SAOIRSE32

http://www.sinnfein.ie/news/detail/15408

Published: 7 August, 2006

Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún has this morning launched a range of postcards highlighting the policy of British state collusion in the Six Counties. The event was organised by Relatives For Justice (RFJ).

Speaking after this morning’s event Ms de Brún said that the launch was ‘a novel way for Relatives for Justice to raise serious issues of British state violence and collusion during the course of the conflict’.

Speaking today Ms de Brún said:

“Many people know Relatives for Justice for their community development and cross community work with those who have been injured and bereaved as a result of the conflict. RFJ also carry out campaigning work and highlight issues related to the role of the state in conflict.

“For decades the British government have denied their role in the murder of Irish citizens and to this day they deny attempts to cover up their involvement in collusion. One of the four postcards also highlights the role of MI5. It is a way for relatives for Justice to express concerns about the proposed future role of MI5 in policing and intelligence gathering here.” ENDS

Note The Postcards are a ‘not for profit’ venture and will be on sale from the Sinn Féin Art Shop and various outlets across Ireland.

Daily Ireland

08/07/2006

Young people from across the North will learn to make music together over the next fortnight in a music initiative known as the Alternative Media Project.
Developed by the cross-community charity Co-operation Ireland, the project will travel to rural locations, bringing music workshops to the area.
Tony Kennedy, the charity’s chief executive, said: “By bringing a number of youth groups together in each of the areas, we are encouraging them to explore their cultural identities, to get to know each other and learn to understand and respect one another.
“Young people in rural areas sometimes get the short straw when it comes to participating in arts and music events. This travelling road show will bring to outlying areas the activities that are more easily accessible to people living in cities.”
The project came about after consultation with young people aged between 14 and 18 who indicated they were interested in working with music.
Around 200 young people from 16 youth organisations have been selected to take part in the workshops.

Daily Ireland

Senior Orangeman says shared future can be built by drawing inspiration from basic tenets of both the 1916 proclamation and Orange tradition – but he believes Orange Order has been corrupted by paramilitaries and political opportunists

By Mick Hall
08/07/2006

A former senior Orangeman has claimed that “an island of equals” can be built by drawing inspiration and direction from the fundamental tenets of both the 1916 Proclamation and Orange tradition in Ireland.
The Reverend Brian Kennaway was speaking at a weekend book signing event as part of this year’s Féile an Phobail programme in west Belfast.
The signing symbolically took place on the Falls Road in the Cultúrlann — a converted Presbyterian church and now one of west Belfast’s best-known cultural centres. The building was once home to the Broadway Defenders Orange Lodge.
Mr Kennaway, an Orange Order member for 42 years, resigned his position as convener of the organisation’s education committee in 2000, following the Drumcree marching dispute. He later argued that the order had been take over by paramilitaries, political opportunists and those ignorant of the order’s authentic religious values.
The Presbyterian minister is based in Crumlin, Co Antrim. In May, he published his book The Orange Order: A Tradition Betrayed.
He said the book had not set out to “demonise” the order but had “placed its present position of decline in historical context”.
Addressing a packed hall, Mr Kennaway said the book dealt with organisational problems facing the order. He said addressing these issues would help bring about “a new dispensation within an island of equals” in Ireland.
Among these problems were a lack of leadership and discipline, as well as ignorance among Orange Order members about the “Orange tradition” that had extended to the “workings and behaviour of its institutions”.
Another problem had been the maligning of the order by those outside its ranks, “stating malevolently what the institution stands for”.
Mr Kennaway told the Féile audience that the order stood for equality and civil and religious liberty and that many of its tenets were similar to those found in the 1916 Proclamation.
“The order’s written position of upholding ‘civil and religious liberty for all and special privileges for none’ is not dissimilar to that of the 1916 Proclamation ‘guaranteeing religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens’, and ‘cherishing all of the children of the nation equally’. Both traditions can build an island of equals,” he said.
“We do not have a religious organisation with a political element any more but a political organisation with a religious element,” Mr Kennaway added.
He said that a “fundamental change of Orangeism” had to be initiated, including reversing a process that had “substituted faith with culture”.
“This must be attempted by using ‘spin’. In an age where transparency is demanded, no one wants spin. You cannot change the image of an institution without changing its practice,” he said.
Roy Garland, a former Belfast unionist councillor turned commentator, accompanied Mr Kennaway on stage at the Cultúrlann event.
Mr Garland commended Mr Kennaway’s book as a “sympathetic but critical” appraisal of the Orange institutions.
Emphasising the order’s Irish identity and history, Mr Garland said many of it members had wrongfully assumed that its laws “were unchangeable” and had used much of these to reinforce a “narrowly conservative” agenda based on “fear, siege and conservatism”.
Veteran Belfast republican and community activist Seán “Spike” Murray chaired the Cultúrlann event.
Mr Murray has been involved in negotiations with unionists with regard to the Orange Order’s parade in the Springfield area of west Belfast.

Daily Ireland

Newspaper rubbishes ex-sergeant’s statement

By Anton McCabe
08/07/2006

The widower of a woman who died in the 1998 Omagh bombing has said he is refusing to jump to conclusions following claims that an Irish government report will deny allegations that senior gardaí knew the Real IRA was going to bomb the town.
A weekend newspaper report alleged the Nally Report has found former detective sergeant John White a liar.
White has claimed one of his informants told him, prior to Omagh, that the Real IRA was seeking a car for use in a bombing attack.
He further claimed a decision was taken at a high level to allow this to go through.
Former government secretary Dermot Nally was appointed to investigate White’s allegations.
The newspaper reported that Nally’s team concluded White’s claims were lies, solely made because of the “difficulties in which he found himself with his superiors in the Garda Síochána and with the criminal law”.
Laurence Rush, whose wife was killed in the bombing, said this allegation was printed at a poignant time, coming up to the eighth anniversary of the atrocity.
“The newspaper did not reproduce the report, only conclusions drawn from it by a journalist,” he said.
“It is not clear from the newspaper story, whether the journalist himself actually examined the whole report.
“It would be a futile exercise to draw any conclusion from mere speculative journalism. I am and will and remain optimistic that findings of the Nally Report are contrary to Saturday’s report.
“I find it ironic and peculiar that this so-called leak of the Nally Report comes in the same week John White was found innocent of the allegations laid before him in court.”
Mr Rush said he was aware Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan found White’s allegations credible. He also said that a large number of arrests in the months before the Omagh bombing showed the Garda had very good intelligence on the Real IRA.
Mr Rush is taking legal action against secretary of state Peter Hain and PSNI chief constable Hugh Orde, alleging the authorities had prior knowledge of the bomb and were negligent in failing to prevent the atrocity.
A number of other families are taking legal action against several alleged Real IRA members.

BBC

An Israeli air strike has killed more than 40 people in the southern Lebanese border village of Houla, Lebanon’s prime minister has said.

Many of those stranded in Tyre are poor and elderly

Fouad Siniora told an Arab foreign ministers meeting in Beirut that there had been “a horrific massacre”.

At least 20 people died in earlier Israeli raids across Lebanon, as troops fought Hezbollah in the south.

The violence comes after at least 15 people were killed in Israel on Sunday - the country’s deadliest day so far.

Diplomats are battling to find a workable truce amid the escalating violence, and Arab ministers are discussing a strategy on a ceasefire in Beirut.

“An hour ago, there was a horrific massacre in the village of Houla in which more than 40 martyrs were victims of deliberate bombing,” Mr Siniora told the meeting.

More than 900 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict, the Lebanese government says. More than 90 Israelis, most of them soldiers, have also been killed.

Humanitarian groups say Israeli military action is hampering efforts to help many of the hundreds of thousands who have fled the fighting - sparked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah on 12 July.

Tyre isolated

Details on the Houla strike are still sketchy, but it came as Israeli jets also hit southern Beirut and parts of the east and south, cutting off the city of Tyre.

The BBC’s John Simpson in Tyre says a crater now blocks the farm track used to transport food and medicine to the city.

Israeli jets also pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut and struck around Baalbek in the Bekaa valley.

The air attacks came amid further clashes on the ground, while Hezbollah fired more rockets at Israel.

United Nations sources say Israeli commandos have been on the border hilltops since Sunday, trying to destroy Hezbollah positions.

The Israeli army said one of its soldiers and five Hezbollah militants died in combat in the village of Bint Jbeil.

The Shia militia said it killed four Israeli soldiers near Houla, but Israel said a number of its troops were slightly wounded.

The clashes follow exchanges on Sunday, when Hezbollah rocket-fire killed 12 Israeli reservist soldiers in the town of Kfar Giladi and three people in the port of Haifa.

Israel said it had destroyed Hezbollah rocket launchers around Qana and Tyre that were used to attack Haifa.

Ceasefire talks

As fighting continues, UN Security Council members are expected to renew talks on the resolution aimed at stopping the conflict.

They are expected to discuss possible changes to a draft document to take account of Lebanese objections: Beirut is seeking a specific reference to a timetable for Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

Correspondents say no vote is likely until Tuesday at the earliest.

The text calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities and lays the groundwork for a second that would install an international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

Senior Israeli officials have said they are broadly happy with the text.

Arab foreign ministers meeting in Beirut are widely expected to endorse Lebanon’s position.

News Letter

07 August 2006

The families of those murdered in the 1998 Real IRA bomb massacre in Omagh have demanded an inquiry into claims made yesterday by a Garda sergeant that his commanders ignored a prior warning of the worst atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles so they could protect an informer.
The claims have been made by Donegal Garda Detective Sergeant John White, who said his commanders ignored a pre-warning of a bomb attack to protect informer Paddy Dixon.
Mr White said yesterday that his informer, Dubliner Paddy Dixon, a car thief, had told him there was going to be a major bomb attack in the province before it happened.
Mr White said yesterday: “On July 25, 1998 I went to a senior officer in the Garda Siochana and told him that Paddy Dixon had told me there was going to be a Real IRA bomb attack within two weeks in Northern Ireland. I never alleged Dixon knew the precise location of the target. But I repeat again that I will stand up in any future public inquiry and tell the world that I was told by a senior officer to let the bomb through in order to maintain Dixon’s credibility with the Real IRA.”
Yesterday the families of the 29 men, women and children who perished said they were 100 per cent behind Mr White and claimed that a report leaked on Saturday in Dublin – which said an Irish government inquiry into his claims found Dixon had no prior knowledge of the planned attack on Omagh – was an attempt to “blacken” the Detective Sergeant’s name.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the August afternoon bombing, yesterday demanded an urgent meeting with the Republic of Ireland’s Justice Minister Michael McDowell to discuss the matter.
Yesterday Mr Gallagher said: ” We have got to get to the truth about Omagh and we are absolutely calling for a cross-border, independent public inquiry.
“It’s what we need to seriously test John White’s disturbing allegations. We need to know if the governments are trying to hide something and we are calling for an early meeting with Justice Minister Michael McDowell and awaiting a meeting we have requested with Secretary of State Peter Hain.”
Mr Gallagher believes the Garda informer Paddy Dixon, who is now living abroad under a witness protection scheme, should be questioned by any inquiry team.
“Paddy Dixon is a key part of it all. As regards this latest government report the families have not seen it and yet a Dublin journalist was able to quote from it chapter and verse. It is an absolute scandal the way that the Omagh families have been treated, ” said Mr Gallagher.

Irelandclick

SDLP MLA Alex Attwood has launched a new service at his constituency office to aid applicants for Irish passports.

The service runs two days a week, Monday and Wednesday, from 11am-3pm, in the MLA’s office at 60 Andersonstown Road.

Speaking on the advantages of such a service, Alex Attwood MLA said, “The majority of citizens who reside in West Belfast would prefer to hold an Irish passport.

“We are providing this service to give people who choose to hold an Irish passport assistance.

“Advice on how to fill out the form will be at hand, and all my constituents can get their photos signed and applications endorsed.

“We will forward the form to Dublin where there is an urgent need or complication.

“This is a hassle-free service for anyone wishing to use it and we hope that it will encourage more people to register their Irish nationality and show their pride in the success of the Good Friday Agreement.

“This is a local service for local people and many constituents already attend the office about passport issues so we hope to see this service expanded.”

Journalist:: Staff Journalist

Irelandclick

The DUP will be absent from the West Belfast Talks Back Féile highlight this year amidst reports that the party blocked a bid by deputy leader Peter Robinson to attend.

Since 2002, party representatives have ventured into West Belfast to put their case before rival politicians and an audience of up to 1,000 people in St Louise’s College.

However, this year the party failed to nominate a representative who would have taken the stage on Wednesday night alongside Gerry Kelly of Sinn Féin, David Ervine of the PUP, John Laird of the UUP and Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan.

It’s understood that East Belfast MP Peter Robinson — tipped as future First Minister and successor to Ian Paisley — was keen to attend the event but that internal opponents in the party spiked his guns. “The party is split between those who favour more engagement with nationalists and a faction — in the supremacy at present — which wishes to turn in on itself in the run-up to political talks,” said a source close to the party.

Meanwhile, bells, whistles, banners, drums and dancers all helped the thousands who lined the Falls and Whiterock Roads yesterday to forget the incessant drizzle and kick off Féile 2006.

Organiser Sean Paul O’Hare said he was delighted at the turnout out for the opening celebrations.

“Today’s turnout has been magnificent,” he said. “People have come out despite the rain. The amount of work that went into the parade was phenomenal. Everyone from the children to the artists have done so much to make it a fantastic, colourful event and a great way to herald this year’s Féile an Phobail.”

Journalist:: Staff Journalist

BBC

Ronald Mackie, 36, was from near Stirling in Scotland
A fourth man has appeared in court charged with the murder of Ronald Mackie in County Londonderry last week.

Mr Mackie, from Scotland, was attacked by a gang before being pushed onto a road, where he was hit by a car.

Dean Milligan, 18, from Crew Road in Maghera, was remanded in custody when he appeared at Londonderry Magistrates Court.

A detective inspector told the court when the murder charge was put to the unemployed teenager, he replied “no”.

The officer told the court he had arrested and cautioned the accused at Antrim PSNI station on Sunday.

He was remanded in custody until 22 August.

The police are continuing to question a 17-year-old youth about Mr Mackie’s death.

He is the eighth person to be arrested in connection with the murder. The teenager was arrested on Sunday.

Three men have already been charged with murder. Two others were released without charge and another on police bail.

Mr Mackie, 36, from Stirling in Scotland, was attacked by a gang outside a football club in Tobermore on 29 July.

BBC

A pensioner whose County Armagh home was petrol bombed said she believes the attack may have been sectarian.

Gwen Cunningham was asleep when two petrol bombs and paint were thrown at her house on the Tandragee Road, Lurgan, at about 0130 BST on Sunday.

Gwen and her husband, Andrew, were not injured but the property was damaged.

The police are investigating a motive for the attack. Mrs Cunningham believes the house was targeted because it is in a Protestant area.

“We’ve never been targeted with stones or anything. It was a planned attack, because they didn’t come out of a pub with petrol bombs,” she said.

“I think, it is possible, it must be sectarian. It’s a row of Protestant houses, there’s a Protestant estate behind us and a Catholic esate in front of us.

“We’ve been here nearly 20 years and this is the first time our home has been attacked.

“We’re both pensioners, we’ve both survived cancer and we don’t need this. It’s quite frightening.”

One of the petrol bombs hit the roof of her home, the other landed in the back garden.

Paint was also thrown at their property and at an adjacent house.

It is thought a gang of up to six men was involved in the attack.

The police have appealed for information.

Irish Independent

Posted to republicanarmy by D. Michele Duarte

5 August 2006

Report finds allegations were without foundation

SENSATIONAL claims by detective John White that senior garda officers ignored vital intelligence before the Omagh bomb atrocity were lies.

They were motivated solely by concerns about his own career.

That is the key finding of a government-appointed inquiry into the allegations which prompted relatives of the Omagh bomb victims to seek an independent investigation into a “cover-up”.

The inquiry, headed by former government secretary Dermot Nally, concluded that the allegations were without foundation.

And it also ruled that the accusations - made by Det Sgt John White to the North’s Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan - were “a direct consequence of, and motivated solely by, concerns arising from the difficulties in which he found himself with his superiors in the Garda Siochana and with the criminal law”.

Two weeks ago Det Sgt White was acquitted by a jury of a charge of planting a shotgun at a Travellers’ camp at Burnfoot in Co Donegal.

He was also found not guilty early last year on charges of perverting the course of justice and making false statements.

Details of the Nally report findings have not been published by the Government up to now, partly because of the criminal proceedings and also for security reasons, as it contains information on garda operational procedures.

However, the Irish Independent last night learnt of the key findings of the report, which was also prepared by a member of the Independent Monitoring Commission on paramilitarism in Northern Ireland, Joseph Brosnan, and former Director of Public Prosecutions Eamon Barnes.

A limited statement on the Nally findings is expected to be made by Justice Minister Michael McDowell in the Dail in October.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said last night that the issue of limited publication of the Nally report would be addressed when the Dail resumed in the autumn.

A number of issues, such as security and defamation, had to be considered, while the fact that a man was facing criminal charges arising out of Omagh also has to be taken into account.

Det Sgt White will be a key figure in the three new reports from the Morris Tribunal into garda corruption in Donegal. These are due to be published within the next 10 days.

The Real IRA attack on Omagh on August 15, 1998, killed 29 people and injured around 300 others.

Det Sgt White subsequently claimed to Ms O’Loan, and later to the senior PSNI officer in charge of the Omagh investigation, that intelligence he had supplied to the garda’s crime and security branch that the Real IRA had “obtained” a car on the eve of the blast had not been passed on to the then RUC.

However, the Nally report said it became clear, in interviews with Det Sgt White, that he did not pass on any of the details of his allegations to named individuals, or anybody else, before he became aware he was subject to investigation by his garda colleagues.

He made no allegations to anyone or voiced his concerns to anyone, not even his wife, until after his arrest by gardai on March 21, 2000 - 19 months after the Omagh atrocity.

The report found that his assertions that he was motivated by guilt regarding the Omagh bomb and by a sense of responsibility to the victims were “inherently incredible”.

In his statement to the PSNI, Det Sgt White confirmed that he had been arrested before he had raised any issues concerning Omagh. The report said it transpired he had spoken to none of the individuals he had named prior to his arrest.

Mr Nally suggested that the reason why he made his allegations could be ascertained only by reference to the circumstances surrounding his making them.

The Nally inquiry was set up by then Justice Minister John O’Donoghue, held its first meeting in April 2002 and concluded its investigations the following year.

Before being transferred to Donegal, Det Sgt White had been based in Dublin and was receiving information from a car thief, Paddy Dixon, who was part of a gang supplying stolen vehicles to the Real IRA.

As a result of the information, which was passed on by Sgt White to the force’s crime and security branch, gardai managed to intercept a number of car bombs as they were being prepared for use against targets in Northern Ireland.

At that stage the Dublin brigade of the Real IRA became virtually defunct because of the garda interceptions and Dixon’s information was no longer of any use to the garda authorities from May onwards.

The Real IRA eventually decided to acquire their vehicles elsewhere and did not use a car stolen by the Dublin gang for use in the Omagh atrocity in August.

Tom Brady

Irish Independent

Posted to republicanarmy by D. Michele Duarte

5 August 2006

A KNOWN thief, whose information to Det Sgt John White helped gardai thwart Real IRA bombing missions, has been cleared by the PSNI of any involvement in the 1998 Omagh atrocity.

Small-time criminal Paddy Dixon was taken into the Garda’s witness security programme after Det Sgt White named him as his tout.

Dixon feared that his life was in danger from the Real IRA after his role became public knowledge. He was moved to a new address outside the jurisdiction.

The Nally inquiry team asked him to give evidence about the information he had supplied to Det Sgt White. However, on legal advice he decided not to co-operate.

It was learned last night that Dixon, a Dubliner, was arrested by the PSNI last April and taken into custody. He was questioned by senior officers in the Omagh bomb investigation team. Officers were satisfied that he knew nothing about the Omagh bombing and he was released without charge.

He continues to live outside the jurisdiction.

Det Sgt White developed Dixon as an informant when he worked as a detective garda with the plainclothes unit in Blanchardstown, west Dublin. He continued the association after he moved to Co Donegal on promotion.

When Dixon’s gang began stealing cars to order for a supplier to the Real IRA, the information about its activities became crucially important to the Garda’s crime and security branch, which was controlling the force’s fight against dissident republican groups.

The details that Det Sgt White supplied led to the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) intercepting cars as they were being prepared for terrorist attacks.

As a direct result of information supplied by Dixon, the ERU intercepted a car fitted with a thousand pounds of explosives at Dun Laoghaire car ferry as it was about to be taken to Britain for an attack, possibly at the Aintree Grand National meeting in Liverpool in April 1998.

Other information that Dixon gave to Det Sgt White led to the ERU recovering hauls of explosives that were about to be used in two cross-Border attacks.

The series of garda successes delivered a huge setback to the Real IRA. Its leadership decided it could no longer trust members of its Dublin brigade. It became effectively defunct from the end of May 1998.

Responsibility for supplying vehicles for attacks in the North was switched from the Dublin brigade to Border-based activists and the South Armagh brigade. Dixon’s gang was no longer used by the dissidents from early June 1998.

By the time of the Omagh atrocity on August 15, 1998, Dixon was “well out of the loop” as far as the Real IRA leadership was concerned.

The vehicle used in the Omagh blast was acquired from thieves operating in the Dundalk area.

Tom Brady