SAOIRSE32

By Noel McAdam
Belfast Telegraph
Monday 14, January 2008

Protestant church ministers today combined to attack the Stormont Executive for failing to tackle “effective apartheid” and community division across Northern Ireland.

Five senior clergy, all based in north Belfast, warned the next few years will be “troubling” with the Consultative Group on the Past, the Paddy Ashdown report on parading and inquiries from Judge Peter Cory’s report into high profile unsolved murders.

And in an attempt to kickstart a debate, the Presbyterian, Methodist, Church of Ireland and Moravian ministers warned of poor inter-community relationships, a slow pace of reconciliation and “fractured” educational provision.

In their article in today’s News Letter they said a debate is urgent because “to our dismay” the Executive’s programme for government - due to be ratified in the next few weeks - “fails to address the scourges of sectarianism and separation”.

Presbyterians, Rev Jack Drennan and Rev Norman Hamilton, Moravian, Rev Paul Holdsworth; Methodist, Rev Ivan McElhinney and Church of Ireland canon, Rev Trevor Williams said while they agreed on the central importance given to growing the economy, the Executive appeared afflicted “with collective amnesia.”

The “flagship” policy of recent years, A Shared Future, had disappeared “without comment or explanation” while the emphasis on equality could lead to a “cold house for us all to inhabit - equal in so many ways, yet still living in separate parallel universes.

“We have poor inter-community relationships, effective apartheid in housing across our villages, towns and cities; community division (exemplified in, but not confined to the physical structures of peace walls); slow pace of reconciliation; sectarianism and fractured educational provision,” the ministers said.

“Our real angst is that a suggested programme for government almost totally fails to acknowledge these profoundly difficult issues exist.”

By Chris Thornton
Belfast Telegraph
Monday 14, January 2008

Groups claiming to represent the families of more than 1,000 Troubles victims are expected to call for a full truth commission.

The six groups, representing mainly nationalist victims, have been in talks over the past year about different approaches to dealing with the legacy of more than three decades of violence.

Their intervention comes as the Eames-Bradley group, which the Government has asked to make recommendations on dealing with the past, is conducting public meetings.

The joint call was expected to be made today at Stormont by the Pat Finucane Centre, Relatives for Justice, Justice for the Forgotten, Ardoyne Commemoration Project, An Fhirinne, and Firinne Fermanagh. They say they ” collectively represent families of more than a 1,000 victims of the conflict across Ireland”.

A spokesman for them said: “Dealing with the past is an essential element in the process of transition and is a major outstanding issue yet to be resolved. It is our belief that we now have a unique opportunity to fully address the legacy of the past and that an independent, international Truth Commission provides the best way forward for the entire community.”

Sources close to the Eames-Bradley group say only “small numbers” of the groups they have met so far have argued for a full truth commission.

But one source said a presentation by Relatives for Justice had made a ” powerful” argument for a full truth commission.

Independent.co.uk
14 January 2008 02:28

Relatives of the dead have been told a report is imminent. But after 10 years and £174m, Lord Saville is still taking statements

Interview by Cole Moreton
Published: 13 January 2008

On a shelf in a glass case, in a room in the Bogside area of Derry, there is a yellowing cotton Babygro covered in brown blotches. The stains were made by the blood of Michael Kelly, a 17-year-old boy who was shot dead in the street just outside.

“We carried him into a house,” recalls his brother John, still angry and grieving 36 years later. “The woman there grabbed anything she could to try and stop the flow of blood.”

She pressed the Baby-gro against a bleeding wound caused by a bullet from a gun fired by a member of the British Army. It was 30 January 1972, a day that would become notorious as Bloody Sunday. Michael Kelly and a dozen others died when soldiers from the Parachute Regiment opened fire on a civil rights march. “They were supposed to uphold law and order and protect us,” says his brother, “but they turned their guns on us.”

The Bloody Sunday inquiry into exactly what happened that day will soon have been going for 10 years. It is the second inquiry, the first having been a rush job that outraged many and satisfied none. Lord Saville of Newdigate has overseen the longest-running and most expensive investigation of its kind in British legal history, at a cost – so far – of more than £174m.

When Tony Blair, the new Prime Minister, announced the inquiry on 29 January 1998, he hoped it would give the relatives of those who died “closure”. But what does that mean? What would satisfy them? And when is it coming?

Soon, according to Lord Saville, who recently told the families to expect a “voluminous” report only “a matter of months” into 2008. That may now be May or June, as this paper has learned that a fresh statement was taken from a witness just last month. It has led to fears that Lord Saville might not be about to give the relatives what they want: an official declaration that every one of the 14 people killed by the Paras was an innocent victim.

“They were not gunmen or bombers,” insists John Kelly. Tony Blair and his predecessor, John Major, have already agreed that Lord Widgery – who led the first inquiry – was wrong to suggest that some of the victims may have been armed. They “should be regarded as innocent of any allegation that they were shot while handling firearms or explosives”, Mr Blair said a decade ago. But that was far too ambiguous and not nearly official enough for Mr Kelly and the other relatives.

Crucially, they are waiting to hear what Lord Saville says about Gerard Donaghy. This 17-year-old member of Fianna Eireann, a Republican youth movement linked to the IRA, was the only casualty with such an affiliation. The inquiry saw police photographs of the body at a medical centre that showed nail bombs sticking out of his pockets – but it also heard from the soldier who took him to the centre and saw no bombs at all.

“The bombs were planted,” insists Mr Kelly. At best, Lord Saville will say that is probably true. He and two fellow lords have heard from 900 witnesses and read thousands of statements, the most recent being directly about Donaghy, but they are still mostly dealing in probabilities. So at worst (for Mr Kelly), the report will say the boy was probably carrying bombs.

The close-knit band of relatives and campaigners will see that as a betrayal of the truth – and no doubt some will change their minds about it having been a huge waste of money. By the end of the legal proceedings in 2005 the fees stood at £92m. Individual lawyers made fortunes: Sir Christopher Clarke earned £4.5m acting for the inquiry; Edwin Glasgow QC, representing the military, got £4m. Another 30 barristers or QCs made more than half a million each.

Hotels, bars and restaurants in Derry (as the city council calls the place also known as Londonderry) did well out of the hearings before they moved to London, but Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, still called the inquiry “a huge money-sucking venture”. Unionists opposed it from the start. Supporters of the Army called it “a shameful pillory”. The Conservatives called the bill “scandalous”.

They have an unlikely ally in Eamonn McCann, the writer and political activist who helped to organise the original march and now chairs the Bloody Sunday Trust. “The cost is outrageous,” he agrees. “There was a feeding frenzy by lawyers. Some were getting £2,000 a day, some more than that. It is indefensible that a crime perpetrated against working-class people should have the consequence of making millionaires out of people who were already quite well off.”

Yet Mr McCann insists Lord Saville was right to take his time: “It is perfectly possible to be outraged by the cost of the tribunal but still want the truth about what happened on Bloody Sunday to be pursued with all vigour. That’s my position.”

If so, why not hold similar inquiries into attacks such as the Omagh bombing, for example? Mr McCann, who lives in the Bogside, believes Bloody Sunday is different. “All the other atrocities can be put down to the clash between communities. This was the state murdering its citizens in broad daylight.

“It wasn’t a bomb on a lonely road, or something planted in the night: it was in a built-up area on a bright winter’s afternoon, where there were thousands of people.” There were about 15,000 on the march. “Every single killing was witnessed by many people – some at close range. I saw people die – and so did someone from every family in this street. That’s why the tribunal has taken so long: there are so many witnesses.”

The respected former Northern Ireland Ombudsman Dr Maurice Hayes said in Derry last year: “I do not believe that the Saville inquiry will unearth the essential truth, the definitive account of the events on Bloody Sunday, which are so deeply incised on the psyche of this city. I can think of many better things to do for the families of victims and survivors for £200m.”

But Mr Kelly, a quietly spoken man who often teaches schoolchildren about Bloody Sunday, just laughs at the suggestion that the city could have been transformed. “Derry wouldn’t have got the money would it? It would have gone somewhere else. They’ve wasted far more in Iraq.” What about giving each of the families a million or two in compensation – wouldn’t that have been quicker and cheaper? “I would look upon it as blood money,” he says, shaking his head. “This is not about money.”

The costs have been “astronomical”, he agrees, “but I don’t care. I never did care how much it was going to cost. You cannot put a price on a human life, or on the search for justice.” What would justice be? “I want to see the man who killed my brother go to prison.”

Lord Saville cannot make that happen. He can only lay out in detail what happened that day – much as the Museum of Free Derry has done, to its own interpretation, on the Bogside where Mr Kelly works. It was opened last year by the former Guantánamo Bay internee Moazzem Begg, part-financed by a law firm that profited from the inquiry.

A real-time audio recording of the day sends shrieks and screams through the room. In one glass case lies a crumpled brown corduroy jacket marked with two yellow labels put on it during the inquiry to show where bullets entered the back of James Wray, 22. Close by is that Babygro. “My mother asked for all Michael’s things to go in the coffin with her when she died,” says Mr Kelly. “Some things got away. I have a Mars bar at home that is 36 years old. It was his. And there’s this. That’s his blood.”

Michael had been in a coma as a child, and his mother was very protective. She had to be persuaded to let him march, protesting at the internment of prisoners without trial. “She followed the march to keep an eye on him,” says Mr Kelly. “Then she lost sight of him.”

Many marchers turned away when confronted by the Paras but some stayed to hurl stones and insults. The soldiers used CS gas, then began to advance towards Free Derry, the nationalist area just below the historic city walls that had declared itself a no-go area for the authorities. Shots were heard.

Did the Paras fire first or respond to an IRA gunman? Lord Saville is expected to provide an answer. Either way, 13 people were killed that day and another died later from his wounds. Seven were teenagers. “The sound of the bullets whizzing past is still in my head,” says Mr Kelly, who ran through the streets to find his brother. Michael was declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

“I remember my father sliding down the wall when we told him. My mother went into total hysterics.” She went to pieces. “For years she didn’t even know who she was herself. We found her going to the cemetery on one snowy day with a blanket to keep him warm.”

Many relatives say they will stop campaigning after Saville, whatever he says. But can anything in the report make John Kelly do that? “No. I want Soldier F prosecuted for the murder of my brother.” The blurry image of the soldier, identity withheld at the inquiry, appears on a poster at the museum. “The bullet retrieved from Michael’s body was traced back to his rifle. He’s a multi-killer who took the lives of four people that day.”

He hopes the report will lead to criminal charges. “I had black hair, now it’s white. I want to move on with my life. Once F is prosecuted, then I can get closure.”

And if not? If the report is all that the families hope for, but still does not lead to anyone being charged, what then? Mr Kelly smiles at the absurdity of what he is about to say, because he knows that in the 10 long and costly years of the Bloody Sunday inquiry there has only ever been – and only ever will be – one set of real winners. “We’ll have to discuss that with our lawyers.”

Lawyers’ payday: Where the money went

Legal fees £92.7 m

Accommodation £15.4m

Transport £4m

IT equipment £13.1m

Hire of halls £7.7m

Other* £41.3m

(*includes salaries of tribunal members and staff, expert witnesses, office services and security)

Who made the most:

Counsel for the inquiry

Sir Christopher Clarke £4.4m

Alan Roxburgh £2m

Cathryn McGahey £1.6m

Bilal Rawat £1.4m

Solicitors for the inquiry:

Eversheds £12.6m

Counsel for the families:

Arthur Harvey £1.2m

Solicitors for the families:

Madden & Finucane £9.2m

Desmond Doherty &Co £1.2m

MacDermott & McGurk £1.2m

McCartney & Casey £1.2m

Counsel for the armed forces:

Edwin Glasgow £4m

David Lloyd Jones £1m

Gerard Elias £1.7m

Sir Allan Green £1.5m

David Bradly £1.2m

Nicholas Griffin £1.1m

Solicitors for the armed forces:

Payne Hicks Beach £3.7m

Devonshires £2.7m

Kingsley Napley £1.9m

Treasury Solicitor £3m

Only payments of more than £1m are shown. In addition 21 counsel representing the families or the armed forces were each paid £500,000 or more.

Newshound

(by Suzanne Breen, Sunday Tribune)

Suzanne Breen, Northern Editor, talks to the McCartney sisters as the third anniversary of their brother’s murder approaches

The family of murdered Belfast man, Robert McCartney, say they are deeply concerned that the trial of the man accused of killing their brother nearly three years ago hasn’t yet begun.

Speaking as the anniversary of the death of her brother Robert approaches, Paula McCartney said: “Our faith in the system is being seriously challenged. The longer they delay the trial, the less likely it is justice will be done.

“The more the process drags on, the more damaging it is to the prosecution case and to us as a family. It’s harder to keep witnesses on board and although people have made written statements, memory fades over time. We were considering requesting a meeting with the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) but we’ve been told that would be pointless.”

Robert McCartney was stabbed to death outside Magennis’s bar in Belfast on 30 January 2005. Three months later, Terence Davison (50) was charged with his murder. Two other men, James McCormick (38) and Joseph Fitzpatrick (46) were charged with making an affray.

All three are on bail. Paula McCartney attributed the delay in starting the trial to defence legal requests. The family is considering marking Robert’s third anniversary with a walk on Tyrella beach, Co Down. “Our grandparents had a house there which we visited as children. Our happiest memories of Robert are on that beach,” said Paula.

The sisters will also make a fresh appeal for information on Robert’s murder. “There are people who know something but who might feel ashamed they didn’t come forward three years ago. We don’t want them to be embarrassed. They should do the right thing and contact police,” Paula said.

The family is disappointed only Davison has so far been charged with murder, she said: “Police told us that ideally five people would face murder charges. There are another 10 who should be facing charges for involvement in aspects of the killing or the clean-up operation.”

Paula said Sinn Féin’s recent support for the police hadn’t helped: “Words change nothing. Sinn Féin and the IRA continue to stop witnesses coming forward or else instruct some who have come forward on what to say.”

She said the family was appalled policing and justice powers could be devolved to Stormont with Sinn Féin holding one of the two ministries. “In no other country would it happen. Sinn Féin is a party which protects criminal gangs. Politicians elsewhere are kicked out of office for having an affair.”

Paula said her brother’s killing had disappeared from the political agenda because both governments and most politicians wanted to strengthen the Stormont administration and present Northern Ireland as a normal society.

“The DUP recently said ending attacks on Orange halls would build confidence in Sinn Féin. Not a mention of justice for our family or the family of Paul Quinn in South Armagh. Bricks and mortar means more than flesh and blood.” Unionist MEP Jim Allister is planning to raise the murder in Strasbourg this week.

Paula said IRA decommissioning had been an attempt to appease the governments after her brother’s murder: “The pressure over Paul Quinn’s murder will probably lead to an equally meaningless statement announcing IRA disbandment. What counts is stopping the murders.”

THE FIVE SISTERS

Donna McCartney

Donna ran a bustling sandwich shop in Belfast city centre when her brother was killed. Police warned her of threats by “republican elements to burn it down”.

But Donna who was “the most outgoing and best craic of us all”, according to her sisters, closed the shop for other reasons: “My personality changed after Robert’s murder. I became introverted and withdrawn.

“I’ve always worked in the retail trade because I loved meeting people. Now I don’t even like going into shops, I just want to keep away from the public. I’m doing a child-minding course because I want a job where I don’t have to leave the house. I’d like to emigrate but my kids want to stay in Northern Ireland.”

Donna (41), a mother of four, has battled depression since the killing: “None of us were ever on medication before but since Robert’s murder we’ve all taken something at some stage.”

Catherine McCartney

Catherine had just moved to the Co Down countryside, which she thought would be a better environment for her four children to grow up, when her brother was killed. The need to be in Belfast for media interviews, and a desire to be near her sisters, led her to return to the city.

In 2005, she taught politics part-time and then worked for Women’s News, a local feminist publication. But since her contract ended, she has found it impossible to secure other employment in the community sector.

“Catherine’s high public profile has worked against her,” says Paula. “She’s not welcome in certain places because some unionists still identify anyone from a nationalist area as a republican. And it’s hard for her to get work in nationalist areas because Sinn Féin controls so many jobs in the community sector there. She gets discrimination both ways.”

Catherine (40) has been offered a teaching position in Perth and is currently in Australia on a 10-day trip with her husband Ed to see if the family would be happy settling there. Her book on Robert’s killing, ‘Walls of Silence’, will be the basis for a television drama by ‘Bloody Sunday’ producer Mark Redhead.

Gemma McCartney

Unlike her sister Paula and her brother’s fiancée Bridgeen Hagans, Gemma says she’s lucky – she hasn’t been driven from her home by intimidation. But she has installed security measures at the house in Dunmurry, on the outskirts of west Belfast.

Gemma, 43, a nurse and mother of two, suffered serious depression after Robert’s murder and needed a year off work. When she returned, she found it impossible to cope. After more time off, she now works part-time.

In November when running a mobile cervical cancer screening unit in the Markets area of Belfast, yards from where Robert was murdered, she was forced to leave the premises after an associate of those who killed her brother abused and spat at her, she says.

She has decided to change career and begins a teacher training course at the University of Ulster in September: “I always wanted to teach history but never had the confidence. Robert’s death has given me more courage in lots of ways so now I’m determined to do it.

“But I still find myself getting very emotional about him. Sometimes, I can’t even say his name without crying. A friend I hadn’t seen for a while called round the other night. He works in the Royal Victoria Hospital and he told me he was there when Robert was brought into casualty. I found that very upsetting.”

Claire McCartney

Eight months after her brother was killed, Claire (30) had a miscarriage. A month later her relationship broke up and she moved out of the north Belfast house she shared with her partner.

“It was a very rough time. I lost Robert, then my wee baby and my home in less than a year. I had to live with two of my sisters until I got my own place so I’ve moved house three times in three years which is stressful by itself,” says Claire.

When Robert was murdered, she was working as a teaching assistant; she now waitresses part-time. “I received counselling for depression. I’ve dealt with my personal stuff but Robert’s death is still raw. It’s like it happened yesterday.

“Last month, I bumped into Terry Davison, the man charged with Robert’s murder. He was in town Christmas shopping. I told him what I thought of him. I was physically sick afterwards.”

Paula McCartney

Paula was doing a Women’s Studies degree at Queen’s University when Robert was murdered. “I stopped temporarily, then restarted, but my motivation had gone. I decided to give it up totally, not to torture myself any more by trying to concentrate. I now hope to begin working as a volunteer with Women’s Aid.”

Just months after the murder, Paula (42) and then a mother of five, became pregnant again. “It was completely unexpected. I didn’t plan to call the baby Robert because I thought it would upset my parents but, in the end, they wanted that. He’s two now and he’s certainly not a carbon copy of his late uncle, he’s his own wee person.”

While pregnant, Paula was intimidated from her Short Strand home and moved to south Belfast. “I was born and reared in the Strand. I spent over 40 years there. Now, when I go back, it feels like a strange place.”

She suffers insomnia and nightmares “not of Robert being murdered but of people betraying us”. She says the family lost many friends during their campaign: “Somebody joked we’re a bunch of no-mates. But tough times test friendships and many of ours failed.

“There’s one girl who was so close to us we called her ‘our sixth sister’. She was in my house every day for 25 years. When Robert was killed, she was great. She came over, did the washing and cleaned the house. But when we started doing interviews and speaking out against Sinn Féin, she ended contact.

“The night I was on TV, packing up to leave the Strand, she phoned and started talking like nothing had happened. But I couldn’t resume the friendship. She hurt me big-time.”

Like Catherine, Paula is considering leaving Northern Ireland after the trial. “I’m attending Spanish classes and would like to try a new life in Spain. I’m a home bird, I always thought I’d stay here forever.

“But Northern Ireland is a sick society. Peace and justice is about more than Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness giggling at Stormont. They’re telling the tourists it’s a nice, normal wee place. They should warn them not to look at the side of Belfast pubs, or in sheds along the Border, in case they find dead bodies.”

Paul Quinn’s murder was no surprise to Paula: “The Provos in South Armagh watched the boys in Belfast getting away with killing Robert and decided there was no need to worry about facing justice.

“They got away with it once, they got away with it twice, and they’ll do it again. Sooner or later, another young lad from south Armagh, the Strand or Ardoyne will be murdered by thugs from their own community, and those in power will turn a blind eye.”

She said the past three years had been hard for the sisters: “When we began the campaign for Robert we didn’t know it would dramatically change our lives. But there hasn’t been one minute that any of us has regretted it.”

January 13, 2008
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This article appeared in the January 13, 2008 edition of the Sunday Tribune.