and bands from six districts will meet in Castlederg, The parade starts on the Strabane Road at 12.30pm.

And in Ballygawley, 22 lodges and bands will form the Twelfth parade in the Clogher Valley. Marchers will assemble at Old Omagh Road and move off at 12.15pm heading for the demonstration field at Tullyvor Road.

The Independent Orange Order demonstration will be held in Portrush for the first time. The parade around the town of 20 lodges will start at Landsdowne Crescent at 1pm.

Belfast Telegraph

By Debra Douglas
11 July 2006

A series of murals portraying young people’s views on life and play in North Belfast have been unveiled.

A ‘Celebration of Young People’s Artwork’ consists of three murals designed by young people involved with the Youth Justice Agency’s Community Services.

Two of the murals - at the Youth Justice Agency’s Duncairn Gardens premises - depict young people playing in the streets of North Belfast, with girls playing on swings and boys playing football, while the third represents famous local landmarks, such as the Waterworks, Gallaghers and Cavehill.

Mary O’Neill, project manager with the Youth Justice Community Services North Belfast, explained: “The murals were drawn and painted by the young people engaged with our project.

“The unveiling completes two months of hard work and dedication by the young people to design and paint the murals.

“The aim of the initiative was to teach the young people basic art skills and provide them with the opportunity to make a difference in their local community. Those involved have gained invaluable experiences, increasing confidence, self-esteem, new skills and interests.”

North Belfast is one of a network of 23 projects across Northern Ireland operated by the Youth Justice Agency’s Community Services directorate, which aims to reduce youth crime by delivering a range of interventions, preventative programmes and court orders targeted at young people in conflict with the law.

Each project works with 10 to 17-year-olds to further their personal, social and educational development by providing tailored services to help prevent re-offending, whilst allowing them to make a contribution to society.

BBC

Nuclear power stations will not be built in Northern Ireland, Secretary of State Peter Hain has said.

He was speaking as a new generation of nuclear power stations was expected to be given the go-ahead by the government following its energy review.

The review is expected to make the case for as many as six new facilities in England, Scotland and Wales.

However, Mr Hain said that renewable energy sources would provide the way forward for Northern Ireland.

“There are no plans to build any nuclear power stations in Northern Ireland - that is the view I have taken as secretary of state,” he said.

“It’s also part of an understanding we have with the Irish government, who are opposed to any new nuclear build on the whole island of Ireland

“That means that we have to go very strongly and progressively for green, clean, renewable energy, which is what we will be doing.”

Global warming targets

Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered the energy review last November to decide how the UK would meet its targets for fighting global warming and ensuring energy security.

Nuclear currently meets 20% of the UK’s energy needs and Mr Blair says that gap needs to be filled as all the existing plants are decommissioned by 2023.

Supporters of nuclear power want to have a firm framework on which to make investment decisions.

They insist they will not need government subsidies to build new nuclear plants.

But critics say siding with nuclear power will make investors less likely to put money into renewable sources and distract from energy efficiency - the focus of the government’s last energy review in 2003.

Reuters.co.uk

By Kevin Smith
Tue Jul 11, 2006 6:07 AM BST

BOYNE VALLEY (Reuters) - It was not one of history’s headline battles — it was brief and casualties were relatively light — but for Northern Ireland’s Protestants, the Battle of the Boyne is the cradle of their cultural identity.

Described by one historian as little more than “dawn to dusk skirmishing through cornfields”, the 1690 battle is commemorated by Protestants each July — and for years those celebrations and the protests around them became bywords for the sectarian passions and hatreds that tore the province apart.

Members of the Protestant Orange Order, wearing orange sashes and black bowler hats, still march each year under bright banners to the thunderous sound of drums and pipes.

For Northern Ireland’s Roman Catholic minority, the parades are a triumphalist display. The marches often spark violence in the province where 3,600 people were killed in three decades of conflict before a 1998 peace deal.

Since the Good Friday accord, the violence has dwindled but the parades retain their significance.

Historians say the battle, fought in the Boyne valley in what is now the Irish Republic and commemorated on July 12, helped define Protestants’ still fragile sense of themselves.

The battle was between the army of England’s deposed Catholic King James II and forces led by his Dutch Protestant son-in-law William of Orange.

William’s victory, after a day of clashes among 60,000 troops across the rolling countryside around the Boyne river, ended Catholic rule in England and secured Protestant ascendancy in Britain and Ireland.

For Protestants in Ireland — mainly settlers from England and Scotland ‘planted’ on confiscated land in the early 17th century — the outcome was hugely important.

“It was so significant because of Ulster Protestants’ position in Ireland as a minority within the island as a whole but as a dominant political elite,” said Neil Jarman, director of the Institute of Conflict Research in Belfast.

“The battle is seen as the origin myth for Protestants in the north of Ireland where the Plantation had been most successful in establishing them.”

“CELEBRATION OF SURVIVAL”

The annual parades, says Orange Order archivist Cecil Kilpatrick, represent the Protestant community marking the establishment of its rights and liberties.

“To some extent the Twelfth is a celebration of survival — the Ulster Protestant community has always been beleaguered, besieged and bewildered and they’ve survived another year, so it’s a kind of defence mechanism,” he told Reuters.

“We tend to feel we’re surrounded and circling the wagons, as it were, and it’s been like that since the Plantation.”

The power-sharing peace deal between majority Protestants and a Catholic minority, did not end those feelings — and it is now on ice because feuding politicians cannot agree on a decision-making executive.

Last September, Protestant rioters hurled petrol bombs and fired shots at police in the worst unrest for years, and analysts said the riots reflected insecurity among a community which sees itself as sidelined by the British government.

Before the peace deal, the Orange Order’s July parades were lightning rods for such tensions on both sides — especially because the marches often followed traditional routes through what had become Catholic-dominated areas.

“If you talk to the average Catholic on the street in Belfast and ask them what Orange parades are about they’ll say ‘it’s stupid and it’s about annoying us’,” said Malachi O’Doherty, a Belfast-based writer and broadcaster.

“They perhaps might not understand the complexities of it but I think it’s seen surely as about marking out territory and also about retaining territory that was lost, because the Catholic population has been expanding.”

Many nationalists also regard the Battle of the Boyne as a crucial step towards the institution of full British rule in Ireland up until the early 20th century.

In 1923, the IRA blew up a large monument on the Boyne site, and six years later destroyed a statue of William of Orange outside Dublin’s Trinity College.

RECONCILIATION

While the Battle of the Boyne finds its greatest resonance in Northern Ireland, it was not just a local row — the result affected dynastic and political structures across Europe.

William was affiliated to a pan-European alliance of countries dedicated to resisting Catholic King Louis XIV of France’s would-be expansionism across the continent.

Ironically, because the Vatican was also part of this alliance — known as the League of Augsburg — some of William’s soldiers marched under Papal banners. His adversary James was backed by English, Belgian and French contingents.

The site of the battle — which already attracts up to 20,000 visitors each year — was bought by the Irish government in 2000 to encourage reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

A Georgian mansion on the Boyne estate is to be converted into a high-tech multimedia and interpretative centre. A walled peace garden will also be built to remember those who died.

Announcing 15 million euros (10.4 million pounds) in funding last year, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said the government recognised the significance of the battle for Protestants.

He noted that while William’s victory was a point of pride for one religious tradition, it was associated with political loss and marginalisation by the other.

“What is undisputed,” he said, “is that the outcome of the battle had a major influence on the long-term political development of Ireland.”

RTÉ

10 July 2006 15:59

A United Nations-backed tribunal in Cambodia has begun an investigation into the genocide known as ‘The Killing Fields’ in which an estimated 1.7 million people died in the 1970s.

“Before execution, detainees were brutally tortured by many cruel means, such as electric shocks, cigarette burns, hanging upside down, and forced to drink urine and eat excrement. Such kinds of torture were committed to compel prisoners to confess…

Some detainees died in the prisons and others were taken to be executed at Chheung EK. Usually, the execution was carried out in secret at nighttime. The prisoners were loaded into trucks and taken to Cheung Ek prison where most of the S-21 prisoners were killed. Between thirty and three hundred people were killed each day there in 1978.”

Quotation and images from The Establishment of a Tribunal for Genocide in Cambodia from 1975-1979 by Suon Visal

The investigations got under way as Cambodia’s former king Norodom Sihanouk rejected efforts to try only a handful of ‘old, sickly, unrepentant individuals’, saying the money would be better spent fighting poverty.

International prosecutor Robert Petit from Canada and Cambodian prosecutor Chea Leang are leading the joint investigation to determine which of the former leaders should face trial.

17 Cambodian and ten UN-appointed foreign judges were sworn in on 3 July, marking the beginning of a long-awaited tribunal that should see some former Khmer Rouge leaders tried by mid-2007.

Mr Petit warned Friday that it could take months to issue any indictments.