SAOIRSE32

Independent.ie
Sunday February 24 2008
**Found on irishrepublican.net

BRITISH police have ignored pleas from families of the Omagh bomb victims asking that they request that a Canada-based internet company, Netfirms Inc, to stop hosting a website that supports the Real IRA.

Supporters of the Omagh victims believe that a decision has been made by either police or British security agencies to allow the site to continue so that they can monitor the Real IRA’s internet activities.

The site continues to advocate the killing of police, and kneecappings and other forms of terrorism.

Two years ago, a posting on the website called for the murder of former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble. In May 2006, Mr Trimble wrote to the British Home Secretary, the Northern Ireland Secretary and Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police in relation to the website. However, the site is still in operation.

Netfirms Inc wrote to Victor Barker, whose son James was one of the Omagh victims, saying that it would shut down the website if it received a request to do so from the British — or any other — police force. The fact that the website is still live has prompted the belief that a high-level decision was taken to allow the site to continue for surveillance purposes.

The site hosts a blog on which recent postings have urged the murder of police officers and punishment shootings.

Mr Barker wrote to the Metropolitan Police on several occasions, complaining about the material advocating violence on the site. However, as the site was administered by a man in Glasgow, via the Canadian server, the Met referred him to Strathclyde Police in Scotland.

Following a complaint to Strathclyde Police last year, the force wrote to Mr Baker saying that it had submitted a file to the Procurator Fiscal — Scotland’s equivalent of the Director of Public Prosecutions — who had advised there was no evidence of a crime having been committed.

Strathclyde Police wrote to Mr Barker, saying: “It is the view of the Procurator Fiscal and the Police that the described content of the website is distasteful. However, in law what is offensive to one person is not necessarily offensive to another. I am clear that the circumstances related in your letter are distasteful to any ‘reasonable person’, but the discussions on the site cannot be said to be either tantamount to incitement to commit offences or an obvious breach of the peace (whether sectarian or otherwise).”

Mr Barker wrote again to Netfirms Inc of Toronto, pleading with them to stop hosting the 32 County Sovereignty site, which carries pictures of masked men in combat uniform firing rifles. The same site was used to agitate support for the riot at the Love Ulster rally in Dublin two years ago.

Mr Barker wrote: “It has long been accepted by the Government of the United Kingdom that the 32 County Movement and the Real IRA are inextricably linked.

“I find it disturbing to say the least that a website such as the above can be permitted to peddle its message of hatred without any criminal sanction from the police in Canada or the USA.

“The photographs of themselves glorify the use of arms and contain such extracts as: ‘tell you what if the RIRA started posting their bullets again (which are presumedly in short supply) post them though the back of the Bastards’ heads for F**K’s sake’.

“A recent message on the site states (concerning a method of stopping joyriders in the area — who steal cars and drive them recklessly for fun): ‘break their two legs and they will not joyride for a long time’ — this is a thought process which cannot be tolerated in any liberal democracy.”

In May 2006 in his letter to the London Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, Mr Trimble wrote: “If you look through it you will see that there are many clear incitements to violence . . . as well as the absolutely disgusting libellous statements referred to above. There is no doubt about the site’s relationship with the Real IRA.

“I do not take the threat to myself particularly seriously, but I do think it is a grave mistake for the authorities to permit the continued operation of what is in effect a terrorist support group in this way.

“Whatever complacency there might be within mainland police forces about this sort of activity must surely have ended after last year’s bombs in London and I do hope vigorous action will now be taken on this matter.”

By Suzanne Breen, Sunday Tribune
February 24, 2008
**Via Newshound

From his flat high in Divis Tower on the Falls Road, Brendan Hughes looked down on the city he bombed. He pointed to a car hire firm, owned by a wealthy unionist businessman in the 1970s, and one of the IRA’s prime commercial targets.

“We bombed that place so many times, yet he kept re-opening it. I respected him for not giving up,” said Hughes. In the end, Hughes’ heart was broken by the belief that the leadership of the movement he served for three decades had given up the goals he still cherished.

Visiting the former Belfast Brigade OC in the tiny, threadbare flat where he spent his last years was always an emotional experience. The war, and the peace, had left him with indelible physical and mental scars. A slight figure in a Che Guevara t-shirt, he chain-smoked and drank to ease the pain of what he called “the sell-out”, but it never really worked.

As I’d leave his flat, he’d hand me pages of thoughts he’d scribbled down on Sinn Féin, poverty in republican areas, the Middle East conflict, and Catholic Church child abuse scandals. An atheist, he wanted the Church – not the IRA – disbanded.

Nicknamed ‘the Dark’, Hughes had been a ruthlessly committed paramilitary. His gun battles with the British entered republican folklore. Yet he was a complex man, displaying a compassion often missing in republican ranks.

Once, he’d a chance to kill a young British soldier in Leeson Street. The terrified soldier cried for his mother: “I stood over him with a .45 aimed at his head. I could have pulled the trigger and sent him to eternity. But morally and emotionally, I wasn’t able to end his life. He was a mere child, so frightened.”

Later, Hughes was haunted by the faces of IRA colleagues whom, he believed, had died for nothing. He’d spend days crying in his flat. A photo hung on the wall of Hughes in Long Kesh, with his best friend, Gerry Adams, arms around each other. “I loved him. I’d have taken a bullet for Gerry. I probably should have put one in him,” Hughes said.

He accused the leadership of abandoning republicanism for “personal power” and said the GFA (Good Friday Agreement) stood for ‘got f**k all’. He’d developed left-wing politics as a teenage merchant seaman. Entering African ports, he was appalled by the poverty he saw. He gave boxes of the ship’s supplies to locals.

He joined the IRA in 1969 and was jailed in 1973. He soon escaped, rented a house in the affluent Malone Road, dyed his hair, and donned a suit and tie. He became businessman Arthur McAllister, travelling around Belfast in disguise, coordinating the IRA campaign.

Eventually, his cover was blown. He spent 13 years in jail and 53 days on hunger-strike. On release, he rejoined the IRA. He worked for internal security but became suspicious of the ‘department’ which, it has since been revealed, included high-placed British agents.

His first clash with the leadership came when he complained of the £20 a day wages paid to ex-prisoners by a large west Belfast building contractor. An Official IRA member, shocked to see ‘the Dark’ carrying bricks and sweating in a ditch for a pittance, was told by the boss: “He’s cheaper than a digger.”

When Hughes tried to organise a strike, he was offered £25 a day on condition he not tell the others. “I told (the boss) to stick it up his arse and I never went back. I wrote an article about if for Republican News but it was censored.”

His wife had become involved with another man when he was in jail. Other prisoners urged him to give her a hard time. Hughes apologised to her for “always having put the movement first”, and told her to be happy.

While others of his rank secured holiday homes and businesses after the IRA ceasefire, Hughes survived on disability allowance. Just last month, he was left without heating until another ex-prisoner lent him an electric fire.

He craved solitude, visiting the pub in the quiet of early afternoon, and coming home to watch Channel Four’s ‘Deal or No Deal’. Prison had left him with arthritis. He was prone to chest infections and started to go blind. He didn’t eat well and neglected to take his medication. Political disillusionment had weakened his will to live.

In 1995, he was approached by army council member, Brian Keenan, who expressed discontentment with Adams and McGuinness and asked for help in devising a new military strategy. Hughes was interested but thought it a false approach to have him reveal his hand.

While he remained against the peace process, he came to believe all opposition should be peaceful and ‘armed struggle’ was pointless. Despite his militancy, Hughes’ outlook wasn’t narrow. He was chuffed when, years after jail, a Protestant prison officer tracked him to Divis. They went for a drink.

Two years ago, he visited Cuba to see the Sierra Maestra where Che had fought. He loved the locals and was angry the authorities barred them from hotels reserved for Westerners. In solidarity, he refused to enter.

He died, aged 59, after total organ failure. His ashes will be scattered on the Cooley Mountains, his parents’ grave, and the Falls Road IRA garden of remembrance. The last of the writings he gave me conveyed his inner torment: “I go to bed in pain, I wake in the middle of the night in pain, I get up in pain. What the f**k was it all about?”

________________

This article appeared in the February 24, 2008 edition of the Sunday Tribune.

Sunday Life
24, February 2008
By Alan Murray

The notorious former republican terrorist dubbed the ‘Border Fox’ has been attending Gospel meetings.

Reliable sources say Dessie O’Hare - who is suspected of up to 30 murders - is professing to be “saved”.

But his presence at meetings of a small Protestant congregation in south Armagh is causing distress to relatives of his victims living in the area.

The ex-IRA and INLA man is also reported to have attended prayer meetings in Dundalk in recent weeks.

It is understood that while O’Hare’s presence has caused unease within the tightly knit south Armagh congregation, leaders of the religious community are prepared to allow him to continue to worship with them.

No-one connected with the group was prepared to speak about O’Hare’s presence at their meeting last week.

But one Church source in the area, who did not want to be identified, said: “My understanding is that Mr O’Hare has become a Christian believer and has attended religious services recently”.

But one local man, whose close relative was shot dead by republicans, said: “I have been told that O’Hare attended a prayer meeting in this area recently and it has caused upset among victims,

“It is causing a lot of hurt. This has happened before with terrorists supposedly finding salvation and becoming ‘born again’ but the victims and their relatives find it hard to accept that such wicked people can be reformed”.

Jamie Doward
The Observer
Sunday February 24 2008

The security service, MI5, has drawn up plans to decamp to a state-of-the-art emergency headquarters in Northern Ireland if its base in London falls victim to a terrorist attack. The £20m building on the shores of Belfast Lough can house up to 400 staff and has a reserve computer system capable of co-ordinating all security operations.

Opened without fanfare in December, the centre is one of eight regional MI5 hubs that feed in information about suspected terrorist activities. But writing in the new edition of Monitor, the journal of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, Margaret Gilmore, a fellow of the institute, says the building has been given a remit that stretches far wider than combating terrorism in Northern Ireland.

The base already houses linguists, IT experts and interpreters. But intelligence sources have told Gilmore that if there was a national emergency and the service’s main headquarters at Thames House could not be used, operations would be switched to the Belfast centre.

But the opening of the base is in danger of widening rifts in Northern Ireland. Nationalists view the security service with suspicion and accuse it of turning a blind eye to loyalist activities.

Sinn Fein’s policing and justice spokesman, Alex Maskey, told Monitor: ‘I treat anything MI5 does with suspicion and our aim is to get it out of here.’

Belfast Telegraph

By Claire McNeilly
Saturday, February 23, 2008

The Sinn Fein MLA who organised a memorial service for a convicted IRA bomber at Stormont has defended the plan.

Jennifer McCann sparked fury among unionists after she booked the Long Gallery inside Parliament Buildings for an event dedicated to IRA bomber Mairead Farrell.

She said that the event was scheduled to coincide with International Women’s Day, which is on March 8.

Mrs McCann said that she did not intend to offend unionists, but nor did she expect them to back her plans.

“It’s not about agreeing,” she said. “I’m not asking anyone to agree with what I am doing, but I am saying they should respect it. Stormont is a shared space and that’s the way it has to be seen.

“We have a right to hold the celebration there. I would never, ever say to unionists or loyalists that they should or should not be doing something.”

She added: “It’s International Women’s Day and we’re celebrating the life of Mairead Farrell. I don’t think that should offend anyone.”

But unionists vowed to block the celebration of Farrell, one of three IRA members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988.

North Belfast DUP MLA Nelson McCausland branded the plans as “ludicrous” , and that they demonstrated “warped thinking”.

“Mairead Farrell was a Provisional IRA bomber who was intercepted by the forces of law and order on her way to kill innocent people in Gibraltar.

“For Jennifer McCann to claim that an event celebrating the life of such a criminal has anything to do with International Women’s Day is quite frankly ludicrous.

“People like Farrell and her fellow terrorists in the IRA killed hundreds of innocent women throughout the course of their campaign of terror.

“To hold such a person up as a role model demonstrates some of warped thinking.

“The DUP will oppose this event taking place.

“As the home of our local assembly, Stormont is a shared public space.”

BBC
23 February 2008

Seven suspected dissident republicans have been arrested in Cork in the Irish Republic.

Four men were arrested by detectives in the Lover’s Walk and Montenotte area of Cork City at about 2000 GMT on Friday.

Gardai have not said what the men were doing when they were arrested, but it is understood a number of weapons and other items were recovered.

Another three men were arrested in follow-up searches and the police operation is continuing.

Gardai have described it as “a significant operation against the activities of a dissident republican organisation”.

The men were detained under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, under which they can be held for up to 72 hours.

iais.org
02/23/08

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said today he would have killed every single British soldier in Derry in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday if he had been able to. The self confessed former IRA man said feelings were running so high in the wake of the killings he would have had no difficulty killing every soldier in the city.

A total of 13 civil rights marchers in the Bogside area of Derry in 1972 were shot dead by paratroopers. A 14th died later from his injuries.

Derry born and raised Mr McGuinness, the Sinn Fein MP and MLA, said the shooting “hardened our attitudes considerably”.

Speaking during a wide-ranging interview on RTE - the Irish State radio - he said: “There is no doubt whatsoever that in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday there was a renewed determination to oppose the British army and the RUC.”

“If I had had the ability to kill every single British soldier that was on the streets of Derry I would have killed every single one of them without any difficulty whatsoever.”

The report of the official inquiry into Bloody Sunday is still nowhere near being ready the British government revealed recently.

What has become the longest running inquiry in UK legal history has run up a bill of £181.2 million (£1 = $1.94) so far, Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward revealed in a Commons written reply earlier this month.