SAOIRSE32

Film about the IRA hunger striker fuels argument over Sinn Fein ’sell-out’

By David McKittrick
Independent.co.ukl
Sunday, 18 May 2008

Bobby Sands, the subject of the controversial new film Hunger, shown at Cannes, is hardly a hero to everyone in Ireland, but to republicans he is a potent symbol of self-sacrifice.

While republican factions continue to debate whether he would have supported the present peace process, they are united in regarding him as a martyr who died an agonising death for their cause after a 66-day hunger strike.

The film, the debut feature by the Turner prize-winning artist Steve McQueen, pulls no punches in its portrayal of the bitter dispute between prisoners at the notorious Maze prison in Northern Ireland and the Government.

It details the last six weeks of Sands’s life. He died aged 27 in 1981 during IRA protests over the political status of prisoners. Michael Fassbender, who plays Sands, starved himself for two months in preparation for the role. With little dialogue, vivid images of prisoners being beaten and one 22-minute shot, the film is both controversial and innovative.

Primarily, Sands is claimed as one of the foremost symbols of mainstream Sinn Fein, whose leader, Gerry Adams, was imprisoned with him in the Maze prison in the 1970s. A large mural of Sands is emblazoned on the wall of Sinn Fein headquarters on Belfast’s Falls Road, and he has been commemorated every year since his death.

Sands is also claimed by dissident republicans who make up the breakaway Real IRA and its tiny political wing, the 32-county Sovereignty Movement. Although the Adams-led republican movement is more influential than the dissidents, they have the advantage of having his sister, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, as a prominent member.

She argues that Adams has sold out republican principles. She declared: “Peace is not what our people fought for. They fought for independence.” Her husband, Michael McKevitt, is behind bars for attempting to put this into practice, serving a 20-year sentence for terrorist offences. He and other alleged leaders of the Real IRA are being pursued in a civil action by relatives of those killed in the 1998 Omagh bombing.

But the majority of the republican movement regards Sands as playing an important early part in the peace process. When the IRA declared last year that it was going out of business it nominated Seanna Walsh, who had been a cellmate and friend of Sands, to make the announcement. He lauded Sands as a “poet warrior, the indomitable spirit of the republican prisoner”.

Sands features in an ongoing political dispute, since many unionists oppose the idea of turning the now defunct Maze prison into a sports stadium. This is primarily because they fear it would incorporate a “shrine” to the dead republican.

News Letter
17 May 2008

THERE are fresh doubts over the future of the Maze stadium project because the cost is believed to have spiralled by tens of millions of pounds.

Department of Finance officials delivered the much anticipated assessment of the business case for the multi-sports arena to Minister Peter Robinson yesterday.

It is understood that the appraisal details costs which go way beyond the initial £100 million costing – providing the Stormont Executive with a headache over affordability.

Mr Robinson is expected to put together a summary of the report to present to the Executive for discussion.

It had been thought he may bring a recommendation to the Cabinet, but the emphasis is expected to be very much on a collective decision.

Last week, Mr Robinson said that even if the stadium did not go ahead, something would have to be built on the 260-acre site.

The Executive is mindful that if it cannot make productive use of the Maze, it will undermine its case for seeking other government owned land – such as former Army bases – for development.

Mr Robinson has said that if the Maze stadium does not go ahead, the main football, rugby and GAA stadia across Northern Ireland would be improved.

The site for a national stadium in Northern Ireland has divided political opinion.

Sinn Fein has said the party will not support the idea unless it is on the site of the former Maze Prison.

However, some unionists oppose the Maze site because of plans for a conflict transformation centre at the stadium.

The GAA, Irish FA and Ulster Rugby have confirmed they would play at the Maze venue.

Stormont Sports Minister Edwin Poots had outlined a business case for a 35,000-seater stadium capable of hosting major football, rugby and Gaelic matches as part of the regeneration of the Maze site.

However, some Northern Ireland football fans have been opposed to international games being staged at the Maze, arguing it would be much better to build a new stadium in Belfast City instead of a site nearer the much smaller City of Lisburn.

Unionists have been unnerved by the suggestion that a conflict transformation centre could be built along with the stadium, retaining one of the infamous H-Blocks where 10 republican hunger strikers starved themselves to death in 1981.

The Royal Ulster Agricultural Society is also believed to be interested in the site.

Irish News
**Via Newshound
By Allison Morris
16/05/08

Leading loyalist Jackie McDonald says that after years of preaching ‘not an inch’ to nationalists, Ian Paisley and the DUP have turned their backs on working-class Protestants. Allison Morris reports

IN the world of the loyalist paramilitary, Jackie McDonald has managed the seemingly impossible – to remain unchallenged in his position as the de facto leader of the Ulster Defence Association for more than a decade through several bitter and murderous feuds.

[Photo: Belfast Telegraph]

Regarded as probably the most influential figure within loyalism, McDonald was the man tasked last year with delivering the Remembrance Day statement declaring that the UDA would adopt a ‘non-military’ role and ‘stand down’ its UFF gunmen.

Speaking to The Irish News this week McDonald – the UDA’s south Belfast ‘brigadier’ – for the first time addressed claims that he has been an informer.

He said disillusionment with the peace process among young loyalists was the biggest threat to future stability in the north.

Having once congratulated Ian Paisley on entering devolved government with Sinn Fein, McDonald now says the Democratic Unionist Party has turned its back on the Protestant working class.

The days of people voting for a DUP candidate “just because Paisley sent him to us” are long since over, McDonald said.

“It remains to be seen if Peter Robinson is going to make a difference because he’s going to have to repair the damage that has been done by the ‘Chuckle Brothers’ double act,” he said, speaking from his office in the loyalist heartland of Sandy Row in south Belfast.

“Every picture of McGuinness and Paisley sharing a joke did more damage.

“After years of telling us ‘not an inch’ he is now seen as having sold the people out.

“Working-class loyalists feel let down and left behind and it’s going to take a lot of work on the part of the unionist parties to win our confidence back.

“Politicians can’t just show up at election time and expect unquestioning votes. Those days are over.

“We won’t just vote for a candidate because Paisley sent him. It’s not going to work like that any more.”

McDonald’s Sandy Row base is named after former UDA front man John McMichael, who was killed by an IRA car bomb in 1987.

Pictures of the militant loyalist turned political strategist adorn the walls.

Car bombs were thought to be a thing of the past in the north until this week dissident republicans were blamed for planting a booby-trap device under the car of an off-duty policeman in Co Tyrone.

McDonald said this was an example of why the UDA felt justified in deferring the decommissioning of its weapons.

“This week we have a policeman blown up with an under-car bomb,” he said.

“Now the dissidents may not have the same capability the IRA had but the fact is this has happened and we don’t know when it will again or who will be the next target.

“How can you ask loyalists to decommission when we are sitting here not knowing when the next attack will be?

“There are criminal gangs now with more money and weapons at their disposal than paramilitaries on either side ever had.

“The police aren’t willing or able to deal with them and so we continue to be led by opinion within our own community.”

Last year SDLP social development minister Margaret Ritchie put UDA guns at the top of the agenda when she said she would continue to fund projects run in loyalist areas by the Conflict Transformation Initiative (CTI) only if the paramilitaries dumped arms.

The minister’s removal of £1.2 million from the CTI is subject to a High Court legal challenge.

“It was never supposed to be a UDA project but it was a train we could have got on further down the track had it been allowed to flourish,” McDonald said.

“She shot down a project that could make a difference.

“People don’t like strangers coming into their areas and preaching but CTI members could gain access to those people because they were from the area.

“There is a disillusionment among the loyalist working classes.

“They see the peace pro-cess as having nothing to offer them and the Stormont assembly as being against them.

“I admit things could have been better managed on our part.

“Looking back, going to Castlemara [in Carrickfergus] that night wasn’t the best idea.

“But a lot of water has went under the bridge since then.

“The CTI has continued to work well and while the two shouldn’t be linked the UDA has moved on and a lot of positive things have happened.

“It would show a lot of bravery and leadership on her part if she were to go back and look at the situation again.”

The UDA may have declared its war has ended but the leading loyalist says it is the threat from “disillusioned” loyalist youth that is the biggest threat to future stability.

“In the past we had a high percentage of young people joining the UDA or UVF, should it have been for security or for macho reasons,” McDonald said.

“Paramilitaries are not taking those young people in any more. There is no recruiting.

“We are asking other organisations like the Orange Order to step up and take these young men in and give them discipline.

“Political aspirations mean nothing to young loyalist men.

“They need alternatives and need ambition or there will be more violence. You can see that coming.

“They will just be sucked into these supergangs.

“That’s the biggest threat to peace at this time.”

McDonald said the UDA had not officially met the Consultative Group on the Past, set up by the Northern Ireland Office and chaired by former Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh Lord Eames and former Policing Board vice-chairman Denis Bradley.

However, the loyalist said there had been contact through an intermediary.

“We have sought to discover the principle of what it is they are doing or aim to do but so far it’s not that convincing,” he said.

“I agree you do have to draw the line somewhere but this place is too small for a truth commission or anything like that. It’s not South Africa.”

Recent allegations suggested that British government files seen by the Eames/Bradley group would unmask a leading informer within the UDA.

This led to claims that McDonald had been working for the British intelligence services.

“It stops you in your tracks but there is not a lot you can do about it,” the loyalist leader said.

“They tried the same thing with Martin McGuinness.

“It’s a case of divide and conquer and cause doubt and how can you defend against it?

“You just get on with it. The two worst things you can call any loyalist is an informer or a paedophile.

“Further round the corner other things will develop whether it’s Eames/Bradley, a truth commission or whatever and accusations are going to be thrown about the place.

“When people set out to destroy you they will say anything.”

Irish News
**Via Newshound
By Diana Rusk
16/05/08

THE Real IRA has claimed responsibility for the attempted murder of an off-duty policeman in Co Tyrone on Monday.

Four men arrested in relation to the booby-trap bomb attack on the Catholic officer were last night still being questioned at Antrim serious crime suite.

They were detained after early morning raids in counties Tyrone and Derry yesterday and are being questioned by detectives.

The PSNI officer, aged in his twenties, sustained serious leg injuries after a booby-trap bomb exploded in his car in Spamount near Castlederg.

Dissident republicans were blamed for the attack and police said yesterday they were investigating claims made by the Co Tyrone brigade of

the Real IRA that they were responsible.

The dissident republican group had also claimed they were behind the shooting of two off-duty police officers in Dungannon and Derry last November.

It is thought the arrests were made in Draperstown, Co Derry, the Dungannon area and Omagh town yesterday morning.

DUP assembly member Maurice Morrow welcomed the arrests but said he hoped it was not a case of the police making arrests “to give the impression they are on top of things”.

Sinn Fein councillor Sean Begley said the raids in the area had been heavy handed.

He claimed a pregnant woman due to give birth next week, an elderly couple and a teenage girl living alone had been traumatised by the dawn raids.

“Regardless of the stated background to these searches there is no justification for such heavy handed tactics and I will raising serious issues of concern this with the District Commander and within the local DPP,” he said.

RTÉ
17 May 2008 22:27

The organisation representing the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings is calling for an inquiry into allegations that British security forces were involved.

Today marks the 34th anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

The single biggest loss of life in one day during the Troubles happened on 17 May 1974, when four car bombs exploded during rush hour without warning. Thirty-four people died in the bombings.

No one has ever been charged with the attacks, which have been described by the Oireachtas Committee on Justice as an act of international terrorism colluded in by British Security Forces.

The Justice for the Forgotten group has been campaigning for what it calls truth and justice since 1996.

Today it is calling on the Government to demand that that the British government set up an inquiry into the role of its security forces in the bombings.

The group also wants the Barron Report into the bombings to be sent to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.

After a wreath laying ceremony in Talbot Street this morning, a special anniversary mass was held in the Pro-Cathedral.