SAOIRSE32

Sunday Independent

ALAN MURRAY
26 November 2006

PSNI officers will be on duty at Stormont tomorrow when the Assembly resumes business following the dramatic intervention by convicted murderer Michael Stone that brought Friday’s proceedings to a halt.

A decision has been taken to restore a police presence to Stormont at least while the Assembly is functioning and members are in attendance.

The move will anger Sinn Fein who have yet to make a commitment to support the new policing arrangements in the North, but it will please their DUP opponents who will welcome a visible police presence at Stormont.

The decision to bring police officers back to Stormont was taken at a meeting on Friday afternoon between the Speaker Eileen Bell, the Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland.

It’s understood that PSNI officers will not patrol inside Stormont but will be on duty outside to deter any possible threat to MLAs and their staff and the building.

The absence of a PSNI presence at the Assembly dates back to its suspension in 2002 after the ‘Stormontgate’ episode and it is being suggested that Sinn Fein’s anger over the police raid on their offices was a major factor in a police presence not being restored.

One security source said “There was actually an inspector, sergeant and four shifts deployed at the Stormont Estate before the Assembly was suspended but when it was closed down resources were deployed to other areas by the Chief Constable.

“Obviously Sinn Fein’s anger over the raid on their offices caused very negative vibes and I suppose there wasn’t great enthusiasm for sending the police back in for those two reasons. But after what happened on Friday and the chaos caused by just one man carrying crude explosive devices it would be foolish to take that risk again.”

The Speaker has been locked in discussions over the weekend to formulate an Order Paper for tomorrow’s resumed proceedings at the Assembly which is expected to debate among other things whether Ian Paisley actually indicated he was making a nomination to the First Minister post during Friday’s interrupted proceedings.

The Speaker promised that Points of Order could be aired when all the Party Leaders had completed their brief addresses to the Assembly.

The British Prime Minister interpreted Dr Paisley’s comments as an acceptance of the First Minister post although his speech contained no explicit statement to that effect.

“If the Doc had recited the Lord’s Prayer in Cantonese, Tony Blair would have taken it as a yes to nomination,” one observer quipped.

The unusual statement issued by 12 senior DUP figures on Friday including three MPs and the Party Chairman Lord Morrow has increased speculation that there is a potential split developing within the party over proceeding to share power withSF.

In a later statement on Friday, Lord Morrow said that the party’s assembly group is demanding that SF declares “full support for the PSNI, the courts and the rule of law and must do so with urgency so that there can be credible testing of their bona fides.”

Sinn Fein hasn’t indicated when it proposes to hold a special Ard Fheis to debate the policing issue and there are a number of outstanding points they want resolved before taking a “policing package” to a special party conference.

Meanwhile, Stone has been charged with the attempted murder of Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and the unarmed guards who blocked his way. He also was charged with possession of weapons for terrorist purposes, including explosives, several nail bombs, an axe, a strangulation device and a fake gun.

Britain’s Northern Ireland Office confirmed yesterday it is to revoke his parole.

During a brief hearing before magistrate Bernadette Kelly, a detective sergeant, questioned by the defence said Stone had spoken freely during two police interviews.

The solicitor asked: “Has Mr Stone indicated he acted alone with no other person or organisation involved?”

The officer said: “He has.”

The sergeant confirmed that Stone had not gained entry to the Stormont chamber, where assembly members were involved in a debate. He was seized by two security staff at the revolving doors to the parliament building, disarmed and wrestled to the ground in front of the full glare of TV cameras.

The incident forced the adjournment of a special session of the assembly at which DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness were to indicate that they were prepared to take the positions of First Minister and Deputy First Minister in a devolved assembly next year - Mr Paisley insisting that Sinn Fein would first have to give their support to the PSNI and the law and order system.

The debate is due to be resumed for its final stages on Monday morning.

Sunday Times

Liam Clarke
November 26, 2006

MICHAEL STONE, the crazed loyalist killer arrested at Stormont on Friday in possession of weapons and explosives, had told friends that the only place he would feel safe was in prison.

Following his dramatic arrest at the parliament building, associates of Stone have described him as a tortured man obsessed by the idea that republicans were plotting to kill him with a gun they seized during his attack at Milltown cemetery in 1988.

He had asked police on several occasions to interview him about unsolved murders and murder conspiracies in what seemed to be a campaign to be incarcerated again.

On Friday, he tried to burst into parliament buildings at Stormont armed with an imitation pistol, a knife, a garrotte and eight amateurishly made pipe bombs.

Yesterday he appeared in Belfast’s Magistrates Court charged with attempting to murder Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, and his colleague Martin McGuinness.

Whatever the outcome, Stone looks likely to get his wish and go back to jail. He was released on licence under the Good Friday agreement in 2000 while serving six life sentences, with a recommendation that he spend at least 30 years in prison.

The licence specifies that he can be returned to complete his sentence if he is a danger to the public or if he is suspected of engaging in acts of terror. That is the fate that befell Sean Kelly, an IRA terrorist who bombed the Shankill Road, and Johnny Adair, Stone’s loyalist rival.

Yesterday Adair taunted Stone, saying “now people will say ‘did you see Stoner getting wrestled to the ground by a woman?’, ” a reference to Susan Porter, the Stormont security guard who seized his replica weapon and overpowered him.

Stone’s solo attempt to storm Stormont was described as the “actions of a lunatic” by Sir Hugh Orde, the PSNI chief constable. Former friends of the loyalist killer say that the origins of the attack go back to the day in March 1988, when Stone launched a similar kamikaze-style raid on the funeral of three IRA members shot by the SAS in Gibraltar. Stone’s intention had been to get close enough to Adams and McGuinness to kill them.

On that occasion, Stone had a real gun and succeeded in shooting dead three mourners in Milltown before members of the IRA seized the weapon and the police arrested him.

Under questioning he confessed to three other murders. He later said he had made up one of these confessions, and had not, in fact, been responsible for the murder of Dermot Hackett, a delivery man shot dead near Omagh in 1987. That case has now been re-opened.

An Ulster Defence Association source said: “Michael had become obsessed with the idea that the IRA were going to shoot him with the gun they captured from him before any peace deal was finally concluded. That is why he turned against the Good Friday agreement after initially supporting it. He was totally paranoid and receiving treatment.”

Stone reacted badly when he heard in jail that the Browning pistol taken from him had been used by the IRA to murder Lance Corporal Roy Butler, an off-duty Ulster Defence Regiment officer who was shot while shopping with his wife and children in Belfast city centre in 1988.

After his release, Stone appeared to forget about his phobia. He wrote a book and launched a career as an artist, mainly based on his notoriety. The signature on the back of paintings was the print of his right index finger, which he told buyers was “Michael Stone’s trigger finger”.

In the past year his old demons had returned and he claimed to have heard a republican say in a television interview that his gun might be used to kill him.

He had given up art and had no fixed abode, usually staying with a girlfriend in the Rathcoole estate, Newtownabbey.

A former UDA colleague said: “He saw a deal between the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Fein coming, and he believes there will not be a deal until he is dead. He has been trying to get put in jail for about the past nine months.”

Stone, 51, who suffers from crippling arthritis, had travelled to London earlier this year where he asked to be interviewed about a number of unsolved murders, including an alleged 1980s plot to murder Ken Livingstone, who was leader of the Greater London council at the time.

He had also challenged police in Northern Ireland to arrest him and had been interviewed at Antrim police station but released. He was starting to be regarded as a nuisance.

Two weeks ago Stone revived the story of his supposed plot to kill Livingstone at a London Underground station and was interviewed by ITN television news in the grounds of Stormont.

Wearing a poppy and walking with the aid of a stick he told the interviewer: “I have regrets about my past. I regret having taken men’s lives during the conflict. I regret not having assassinated Adams and McGuinness and, to be quite honest, I regret not having assassinated Ken Livingstone.”

Sunday Times

Liam Clarke
November 26, 2006

A HIGH-RANKING Democratic Unionist party figure has broken ranks and criticised Ian Paisley for agreeing to be first minister in the Stormont assembly if Sinn Fein meets conditions on policing and other issues.

Paisley made the promise in a statement of “clarification” after failing to make such a commitment in a statement he read out on the floor of the assembly on Friday.

Jim Allister, the DUP MEP, said: “I thought the statement in the assembly was good and that is where the matter should have been left. I didn’t understand the need to change the content of it.”

He said that Paisley’s clarification had now caused ambiguity. “I couldn’t see it ever being possible to form an executive with Sinn Fein within the timeframe of March 26,” he said. This is the date set in the St Andrews agreement for devolution of powers to the Stormont executive.

Allister’s views enjoy considerable support within the DUP. Some hardliners are opposed to Paisley giving any undertaking to share power with Sinn Fein. Nigel Dodds, the MP for North Belfast, has already stated this would not happen “within a political lifetime”.

Pressure from the hardliners, who have the support of more than a third of the DUP’s assembly members, led Paisley to renege on an understanding he had with the British government on Friday. He left out a crucial line in the statement he read to the assembly, which stated that if it fell to him he would accept the post of first minister.

Although he had indicated to Tony Blair on Thursday evening he would read out the words, Paisley had been persuaded to drop them at a meeting of his assembly group less than an hour before he spoke. Despite the omission Eileen Bell, the assembly speaker, welcomed his statement and said he had indicated he would accept the post.

Sir Reg Empey, the Ulster Unionist leader, said: “What Paisley read out was not the text he had agreed with the government and the speaker’s response was the response which was meant to be given to the agreed text — not the response to what actually happened.”

If Bell did not spot Paisley’s omission, the prime minister and the taoiseach who were watching it on television, did. They were in immediate phone contact and briefly considered closing the assembly.

But Blair and Bertie Ahern decided to hold off, provided Paisley did not contradict Bell’s interpretation.

“I believe that Paisley went down to Stormont Castle,” Empey said. “Hain was in a very bad way and told him it could be a bust and the lights could be turned out (on the assembly).”

Later in the afternoon Paisley issued a new statement making it clear that he would become first minister if Sinn Fein fulfilled all the conditions. Ahern welcomed this, saying, “I said at midday that clarity was necessary and Dr Paisley’s comments this afternoon have provided welcome clarity.”

Sources close to Paisley say he is prepared to take internal flak if necessary. They say they have been assured that Sinn Fein will hold an ard fheis and pass a leadership-backed motion in support of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in January.

Times

David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent of The Times
November 24, 2006

Michael Stone dragged Northern Ireland back to its bloody past today when he launched a bizarre but potentially life-threatening attack on the Stormont Parliament building.

The outcome was happier than his attack on a Provisional IRA funeral in 1988, when he killed three mourners, including an IRA member.

Television cameras caught Stone firing a pistol and throwing grenades before he was rescued from a mob by RUC officers. He later said that his intention was to assassinate Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

Both of his targets were inside the Stormont building today with the Reverend Ian Paisley. The business was to take another step towards power-sharing. Stone’s ‘protest’ seemed to have been aimed at both sides of Ulster’s polarised political class.

In 1989 he was sentenced to a 684-year sentence for six murders (while in custody for Milltown he admitted to three other murders of men he claimed were IRA members but who were Catholic civilians).

But he served less than 11 years. In July 2000 he released from the Maze prison, along with hundreds of other convicted terrorist murderers, as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

He was greeted as a hero by loyalists and the jacket which he wore during the Milltown attack was auctioned for £10,000 at a Scottish loyalist club. One of Stone’s successors in the UFF, Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair, said that Stone inspired him to join the terrorist group.

During his incarceration he was the leader of the Ulster Freedom Fighters and was visited by Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who reassured loyalist prisoners about the course of the peace process.

He has collaborated in the writing of two books about his life - one of the reasons why the Government said earlier this month that it will introduce legislation to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes.

David Hanson, the Northern Ireland criminal justice minister, said: “It is not only distasteful but contrary to the principles of natural justice that they should be able to exploit for financial gain crimes that have devastated the lives of victims and their families.”

Stone, 50, was born and raised on the hardline loyalist Braniel estate in east Belfast. He joined the Tartans, an infamous loyalist group, when he was 13. By the age of 16 he had already been held in Belfast’s Crumlin Road jail for possession of firearms and membership of the Ulster Defence Association.

He said he hatched the idea for Milltown after the IRA bomb killed eleven people attending a Remembrance Sunday service at the cenotaph in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, in 1987.

Since his release he has earned a living as an artist, painting large expressionist works in primary colours and gloss paint. He has been fodder for the local newspapers, suggesting that at times he craves the limelight.

Earlier this month he claimed that Ken Livingstone was minutes away from execution, after stalking him for two days during the 1980s while the GLC leader was a vocal supporter of the Troops Out movement.

He is said to divide his time between Belfast, London and Spain. He has nine children from two marriages but now shares his life with a girlfriend with whom he has exchanged Christmas gifts of body armour, claiming that his life is still in danger from enemies, loyalist and republican.

Last year he took part in Facing the Truth, a BBC series in which victims were brought together with the perpetrators of their suffering. Sylvia Hackett talked with Stone, who was convicted of murdering her husband Dermot, a Catholic delivery man.

Although he previously admitted to the murder, Stone told his victim’s widow that he had no direct responsibility, having been withdrawn after planning the attack. At the end of their meeting she forced herself to walk over to Stone and shake his hand.

When he placed a second hand on hers, she recoiled and fled from the room.

On another occasion he said of his crimes: “If I was to say sorry, I believe it would fall on deaf ears. I would be called a hypocrite. Those operations were military operations. I do not regret any fatalities that have occurred.” This year he has been questioned by police about weapons procurement and other terrorist-related offences during the Troubles. “I just sat there, silent, and stared at a spot on the wall,’ he said later.

Under the Good Friday Agreement, a terrorist prisoner’s licence can be revoked if he or she re-offends.

After today’s events, with their chilling echoes of 1988, it seems certain that Stone will be back behind bars for a long time.

Sunday Life

By Alan Murray
26 November 2006

Loyalist brothers Andre and Ihab Shoukri have been moved to integrated accommodation within Maghaberry Prison.

They had been held in isolated conditions in the jail after being removed from the lower landing in Bush House where most UDA prisoners were held.

Following an exclusive interview published in the Sunday Life three weeks ago, the Prison Service decided to remove the brothers from Bush House because of concerns over their safety. The two brothers resisted the move saying they didn’t fear any attack from UDA prisoners loyal to the inner council faction that had expelled them from the organisation in July.

But the Prison Governor decided to take no risks with their safety.

The Shoukris and three other UDA prisoners loyal to them, including John Boreland, are now housed in integrated conditions within Maghaberry Prison.

They are no longer confined under Rule 32 conditions and have normal association enjoyed by prisoners held in integrated conditions.

Ihab Shoukri may apply for bail soon on the UDA membership charge he faces and if he is freed he is expected to go to live in the south east antrim ‘brigade’ area where he and his brother have friends at a high level in the UDA.

Sunday Business Post

By Pat Leahy and Colm Heatley
26 November 2006

Sinn Fein and the DUP will come face to face again tomorrow morning at Stormont, when the Programme for Government committee meets to continue its work.

Sources in the British and Irish governments said this weekend that it would be an important test of whether the DUP can move forward following splits in the party that became evident last Friday.

Both governments have been aware for some weeks that a split was brewing in the main unionist party over participation in government. However, they both believe that Ian Paisley wants to see the restoration of the power-sharing administration - subject to Sinn Fein’s commitment to support the police - but are unsure if he can convince the hardliners in his party to back him.

‘‘His hold on the party isn’t what it used to be, it appears,” said one source involved in the process.

Northern and government sources also pointed to the opposing sides taken by Nigel Dodds and Peter Robinson as a foreshadow of a DUP leadership contest. Dodds is aligned with the religious, Free Presbyterian wing of the party, which is suspicious of Robinson’s progressive tendencies. ‘‘He can’t wear the disciple’s uniform,” said one source.

Behind the scenes, contacts between the British and Irish governments and the Northern parties are continuing, while the Taoiseach and British prime minister Tony Blair are due to meet in London tomorrow week for a private dinner.

It is believed that Blair has been in intensive contact with Paisley all week, up to and including when the assembly was actually in session.

Officially, the two governments are insisting that the timetable for devolution and a power-sharing executive remains intact, although senior sources were increasingly pessimistic that the March 24 deadline for the restoration of limited self-government would be met. One Irish government source said that while some progress had been made, they were ‘‘nowhere near where we thought we’d be . . . This was supposed to be the easy bit.”

It has emerged that the carefully choreographed plans for Friday’s meeting of the Northern Assembly were thrown into confusion when Paisley failed to read out crucial parts of a previously-agreed statement.

This prompted initial confusion, and demands from Sinn Fein and the Irish government for a clear statement of Paisley’s intentions to accept a nomination as first minister if Sinn Fein agreed to support the police. That statement was made later in the day, but only after a group of DUP dissidents had expressed their opposition to any power-sharing executive.

The Taoiseach and the British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown are due to address a meeting of the Confederation of British Industry tomorrow, where they will appeal for increased investment in the North. However, officials pointed out that against the background of last Friday’s events, it would be a hard sell.

BN.ie

26/11/2006 - 10:19:28

The Oireachtas report into the Barron Inquiry has found that Britain colluded with loyalists responsible for three bombings in Ireland in the 1970s.

Five people were killed in the attacks in Dundalk, Monaghan and Dublin.

According to the Sunday Business Post, the report to be published on Wednesday points to a high level of collusion between the British government and loyalists.

Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday November 26, 2006
The Observer

The female security guard who wrestled Michael Stone to the ground in Stormont’s ornate Great Hall, took the gun off the multiple killer and trained it on him, has arguably done more to keep Northern Ireland’s peace process on track than any of the politicians inside the parliament on Friday.

Her actions in halting Stone from getting deeper into the building and perhaps murdering a nationalist or republican politician turned what could have been tragedy into a bizarre farce.

But when the proverbial fog of Michael Stone’s near-war clears it becomes apparent that the main parties are still firmly stuck in their own trenches. And, judging by the political events of last Friday, they are bedded down there for some time to come.

Far away from Stormont, in the pages of a Swiss newspaper, a Sinn Fein representative inadvertently revealed the extent to which the republican movement is facing its own internal problems over the policing issue.

Supporting the Police Service of Northern Ireland and swearing an oath to uphold law and order is seen by Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, as well as the British and Irish governments, as Sinn Fein’s passport back into power.

In order to take such a historic step, Sinn Fein is obliged by its own constitution to hold a special delegate conference, which the two governments hoped would be held in January - just two months before elections to a new Assembly and the real deadline for devolution on 26 March 2007.

By a sheer coincidence, however, Sinn Fein member of the Assembly Francie Brolly managed to give the game away. Brolly told a Swiss interviewer in Le Temps on Friday that such a conference might not take place until the summer. His comments are significant because he is seen as relatively moderate on the policing issue.

Tomorrow evening in west Belfast an alliance of republicans opposed to Sinn Fein’s strategy will hold a public meeting just a couple of hundred yards from the party’s main Belfast HQ. On the agenda is just one issue: opposition to what they see as a British police force. If the meeting at Conway Mill, a traditional forum for internal republican debates, draws a large crowd it will further panic an already worried and cautious Sinn Fein leadership.

Across the political battlefield, deeply embedded in the Orange trenches, is a group of unsettled, potentially mutinous DUP Assembly members equally concerned about being accused of ’selling out’.

Twelve of Paisley’s Assembly members - including four of its Westminster MPs - issued a statement on Friday that rejected a benign interpretation that their leader had conditionally accepted that he and Martin McGuinness were now the First and Deputy First Minister. Paisley, also sensing rebellion in the ranks, has since stated publicly that he has not yet signed up to power-sharing with republicans and nationalists.

So why does the whole process go on? There are two reasons: Tony Blair and the likes of Michael Stone. Blair and his strategists, most notably his Downing Street chief-of-staff Jonathan Powell, sniff the chance for a historic deal even if that means waiting longer for Paisley to get his party used to the idea of sharing power with Sinn Fein. And when Blair leaves office next year, perhaps he will do so with the knowledge that he achieved what Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill and a whole host of other British Prime Ministers couldn’t - the final solution to the Irish Question.

As for Stone, his irrational, solo sortie at Stormont reminds everybody that if the process crashes, might there be a new army of angry young men out there who are able to push the north of Ireland over the abyss?

Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday November 26, 2006
The Observer

The Ulster Defence Association dispatched four hit squads to hunt down convicted killer Michael Stone as he made his way to his aborted alleged attack on Stormont.

Senior UDA sources told The Observer yesterday that the units were told to either ‘arrest or shoot’ Stone because they feared he was planning to destabilise Northern Ireland’s peace process.

Stone, 51, appeared at Belfast magistrates’ court yesterday in connection with the attempted attack at the city’s Parliament Buildings on Friday morning. He was charged with the attempted murder of five people - Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, two security staff and an unnamed person - possession of articles for terrorist purposes, including nail bombs, an axe and a garrotte, and possession of explosives with intent to endanger life and of an imitation firearm.

The loyalist, who has arthritis, hobbled into the dock on a crutch. He was remanded in custody until 22 December. He will face a non-jury trial, and if found guilty could be sent back to prison for the rest of his life.

Before being led from the dock, Stone shouted: ‘No sell-out. No power-sharing with the sinners, they are war criminals. Ulster is not for sale, no surrender.’

UDA leaders only learnt that Stone was allegedly about to carry out an attack somewhere in Belfast early on Friday morning. They were so concerned about his mental state that they sent out four terrorist units to find him.

‘Nobody knew for sure what he would do,’ said one UDA source. ‘So four teams were sent out to find him and they were armed. If Stone resisted arrest, he would have been shot. That was how serious they were taking the threat.’

One of the units looking for Stone was seen on Belfast’s Ormeau Road, driving erratically on the Ballynafeigh side of the river Lagan. Eyewitnesses told The Observer they had a police-style siren in the front of the car to alert motorists that they were undercover police. UDA sources stressed that Stone acted alone and that the organisation remains committed to the peace process.

‘Stone has been very irrational in recent months. He has been talking to tabloid newspapers constantly claiming responsibility for operations in the Troubles in which he played no part. None of us, though, imagined he would do this,’ one UDA leader said.

Stone’s alleged attempt to bomb the Assembly is an embarrassment for the UDA. The largest loyalist paramilitary group has been seeking millions from the British Exchequer to set up community projects aimed at employing former paramilitary activists. The figure asked for is believed to be in the region of £30m. In return the UDA has promised to dissolve the organisation and move thousands of its members away from paramilitarism. Stone came to prominence in 1988 when he launched a lone gun and grenade attack on the funeral of three IRA members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar. He killed three people and injured a number more, in the full glare of the cameras. Stone became an icon to younger loyalists including Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair. He was jailed for 684 years in 1989 for six murders and three conspiracies to murder - with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 30 years.

Released early from prison in 2000 under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement amnesty for paramilitary inmates, Stone initially committed himself to the peace process. He became dedicated to painting and recently took part in a BBC television programme where the family of one of his victims confronted him.

Last night Adair said he felt sorry for his former hero but added that men like Stone belonged in the past. Speaking from exile in Scotland, Adair said: ‘This man is criminally and politically insane. He should be sectioned. He has been on television lately admitting to murders he never committed. At one time he was a big fish but now that time is moved on he is left on the shelf.’

Stone’s targets on Friday were, according to UDA sources, the Sinn Fein leadership whom he hoped to ambush in Stormont’s Great Hall as they were being evacuated from the debating chamber.

Stone’s alleged attempt to bomb the Assembly forced its members to abort their first meeting since last month’s St Andrews Agreement aimed at restoring devolution to Northern Ireland.

Divisions remain between the main parties, Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party with both facing internal opposition to compromise on policing and power-sharing. The debate is due to be resumed tomorrow morning.

Republicans opposed to Sinn Fein’s political strategy are holding a public meeting in Gerry Adams’s west Belfast constituency tomorrow which is expected to hear calls for republicans to oppose plans to support the PSNI. The organisers hope to attract disgruntled Sinn Fein members and dissidents from Republican Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Socialist Party and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.

An Phoblacht

23 November 2006

Next week sees the welcome return of the republican magazine Iris. The magazine, once highly popular among republicans in Ireland and abroad, has not been published since 1993.

Within republican circles in recent times there has been a recognition of the need for a regular publication to facilitate extended discussion and explanation both of Sinn Féin policy and the republican view of wider contemporary events.

Using the extra space that a magazine provides, Iris aims to complement the weekly news coverage and comment of An Phoblacht and to provide a more in-depth analysis than is possible in a weekly newspaper.

Iris is a title with a distinguished history and was originally the name of a republican weekly commentary which appeared from 1973 to 1980. The Irish word for journal, Iris also spelt the initials of the Irish Republican Information Service which brought out the original publication.

Iris was subsequently the title used for what sought to be a quarterly publication launched in April 1981 by Sinn Féin’s Foreign Affairs Bureau. Aimed mainly at a foreign readership, considerable difficulties were faced in getting the magazine published on a regular basis. The second issue came out in November 1981, delayed by the momentous events of the Hunger Strike of that year.

Iris was re-organised under a new editorial board in 1982 and the magazine was developed on a wider basis to include historical, analytical and discussion features, cultural articles and political notes. A high quality and well produced magazine, Iris was published at regular intervals and proved extremely popular among supporters of the republican struggle throughout Ireland and abroad. It was a highly important educational tool for republican activists as the struggle developed and evolved throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The last edition was published in 1993.

Relaunched now by Republican Publications, Iris will be published on a quarterly basis. Editor Seán Mac Brádaigh says the aim is to bring readers the best of what the original Iris did well — thought provoking articles and analysis around topical political issues coupled with features of historical and cultural interest. “Above all Iris aims to promote the concept of ongoing education and strategic thinking among republican activists and supporters”, he said.

“In this historic anniversary year, we thought it fitting to mark the return of Iris with a special edition dedicated to the memory of the sacrifice of the Hunger Strikers of 1981. We hope readers find the contributions both informative and inspiring”, said Mac Brádaigh.

An Phoblacht

Daring Portlaoise escape bid

BY SEÁN MacBRÁDAIGH
23 November 2006

In the 1980s Portlaoise Jail in County Laois housed hundreds of republican prisoners. Although there had been previous escapes and escape attempts, the grim jail, guarded as it was by armed troops and major fortifications had a formidable reputation as one of the most secure prisons in Europe. But November 1985 witnessed a daring escape by republican POWs which left them within yards of freedom.

Photo: The Portlaoise escape attempt occurred on 24 November 1985 – 21 years ago this week.

The meticulously planned and cooly executed escape operation began on the morning of Sunday 24 November when prisoners and prison staff were attending Mass in E3 Wing. Twelve republican prisoners gathered on the landing of the wing. One of the prisoners produced a handgun and ordered prison staff not to move. As the men wearing coats over fake warders’ uniforms, passed through the first gate it accidentally swung shut, trapping the one armed republican prisoner with the prison officers.

The rest of the would-be escapees moved to re-open the gate but their unfortunate comrade, appreciating how critical time was, selflessly waved them away, thereby giving up his opportunity to escape. Standing guard over the warders he ensured that they would not raise the alarm.

Having discarded their overcoats and using duplicate keys, the escape team quickly opened six further steel gates. Not possessing keys for the last two of the steel doors, the escapees deployed an explosive charge to blow them open. Once through these, there was only a chain-link fencing and gate topped with barbed wire and railings standing between the republicans and freedom.

Capturing several warders at the second last steel door, the prisoners detonated an explosive charge against the lock — but despite the lock being blown away, the force of the blast buckled the door, jamming it shut.

At this point, although armed, the would-be escapees realised that vital minutes and the initiative had been lost. The O/C of the republican prisoners was informed of the situation and word was passed to the Volunteer who sacrificed his chance to escape, to surrender his weapon. Having accepted their situation the escaped team offered no resistance.

All the prisoners in the jail were then locked in their cells and, at 2.30pm a full scale cell search and strip search started. The prisoners remained locked up until 9.20am on the Monday morning.

At 11am, all the prisoners were ordered out into the exercise yard where they were surrounded by a large force of warders and troops armed with machine guns and high powered hoses. They were kept in the yard without food until 5pm when they were told that they had to go to the basement cells in groups of 12 to be strip-searched again.

Any prisoner who refused to remove his clothes was set upon by up to 12 Gardaí and warders who tore his clothes off. The prisoners were also forced to go through an anal search, being held upside down and beaten if they refused to accede to this degrading practice.

At least 60 prisoners were injured during this searching, most suffering cuts and bad bruising, but two men — Kevin Campbell from Tyrone and Gerard Harte from Lurgan — were severely beaten and badly hurt.

During the strip-searching the prisoners shoes were taken from them and not returned.On Tuesday, 26 November, the prisoners were again ordered out into the yard and kept there for hours in the freezing cold with no footwear. The shoes were not returned until until Wednesday morning.

The twelve republican POWs who made the daring escape attempt were Martin Ferris, Eamonn Nolan, Jimmy Gavin, Peter Rogers, Sean McGettigan, Peter Lynch, Liam Townson, Tommy McMahon, Angelo Fusco, Robert Russell, James Clarke and John Crawley.

An Phoblacht

‘Secret’ documents expose Cosgrave Coalition

By Mícheál Mac Donncha
23 November 2006

A special edition of Magill magazine was recently included with the Sunday Tribune. It was not available for sale separately so many people will have missed it but it is worth commenting on because of its historical content. Entitled ‘Operation Doomsday’ it is based on documents ‘never before seen in public’ and which detail plans drawn up by Catholic clergy in the Six Counties to provide for emergency evacuation and supply of Catholics, mainly in Belfast, in 1974 and 1975 in the event of a massive loyalist pogrom. The clergy were given access to Government ministers and officials in Dublin and so many of the documents consist of Irish Government notes on the affair.

Photo: Liam Cosgrave and Paddy Donegan

What strikes you most from the documents is the depth of the crisis then engulfing the North and the vulnerability of nationalist districts. Sectarian killings by loyalist paramilitaries were frequent but much worse was feared. The main instigator of the Catholic Church’s ‘doomsday’ plan was Fr. John O’Connor of the Down and Connor Relief Advisory Service (DACRAS). He attended the meetings with Dublin officials and put together plans for emergency accommodation, feeding stations, transport and so on. But there was another purpose behind the plan. An Irish government note of August 1974 states:

“It was understood that the intention of the Church authorities in their approach to the problem was that their preparations would leave no opportunity for the Provisional IRA to organise the protection of the Catholic community and to achieve credit for so doing.”

Here was something on which the Catholic hierarchy as sponsors of the plan and the then Fine Gael/Labour Coalition government led by Liam Cosgrave could definitely agree. No matter to them that one of the main factors preventing large-scale loyalist attacks on nationalist areas was the armed presence of the IRA.

The second thing that strikes you is how little the Irish Government was prepared to do to help its clerical friends. The notoriously right-wing Fine Gael Defence Minister Paddy Donegan is recorded at one of the meetings complaining that during previous evacuations from the North - presumably after the loyalist pogrom of 1969 - people were “using the facilities in the South for holiday purposes”. The note goes on:

“The Minister also stressed that the people in the North would need to be under no illusion as to the amount of help that it was in our capacity to give in the event of a total breakdown and should set up structures that would rely as far as possible on their own resources up there.”

Magill editor Eamon Delaney writes that “it is often said that the Irish state did not do enough for Northern nationalists, but here is proof that it did”. Actually the documents prove the opposite. The initiative came from Catholic clerics, not from the Irish Government. It was partly motivated by opposition to republicans but it got very little help from the Cosgrave coalition. This was the Government, after all, that at the very same time was trying to ensure that the hand of British agents in the Dublin-Monaghan bombings would not be exposed.

BN.ie

25/11/2006 - 13:58:30

A man has been arrested in connection with Halloween firebomb attacks on Belfast stores, police said today.

The man (aged 22), is being questioned by detectives investigating incidents at premises on the Boucher Road on November 1.

“He is continuing to assist police with their inquiries,” a PSNI spokeswoman said.

Millions of pounds worth of damage was caused to furniture stores Homebase and Reids on November 1.

Police blamed the attacks on republican dissident groups, including the Real IRA.

BBC

Loyalist Michael Stone, freed from jail early under the Good Friday agreement, has had his release licence suspended.

He was arrested after a security breach at Stormont and later charged with attempting to murder Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain said the move followed Stone’s “actions on Friday and after consideration of a police report into what took place”.

Stone, 51, also faces five charges of attempted murder after the incident.

He was also charged with possession of articles for terrorist purposes and possession of explosives when he appeared in court on Saturday.

Stone was released in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, after serving 12 years in prison.

He was sentenced to almost 700 years in jail for six murders, three of which were committed during a lone gun and grenade attack on an IRA funeral in Belfast in 1988.

Breach

An order suspending his licence was signed by Northern Ireland Office Minister Paul Goggins, on behalf of Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, on Saturday.

In his statement, Mr Hain said Stone was “in clear breach of the conditions of his release”.

Under the terms of the licence, prisoners released early can be sent back to jail if they become re-involved with terrorism, or are considered a risk to the public.

When Stone was convicted, the trial judge recommended that he should serve a minimum of 30 years.

Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr will now decide how much more of the life sentence he must serve.

If he accepts the minimum recommendation tariff set by the trial judge, Stone will spend another 18 years in jail.

Stone, who appeared at Belfast Magistrates Court on Saturday in connection with the incident at the Northern Ireland Assembly during a sitting, is also charged with possessing an imitation firearm.

In addition to being charged with attempting to murder the Sinn Fein leaders, he is accused of trying to murder two security guards and a person unknown.

The court heard the articles allegedly for terrorist purposes included nailbombs, an axe and a garrotte.

A police officer confirmed to Stone’s solicitor that during two police interviews, the defendant had told police “he acted alone in that no other person or organisations were involved in the preparation or planning”.

The defendant was remanded in custody until December 22.

Reuters

By Anne Cadwallader
Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:13 PM GMT

BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Irish paramilitary Michael Stone was charged on Saturday with the attempted murder of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams after he stormed into Stormont with a bag of homemade explosives.

Stone, a supporter of British rule, lobbed a smoking and fizzing package into the entrance of Belfast’s Stormont parliament buildings on Friday as pro-Irish and pro-British political parties were debating self-rule for the province.

Stormont was evacuated and Stone arrested. The army later defused between six and eight devices, which police Chief Constable Hugh Orde described as “amateurish in design”.

Stone, who gained notoriety after an attack on an IRA funeral nearly 20 years ago, was charged on Saturday with a total of five counts of attempted murder, including that of Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein chief negotiator.

Stone was also charged with possessing items likely to be used for terrorist purposes including nail bombs, explosives, an axe and a garrotte, and of possessing a firearm or imitation firearm. He was remanded in custody until December 22.

As he left court, Stone shouted: “Ulster is not for sale! No surrender!”

Sinn Fein, political ally of the IRA, ultimately wants to unite the province with Ireland but is in talks on sharing power with pro-British opponents in a devolved local government.

Friday’s incident disrupted fraught discussions on that assembly, which would unite in government parties with starkly opposing political and religious views after decades of sectarian conflict in which some 3,600 people died.