SAOIRSE32

breakingnews.ie

12/11/2007 - 23:31:12

The DUP are seeking talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown after claims by the House of Lords in England that the IRA in South Armagh was involved directly in the murder of a man left with almost every bone in his body broken.

Lord Laird of Artigarvan used parliamentary privilege to name the men he claimed were linked to the killing close to the border last month.

Paul Quinn, 21, from Cullyhanna, south Armagh, was beaten with iron bars by a gang of men in a farm outbuilding in Co Monaghan.

Sinn Féin has categorically denied republicans were involved but after claims from UUP peer Lord Laird that the IRA was behind the killing, Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson warned his party would seek a meeting at Downing Street.

“If it is proven that the IRA were involved at that level then we will be seeking a meeting with the (British) Prime Minister to consider the political implications for the current structures of government in Northern Ireland,” he said.

Lord Laird’s claims, during resumed Lords debate on the legislative programme, came on the day the ceasefire watchdog, the Independent Monitoring Commission, blamed the murder on IRA members, past or present, or their associates.

But the commission, describing it as “a local dispute”, said it was too early to say if the killing of the South Armagh man had been authorised by the IRA leadership. Sinn Féin insists that no republican was involved.

The IMC’s John Grieve said: “Despite the fact that we are saying it is a local dispute, we do believe that those who were involved in the attack on him – in his brutal murder – included people who are members or former members or have associations with members or former members of the Provisional IRA.”

BBC

US President George Bush is to host the DUP’s Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness at the White House.

A White House spokesperson said the president was looking forward to receiving NI’s first and deputy first ministers on 7 December.

Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness are also expected to meet leading US politicians in Washington during their first joint visit to the United States.

During their week-long visit, the pair will also travel to New York.

A White House spokesperson said: “Over the past several years, the United States has actively supported peace efforts in Northern Ireland, which culminated in the formation of a unified Northern Ireland government.

“This visit marks the first time that Dr Paisley and Martin McGuinness will visit the United States together since taking office.

“The president looks forward to congratulating the two leaders on overcoming years of violent conflict, and for taking the historic path toward a peaceful and prosperous future for all the people of Northern Ireland.”

Devolution was restored in Northern Ireland in May - two months after the DUP and Sinn Fein agreed to share power.

Mr Paisley and Mr McGuinness welcomed the invitation from President Bush.

“It is a great honour to be invited to meet with President Bush and to represent the executive and the people of Northern Ireland in Washington DC,” Mr Paisley said.

“The meeting represents another opportunity to promote our key goal of growing the local economy and focusing on the importance of developing mutually beneficial links between us.”

Mr McGuinness said many organisations and individuals in the United States had played an important role in helping Northern Ireland achieve an historic agreement which had transformed the political situation.

“We are now building on those relationships to ensure that we deliver the peaceful, fair and prosperous society to which all of our people are entitled,” he said.

BBC

Irish police have asked for a hearing into the death of Denis Donaldson to be adjourned because they are considering criminal charges.

Mr Donaldson outside his remote cottage (Picture: Sunday World)

The former senior Sinn Fein member was found murdered in a cottage in County Donegal last April. He had been shot.

He admitted in December 2005 he became a paid British agent in the 1980s.

The dead man’s family have said their confidence in the gardai investigation has been “severly undermined” over the last year and a half.

It is understood they have concerns about whether or not Mr Donaldson was adequately warned about any perceived threats to his life.

They are also understood to have concerns about whether the cottage in which he was living was under electronic surveillance by gardai or British security services.

Superintendent Eugene McGovern told the coroner’s court in Letterkenny Mr Donaldson died in a violent fashion in suspicious circumstances.

He said that the death was the subject of an ongoing comprehensive and extensive garda investigation.

He requested an adjournment of the inquest on the basis that criminal proceedings are being considered in the case.

Solicitors representing Mr Donaldson’s family said they had received a letter from the gardai this month indicating that his death was still the subject of a criminal investigation.

The letter also indicated that no definitive motive for the crime had been established, or suspect identified, and that the file remains open.

Belfast Telegraph

By William Allen and Will Ellison
Thursday 15, November 2007

Police probing a murder bid on an off-duty policeman in Londonderry today carried out a partial reconstruction of the shooting that happened in a street full of schoolchildren.

Officers spoke to pedestrians and motorists in Bishop Street where James Doherty was shot as he left his child off at a local college a week ago, and at High Park where the gunmen’s getaway car was abandoned.

There were three schools in the immediate vicinity of the shooting.

A Catholic, Mr Doherty was blasted by a shotgun but able to make his way to Strand Road police station despite his injuries.

The Real IRA later claimed he only survived because a handgun failed to work.

Similar cars used by Mr Doherty and the Real IRA gunmen were brought to the scenes during today’s reconstruction.

Four groups of officers stopped people on four approach roads around the junction of Bishop Street and Abercorn Road asking if they were in the area at the same time last week.

Detective Inspector Ian Magee said police were checking whether the shotgun used in the attack had been used befor.

He said: “Regarding the forensics on the gun, what I would say is that there are several forensic avenues being explored at this time.

“We have had a good public response to the appeal for information and we are currently examining a number of lines of information as part of the ongoing investigation.”

The Real IRA has threatened members of the nationalist community who give information to the police, and Mr Magee said he would understand if people were worried by this, but urged them to help put the gunmen behind bars.

He said: “I can understand people’s reluctance to come forward to the police, but this will not deter the police and it should not deter the public. I would ask the public to come forward and give us information so that we can put them before the courts.

“The police are looking to work with the community to build a better future.”

Meanwhile, SDLP leader and Foyle MP Mark Durkan again criticised the attempted murder of Mr Doherty and a later murder bid on a policeman in Dungannon, as well as “the consequent attempt to intimidate the people of Derry and Dungannon” by the Real IRA.

He said: “These attacks were an attempt to intimidate these public servants from carrying out their duties to the community. As well as through these actions, in their statements they have attempted to intimidate the wider public.

“However, these efforts will not succeed. The community is determined in its view that the PSNI is an acceptable and accountable police service - two things which the Real IRA is definitely not. I would once again ask that anybody who has information in relation to either of these terrible attacks, to come forward to the PSNI in order to assist the delivery of justice.”

Anyone with information on the shooting is being urged to contact the detectives at Strand Road. The telephone number is 0845 600 8000, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on freephone 0800 555111.

Derry Journal

14 November 2007

Republican sources in Derry have suggested that the previously unknown group which claimed responsibility for the shooting of a police officer in Dungannon are former members of the Continuity IRA.

A group calling itself the Irish Republican Liberation Army (IRLA) claimed responsibility for Monday night’s gun attack and vowed to carry out further attacks across the North. “There is now a central command within our organisation. More shootings will follow,” their statement read. The group singled out also Sinn Féin representatives in their statement, demanding they resign from District Policing Partnership (DPP) boards.

A republican source in Derry said the new group is made up of former members of the Continuity IRA. “This appears to be a very small group of ex-Continuity IRA people who have left that organisation for various reasons. I wouldn’t imagine they would have much of a presence of support in Derry,” the source said.

Two people were arrested following the shooting in Tyrone and these were condemned by Richard Walsh, a Derry-based spokesperson for Republican Sinn Féin, the group widely regarded as the political wing of the Continuity IRA. “Such actions by enemy forces will only increase the resolve of true republicans to expel the British from our country. Despite the hype of the Provisionals, Free Staters and others, they are in Ireland not as peacekeepers but instead as an occupying power. Their continued presence remains the greatest crime perpetrated against the Irish people,” he said.

Teach Dáithí Ó Conaill, 223 Parnell Street, Dublin 1, Ireland
Phone: +353-1-872 9747; FAX: +353-1-872 9757; e-mail: saoirse@iol.ie
Date: 14 Samhain / November 2007

Internet resources maintained by SAOIRSE-Irish Freedom

http://saoirse.info

In this issue:

1. Republican Sinn Féin Ard-Fheis held in Dublin
2. Nationalists remain at risk from loyalist death squads
3. Poppy row at well known Tyrone firm
4. RSF: Tyrone arrests ‘deplorable’
5. Ken Saro-Wiwa commemoration in Dublin
6. 26-County police endanger life in Mayo
7. Call for fresh inquest into killing by SAS?

1. REPUBLICAN SINN FÉIN ARD-FHEIS HELD IN DUBLIN

REPUBLICAN Sinn Féin held its 103rd Ard-Fheis in Dublin on the weekend of November 10 and 11. Over a busy weekend Ard-Fheis delegates debated a variety of motions dealing with issues such as electoral policy, social and economic issues and including worker’s rights, health and education as well as the Irish language as well as opposition to the proposed EU constitution.

The Ard-Fheis voted in favour of motions calling for Republican Sinn Féin to “provide leadership in opposing the anti-national agenda of normalising British rule in Ireland”, as well as instructing: “the incoming Ard Chomhairle to initiate a campaign aimed at informing the Irish people that the national question is not solved and that while the British remain in Ireland there will always be a revolutionary movement in Ireland opposed to British rule.”

A motion on electoral policy which was passed said : “Immediate preparations be made to contest the 26-County local elections due in 2009 and that the possibility of contesting local elections in the Six-Counties be explored.”

Other motions called on RSF to campaign against the EU Constitution in 2008. Motions were also passed in support of the Shell to Sea campaign and in opposition to the routing of the M3 motorway through the Tara/Skyrne valley as well as the destruction of the national heritage site at Lismullen, Co Meath.

The Ard-Fheis voiced its opposition to the continued Anglo/US occupation of Iraq as well as the use of Shannon by US warplanes, the ongoing US blockade of Cuba and in support of the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Motions were also passed expressing solidarity with and support for the cause of an independent Basque country.

International messages of support were read from the Ireland Information Group in Sweden and the Catalan Independence Movement.

The highlight of the weekend was the Presidential Address of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh at 12 noon on November 11. In a wide ranging address Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said that RSF would oppose any state visit by the Queen of England to the 26-Counties: “For the very good reason that as Irish Republicans we dispute the claim of the English Crown to govern any part of Ireland, we must oppose politically such a visit – the first in 100 years – and organise politically against it. It is simply our duty to do so. There will be no toadying or kowtowing as far as we are concerned. We deny the claim of the crown of England to rule here. That is all. Let us organise.”

He spoke about the on-going normalisation of British rule in Ireland, describing it as “the creeping Anglicisation of Ireland” in particular the role played by the Provisionals in this: “in July Gerry Adams sponsored a formal visit to the former No-Go area of Ballymurphy by the head of the British Police in Ireland, Hugh Orde. They shook hands publicly and toured the area, indicating that Ballymurphy, once famous for its resistance to British occupation, was now a place where British forces were in control and were welcome. What an abject political and military surrender!
Next month, August saw what was once the “jewel in the crown” for Republicans – Crossmaglen in South Armagh – ceremonially handed over to the Brits when leading Provo, Conor Murphy, publicly welcomed Hugh Orde there. For decades “the Boys from Crossmaglen” prevented British occupation forces from travelling there except by helicopter. Yet, on an August evening, the name that was honoured around the world for resistance to imperialism and colonialism was brought low in the most slavish and shameful manner. The Brits reign supreme in Crossmaglen! The Newry Democrat quoted Republican Sinn Féin in South Armagh as calling for the rejection of the Provisionals.

“Encouraged by such surrenders, the British police chief ventured as far afield as Rebel Cork in September. There he was met at the entrance to the hotel venue by a Republican Sinn Féin picket, indicating to him that he was not welcome. “The Boys from the County Cork” upheld a most honourable tradition. The local media were told by a Republican Sinn Féin spokesperson that London and Dublin were attempting to “sell the lie that the national question had been settled”. This could only be achieved with Britain’s withdrawal from Ireland, he said.
Other events that were not publicised beforehand and were sprung on the local people included the unveiling of a plaque in Boyle, Co Roscommon to a British soldier from the area who was presented with the VC by Queen Victoria of England 150 years ago for his part in the Crimean War. A high-ranking officer of the 26-County defence forces did the unveiling in the presence of Colonel John Steed, the British military attaché at their Dublin Embassy and Brigadier-General Browne, described by the local papers as “Chief of Staff of the British Army in Northern Ireland”.

“Similar ceremonies arranged without notice and always including both the 26-County state forces and serving British soldiers in uniform have taken place in the 26 Counties in recent years. Among them were a graveside formality in Castlebar, Co Mayo for a British soldier of the 19th century, a memorial at Carrigaline, Co Cork to an official Elizabethan pirate of 400 years ago, and abroad a bicentenary commemoration of the British naval victory at Trafalgar at which units of the 26-County navy took part. Such base grovelling at the feet of an enemy still within our gates would never have taken place while men and women of Dan Keating’s generation, who fought the British to a standstill in 1921, were alive and in their health.”

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh saluted the RSF candidates and those who campaigned for them in the Stormont election in the Six-Counties in March:
“Six candidates were put forward; in East Derry, West Tyrone, Mid-Ulster, Fermanagh-South Tyrone, Upper Bann and West Belfast. A quarter of a million copies of our election manifesto were delivered through the post to every household in the six constituencies and our opening press conference in Belfast was covered by the media.

“Following that, there was almost total media blackout of Republican Sinn Féin throughout the election. Even our name was suppressed by the Stormont regime’s electoral body and a compliant media followed suit. Our candidates were styled as “Independents” taking away our coherent strategy and sense of direction. Although not registered as a “party” at Leinster House for 40 years, the media in the 26-Counties do not class Republican Sinn Féin candidates as “Independents”, but treat them as an organised body.

“Indeed, on the TG4 television programme Seacht Lá on polling day, March 7th, a commentator (Joe Tiernan) stated that there was a complete block on publicity for Republican Sinn Féin and that there appeared to have been an agreement between the various channels to this effect. The result was, that denied publicity and even their organisation’s name, our six candidates were consigned to a welter of 25 Independents, without the distinction of the Republican Sinn Féin title and direction. Of course the harassment by the RUC/PSNI of our election workers continued during the campaign.

“Given these circumstances, the outcome was as expected. Expenses were heavy, of course, especially the printing of posters and manifestos together with advertising in local newspapers. In this regard, our own members rallied in style and with another positive development, we are happy to announce that all debts have been cleared. We, at this Ard-Fheis, applaud all of our candidates, their agents and supporters, who fought a first-rate campaign against very great odds.”

He also informed the Ard-Fheis that Republican Sinn Féin funds stolen by the 26-County Special Branch following the 2004 Ard-Fheis:

“Since a sum of approximately €11,000 of our funds was seized by the 26-County Special Branch from the hotel safe of the venue of our Ard-Fheis three years ago the question of finance was a worry. The Branch gave no receipt for the money. Eventually they admitted having seized it in a letter to our solicitor, but they claimed it was the property of a so-called “illegal organisation”. That was a blatant lie. It was the proceeds of our annual private members’ draw, as well as some affiliation and membership fees and some profit from an Ard-Fheis function. Well they knew that to be the case.

“For three years they held the money. The solicitor demanded its return, as did the national treasurers and secretaries. Then last July- August the Galway Comhairle Ceantair leafleted the Galway Races where Fianna Fáil has a “hospitality tent” each year to collect huge financial subscriptions. The leaflet asked people to demand the return of our 11,000 euro, a mere pittance by Fianna Fáil /PD standards.

“On October 17 the Special Branch returned the funds, as they had taken them, in cash. There was no explanation and no interest was paid. The money was used to clear the remaining election debts and the remainder will help to balance the books for this Ard-Fheis. The whole episode illustrates just the lengths to which the Establishment is prepared to go in its attempts to cripple our organisation.

“Throughout the three years we could not secure even a sentence about the seizure of the funds in the print media, not to mention radio or television. Yet no sooner had the money been returned than the media approached us for a comment. Similarly, our name and standing as Republican Sinn Féin were denied to us by the media during the Stormont elections. Yet as soon as the counting of votes was over they were back again, referring to us by our proper name and title.”

The full text of the Ard-Fheis address can be read at rsf.ie.

(more…)

Belfast Telegraph

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Alleged former IRA leader Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy has been remanded on bail at Dundalk District Court.

The 58-year-old, from Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, is charged with nine counts of failing to file income tax returns.

Judge Flann Brennan remanded him on continuing bail until December 12th to allow four weeks for the book of evidence to be prepared.

Defence solicitor Paul Tiernan asked that statements in the case be produced as soon as possible.

Belfast Telegraph

Wednesday 14, November 2007

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has told the Dail that a new republican paramilitary group has emerged in the North.

Reacting to questions about the recent shootings of two policemen in Dungannon and Derry, Mr Ahern said the latest development was a matter of concern.

He said that, as well as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, a new younger group had emerged over the past year, calling itself Oglaigh na hEireann.

Mr Ahern said all three groups had “the capacity to cause trouble”.

BBC

14 November 2007

The dissident republican Real IRA has said it shot an off-duty police officer in County Tyrone.

The scene of Monday’s attack in Dungannon

The officer was shot a number of times in the arm as he sat in his car at traffic lights in Dungannon on Monday.

He drove back to a nearby police station where he crashed into the front gates. His injuries were not life-threatening.

A man and woman arrested in connection with the incident have both been released without charge.

The shooting happened hours after the Real IRA admitted it shot an off-duty policeman last Thursday in Londonderry.

Detectives are treating both attacks as attempted murder.

Irish Examiner

By Diarmaid Ferriter
15 November 2007

THE decision by the UDA to declare its war is over and to disband its cover group, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), was long overdue. Its announcement was followed by the assertion of a former UDA killer, Kenny McClinton, that “people in loyalist circles are driven by ideals and the defence of their country” and that the only reason the UDA ever existed was “to defend the loyalist community”.

This lie was a reminder of previous pious rhetoric by the IRA about why it existed. Modern Irish republicanism has often been vague, contradictory and ideologically incoherent, but its leaders have continually perpetuated the myth that it has been consistent as a defender of its community, even though the longer its campaign lasted, the more support for the IRA in Northern Ireland was given through gritted teeth, or ambivalent quiescence, while questioning the leadership in public could often result in being shunned, intimidated or terrorised.

The same was true of the loyalist community’s relationship with the UDA. Undoubtedly, given the scale of IRA activities in the early years of the conflict, the UDA and other loyalist paramilitaries could garner considerable support for their response, but the claim that they existed solely to “terrorise the terrorists” quickly rang hollow.

The dishonest and self-serving lectures from both republicans and loyalists in the last few years have merely served to illustrate that neither group demands or offers any kind of complex vision or understanding of their own past and their own history. They remind me of the words of historian Alvin Jackson, who wrote about the manner in which “the past is continually and ritually sacrificed to a caricature of the present. Threads are plucked from both past and present and woven into a smothering ideological blanket of a uniform green or orange”.

In looking at the myths associated with the Protestant sense of history in Northern Ireland, he noted the tendency to “spirit away those aspects of a complex inheritance” which do not suit contemporary needs.

In the course of more than 30 years, the UDA/UFF killed in excess of 400 people — most of them innocent Catholics. Another one of their main activities was the continual exploitation of working-class loyalist communities and the grooming a new generation of young loyalists who, despite their grand-sounding, self-imposed titles, were little more than steroid-pumping, drug-taking thugs. Established in September 1971, the UDA was essentially the result of a fusion of a number of vigilante groups that emerged in north and west Belfast. At its peak in 1972, the UDA had a membership of more than 40,000 men. Most of them had day jobs and came out at the weekends to man barricades, organise demonstrations and fire missiles, like their young republican counterparts, while a hardcore of unemployed members worked full-time for the organisation and carried out attacks as the UFF.

As historian Henry Patterson has observed, “the object of its attacks was defined as the republican movement, but UFF attacks extended well beyond known IRA men to include any Catholic unlucky enough to come into the path of one of its assassination squads”.

In the early years of the conflict, it was relentless in its use of violence. In the 18 months after its first murder of a Catholic on the Crumlin Road in 1972, it killed more than 200 people. The attacks were mostly the work of small groups of undisciplined UDA men inflamed by alcohol and sectarian hatred.

The UDA played a leading role in the Ulster Workers’ Strike of 1974 that helped to bring down the power-sharing executive, but feuding, infighting and power struggles between the UVF and the UDA inevitably reached the point of tit-for-tat assassinations and allowed the professional politicians to reclaim the momentum.

Despite the UDA’s claim that it stood for the interests of working-class loyalists — including, though its professed socialism, their economic interests — the megalomaniacs in its ranks ensured it did nothing to advance the cause of those it professed to champion, and allowed itself to be used by politicians like Ian Paisley who, when convenient, as during the 1974 strikes, were content to see it orchestrate trouble only to reject it when the threat of anarchy in its ranks was clear.

By 1975, Paisley accused the UDA of being involved in crimes that were “just as heinous and hellish as those of the IRA”.

The notion that these paramilitaries represented and defended the wider loyalist community was bogus and self-serving, as their forays into electoral politics illustrated. In 1982, for example, John McMichael, the deputy leader of the UDA, stood in the south Belfast by-election and won a paltry 1.3% of the vote.

By the early 1980s, its leadership was considered too middle-aged and corrupt and was pushed aside by a younger and even more ruthless group, ensuring that in 1992 and 1993, for the first time since the outbreak of the Troubles, loyalists were responsible for more deaths than republicans. In October 1993, the IRA’s attempt to wipe out the leadership of the UDA in a bomb attack on the Shankill Road resulted in the death of 10 people, nine of them shoppers or passers-by who were killed when the bomb went off prematurely. A week later the UDA, again using its cover organisation, the UFF, wreaked its revenge for the Shankill bombing when two of its men machine-gunned customers in the Rising Sun Bar in Greysteel, Co Derry, killing six Catholics and one Protestant.

AFTER these massacres, the UTV programme Counterpoint invited into its studio Michelle and Ian Williamson, whose mother and father had been killed in the Shankill bomb, and Mena Donnelly, whose father was killed at Greysteel. Donnelly looked across at Ian Williamson and said simply, “the men who did that to your family weren’t acting for us” — an emphatic reminder that the myth that the UDA existed to defend the loyalist community, or that the IRA existed to defend the republican community, could not be sustained much longer.

Unfortunately, it took the UDA longer to accept this than other paramilitaries, an indication of its lack of political focus and failure to instil any discipline in its ranks. It was also clear by the 1990s that the UDA had other priorities, which included a campaign of pipe-bomb attacks on Catholic homes and violence to defend their many profitable criminal activities, including drugs, cross-border fuel smuggling and criminal moneylending.

At least the UDA’s instructions earlier this week on bringing an end to its activities acknowledged that its main problem in recent times has not been defending loyalists against republicans, but the murky underworld of drugs. It’s south Belfast ‘brigadier’, Jackie McDonald, insisted, “the drug dealers must go… don’t think anybody’s an informer for telling the PSNI where the drugs are or where the drug-dealers are because it’s our kids that are suffering”.

There was also the instruction that all Ulster Young Militants will be directed towards community development and education, though there is little chance that any such education will involve an honest appraisal of the dirty history of the UDA.