SAOIRSE32

News Letter
By Gemma Murray
April 2008 2:11 PM

IRISH Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern has said the official opening of the Battle of the Boyne Heritage site will be brought forward.

Speaking to BBC, Mr Ahern, said the opening would be brought forward to to facilitate the departures from office of both First Minister Ian Paisley and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

He said: “When Dr Paisley announced his intent to resign one of the first things the Taoiseach and I decided between us was that we would rapidly bring forward the official opening of the Battle of the Boyne site.

“That is something that is in train.

“And now with the Taoiseach’s imminent departure I think you could take it that we will see an official opening by both of them before both of them go.”

Earlier this week Mr Ahern announced that he plans to step down next month.

Earlier Mr Paisley announced his intention to step down as first minister in May, but will continue to be an MLA and MP.

BBC

Three men arrested earlier this week in connection with dissident republican activity in County Donegal have been released.

Gardai are to carry out further searches of Raphoe on Saturday after a bomb-making factory was discovered in woods in the area on Thursday.

It was found at Mongorry Wood, an isolated area near the town.

The items were taken to Letterkenny for examination. The arrested men were released on Friday evening.

A file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

BBC
5 April 2008

A Chinese businessman sentenced to death for spying for a Taiwanese organisation did not receive a fair trial, his daughter says. In a rare interview, Ran Chen tells the BBC’s Michael Bristow in Beijing she fears her father, Wo Weihan, could have been forced to confess while he was kept isolated from the outside world.

Ran Chen (l) says she wants to raise awareness about her father’s case

Wo Weihan was convicted of several espionage charges, including passing on information about a senior Chinese leader’s health.

The 59-year-old, who pleaded not guilty, is currently waiting for China’s Supreme Court to confirm the death sentence, his daughter said.

Ran Chen has decided to speak out publicly because she wants to raise awareness about her father’s case.

“I believe in his innocence, but it is up to a just and transparent legal system to decide his innocence or guilt,” she said.

“In my opinion, he has not received a fair trial.”

Taiwan tension

Wo, who ran a medical research company in Beijing, was arrested in January 2005, according to court documents.

These say he spied for an organisation called The Grand Alliance for the Reunification of China under the Three Principles of the People between 1989 and 2003.

‘He might have been put under pressure because he was interrogated for a whole year without legal representation.’
–Ran Chen

This group is under the auspices of Taiwan’s new ruling party, the Kuomintang, according to the party’s official website.

Taiwan is an island that China claims as its own, and there is continued tension between the two.

According to the court documents, Wo was accused of copying information from Chinese military magazines and passing it on to the Taiwanese group.

He was also accused of passing on night-vision equipment and information on a leader’s health, as well as recruiting other agents on the mainland.

The court says he was paid more than $400,000 for helping the Taiwanese group.

Top secret information?

Despite the serious nature of the charges, Wo’s daughter said the Chinese prosecution had not provided sufficient proof of guilt.

For example, she said no real evidence had been presented about the information her father was supposed to have passed on about the leader’s health - top secret information in China.

Ran Chen is not alone in her concern about China’s interrogation methods

The court papers, issued by Beijing Supreme Court, say only that Wo “could have chatted about a leader’s health situation”.

Ms Chen, who is now an Austrian citizen, said one of the main pieces of evidence used against her father was his confession, which he later retracted.

“I am worried that he might have been put under pressure because he was interrogated for a whole year without legal representation and no access to his family or the outside world,” she said.

Secrecy

The 30-year-old has not been able to visit her father since he was arrested.

‘There are regular reports of what are believed to be miscarriages of justice after hasty and unfair trials and widespread use of torture.’
–Amnesty International

China maintains such secrecy about these cases that her father’s lawyer cannot even legally reveal details about the case to Ms Chen.

The daughter is not the only one concerned about the methods used by China during its interrogation of criminal suspects.

Human rights group Amnesty International made the same point earlier this year when it called on China to abolish the death penalty.

“There are regular reports of what are believed to be miscarriages of justice after hasty and unfair trials and widespread use of torture to extract confessions,” it said.

China does not reveal how many people it executes each year, but it appears concerned about possible miscarriages of justice.

Last year, it introduced new rules that require every death sentence to be approved by China’s Supreme Court.

In 2007, that court rejected 15% of all death sentences citing illegal procedures, lack of evidence and unclear facts.

That same court is now deliberating Wo’s case.

No one answered the telephone when the BBC contacted the court to find out when a decision will be reached.

Ms Chen can do nothing but wait and hope.

Derry Journal
04 April 2008

The family of a Derry man who died during rioting in the city in July 1996 says it is “disappointed” that the Historical Enquires Team (HET) has recommended that no charges be levelled against the soldier who drove the vehicle that killed him.

However, Dermot McShane’s relatives say they remain hopeful the truth will come out during the inquest scheduled to open next month.

The case was investigated by the HET after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), in 1998, decided there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to sustain murder, manslaughter or dangerous driving charges against the soldier who drove the vehicle.

The rioting that took place on the night Mr. McShane was killed was some of the heaviest seen in the city in many years. It erupted after an Orange Order march was forced down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown by the RUC. According to official figures, 946 plastic bullets were fired on the night of July 12/13 while the police claim up to 1,200 petrol bombs were thrown. During rioting at Little James Street, Mr. McShane and others were using a hoarding as cover when a British army vehicle drove at it. Mr. McShane was crushed under the wheels of the vehicle.

‘The Truth’

Speaking after the publication of the HET decision, the McShane family’s solicitor, Mr. Paddy MacDermott, said: “The family is disappointed at this turn of events but they are hopeful that the inquest which is due to open on May 27th will get at the truth.

“At the inquest, the driver of the vehicle and those who gave him his orders can be compelled to give evidence and they will be subject to cross examination. Hopefully then the full picture will emerge.”

The HET concluded that Dermot McShane had been run over ‘by a wheel or wheels’ of a motor vehicle and added that the driver of that vehicle ‘may not have known anyone was behind the hoarding.’

It also emerged yesterday that, of the 15 military witnesses who will be called at the inquest, nine of them - including the driver - have since left the British Army. Some of those still in the British Army are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

BBC

Gerry Adams has said more than 100 people have gone to the police with information about the murder of former republican prisoner Frank McGreevy.

Mr Adams is the MP for West Belfast

The West Belfast MP met members of Mr McGreevy’s family on Friday.

“One hundred and two people have come forward to say they have information - we are told by the PSNI that this is unprecedented,” said Mr Adams,.

“This is a mark of the willingness of this community to engage with the PSNI in dealing with criminality.”

Mr McGreevy, 51, died in hospital last month several days after being beaten in west Belfast.

Thomas Valliday, 20, has been charged with Mr McGreevy’s murder as well as six other offences.

An Phoblacht
BY Gerry Adams

LOOKING BACK now, there are times when it is hard to believe that 10 years have passed since those momentous days in April 1998. The Good Friday Agreement marks an historic and defining point of change in the history and development of this island.
Getting to that point was fraught with enormous difficulties, not least because of the refusal by the two governments and other parties, to engage earlier in dialogue, and the determination of some to pursue an unattainable security agenda.
However, George Mitchell got it exactly right when he said that getting the agreement was the easy bit, implementing it would be another matter. And he was right. Progress since then has been slow and torturous. But progress has been made.
The Good Friday Agreement is unique. The extent and depth of the difficulties it seeks to resolve is evident in the scope of the measures it covers: constitutional issues, political matters, institutional arrangements, human rights, equality, policing, justice, language and culture issues.
As a consequence it differs in many ways from earlier efforts to reach agreement, most importantly because it is inclusive. But it also secured significantly more progress in the areas of policing and justice, equality and human rights, the Irish language, as well as constitutional and political matters, and measures to end discrimination and sectarianism, than heretofore.
As its heart, the Good Friday Agreement is about change: political, social, economic and constitutional. It is essentially about establishing a level playing field.
It emerged out of a hesitant co-operative effort by nationalist and republican Ireland, initiated by Sinn Féin, to put in place a peace process.
The goal of that peace process was to agree a political arrangement that could end decades of violence by addressing the root causes of conflict, and by allowing all of the participants to pursue their respective political objectives peacefully and democratically, and without fear of discrimination or repression.
This presented huge challenges to everyone, not least to Irish republicans who, in developing our peace strategy through the late 1980s and early 1990s, came to understand that republicans would need to take significant political initiatives to help create the political climate in which progress was possible.
The fierce opposition from within unionism and the British system to the Good Friday Agreement has stemmed from the recognition that the Agreement is a powerful instrument for change.
Its opponents fear that the achievement of equality and the entrenchment of people’s rights and entitlements will erode the very reason for the existence of the union with Britain.
The birth of the Northern state is well-known. The sectarian and political divisions that existed before partition were cemented more deeply into place after it by the unionist government at Stormont. This led to decades of institutional violence and discrimination against the nationalist community.
Tens of thousands had no vote; electoral boundaries were gerrymandered; Sinn Féin and the Republican Clubs were banned organisations; religious discrimination in housing, employment and in all walks of life was rife; and the institutions of the state openly trampled on the rights and entitlements of nationalists and republicans.
And then, 40 years ago, in 1968, the civil rights movement in the North took to the streets. It included many republicans, socialists, communists, liberals, trade unionists, community activists and others, including, initially, some unionists.
But 1968 was also the year which witnessed the violent reaction of unionism and of the unionist state to the civil rights campaign. The attack on the Civil Rights marchers in Derry in October of that year was the beginning of the slide into an escalating conflict which lasted for more than a quarter of a century.
Republicans and unionists, and British and Irish governments, played a part in that war.
It has been more difficult for some within unionism, and among elements on the British side, to appreciate and understand that we all also need to play a part in building the peace. But, despite these many difficulties, and to the surprise and delight of many, significant progress has been made.
The fact is that Ian Paisley – and who whoever replaces him as leader of the DUP – has been and will be sitting as an equal with Martin McGuinness in a power-sharing Executive in the North.
In recent months, the power-sharing Executive has agreed a Programme for Government, a Budget and an Investment Strategy. And the all-Ireland political institutions are up and running.
At the start of this year, a delegation of ministers from the Irish Government met an equal number of ministers from the North and set about taking decisions on a range of issues that will affect all of the people of this island.
But these are not the only changes to have been brought about by the Good Friday Agreement. There have been scores. Some hugely significant; others less so but all nonetheless contributing to a sea change in the political life and fortunes of the people of this island.

For example:-
• The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was repealed, coupled with an explicit and unprecedented British Government commitment to observe the outcome of any future ‘Border poll’ in favour of territorial unity on the island;
• The establishment of the British-Irish Inter-governmental Conference gives the Irish Government a permanent consultative role in the British Government’s daily administration of non-devolved matters in the Six
• Counties, with a mandate to intensify co-operation in a range of areas such as rights and justice;
• Section 75 and Schedule 9 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 enshrines the statutory duty on all designated public authorities in the Six Counties to “have due regard for the need to promote equality of opportunity” and introduces the Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) process;
• Establishment of the Human Rights Commissions in the Six and 26 Counties, including establishment of a joint all-Ireland Committee of both commissions;
• Establishment of the Equality Commission in the Six Counties and Equality Authority in the 26 Counties, followed by the establishment of a joint Equality and Human Rights Forum;
• Establishment of the Police Ombudsman to independently investigate all complaints of police misconduct, including significant historical cases;
• Introduction of 50:50 recruitment policy to promote representative membership of the PSNI, with Catholic membership of the full-time regulars almost trebling in last ten years from 8.3 per cent to 23.7 per cent;
• Establishment of a representative Policing Board and new District Policing Partnerships to hold the PSNI to account;
• Successive Police Acts (2000 and 2003) and accordingly revised
• implementation plans to progressively enact the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Policing
• The Bloody Sunday Public Inquiry to reinvestigate the entire case, including cross-examination of thousands of witnesses and documents, not least the most senior members of the British Government and British Army, such as former Prime Minister Edward Heath and General Sir Mike Jackson;
• Millions of euro of ‘peace funding’ from Europe for development and community projects on either side of the border corridor;
• Significant all-Ireland transport developments, such as: upgrading of the Dublin-Belfast Enterprise rail link, Irish Government multi-million euro investment in City of Derry airport, substantial Irish Government funding for new road infrastructure between the Port of Larne and Belfast for the east coast corridor, major ongoing all-Ireland road projects to link Dublin and the north-west, and the re-opening of the Ulster Canal;
• All-Ireland Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement (although this is insufficient, and less than the government promised, nevertheless it provides Six-County representatives with speaking rights for the first time since partition);
• Equal recognition of victims and survivors from every background, particularly republicans and state forces, in the composition of the new Victims Commission.

These are just some of many positive changes that have been introduced as a direct result of the Good Friday Agreement.
And there will be more in the time ahead as we conclude progress on issues such as the Bill of Rights, the Irish Language Act, and the transfer of powers on policing and justice.
I am confident that we can continue to make progress on all of this.
In the time ahead, republicans will also seek to further enhance and develop our changing relationship with unionism. Already I see greater evidence at community level of unionists recognising the sense of working with Sinn Féin to overcome common problems and improve the quality of life of their families and neighbours.
And, of course, as Irish republicans our goal is to achieve the reunification of Ireland and to end British jurisdiction on this island.
This goal did not end with the formation of the Executive and the Assembly and the all-Ireland Ministerial Council and other institutional arrangements.
These institutions are part of our strategy: ‘markers’ on the road to achieving our priority goal.
I believe that we are closer to bringing that about than at any time in our past. There is growing support for Irish unity and there is a growing awareness of the importance of the all-Ireland economy to this nation’s future prosperity and growth.
But none of this will happen by chance. Republicans need to set out how we can reach this historic goal and create the conditions for a united Ireland. I have established a high-powered task force within Sinn Féin to produce a strategy to achieve this to drive forward the roadmap to Irish unity.
And we are asking all of those who support Irish unity and the right of the Irish people to determine our own future, to join with us in this extraordinary endeavour and to make it a genuine movement for change over the next number of years.
Sinn Féin has played a key role in the peace process and in bringing about the extraordinary changes that have occurred in recent years.
And Irish republicans are determined and committed to achieving greater change in the time ahead.
At no time in the last 800 years have the people of this island opened a new century with such great hope and confidence in the future.

An Phoblacht
By Laura Friel
3 April 2008

A CELTIC supporter is fighting for his life after having his throat slashed when a sectarian gang targeted Catholics in Belfast City centre on Saturday afternoon, 29 March. The onslaught happened after the Irish Cup semi-final between Linfield and Cliftonville.

32-year-old Hugh McAnally’s throat was slashed by a 30-strong loyalist gang in what has been identified as a pre-meditated, sectarian attack.
The loyalist gang is believed to have links with the British neo-Nazi group Combat 18. Eyewitnesses said that the gang, some of whom had English accents, chanted “Combat 18, Combat 18!”, the name of the far-right gang that takes its title from Adolf Hitler’s initials, the first and eighth letters of the alphabet.
The attack took place 20 minutes after the PSNI was alerted by city centre bar staff that there was a gang intent on trouble stalking the streets. According to the bar staff, the gang had walked in around 1.45pm before the end of the football match and were overheard talking about “nabbing” Cliftonville supporters and giving them a hard time.
The gang left the bar at around 3pm to be photographed outside holding a huge Union Jack flag with the words “No Surrender” emblazoned upon it before walking toward the city centre. The bar staff immediately telephoned the PSNI to warn that there was a gang out looking for trouble.
The gang, described by eyewitnesses as all dressed smartly and sober, wore black coats buttoned up to their throats and black baseball caps. The attack took place around an hour after the Linfield v Cliftonville match in east Belfast.
The gang walked through the city centre into an area known to be widely used by nationalists. They were heard shouting neo-Nazi slogans as well as sectarian abuse.
The gang tried to force their way into Cosgrove’s Bar, at the junction of King Street and Castle Street, but were thwarted by customers who managed to lock the doors. Owner John Lennon said his bar had been targeted “for no other reason than Catholics were in it at the time”.
Outside the bar, the frustrated loyalist/C18 gang then turned on Hugh McAnally, who was wearing a Glasgow Celtic shirt. They left him bleeding profusely from a severe neck wound.

ORCHESTRATED

Initial media reports suggesting that trouble had broken out between rival football supporters have been rubbished by eyewitness accounts. “It wasn’t a fight,” said one man, who had been spat and sworn at by members of the gang. “This was an orchestrated attack. People were frightened for their lives.”
A friend of Hugh McAnally who had been smoking outside Cosgrove’s Bar saw the gang flood into Castle Street.
“One of them spat in my face and called me a Fenian bastard. They were all dressed the same and I ran into the bar shouting.”
Inside the bar was a small group of older men and a few younger men playing pool upstairs. “They ran down and stopped them from getting in the bar,” he said. Moments later, he was told his friend had been seriously injured outside.
“My son told me that Hugh was laying on the road. I went over. Hugh was unconscious and there was blood pumping out of his neck. Drivers from a taxi depot were working on him and then the ambulance crew arrived.”
Hugh McAnally, a Scotsman who has lived in North Belfast for a number of years, remains critical in intensive care at the Royal Victoria Hospital as An Phoblacht goes to press. A second injured man was taken to hospital but discharged a few hours later.
After the attack, the gang ran along King Street and towards Jury’s Hotel to Great Victoria Street, where they were seen undoing their jackets to reveal Linfield scarves and colours.

DEATH THREAT TO REDS’ MANAGER

Earlier this week, a death threat was received by Cliftonville FC manager Eddie Patterson. A letter containing a bullet and addressed to the Cliftonville manager was intercepted by postal workers.
News of the threat had been suppressed prior to the match to avoid heightening tension. The match had been rescheduled to begin at 12.30 to avoid the possibility of supporters watching the televised ‘Big Firm’ Glasgow derby between Celtic and Rangers in bars before attending the match in east Belfast.
Despite the potential for trouble, tickets to watch Linfield were being openly sold without an identification requirement or a record of ticket purchasers. Cliftonville supporters not only required identification to buy a ticket but their names were recorded to ensure all those who attended the match would be traceable.
West Belfast MLA Paul Maskey, who arrived at the scene shortly after the attack, described the incident as a pre-meditated, sectarian attack. Maskey said Linfield supporters had arrived in Castle Street “intent on doing damage” and went to Cosgrove’s Bar “ready to kill”.
Sinn Féin has criticised the failure of the PSNI to respond urgently. “There are CCTV cameras all around the area and the PNSI is supposed to be monitoring them. Why was this allowed to happen?” Maskey asked.
“If action had been taken sooner, this awful demonstration of hate and sectarianism might not have taken place.”

DOUBTS

This latest incident comes at a time when nationalists are already expressing serious doubts about the PSNI’s willingness to protect them. The attack on Hugh McAnally came exactly two weeks after the brutal murder of Lower Falls resident Frank ‘Bap’ McGreevy.
A suspect in the McGreevy killing had absconded from a Young Offenders’ Centre two weeks earlier but, despite being given information of his whereabouts, the PSNI failed to take action. Information of the suspect’s location after the attack was also given to the PSNI but still no action was taken.
In both incidents the failure of the PSNI to act on information has led to serious outcomes – in the case of Bap McGreevy, death; in the case of Hugh McAnally, a life-threatening injury.
Sinn Féin’s Tom Hartley, chair of the West Belfast District Policing Partnership, said there are hard-hitting questions to be answered by the PSNI about their operations and their responses to warnings from the public.

rte.ie
Thursday, 3 April 2008

The Supreme Court has begun hearing an appeal against a High Court ruling last month that the families of some of the victims of the 1998 Omagh bombing are entitled to some, but not all, of the documentation they had been seeking for the trials of five men.

The families had been seeking the books of evidence and the transcripts of criminal trials involving each of the five men, to use them in proceedings for damages against the men.

They argued the documents were relevant to the action, which is due to take place before the High Court in Belfast next week.

The men opposed the application on the grounds that there was an impediment in law that prevented them from handing over the documentation and they could be in contempt of court by doing so.

The High Court ruled last month that books of evidence could be disclosed but the court found there was an impediment under Irish law preventing the defendants from handing over the transcripts of their trials at the Special Criminal Court.

Both the families and the five men have appealed the judgment to the Supreme Court.

The five men against whom discovery is being sought include Michael McKevitt, Beech Park, Blackrock, Co Louth, who is serving a 20 year sentence for directing terrorist activities for the Real IRA.

The Supreme Court has reserved judgment on his appeal against his conviction.

The five also include Seamus Daly, from Culloville, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, who was sentenced to three years after being found guilty of membership of an illegal organisation and Liam Campbell, from Upper Faughart, Dundalk, who was jailed for membership of an illegal organisation.

The fourth man is Seamus McKenna, formerly of Silverbridge, Co Armagh,but with an address at Marian Park, Dundalk, who was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for unlawful possession of explosives. They have all completed their sentences.

The families are also seeking certain materials relating to criminal proceedings taken against Co Armagh native Colm Murphy with an address at Jordan’s Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth, who is facing a re-trial on a conspiracy charge.

Mr Murphy has denied conspiring in Dundalk with another person not before the court to cause an explosion in the State or elsewhere between 13 and 16 August, 1998.

Apr 3rd 2008
From The Economist

The triumph and disappointments of the Good Friday Agreement ten years on

THE first Catholic church to be built in Belfast stands at the bottom of the Falls Road, the main, battle-scarred artery of Catholic west Belfast, an area that Protestants once avoided. Today, almost next door, is a swanky oyster bar, patronised by both Northern Irish tribes as well as the tourists the city has begun to attract since Tony Blair felt “the hand of history” on his shoulder and, on April 10th 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was signed.

Illustration by Steve O’Brien

Outside Northern Ireland, the agreement is often hailed as an example of how even the most stubborn conflict may be resolved. The results have been astonishing—in the demeanour of downtown Belfast, even more so in the halting political institutions the agreement established. The Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the only mainstream party to oppose the 1998 deal, presides (until his retirement in May) over the devolved executive. His deputy is the former IRA terrorist Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, whose Republican ambitions once seemed irreconcilable with peace. Yet inside Northern Ireland the agreement looks like a fine example of another truth: how depressingly thankless politics can be. The intimate sectarian violence is over, but lots of people are unhappy.

They don’t call it peace

The most vociferously disgruntled group are the Protestant unionists, for whom the sight of Mr McGuinness in a ministerial chair is morally repugnant. That basic unpalatability wrecked the career of David Trimble, who with the nationalist leader John Hume made the agreement possible; a settlement built by moderates ended up empowering Sinn Fein and the hitherto vituperative, medieval Mr Paisley. But the old unionist pessimism—a sense of being surrounded and imperilled—lives on. So does the atavistic fear of betrayal by the British government: no unionist politician of any stripe seems to have a kind word to say about Mr Blair. “We always knew the British were treacherous,” says one, “and we weren’t disappointed.”

Outside the political class, there is a similar feeling of “being on the losing side”, as a community worker from the Shankill Road, an infamous Protestant enclave adorned with garish murals of masked loyalist commandos, puts it. In places they regard as part of their patrimony, ordinary Protestants now encounter Catholics in Gaelic football shirts. Meanwhile the Belfast shipyards, once a staple employer of Protestants, have withered (the city, one local joke runs, should put up a monument to the Unknown British Taxpayer, who continues to provide whopping subsidies to the province, its relative prosperity notwithstanding). The perception is that the Catholics have done better. In a place where old triumphs or injustices, whether inflicted ten years ago or 300, are the stuff of politics and worse, this sense of a Catholic victory is dangerous.

It is not altogether misplaced, however. In economic terms, the buoyant Catholic middle class has been the most obvious beneficiary of the past ten years: freed from discrimination, and aided by the tendency of ambitious young Protestants to leave, Catholics have leapt up the career ladder, colonising the posh villas of south Belfast. In a way, though, that may also be a worry for Sinn Fein. Now that Northern Ireland has become a meritocratic, livable place, unification with Ireland looks less urgent to some. Young middle-class Catholics, says one successful Catholic businessman, are now more likely to demonstrate against American imperialism than the British kind.

Sinn Fein also faces a broader challenge: managing the unfinished transition from terrorism to peacetime politics. In west Belfast there are discontented rumbles about the antics of local yobs—even some calls for the IRA to kneecap miscreants as they used to—and about Gerry Adams, the once-lionised Sinn Fein leader who is the local MP.

Out in the Republican heartland of South Armagh, Sinn Fein faces a different version of the same problem. The country roads are enlivened by shrines to IRA bombers and hunger-strikers, plus mysteriously grand houses reputedly bought with the proceeds of smuggling, long intertwined with paramilitarism. Last October Paul Quinn, a young man from a less-grand house, was lured across the Irish border and horrifically beaten to death—by, his family and others think, local members of the IRA. Quinn, some say, irked the IRA men in pub brawls and otherwise. Though Sinn Fein says the IRA was not involved, the crime may point to the ongoing difficulty of adjusting a movement built for and by conflict to the post-agreement reality.

There is one big and collective reason for disappointment. Belfast now feels like a cosmopolitan city, but it is still a segregated one. Protestants and Catholics may sit next to each other at work, and some of them may rub shoulders in swanky restaurants and shopping centres, but they still overwhelmingly educate their children separately, at least until university, and live in discrete neighbourhoods. The number of Gazan “peace walls”, intended to prevent petrol bombs and the like being lobbed between the communities, has actually risen since 1998.

Still, new housing has been built in the erstwhile badland along the barrier separating the Falls and Shankill roads. (In the main square of Crossmaglen, the nearest town to the Quinn family’s home in South Armagh, the hated British watchtower has been dismantled, and an incongruously smart hotel has opened.) The agreement was not the beginning of the peace process; nor was it the end, as was amply demonstrated by the ensuing setbacks and missed deadlines, tantrums and threats, flexibility and dogmatism. But for all the outstanding gripes and confusions—which have consumed some of the deal’s architects, and may yet undo their political successors—it did entrench peace. A decade on, it still looks like a triumph, even if not everyone in Northern Ireland sees it that way yet.

By Niall O’Dowd
April 2, 2008
Irish Abroad

THE Good Friday Agreement will be celebrated in a blaze of glory next week when the 10th anniversary of the historic pact that brought lasting peace to Northern Ireland was signed. It was a magnificent document that managed to contain two utterly opposite ideas at its core.

For Unionists the document contained enough to convince them that the union was safe. For Nationalists it contained enough to promise that the framework for a united Ireland could be reached.

Those wishing to have a clear sense of just how incredible and tough the negotiating process was could buy the latest book Great Hatred Little Room by Jonathan Powell, who was at British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s side during the tough and seemingly intractable negotiations. The book gives a rare insight into the last second compromises, pitfalls and final successful tradeoff that made the historic deal happen.

That duality of purpose was the agreement’s greatest secret and its greatest accomplishment. David Trimble and Gerry Adams could see the same problem through their own prism and believe they had enough to convince their own people to buy into it.

There are many who deserve credit for its passage, not least the two governments who helped negotiate it, but perhaps none more than John Hume, the Nobel Prize winner who saw the necessity for the agreement to have a democratic mandate and the need to ensure that neither side could claim victory under its provenance.

There was also the American input of Senator George Mitchell and President Bill Clinton. Had they not been involved, the deal could never have been reached.

At a critical moment as both sides dithered, Mitchell called them together and insisted they sign or go home. His gamble paid off in spades.

It has been a close run thing since. Trimble has gone to be replaced by the Reverend Ian Paisley, who opposed the deal utterly when the agreement was first mooted.

But with the passage of time even Paisley came to acknowledge and accept the bargain at the core of the agreement, the belief that both sides could take enough from it to co-exist and govern together.

The past 10 years have seen a slow but steady advance towards the goal of the agreement of a joint administration in Northern Ireland with an all-Ireland dimension and a functioning government.

There is still one major aspect that is unfinished at this 10-year anniversary mark. That is the devolvement of justice and policing issues to the Northern Ireland government.

There are few more important functions for a government than to oversee the legal and policing work that is at the heart of any democracy.

The Unionist insistence that the powers not be devolved until a date uncertain makes little sense given the clear momentum and support that the new government has built up on both sides of the community since its inception.

To pause on the brink of total devolvement of powers make little sense, except as a delaying tactic, and we have seen far more of those than we needed too. The harsh litany of the decommissioning debacle, painfully recounted in the Powell book is warning enough that allowing issues to fester and simmer is in the long run, intolerable.

The end of ambiguity in the process about such issues as the IRA’s intentions and the true nature of Paisley’s intentions allowed the deal to reach its stated goal. It is now time to end the final stand off on the devolvement of policing and justice.

Then we can finally write finis to a remarkable chapter in Irish history.

Irish Times
03/04/2008

Less than half of nationalists believe the Police Service of Northern Ireland is doing a good job, a survey found today.

According to the Perceptions of Crime study by the Northern Ireland Office, only 48 per cent of nationalists believed police were doing a good job, compared to 67 per cent of unionists.

Unionists were more likely to express confidence in the force and its accountability arrangements, and only 44 per cent of those asked were happy with the criminal justice system, the Northern Ireland Office’s study found.

Sinn Féin has criticised police for failing to tackle criminality in areas such as west Belfast, a charge the PSNI strongly denies.

Confidence in Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson was marginally higher among Catholics than Protestants. Other findings included:

Overall public confidence in the criminal justice system increased to 44 per cent from 39 per cent in 2004.

NIO Criminal Justice Minister Paul Goggins said: “Four out of five people express confidence in the police; however the research also shows that more needs to be done to reassure the public and we will not be complacent in the ongoing fight against criminality.

Other findings included:

- Three-quarters of those who responded felt crime levels in Northern Ireland had increased in the preceding two years, similar to that during the last survey in 2005 but lower than earlier years.

- Anti-social behaviour was more likely to be a concern in Belfast, among victims of crime and those living in rented housing.