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: 19 Márta / March 2008
Internet resources maintained by SAOIRSE-Irish Freedom
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In this issue:
1. Parle, Hogan and Creane remembered
2. Senior civil servants drafted Provo statements
3. ‘No possibility of a united Ireland’ – Blair
4. Protester wins reprieve on work at M3 site
5. RTÉ urged not to abandon medium wave
6. Call to assist Irish prisoners abroad
7. Paisley biographer questions DUP and Provos
8. Campaign criticises Mayo TDs
9. Amnesty report links Shannon to rendition case
10. Human rights in Iraq a ‘disaster’
11. Anti-war protesters stage rally in Dublin
1. PARLE, HOGAN AND CREANE REMEMBERED
REPUBLICANS gathered in Wexford on March 9 to mark the 85th anniversary of the execution by Free State forces of James Parle, Patrick Hogan and John Creane in Wexford jail on March 13, 1923.
The ceremony was chaired by Jimmy Kavanagh who began by calling on Richie Berney to read the Wexford Roll of Honour. Five wreaths were laid: Tom Malone, on behalf of the Wexford Republican Graves Committee, Harry Kelly on behalf of the Republican Movement, Paddy Hogan (nephew of Patrick Hogan) on behalf of the families. Kevin Kavanagh of the Mellows/Rafter Republican Sinn Féin Cumann, Enniscorthy laid a wreath at the Edentubber martyrs memorial and Mick Morris of the Patrick Parle Cumann, Wexford town laid a wreath at the Hunger Strike memorial..
Seamus MacSuain read a statement from the Republican prisoners in Portlaoise. In the statement the Republican prisoners extend solidarity to the Parle, Hogan and Creane families, to their comrades in Maghaberry and to those gathered at the commemoration. “These brave men gave their lives freely for a united Ireland like many a volunteer before and after them. We the Continuity POWs salute Ireland’s volunteers of the past and present and we still hold firm to their ideal of a 32-County Ireland.”
The oration was given by Republican Sinn Féin National Publicity Officer Richard Walsh, Derry who said that the men died in defence of the All-Ireland Republic and opposing the partition of Ireland. “Today Irish Republicans remain committed to ending British rule, yet another generation of Irish Republicans remain determined to resist British rule. We can only truly honour the memory of these brave men by realising the ideals for which they gave their lives, ending British rule and the creation of a New Ireland.”
The ceremonies concluded with a minutes silence and the lowering of the national flag.
2. SENIOR CIVIL SERVANTS DRAFTED PROVO STATEMENTS
SENIOR British and 26-County civil servants drafted statements that were subsequently issued by the Provisionals under the pseudonym “P O’Neill”, it has been revealed in a new book on the so-called peace process in the Six Counties.
The disclosure about an intimate relationship between senior Provo figures and top British and 26-County officials is contained in The Far Side of Revenge by Deaglán de Bréadún, published in March in an updated edition to mark the 10th anniversary of the Stormont Agreement.
The author, a political correspondent of the Irish Times, and formerly the newspaper’s Six-County Editor, covers the evolution of the Stormont Agreement. He writes: “A key factor in advancing the process was the existence of a semi-permanent team of negotiators from the different sides: London, Dublin and [Provisional] Sinn Féin .
“This provided an underlying structure for the negotiations, although it meant that sometimes senior civil servants would be brought into meetings ahead of ministers, who would be left waiting outside.
“Since (Provisional)IRA statements were so crucially important, it was inevitable that the two governments would seek to influence the tone and have particular elements included or even left out. Such statements were generally signed ‘P O’Neill’, which had been the traditional pseudonym used by the Provisionals.
“But P O’Neill began to widen his cloak and, via (Provisional) Sinn Féin negotiators, accept contributions, suggestions and even drafts from impeccably respectable civil servants on both sides who had never fired a shot in anger in their lives.
“These officials even became adept at making the usual gestures towards republican core values while at the same time ‘trying to get in a couple of things we wanted’. Some might see this as a corruption of the democratic process, but underlying the whole endeavour was a simple desire, simply expressed: stop the killing.”
The author quotes a senior 26-County negotiator as saying that Tony Blair and his top adviser Jonathan Powell brought a new note of pragmatism to the British government’s approach: “Their attitude was, ‘Let’s stop the killing and worry about the detail later.’ ”
The book provides an insight into the negotiations and manoeuvres behind the scenes which led to the re-establishment of the Stormont Assembly and Executive involving the Provisionals, and Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
3. ‘NO POSSIBILITY OF A UNITED IRELAND’ – BLAIR
A NEW book by former Downing Street chief of staff Jonathan Powell reveals that at their first Downing Street meeting the then British prime minister Tony Blair asked the leader of the Provisionals Gerry Adams if he could tell his people “there was no possibility of a united Ireland”.
At its conclusion Tony Blair told key aides “he was pleased that Adams seemed to accept he would have to live with something less than a united Ireland” as the outcome of the so-called Six-County peace process.
The book, Great Hatred, Little Room confirms Tony Blair’s essentially pro-union position from the outset of the negotiations leading to the Stormont Agreement.
While still leader of the opposition at the British Parliament at Westminster Tony Blair had abandoned the British Labour party’s traditional policy of Irish unity through consent. Over time he then moved from a position of apparent neutrality on the constitutional issue to one of effective support for maintaining partition and British rule in Ireland based on the unionist veto, subsequently enshrined in the accord reached on April 10, 1998.
When they met in the British cabinet room on December 11, 1997, Adams said “he was grateful to Tony for taking the risk of holding the meeting and asked if the Labour Party policy of unity by consent had disappeared altogether. What was the [British] government’s strategic view?”
According to Jonathan Powell’s account: “Tony said he would not be a persuader for a united Ireland but he did want to create a situation in Northern Ireland that was fair.”
This is consistent with Blair’s decision on becoming British prime minister in 1997 that his first major trip out of London should be to Belfast, where he memorably suggested that no one in his audience was likely to see a united Ireland in their lifetime.
In a determined bid to win unionist confidence ahead of the second Provo ceasefire and the Provisional’s speedy admission to the talks process, Tony Blair went on to say: “Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, alongside England, Scotland and Wales. The union binds the four parts of the United Kingdom together. I believe in the United Kingdom. I value the union.”
At their Downing Street meeting Tony Blair asked if Gerry Adams could return and tell his people there was no possibility of a united Ireland.
According to the Powell diaries, Adams replied that “the question was rather how he could bring his people along. He had to show them there was an alternative way forward.”
At the end of their meeting Adams moved around the table to where other members of his delegation couldn’t hear him and raised the issue of the feared “split” in Provisional ranks.
According to Jonathan Powell, Gerry Adams “said to Tony that he could of course split the movement any time we wanted him to, but that his aim was to carry them all along, and that he was at them persuading them every day”.
Jonathan Powell confirms that “this time” the British found themselves in the same position as the republican (sic) leadership: “We did not want to have to make peace lots of times with republican splinter groups. We wanted to do it once. And so, uniquely, the British government had an interest in a united republican movement (sic) as well, rather than trying to pursue a policy of divide and rule as it had in the past.”
The former No 10 chief of staff acknowledged they of course knew that “some of the people we were talking to as [Provisional] Sinn Féin leaders were also leaders of the [Provisional] IRA”. However, Powell says “it wasn’t as simple as that”, that there “wasn’t a complete overlap” and that this “duality” prompted Tony Blair on a number of occasions “to offer to meet the high command of the [Provisional] IRA to try to reason with them himself”.
Authoritative sources made light of the report in the English Guardian newspaper, based on an interview with Jonathan Powell on March 17, that this could have seen Blair “take the unprecedented step of holding secret masked meetings with the [Provisional] IRA leadership”. However, Blair was apparently entirely serious in suggesting that he seek to resolve difficulties by talking directly to the Provisional Army Council.
Jonathan Powell records that leading Provisional Brian Keenan, was “instrumental in bringing the (Provisional) IRA round to the political strategy” and was also the man who eventually achieved the decommissioning of Provo weapons.
4. PROTESTER WINS REPRIEVE ON WORK AT M3 SITE
THE M3 protester who emerged from the tunnel at Rath Lugh, near Tara on March 15, says she had a “whale of time” underground and was pleased to have won a month-long moratorium on work at the site.
Work will not begin again at Rath Lugh until April , said protester Lisa Feeney, giving M3 opponents enough time to mount further legal challenges to this contentious section of the road which they say is too close to important heritage sites.
“There is a Supreme Court challenge in three weeks, so that will give us enough time to prepare for that,” said Lisa Feeney.
She said that her 60 hours spent underground was a “whale of a time. It was quite comforting to be in the womb of Mother Earth, I could hear a lot of what was going on, the yells and cheers of the crowd.” She also passed the time reading a book by Pádraig Pearse.
But Lisa Feeney believes that inappropriate pressure was placed on her via her father and uncle who were allowed on site to try and talk her out.
“It was emotional manipulation,” she said. “my uncle was told continually that I was going to die. I think it’s a violation of my human rights.”
Lisa Feeney entered the tunnel dug into a hill in the path of the motorway at Rath Lugh at about 7am on March 13 and came out at about 9pm on March 15, about 60 hours later.
Paddy O’Kearney, a friend of Lisa Feeney who talked to her via two-way radio throughout her three-day protest, said: “The situation could have been dealt with in a much better way. There was immense psychological pressure on her from her father and uncle.”
Paddy O’Kearney described the conduct of the motorway builders as “torture - worse than if they had pulled her fingernails out”.
Paddy O’Kearney said that construction officials told her family that their daughter’s life was at risk. Lisa Feeney left Rath Lugh after emerging from the tunnel. The site of Lisa Feeney’s protest was sealed off behind a chain-link fence and was being patrolled by private security. Protesters have vowed to stay at the site, said Derek Berrill, a spokesman for the Rath Lugh Direct Action Group.
The protest generated much media attention, and a steady steam of visitors came to visit the site.
Also protesters camped near the Hill of Tara in Co Meath have called on 26-County Environment Minister John Gormley to “come and see for himself” that the M3 motorway is being built within the preservation area of the Rath Lugh national monument.
The call came as it emerged road builder Siac Ferrovial was arranging for a specialist risk assessor from Britain to examine tunnels which have been dug under the route of the road by the protesters. The specialist was due on site on March 16, according to sources.
The protesters also want John Gormley to view the tunnels, particularly the underground chamber in which Lisa Feeney staged her sit-in protest, to prevent what the groups says would be “further damage” to the esker on which the Rath Lugh national monument stands.
Protesters’ spokesperson Terry Canty insisted that the protesters were on the right side of the law in attempting to halt work on the motorway.
“It is all within 25 feet of the foot of the monument - that’s within the preservation area around the base of Rath Lugh. It is not us who are breaking the law, here it is the whole road that is illegal,” he said. “We want Gormley to come down in person and see the destruction to the hill and the damage being done.”
Asked what the protesters would do if John Gormley did not come, Terry Canty said they would remain as long as necessary. He repeated that each member of the camp was “totally committed”.
Saint Patrick’s weekend was not forgotten by the protesters either, and a general call has went out for musicians to come to the Hill of Tara for a music session over the weekend.
According to Terry Canty, groups came to the Hill of Tara from Belfast and Dublin, as well as from other parts of the country.
5. RTÉ URGED NOT TO ABANDON MEDIUM WAVE
THERE has been strong opposition to a decision by RTÉ to drop its medium wave radio service by groups representing the elderly and Irish emigrants in Britain.
On March 24 RTÉ will shut down its medium wave broadcasts of Radio 1. Users will then have to switch to FM, long wave, satellite or the internet.
The Emigrant Advice Network (EAN), which works on behalf of Irish emigrants, said in a statement that radio was “crucial for communications with the Irish abroad, and provision for radio broadcasting to Irish communities outside the island of Ireland was included in last year’s Broadcasting Bill”.
Calling on RTÉ to postpone its decision until a long-term solution was found, it said the proposed shutdown was “a reversal of recent trends in which Ireland has acknowledged its debt to the Irish abroad, and the need for maintaining strong links”. It said medium wave and long wave were complementary solutions for the Irish abroad as “long wave on its own is inadequate and presents problems for the future”.
Dropping medium wave was “a step backward in our relationship with the Irish abroad”.
It pointed out that last year’s broadcasting legislation allowed for licence money to be spent on radio broadcasting for the Irish abroad.
“The shutdown of a service valued by the Irish abroad, and RTÉ’s refusal to help older Irish emigrants with a voucher scheme similar to the one it says it will adopt for older people here, seems contradictory to the spirit of last year’s legislation,” it said.
RTÉ maintains that just 10 per cent of listeners use the medium wave service.
It also says that it will save more than €1 million by switching it off.
However, Enda O’Kane, a former RTÉ employee who has been campaigning on the issue for several months, said the costs quoted by the national broadcaster are based on old energy inefficient technology.
He said a replacement transmitter would slash broadcasting costs and would also be capable of broadcasting a new form of digital transmission known as DRM.
This is being tipped by many experts as the future of digital broadcasting. “For a mere €4 million, the former Athlone medium wave site could be adapted to digital short wave and so provide a service to our citizens across the EU,” Enda O’Kane said. “Satellite services that are currently in use by RTÉ are vulnerable to external influences and now require payment of a fee.”
Nationalists within the Six Counties have also expressed concern that they will not be able to receive RTÉ radio with the removal of the medium wave service.
Meanwhile, Age Action has said it was “concerned that many older people are not properly prepared for the closing down of the medium wave band. The migration of programmes from the medium wave to long wave may well mean that many older listeners will no longer be able to enjoy their programmes”.
In a statement it continued, “we know, for example, that many older people like to listen to Mass and religious services on medium wave, and this will be a particular loss to them if they do not have long wave or cannot tune their radios to it”.
6. CALL TO ASSIST IRISH PRISONERS ABROAD
THE Bishop of Derry and chairman of the Bishops’ Council for Emigrants, Séamus Hegarty, has urged the 26-County administration to honour a commitment to assist Irish prisoners abroad.
In a St Patrick’s Day message, he said the 26-County state-sponsored Report on Irish Prisoners Abroad - published last August - presented “a disturbing snapshot of the conditions, problems and issues faced by prisoners and their families”. He said that the 26-County administration should implement the report’s recommendations in full and “do all it can to alleviate the anxiety and hardship experienced by this most vulnerable group of emigrants”.
The 26-County administration was “critical in the development of policy and the provision of financial resources to those who provide outreach to our vulnerable migrants”.
“There is a growing awareness of the implications of migration both for the migrant, and for sending and receiving societies,” he added.
At the time of the report’s publication, 26-County Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said that he was “sympathetic” to the idea of a hardship fund for Irish prisoners abroad.
In his address, Dr Hegarty also urged people to “be fully at home in our own faith tradition”.
“Faith and religious belief have too conveniently been ushered into the realm of the personal and private domains,” he said, adding that St Patrick came to Ireland with “openness to our traditions” and people needed to take him as a model, while being “able to dialogue confidently with those of other faith traditions”.
As Ireland evolved into a “new phase of growth and development, we are more than ever called to identify our values and our traditions of belief that are foundational to human dignity and to a civilised, caring society,” he added.
7. PAISLEY BIOGRAPHER QUESTIONS DUP AND PROVOS
ED Moloney launched his new biography of the Rev Ian Paisley, Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat?, in the Linen Hall Library, Belfast on March 12.
Introduced by historian Lord Paul Bew and US political lobbyist Frank Costello, Moloney didn’t say anything specifically about Ian Paisley but took the opportunity to question why the DUP and the Provisionals “with arguably the most responsibility in perpetuating the Troubles were the ones who were rewarded when it ended”.
“I have always been of the belief that both these parties, the DUP and (Provisional) Sinn Féin, needed to be closely watched. Now that they are running the country, they need to watched very, very closely.” He also joked that the prospect of the devolution of British policing powers to such an administration made him happy he now lived in New York.
8. CAMPAIGN CRITICISES MAYO TDS
TWO TDs Dara Calleary (FF) and Beverley Flynn (Ind) were singled out for criticism by the Mayo cancer service campaign on March 12 as a representative and supporter of the 26-County administration in the constituency.
“They pledged support for us at a rally attended by nearly 10,000 people, they told us they were negotiating with Minister for Health Mary Harney and they have let us down,” Mary McGreal, spokeswoman for the campaign said.
9. AMNESTY REPORT LINKS SHANNON TO RENDITION CASE
THE 26-County State is contravening international law by allowing its territory to be used to facilitate extraordinary rendition, Amnesty International claimed.
The human rights group based its allegation on a report into the case of a Saudi man who was held without charge in secret CIA prisons for over two-and-a-half years.
Khaled al Maqtari claims he was subjected to torture and other forms of cruel and inhumane treatment while being held in unknown locations and in isolation from 2004 to 2007.
An Amnesty report into his case found that Shannon airport was used as a refuelling stop by the plane that took him from Iraq — where he was initially arrested — to Kabul, where he was incarcerated in a CIA prison.
Amnesty International Irish section executive director Colm O’Gorman said: “There can no longer be any doubt that Shannon is being used by those involved in kidnapping and torture, dressed up as part of a war on terror.
“Recent revelations that the US used British territory to transfer kidnapped prisoners despite assurances similar to those given to Ireland (26 Counties) that our territory was not being used to commit such gross violations of international law should be of very grave concern to the Irish Government (sic).”
At the beginning of his 32-month confinement, Khaled al Maqtari was taken to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. After nine days of interrogation in Abu Ghraib, he was taken by plane to a secret CIA detention facility in Afghanistan, were he was held for a further three months.
Flight records obtained by Amnesty International corroborated that a jet allegedly operated by a CIA front company left Baghdad International Airport nine days after his arrest, heading for Khwaja Rawash airport in Kabul.
“This same jet, registered at the time as N379P, had left Shannon Airport on January 20th, 2004 en route to Baghdad where it collected Mr al Maqtari,” Colm O’Gorman said. Amnesty believes that at least three dozen prisoners are still being held in the secret CIA prison network.
10. HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAQ A ‘DISASTER’
IRAQ: despite the removal of the dictator Saddam Hussein and the five-year long War on Terror, the standard of human rights in Iraq remains disastrous, Amnesty International has said.
In its new report Carnage and Despair the organisation says attacks and sectarian killings by armed groups, torture and ill-treatment by Iraqi militants and the continuing detention of thousands of suspects by US and Iraqi forces have had a devastating impact.
Amnesty claims that civilians have borne the heaviest brunt of the war, with more than four million Iraqis displaced from their homes since 2003 and about 1,200 people fleeing the country to Syria every day.
Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East, said: “Saddam Hussein’s administration was a byword for human rights abuse, but its replacement has brought no respite at all for the Iraqi people.
“Arbitrary arrests, detentions and torture continue to be reported,” he said.
The report says the exact number of people killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003 is unknown, but according to a survey carried out jointly by the World Health Organisation and the Iraqi government, more than 150,000 people had died by June 2006 and the UN said some 35,000 people were killed in Iraq in 2006 alone.
Amnesty also said trials in Iraq are routinely unfair with convictions being based on evidence allegedly obtained under torture resulting in hundreds of people being sentenced to death.
“This is one of the most worrying aspects for the future. Even when faced with overwhelming evidence of torture under their watch, the Iraqi authorities have failed to hold the perpetrators to account,” Malcolm Smart said.
Amnesty International Irish section executive director Colm O’Gorman said the international community cannot abdicate its responsibility for what has happened to the people of Iraq.
11. ANTI-WAR PROTESTERS STAGE RALLY IN DUBLIN
SEVERAL hundred people attended an anti-war rally in Dublin on March 15 to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. The demonstration was part of the World Against War global protests in over 50 cities.
In an address to the rally, the 26-County Labour party’s foreign affairs spokesperson Michael D Higgins called on the 26-County Administration to halt flights by the US military through Shannon Airport.
Michael D Higgins said a report, published on March 16 by Amnesty International, indicated that the 26-County state was contravening international law by allowing its territory to be used to facilitate extraordinary rendition.
He criticised the US-led attack on Iraq as an illegal war whose invasion did not receive approval from the UN, and did not have a UN mandate.
Amnesty based its allegation on a report into the case of a Saudi man who was held without charge in secret CIA prisons for over two-and-a-half years.
Khaled al Maqtari claims he was subjected to torture and other forms of cruel and inhumane treatment while being held in unknown locations and in isolation from 2004 to 2007.
An Amnesty report into his case found that Shannon airport was used as a refuelling stop by the plane that took him from Iraq - where he was initially arrested - to Kabul, where he was incarcerated in a CIA prison.
Amnesty International Irish section executive director Colm O’Gorman said: “There can no longer be any doubt that Shannon is being used by those involved in kidnapping and torture, dressed up as part of a war on terror.
ENDS
