SAOIRSE32

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
Associated Press
3 May 2008

A Catholic and Protestant community in Belfast’s west inner city are separated by a wall called a peace line. It’s nearly 40 years old and 40 feet high.

Ten years after peace was declared in Northern Ireland, one might have expected that Belfast’s barriers would be torn down by now. But reality, as usual, is far messier. Not one has been dismantled. Instead they’ve grown in both size and number.

The past decade of peacemaking has brought political elites of both sides together in a Catholic-Protestant government in hopes that their example would trickle down. Their experiment in cooperation, highlighted by the power-sharing government’s first anniversary Thursday, has encouraged thriving employment, tourism and nightlife.

But it has not delivered meaningful reconciliation. Instead, for dozens of front-line communities of Belfast, fences still make the best neighbors.

“The Troubles” began at these sectarian flashpoints in the late 1960s, and survive today in a legacy of mutual fear and loathing. The rate of sectarian killings has fallen to virtually zero thanks to cease-fires underpinned by IRA disarmament, and the feeling on both sides is that the barriers help keep that peace.

“No. No way does that peace line come down,” said Cein’s mother, Allison Quinn, 32, sitting on her living room sofa on the Catholic side of the fence alongside her sister and a cousin.

Despite its height, every so often a particularly strong-armed Protestant manages to hurl a brick over the top — enough to rattle any backyard barbecue.

“It’s definitely not safe to take it down, and I don’t think it ever will be. There’s bitter loyalists over there,” Quinn said, using a term for anti-Catholic militants. “They’re out drinking in the street at night. If you take it down, they’d have easy access here and come over starting fights. You’d just be asking for trouble.”

The wall 30 paces from her front door was born in 1969 as makeshift coils of barbed wire laid by British troops, shipped in following riots that forced hundreds of families, mostly Catholics, from their homes.

At the time, the senior British army commander, Lt. Gen. Ian Freeland, predicted: “The peace line will be a very, very temporary affair. We will not have a Berlin Wall or anything like that in this city.”

But those barbed-wire coils became miles-long brick walls separating Catholic from Protestant in west Belfast. Even higher walls shield a Catholic enclave in Protestant east Belfast, while the north side is carved up by dozens of smaller barriers.

In this city of 650,000, roughly half Catholic and half Protestant, only the university district and upper-class streets, chiefly on the south side, bear no clear-cut tribal identity.

The newest peace line, erected earlier this year, runs past one of Belfast’s few “integrated” elementary schools — a place where Catholic and Protestant students are deliberately brought together. Fewer than 3 percent of Northern Ireland kids attend such schools.

Quinn, an unemployed single mother, loves her newly built town house, complete with oak floors and modern kitchen, its rent subsidized by the British government Housing Executive. That it’s right by the barricade doesn’t bother her at all.

“I would never move. It’s so handy. And it’s lovely,” Quinn says emphatically.

Just then her boy Cein comes in, rubbing his head after bumping it on a curbstone while playing outside. He’s soon immersed in his handheld video game.

Asked if he’s ever gone next door to see the Protestants, Cein says no. Would he like to meet his neighbors and play in their playground?

“No way,” he says with a smile. Why not? “‘Cuz they’re ugly.”

His mother shrugs. “I’d like him to mix with Protestant kids, but it’s just not safe,” she says.

Outside Quinn’s cul-de-sac, children’s voices float over from beyond the wall. By day, when the peace line is opened for traffic, those kids are a few minutes’ walk away. By dusk, when the doors are locked, it might take an hour.

On the Protestant side of the wall is a fenced-in, concrete soccer field. Here a stranger is greeted by two boys who let loose with suspicious questions and bigoted quips. Their fathers belong to the UDA, the Ulster Defense Association, a militant Protestant group that killed more than 300 Catholics from 1971 to its 1994 cease-fire.

“Are youse a taig?” says one burly boy, using an insulting word for an Irish Catholic.

“It’s all taigs over there,” says another, waving dismissively at the wall. “They’re soap-dodgers, so they are.”

Soap-dodgers?

“Sure, them ones never take a shower. You can smell ‘em from here.” The boys laugh and resume their game.

This is where Lee Young, Cein’s neighbor, plays soccer. The boy wears the blue jersey of Glasgow Rangers, a Scottish soccer club with an exclusively Protestant following in Belfast. Were he to walk next door onto Catholic turf, he would be certain to suffer verbal bullying or worse — perhaps from kids wearing the green of Glasgow Celtic, the Catholic favorite.

Wearing the “wrong” sports gear is just one of scores of sectarian measuring sticks that have proven deadly in the past. So are names. A “Cein” — a Gaelic name pronounced Keane — would be instantly identified as Irish Catholic, because the Protestant side shuns the Irish language.

On Lee’s Protestant street, just past the modest playground, a few wind-tattered British flags flutter above doorsteps and a wall mural salutes the masked gunmen of the UDA. Youths have adorned walls with “KAT,” short for “Kill all taigs,” as well as insults to the pope.

On the Catholic side, the turf is marked with Irish flags, Gaelic street signs, IRA murals and insults to Queen Elizabeth II.

John Young, Lee’s dad, is as moderate a soul as you could meet on either side of the peace line. He thinks the peace process, and gradually lessening tensions, mean that the wall probably could come down. But there’s always a but.

“But there’s no need to take it down. I wouldn’t really think about it at all. I’m happy enough with it there,” said Young, 34.

Young acknowledges that only a decade ago he was a hard-line hothead who joined the Orange Order, a Protestant club with an anti-Catholic ethos, and scuffled with police and Catholics in street clashes.

He says his varied work experiences since — as security guard, construction worker and now grocery store deliveryman — mellowed him through regular social contact with Catholics. He resigned from the Orange Order a few years ago.

“I drive through that peace line almost every day to the other side’s homes and there’s no bother,” Young said. “The other side would actually treat you better — tip you quicker.”

But he acknowledges that some neighborhoods, those most notorious for Irish Republican Army sympathies, give him the creeps. “There’s areas I have to drive into where the hair stands up on the back of your neck. But that’s only natural.”

Catholic colleagues on occasion have invited him across the wall for an after-hours pint at their pub. He won’t go.

“You’d be afraid that they might recognize you’re from the other side. Am I too tight in the eyes?” he said, referring to a stereotype of Protestant eyes supposedly being closer together.

His boy is asked whether he’d like to go over the wall to play with Catholics.

“The wall’s so the taigs don’t attack us. We don’t go over there,” Lee answers matter-of-factly.

His father is visibly discomforted. “My son wouldn’t know a Catholic from a Hindu. It’s just the friends he plays with. They’re sons of UDA men and they teach him: ‘That’s taigs over there,’” he said.

If Lee and Cein ever met, it would be at one of Belfast’s many “neutral” playgrounds, pools, parks or upscale suburbs.

Indeed, the nearest Cein and many other kids from west Belfast have been to Lee’s home is a city-run swimming pool on the nearby Shankill Road. It has Belfast’s only wave-maker. They travel there in school-supervised visits.

Cein’s mother said she would like to shop on the Shankill, where stores are family-run and cheaper. The IRA blew one up in 1993, a fishmonger’s, killing nine Protestants in a bungled targeting of UDA commanders.

But there’s only one Shankill business she considers worth the risk — the drive-through window of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“We’ve got no Kentucky on our side. Mmm-mmm,” she said, making a finger-licking gesture. “But you’d never walk. You’d nip over and make it quick.”

There are striking similarities between the experiences of the Quinns and the Youngs. Both feel safe living beside a peace line. Both say their problems come from hell-raisers within their own community, not the other side. Both feel powerless to stop them.

Quinn said her previous neighborhood — barely a half-mile away in a sprawling, low-rise housing project — is increasingly overrun by glue-sniffing, car-stealing teens. Such behavior was once brutally suppressed by IRA “kneecapping” squads. But the group has been keeping its 2005 promise to renounce bloodshed, and that means no more vigilante violence either.

“The hoods have taken over. There’s no telling them what to do. It’s the Wild West,” she said.

Quinn says she has never called the cops to prevent a crime, and doesn’t think she ever will. Her attitude illustrates the other daunting task of peacemaking — to build Catholic trust in what was once an overwhelmingly Protestant police force.

A sweeping reform program with affirmative-action recruitment over the past seven years has dramatically reshaped the police, with the goal of a 30 percent Catholic force. But many Catholics remain hostile to the police — or fearful of being labeled collaborators.

So does she think the IRA should resume shooting teens in the legs? An uncomfortable silence follows.

“Well, I don’t know. But the current situation is out of control,” she says finally.

Like Quinn, Young moved his family much closer to a peace line about three years ago to get a better state-provided house, even though the street had a history of murderous UDA feuding. “Before, you’d be considered crazy to buy here. But people’s attitudes are changing. There’s not so much to be scared of anymore,” Young said.

But police say UDA members orchestrate most crime in the area. Some are Young’s neighbors.

“I call them the problem ones,” he said, pointing to a row of houses outside his kitchen window, then lowering his finger because he didn’t want anyone there to see. “I know who they are and what they do.”

His backyard fence burned down recently when a car belonging to a UDA neighbor was torched, apparently in a criminal dispute.

“I’ve really no problems with Roman Catholics,” Young said with a wry smile. “It’s my own kind that cause me the headaches. Maybe I need another peace line!”

___

On the Net:

Map and photos of Belfast peace lines:

http://www.belfastinterfaceproject.org/interfacemap.asp

British former Secretary of State Peter Hain took the decision to block the inquiry into allegations of collusion between British forces and their agents in the UDA who carried out Pat Finucane’s murder

By Laura Friel
An Phoblacht
1 May 2008

A SECRET decision by a British former Secretary of State to block the public inquiry into the killing of solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989 has been exposed. A decision to halt the proceedings was taken by Peter Hain in 2006 but the Finucane family was never informed.

Photo: British former Secretary of State Peter Hain took the decision to block the inquiry into allegations of collusion between British forces and their agents in the UDA who carried out Pat Finucane’s murder

Pat Finucane was shot 14 times in his north Belfast home on 12 February 1989. The attack was claimed by the Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters.
An RUC Special Branch agent and UDA gunman, Ken Barrett, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004 for the murder. On his release last year, after serving nearly three years of a recommended 22-year sentence, Barrett was spirited out of Ireland to a safe haven by the British Ministry of Defence.
Another RUC agent, UDA quartermaster William Stobie was also implicated in the killing.
Peter Hain’s decision to prevent the public inquiry came to light in early April after a letter from the NIO was sent to his widow, Geraldine Finucane.
The letter came from British Secretary of State Shaun Woodward’s senior private secretary, Simon Marsh, and referred to an earlier decision to jettison the inquiry by Peter Hain. “We were not informed of this decision at the time,” Geraldine Finucane said.
In fact the family only learnt of the decision after they contacted the NIO to request an update on the progress towards opening an inquiry.

According to the letter, Hain had decided: “It was no longer justifiable to continue to devote public money to preparations for an inquiry which the family would refuse to accept under the terms of the Inquiries Act.”
But Hain’s ruling had been kept a secret not only from the Finucane family but also Judge Cory, the Irish Government and the public at large.
It was Canadian Judge Peter Cory who had recommended an independent public inquiry into the Finucane murder. Cory had been tasked by the British Government to probe a number of controversial killings.
The judge had been appointed with the understanding that his decision would be accepted by the British Government as binding. The judge also understood that if he recommended an inquiry was to be both independent and public it would be just that.
Cory recommended an independent public inquiry in relation to a number of killings, including Pat Finucane in 2004. The British Government’s immediate response to Cory’s recommendation was to rush through legislation to impose restrictions.
By transferring control of the conduct of the inquiry into the hands of British ministers and allowing key witness evidence to be heard in secret, the Inquiries Act undermined both its independence and transparency.
Judge Cory and the Finucane family objected. Shamefully, Hain cites this objection as the reason behind his decision to block the inquiry.
Geraldine Finucane said:
“The letter stated that the decision was taken because my family refused to accept ministerial control of an inquiry under the notorious Inquiries Act 2005.
“They appear to be saying that unless we agree that British Government ministers should be allowed to control what information the inquiry is permitted to examine in public there will be no inquiry at all.”
Despite the fact that the undertaking to abide by recommendations from Judge Cory had been accepted by the both the British and Irish governments at Weston Park, the Irish Government was never informed of Hain’s decision to abandon the inquiry.
Following a meeting with the Finucane family in Dublin last Thursday, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern reiterated the Irish Government’s support for an independent public inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane.
“The Finucane family have travelled a long and difficult road in their search for the truth. I reiterate the Government’s continuing support for a public inquiry into Pat’s murder. That position has full all-party support in Dáil Éireann,” Bertie Ahern said.
The Finucane family have asked the Taoiseach to raise the issue during his address to a joint session of the US Congress next Wednesday. Last year, Ahern made reference to the Finucane case and the issue of collusion during an address to the joint Houses of Commons and Lords at Westminster.
Evidence of British state collusion in the murder of a Belfast defence lawyer has not only commanded enduring public attention in Ireland but has also been the focus of widespread international concern.
In light of this, a decision by a British minister to secretly block the inquiry while maintaining the public perception that an inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane would take place is more than disingenuous – it is downright deceitful.
Geraldine Finucane said:
“I have long doubted whether the British Government had any real intention of ever establishing a genuinely independent public inquiry into Pat’s murder. This letter confirms my worst suspicions.
“They have misled my family, the Irish Government and they have misled the European Court of Human Rights.”
A case cannot be taken to the European Court until all domestic avenues of redress have been sought and denied. By maintaining the appearance that an inquiry was in progress the British Government has stalled the involvement of the international courts.
Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey has accused the British Government of “continuing their policy of concealment and cover-up”. He added:
“In the years since the murder of Pat Finucane, the British Government have consistently frustrated every effort to get to the truth. They have deliberately sought to cover up the role of British state agencies in this murder.”

Irish Times
02/05/2008

An expert on performance art is to help defend a loyalist killer who raided the Northern Ireland Assembly allegedly carrying explosives and a knife.

A barrister for Stone (53) said he was awaiting the academic study ahead of this month’s five-week trial at Belfast Crown Court.

The former Ulster Defence Association gunman faces 14 charges including trying to kill Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in November 2006.

Defence lawyer Charles McCreanor said: “Experts have been engaged, they believe that they can provide a report of an academic nature.” Stone is charged with possessing home-made explosives and a real or imitation gun with intent.

He was also accused of carrying a garrotte, three knives and an axe and assaulting staff members who trapped him in the revolving entrance door at Stormont.

In 1988 the defendant killed three mourners at a republican funeral in west Belfast for the SAS’s IRA victims in Gibraltar. He also hurled grenades into the crowd of 10,000 people.

In December 2006 his lawyer told Belfast High Court that he didn’t intend to endanger anybody’s life and the explosives were not viable.

He insisted the attack, which forced the evacuation of parliament buildings near Belfast, was performance art.

His trial is expected to start later this month.

Irish News
By Barry McCaffrey and William Graham
02/05/08

SINN Fein and the SDLP last night clashed over the Independent Monitoring Commission’s (IMC) assertion that there was no evidence to link the IRA to the killing of south Armagh man Paul Quinn.

Yesterday the IMC said it had concluded that the IRA had not carried out the murder of 21-year-old Mr Quinn who died in hospital hours after being savagely beaten by a masked gang at an isolated farm house in Co Monaghan last October.

“We think that the attack on Paul Quinn was planned and carried out by local people and that it arose from local disputes,” the IMC said.

“Whatever the immediate reason for the killing certain aspects of these disputes go back some time and were not unconnected with continuing illegal activity.”

The IMC said it believed former IRA members or associates had been among the gang who had carried out the brutal attack on Mr Quinn but said it could find no evidence that the IRA had ordered the killing.

“The fact that some local members or former members or associates of the organisation were involved in the incident does not in our view justify attributing it to the PIRA,” its report read.

Insisting that the IMC report had vindicated Mr Quinn’s parents in blaming the PIRA for their son’s death, SDLP assembly member Dominic Bradley said: “Far from ab-solving the Provisional IRA in south Armagh the IMC has essentially reiterated what it said last November and repeated to the Quinn family in my presence – that current and former members of the Provisional IRA were involved.

“No-one in Cullyhanna has ever claimed the [IRA] army council ordered this murder.

“On the contrary, it is quite clear that the killers were disobeying the organisation but they were acting within its local structures.

“The IMC has fully recognised the nature of Provisional community control in south Armagh and the way that senior provisionals demand, but no longer get, deference from young people in the area.

“That is the real key to the Quinn murder and Sinn Fein cannot evade its own responsibility for Provo community control.”

Reacting to the IMC assertion that the PIRA had not been responsible for Paul Quinn’s murder, Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness said: “We said from the very beginning that we did not believe the IRA was involved in the murder of Paul Quinn.

“Now the IMC, a body with which we fundamentally disagree, has come out and actually agreed with our analysis.”

Insisting that any information about Mr Quinn’s murder should be passed on to the police, Mr McGuinness said: “The people who murdered Paul Quinn are murderers and criminals.

“There is a duty and responsibility on everybody within society, including the republican/nationalist community in south Armagh, to cooperate with the Garda and the PSNI to ensure that these criminals are brought to justice.”

Irish News
By Simon Doyle Education Correspondent
02/05/08

FORMER education minister Martin McGuinness jumped to the defence of his beleaguered executive and party colleague Caitriona Ruane yesterday.

The deputy first minister said Ms Ruane had no intention of resigning, nor would she be stripped of the education ministry by Sinn Fein.

She has faced calls from some political opponents to stand down over her delay in revealing her plans for a new system to replace the 11-plus.

Ms Ruane has also lost support of many primary school principals with two thirds saying they have no confidence in her ability to deliver a quality alternative to the transfer test.

A poll by The Irish News also found that head teachers did not have enough informa-

tion about the post 11-plus arrangements to prepare their staff and pupils.

Speaking at a business lunch organised by Dundalk Chamber of Commerce, Mr McGuinness voiced his support for Ms Ruane.

As education minister Mr McGuinness first announced the demise of the transfer test in 2002.

Yesterday he said there had been a lot of debate about education but that his party would not replace Ms Ruane as a minister, nor would she quit her post.

Ms Ruane has said she will provide detail of her proposals at an executive meeting on May 15.

“Sinn Fein is going to make sure there is maximum change because our system is currently failing many of our young people and that can-not continue,” she said on Wednesday.

Ms Ruane has insisted she intends to abolish academic selection with pupils themselves to make key choices at the age of 14 but exactly how this will be put into force remains unclear.

It will probably involve pu-pil profiles, which are de-signed to give parents information to help them choose an appropriate post-primary school for their children.

Clearly defined admissions criteria will be used when schools are oversubscribed – but these will exclude academic performance, according to Ms Ruane.

It is likely therefore that many children will win places at post-primary schools closest to their home.

Irish News
By Barry McCaffrey
02/05/08

THE IRA remains firmly committed to politics while the leaderships of the UVF and UDA are still trying to move its members away from paramilitarism and crime, accor-ding to the International Monitoring Commission (IMC).

In its latest six-monthly report the IMC found that the tiny Oghlaigh Na hEireann dissident group had been responsible for the only paramilitary killing between September and February with the murder of Strabane man Andrew Burns.

The Real IRA was blamed for gun attacks on off-duty policemen in Derry and Dungannon in November and a series of hoax bomb threats, including a warning that a bomb had been planted at the war memorial on the 20th anniversary of the Enniskillen bombing.

A number of alleged RIRA members were arrested trying to buy weapons in Lithuania in January.

The dissident group is reported to be keen to repeat a bombing campaign carried out on commercial properties across Northern Ireland in late 2005, which caused millions of pounds in damage.

However, in what is understood to be the first indication of its kind, the IMC said it had “reason to believe some members are starting to real-ise the futility of what they are doing”.

The RIRA was said to remain involved in extortion, smuggling, drugs and robbery.

The IMC found that the Continuity IRA continued to recruit members and target the security forces.

It was blamed for planting an explosive device at a war memorial in Newry in November.

It had suffered a number of setbacks after recent weapons finds in Armagh, Craigavon and Newry but remained “active, dangerous and committed”.

It was reported to be involved in widespread criminal activity including drugs, extortion, robbery, brothels and smuggling.

While the INLA was blamed for an assault in Derry in September it was not thought to be “seriously active” in the six months under review.

However, it was said to be a “threat with capacity for extreme violence”.

The IMC report found that the IRA had not been involved in any shootings, assaults or intimidation in the six-month period.

It said the only intelligence gathered was against dissidents, criminals and suspected informers.

“The leadership remained firmly committed to the political path… we do not believe it will be diverted from it,” the report said.

It said the transfer of senior republicans into Sinn Fein leadership positions was “important further evidence of the move to a peaceful and democratic role”.

The IMC noted the emergence of another splinter group, the IRLA, but does not believe it poses a serious threat.

The IMC found that the efforts of UVF and UDA leaders to move away from paramilitarism had led to some “disgruntled” members considering forming dissident groups.

While the report blamed dissident loyalists for a pipe-bomb attack on a GAA pitch in Banbridge in December and a house in Antrim in January it found there was no “significant support” for orchestrated violence.

A limited UVF structure was said to remain in place to “downsize” its organisation and centralise its arms.

The UVF leadership was found to have taken action against individual members who had attempted to buy weapons.

However, despite UVF leaders attempts to distance the organisation from crime individual members remain involved in drug dealing, extortion and money laundering.

The IMC said the UVF remained true to its announcement last May that its war was over: “We are satisfied that the leadership is committed to further development in this direction. But more remains to be done, above all in respect of decommissioning.”

The report called on the British government to reconsider the de-specification of the UVF.

However, the IMC report showed less success within the UDA.

While accepting that the UDA leadership had tried to move its organisation away from paramilitarism, it said the absence of any “effective central structure” meant the pace of change had been “far too slow” with no sign of decommissioning.

It welcomed UDA efforts to reduce the size of its organisation and its better cooperation with the PSNI.

However, it said the UDA leadership’s efforts had been met with “limited success”.

Some UDA men, including some at senior levels, believed it was too early for decommissioning.

The report highlighted a “lack of strategic coherence” at leadership level which had been unable to force change and was compounded by a “lack of respect for authority” among UDA rank-and-file.

A number of UDA members are reported to have attempted to buy weapons, on an “individual and opportunistic” basis.

Despite attempts to move the UDA away from criminality its members continued to be involved in drug dealing, extortion and loan sharking.

The LVF is reportedly heavily involved in drugs, with no paramilitary activity or political direction.

In the six months from September to February loyalists were responsible for one gun attack, with republicans carrying out six shootings.

Loyalists were responsible for 25 so-called punishment beatings, with republicans blamed for four assaults.

Irish News
02/05/08

The chief constable has been interviewed under caution after leading loyalist paramilitaries accused him of prejudicing their right to a fair trial, it was revealed yesterday.

Sir Hugh Orde said the Police Ombudsman’s office questioned him after receiving a complaint from convicted criminals Ihab and Andre Shoukri, who are brothers, and William ‘Mo’ Courtney.

The loyalists claim the PSNI’s top officer interfered with their right to a fair

hearing in court by publicly claiming they were leading figures in the paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Defence Association.

Andre Shoukri and Courtney are serving lengthy jail terms for violent crimes while Ihab Shoukri is awaiting sentencing after admitting membership of the UDA at his trial last month.

Sir Hugh described the complaint as laughable and said it was indicative of a tactic used by criminals in Northern Ireland to throw a smokescreen around their wrongdoings.

“I think it’s interesting these so-called big men go running to the ombudsman when we arrest them for very serious offences,” Mr Orde said at a Policing Board meeting in Belfast.

“I think that’s an almost laughable tactic.

“But it’s a very real issue for my officers who are routinely complained about – un-founded complaints because people are trying to throw a smokescreen around quite lawful, proper and legitimate arrests and all credit to the ombudsman, they investigate these things fully and very frequently find there is no case for my officers to answer.

The ombudsman has not yet informed Sir Hugh of its findings regarding the complaint.

Sir Hugh said the complaint would in no way deflect him or his officers from pursuing paramilitaries.

At yesterday’s monthly meeting of the Policing Board Sir Hugh conceded it was inevitable that more police stations would close in the future.

He was responding to concern raised in some rural areas that a review of the PSNI estate would see fewer officers on the beat.

The chief constable said closures were needed if police were to adapt to an operating budget £88 million less than the force wanted for the next three years.

“We have to achieve a balance between investment in some new buildings, which is absolutely essential, and improving and softening the appearance of some other stations,” he said.

“That having been said, it is inevitable there will be more stations closed on the grounds of achieving greater police efficiency and coming in on budget and we have been coming in on budget for the last six years.”

Irish News
**Via Newshound
By Allison Morris
02/05/08

Charges have been dropped against all loyalists arrested during a UDA feud that engulfed a Co Antrim town and led to tensions in the executive.

A standoff between the mainstream UDA and its dissident south-east Antrim ‘bri-gade’ in Carrickfergus last summer led to a police officer being shot in the back.

The attack was widely re-ported to have been an attempt on the life of UDA ‘bri-gadier’ Jackie McDonald, pictured, who was in the area at the time.

Social development minister Margaret Richie withdrew £1.2 million in funding for loyalist areas after the trouble.

Her decision sparked tensions within the executive and is being challenged in the High Court.

In the past nine months almost 100 people living in Carrickfergus have received death threats as a result of the feud.

Although 18 people have been arrested and charged with serious offences since the violence began, none of the prosecutions have gone ahead due to a lack of “available evidence”. Convictions have only been achieved in a handful of cases for minor non-paramilitary crimes.

Tensions remain high in the town. A shotgun was fired at a home in the Castlemara estate on Sunday.

Two men had been due to appear before Belfast Magistrates Court on Wednesday morning but the charges were withdrawn at the last minute.

In July last year south-east Antrim loyalist Thompson Gilmore appeared in court charged with aiding and abetting the attempted murder of a man during violence close to his Castlemara home.

By October those charges had been dropped. The Public Prosecution Service said the reason was “evidential”.

In the same month Gilmore was rearrested in Carrickfergus and charged with affray, assault and having a hatchet. Those charges were withdrawn last month because of “insufficient evidence”.

He was arrested this week in relation to serious crime in the Castlemara estate but released without charge.

Others living in Carrick who walked free last month after having charges dropped are:

- Darren Duff (22), of Glenfield Walk, charged with causing Gilmore grievous bodily harm and assaulting Stanley Fletcher

- his co-accused Barry Waite (33), of Sunningdale Crescent

- Philip Aiken (35), of Castlemara Walk, and Daniel Millar (36), of Schomberg Court, who both had attempted murder charges thrown out. Aik-en pleaded guilty to a minor charge of possessing a knife, whereas Millar admitted an unrelated offence of possessing a class C drug.

Inspector Tommy Mahood said that despite the lack of prosecutions police were still committed to bringing those involved in the feud before the courts.

“We are committed to tackling criminal activity throughout Carrickfergus and work with partner agencies and community groups to tackle issues of concern,” he said.

Irish News
**Via Newshound
02/05/08

CONVICTED Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt has “switched off” from the Omagh bomb civil action, the High Court has heard.

A lawyer for the victims’ relatives made the claim yesterday after being told McKevitt had shown no interest in giving evidence even when proceedings move to Dublin.

McKevitt, one of five men being sued over the August 1998 attack which killed 29 people, has video conferencing facilities installed at Portlaoise Prison to allow him to follow the multi-million-pound compensation case in Belfast.

But Lord Brennan QC, for the Omagh families, hit out at McKevitt’s level of participation compared with the effort being made by his clients.

“My clients have come to court day by day and are very conscious of the fact they are coming,” he said.

“But this defendant has switched off literally. He’s not taking part, save by consultation through video link.”

His assessment followed confirmation by McKevitt’s barrister, Michael O’Higgins SC, that he had expressed no interest in taking part when the trial moves to Dublin later this month.

Lord Brennan said the judge in the case, Mr Justice Declan Morgan, could draw an adverse inference from anyone not giving evidence.

He made the claim amid continuing arguments over whether the testimony of FBI spy David Rupert, who played a key role in securing McKevitt’s conviction for directing terrorism in 2003, should be allowed.

Mr Rupert, now living in hiding at a secret location under a witness protection programme, has been forbidden from appearing in person or on a video-link, the court has been told.

Lord Brennan said up to 2,300 emails and documents, seven statements, corroboration from gardai and others who met and dealt with Mr Rupert, and the transcripts from his testimony at the criminal trial would all be available if his evidence is admitted.

But Mr O’Higgins questioned why a distinction should be drawn between the no-show of Mr Rupert and McKevitt, who is being sued along with Seamus McKenna, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly. All five deny liability.

He said the plaintiffs had “glossed over” his questioning of their legal right to introduce Mr Rupert as hear-say evidence and that this was “another inconsistency” in the prosecution’s approach.

The trial continues.

Belfast Telegraph
By Victoria O’Hara
Thursday 1, May 2008

A young Catholic man stabbed to death in a brutal attack 12 years ago was the victim of a sectarian attack, an inquest has heard.

The family of Niall Donovan (28), who was killed in June 1996 during a visit to relatives in Dungannon, wept as details of his death were read out in court yesterday.

The inquest, held in Belfast heard Mr Donovan was found lying on the roadside at Manse Road by passing taxi driver Dominic Donaghy and two passengers at around 4.20am.

He had sustained a deep stab wound to his stomach.

He was rushed to hospital and underwent an emergency blood transfusion but later died from internal bleeding at the South Tyrone Hospital.

Despite extensive inquiries no-one has been charged with his murder.

The court also heard that 21 knives had been recovered from the area but not one could be linked to the murder.

The case is now being reviewed by the Historical Enquiries Team.

Coroner John Leckey asked Detective Inspector Ian McDonald if a motive for the murder had been established.

Mr McDonald said there had been speculation it was the first murder carried out by the LVF.

However, he added that although there was no direct evidence to link the murder to the LVF he said a number of people questioned about the killing were later arrested in connection with loyalist paramilitary activity.

Mr McDonald also said the LVF first emerged in the summer of 1996. He said it was his personal belief that the motive for the murder was sectarian.

A postmortem carried out by State pathologist Prof Jack Crane indicated that possibly a kitchen knife, was the murder weapon.

Mr McDonald said there had been no new evidence. In court the victim’s father Dermott Donovan hit out at why it took so long for the inquest to be held but asked Mr McDonald to “keep trying hard please” to find his son’s killers.

Mr Leckey explained all the coroners offices in Northern Ireland had been merged and many files had been passed to his office.

“I’m terribly sorry the inquest has not been held earlier,” he said.

Speaking afterwards Carolee Donovan said it was “the worst day of my life” hearing how her eldest son had died 12 years after his murder.

Belfast Telegraph
Friday 2, May 2008

A year since the UVF announced it would assume a “non-military” role, Brian Rowan asks whether its leadership will ever deliver up its guns…

They were introduced by their first names only.

The UVF leadership was meeting the Eames-Bradley Consultative Group on Northern Ireland’s Past.

That meeting dates back to February — and the issue of the past is part of the unfinished business after the war.

A year has now passed since the UVF endgame statement of May 3 last year.

At midnight on that date, the UVF and associated Red Hand Commando assumed “a non-military, civilianised role”.

Those were the words the organisations chose to say they were leaving Ulster’s war stage.

“All recruitment has ceased, military training has ceased, targeting has ceased and all intelligence rendered obsolete.”

This is what was different £ what the change and the new role would mean.

The UVF said all its active service units had been “deactivated”, and all “ordnance” £ meaning weapons — had been “put beyond reach”.

Gusty Spence was asked to read the words from a podium draped in a Union Flag.

Like the issue of the past, the question of the UVF’s guns, is also part of the present — part of the unfinished business.

It is a question that has not yet been answered to the satisfaction of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.

What “beyond reach” actually means in terms of the UVF’s weapons has never been publicly explained, but it does not mean “beyond use” in the sense of meeting the requirements of decommissioning.

The leader of the Progressive Unionist Party Dawn Purvis cannot deliver on the weapons issue.

That decision rests with those men in the UVF leadership — those introduced by their first names in that meeting with the Eames-Bradley Consultative Group three months ago.

And the question remains: Can that leadership deliver?

The Independent Monitoring Commission, which reported yesterday, recognises the progress that is being made by the UVF, and hopes that more can and will be achieved.

“It seems to me that there is a substantial difference between the strategic coherence of the UVF and a much less clear approach and capacity from the UDA,” IMC Commissioner Lord Alderdice told the Belfast Telegraph.

“There has been particular progress on the part of the UVF and we still hope that they will do what is necessary with the IICD (Independent International Commission on Decommissioning).

“We clearly hope for progress from the UDA, but the position there is less clear and the capacity of the leadership to deliver is also uncertain,” he continued.

Twelve months down the road from May last year, the big issues for the UVF are its guns, what contribution it will make to an explanation or an answering of the past, what is its continuing and future relationship with the Progressive Unionist Party and how it fits into a changing community.

These are the issues it wants to talk about and not talk about — some are easier than others.

The organisation does not like the public focus on its weapons, and the progress hoped for by Lord Alderdice and his colleagues may not be achieved.

Behind the scenes, in private, the UVF is involved in a continuing debate and conversation about political relationships and its community role.

But as for any contribution it might make on the question of the past — it is still not certain why the UVF leadership was prepared to have that conversation with the Eames-Bradley Group.

The UVF like the IRA is still out there in some structured form — and it is still part of the debate and the discussion.

It has not yet gone away.

I asked one loyalist from a prison and paramilitary background for his observation one year on — what is different?

He used the word “realisation” — “a realisation that things have to change”.

This is the political and peace momentum that is making these organisations think and do things differently.