SAOIRSE32

BBC
31 March 2008

Riot police were called to a Belfast court as a well-known loyalist appeared on terrorism charges.

Ihab Shoukri allegedly wrote the speech

Trouble flared at the city’s Crown Court when Ihab Shoukri and five others entered the dock. They were separated by prison officers.

He faces charges of UDA membership, including assisting, arranging, or managing a meeting of the terror group. A speech to have been allegedly given at a UDA show of strength in a bar pledged it would never disband.

The speech, allegedly in the handwriting of 34-year-old Mr Shoukri, declared while the UDA “must now take our fight into the political arena - it’s not the end of the UDA which is here to stay”.

The UDA speech, to be allegedly read out in a north Belfast bar in March 2006, concluded with the boast: “We will never go away, you know”.

It was found in the pocket of one of five men arrested alongside Mr Shoukri, from Westland Drive in the north of the city.

:::u.tv:::
31 March 2008

The UDA will never disband - a Belfast court has heard.

The Crown Court heard the so-called guarantee was contained in a three-page speech which was to have been given at an alleged UDA show of strength in a north Belfast bar.

The speech, allegedly in the handwriting of 34-year-old Ihab Shoukri, declared while the UDA “must now take our fight into the political arena - it`s not the end of the UDA - which is here to stay.”

The speech concluded with the boast: “We will never go away, you know.”

The speech was found in the pocket of one of five men arrested along side Shoukri, of Westland Drive, Belfast.

Shoukri faces charges ranging from UDA membership to supporting the loyalist terror group.

Just prior to the start of the trial trouble flared. Riot police were called to the Langanside courthouse and stood guard as the men were kept seperated by prison and security staff in the dock for the Diplock, no-jury case.

Trial judge Mr Justice Gillen heard that the six men were arrested along with a number of other suspects when police stormed the Alexander Bar on Belfast`s York Road on March 2, 2006.

:::u.tv:::
30/03/2008

Lethal weapons should not be used on children in Northern Ireland except where there is an imminent and established threat to life, a draft Bill of Rights for the province will suggest.

The proposal, which children`s rights campaigners are expected to criticise, is contained in a draft Bill which will be handed over to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in Belfast.

The first Bill of Rights ever to be produced in the UK has been put together by Northern Ireland`s five biggest political parties - the DUP, Sinn Fein, the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP, and the Alliance Party.

Members of the community, human rights and voluntary workers, churches, business and trade unions have also been involved.

Its articles cover issues including equality, the right to life, freedom from torture and degrading treatment, education, health, employment, people with disabilities and victims of the Troubles.

However members of the Forum will not endorse of the clauses and will clearly mark out in the report handed to Chief Human Rights Commissioner Monica McWilliams what measures they support and what they oppose.

It is understood the report will show the DUP, Ulster Unionists and cross-community Alliance Party dissented from other members of the forum on the section covering culture, language and identity.

Sinn Fein delegate Martina Anderson said while it was good that unionists engaged in the discussions, it was disappointing they were not able to sign up to many clauses.

“Unionists have engaged in the process but did not feel they could sign up to a range of provisions which could have strengthened protections on the right to life,” the Foyle Assembly member said.

She continued: “They also voted against social and economic rights which are being demanded by working class unionist communities. These are necessities in a Bill of Rights and no-one should be excluded.”

Sunday Business Post
30 March 2008
By Eamon McCann

The identity of the man referred to for 25 years as ‘‘the link’’ between the IRA and British authorities was revealed in a BBC documentary last week.

But Brendan Duddy, whose role as intermediary was revealed in ‘‘The Secret Peacemaker’’ on Thursday night, wasn’t the first point of contact between the two sides.

Many individuals were carrying similar messages during the early stages of the Derry businessman’s involvement. Duddy’s contribution was to prove durable because he was independent of church and nationalist organisations regarded by the Provisionals as suspect.

In a secret memo to the Foreign Office in November 1972, MI6 Northern chief Frank Steele recorded a message from intermediaries that ‘‘leading members of the IRA wanted . . . a negotiated peace which left them with some honour, and they also wanted some assurances’’. The intermediaries were clergymen.

Steele reported his response that, ‘‘There was no sufficient control on the IRA side . . . to deliver an effective and lasting ceasefire,” and the intermediaries’ rejoinder that, ‘‘There was now a group which could control the militants and could deliver’’.

Around the same time, Steele recorded Nationalist Party leader Eddie McAteer conveying a ‘‘truce feeler’’ from IRA chief of staff, Sea¤ n Mac Stiofain.

Steele also reported IRA ‘‘peace feelers’’ coming via another ‘‘Londonderry contact’’ - a reference to a journalist and two nationalist councillors. The affiliations of these groups made them unacceptable to the IRA as long-term negotiators.

But the information they’d conveyed - that a section of the IRA leadership was willing to abandon armed action on a much less radical basis than public rhetoric suggested - was reliable.

This reflected the fact that, while the Catholic working class was fiercely determined to get the British Army off its back and see an end to untrammelled unionist rule, if that was delivered they would accept a settlement far short of a united Ireland.

This was the political context in which Duddy was able to establish a fruitful line of communication between the IRA and the British authorities. British willingness to encourage Duddy’s efforts reflected their own readiness to endorse any settlement which offered stability across the island.

In early 1972, British prime minister Edward Heath told Stormont premier Brian Faulkner he should do a deal with nationalism if he wanted the union to survive. British ministers also tested unionist reaction to suggestions of repartition and joint sovereignty.

The compatibility of this approach with the position of sect ions of the Provisional leadership created the terrain on which Duddy was able to operate for a quarter of a century and on which a settlement was eventually to be built.

Irish News
By Barry McCaffrey
28/03/08

THE families of 11 unarmed civilians shot dead by the British army in disputed circumstances are to meet the DUP leadership.

The 11 victims, including a Catholic priest, were shot dead by British army soldiers in the greater Ballymurphy area of west Belfast in a three-day period in August 1971.

Fr Hugh Mullan and Frank Quinn (19) were shot dead by soldiers as they went to help a wounded man.

Mother-of-eight Joan Connolly (50) was shot dead by soldiers as she searched for her children outside the Henry Taggart barracks.

Later that night Noel Philips (20) and father-of-10 Daniel Teggart (44) were shot dead by soldiers from the same building.

Father-of-nine Joe Murphy died two weeks later after being shot outside the same barracks.

The following day 28-year-old Edward Doherty and John Laverty (20) were shot dead by soldiers in separate incidents in Ballymurphy.

Joseph Corr (43) died 16 days later after being shot by soldiers near his Divismore Crescent home.

On August 11 youth worker Paddy McCarthy (44) collapsed and died from a heart attack following a confrontation with soldiers.

Father-of-two John McKerr (49) was shot as he left Corpus Christi Church, which he had been repairing. He died nine days later.

All of the dead were unarmed and were not members of any paramilitary organisation.

A number of the killings were later used by the Irish government when it took the British government to the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2007 the Ballymurphy families began a campaign through the Relatives For Justice victims group for the British government to apologise for the killings of their loved ones.

The families believe their campaign took a major step forward yesterday following a meeting with DUP junior minister Jeffrey Donaldson.

Speaking after the meeting Daniel Teggart’s son John said: “It was a very positive and productive meeting. Mr Donaldson listened carefully as we outlined how our loved ones were killed. He promised us his support and wants us to go to Stormont to meet with the DUP’s executive.

“We feel this is a very important step forward in people from different traditions understanding the suffering felt on both sides.”

Speaking yesterday, Mr Donaldson said: “I listened very carefully to what the families had to say and will be reporting back to my party officers in the context of considering how we deal with the issue of victims.

“I look forward to having further meetings with the families.”

Irish Examiner
31 March 2008

THE IRA stashed away €250 million in “dirty money” through a tiny bureau de change over just three years, broadcaster TV3 will claim tonight.

The money was laundered — or turned into untraceable money — by the Provisional IRA to fund its terrorism campaign across Ireland and Britain.

The claims are made in TV3’s show Dirty Money, which is fronted by Sunday World crime correspondent Paul Williams.

In the show Williams looks at the Criminal Assets Bureau’s (CAB) investigation of the IRA’s criminal empire.

Justice Minister Brian Lenihan appears on the show and confirms he has met the CAB about the IRA money.

“If people are involved in crime and they have assets as a result we will target them,” he tells the programme.

Mr Lenihan also warns the Provisionals and their supporters that no one will escape the CAB despite political progress in the north.

“There will be no special ‘ins’ for people in this area,” he tells the show.

Former Justice and Finance Minister Alan Dukes also tells the show that Sinn Féin should be investigated if the party was found to have been funded illegally.

The TV3 Dirty Money show, the last in a six-part series, also focuses on the alleged former IRA chief of staff, Thomas “Slab” Murphy, who lives on the Louth-Armagh border.

The programme also claims that IRA cross-border smuggling costs the British government €20m a month in lost taxes and excise duties.

“For nearly 40 years the main paramilitary player in Ireland has been the Provisional IRA,” said a TV3 spokeswoman.

“But to run their war they needed money — a lot of money — and most of it was dirty.”