SAOIRSE32

News Letter
06 January 2009

THE proposed framework for how Northern Ireland will finally deal with the legacy of the Troubles is to be revealed at the end of this month.

It is understood the much anticipated, landmark Eames-Bradley report will be made public on January 28.

A spokesman for Eames-Bradley has said the final document will be “challenging”.

But he insisted it was will not include any amnesty for terrorists.

He urged against speculation.

However, last October the News Letter was briefed on a leaked copy of a draft of the report.

This has now been described as an outline paper, to which some changes have been made.

The draft, though, was initially suggesting a five-year commission – with three to five members sitting on it – to deal with all elements of the murders and atrocities of the Troubles.

As part of this process, work would continue on historical investigations into killings.

But should it be viewed that an inquiry was never going to achieve a conviction, such cases would pass to a private “information” forum, where paramilitary killers would be encouraged to divulge what they know about incidents – in an effort to at least establish the truth of what happened.

Immunity would be granted, at this stage, to terrorists within the information recovery period.

But a wholesale terrorist amnesty was being ruled out, as any evidence gathered independently by the PSNI, outside the process, could still be used to prosecute.

Denis Bradley – co-chair of the Consultative Group on the Past with Lord Eames – reiterated the no amnesty message, in a speech at Queens University in November.

“People have said to us, ‘why not just draw a line in the sand?’”, said Denis Bradley.

“But that would mean no more prosecutions and that is the same as introducing a general amnesty.

“Let me state in the clearest terms possible. There will be no amnesty recommended in our report.”

However, politicians and victims’ groups said they would wait to judge the final report themselves.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the SDLP called on 2009 to be the year that victims’ issues were finally dealt with, after constant delay in properly establishing the Victims’ Commission which has no proper remit, yet, because of legal wrangles over it becoming a four, rather than one member body.

SDLP spokesperson on victims’ issues, MLA Dolores Kelly said: “The Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister has allowed a shameful backlog of unresolved issues to pile up and none is more shameful than their failure to deal properly with the past in general and victims in particular.

“It is particularly shameful that the First Ministers have allowed people who have suffered so much for years and even decades to get caught up in party-political tussles between Sinn Fein and the DUP. It is time for them to sort it all out.”

She added: “OFMDFM also needs to place these measures for victims firmly in the context of the whole task of dealing with the past, including the Eames-Bradley process.

Irish News
5 Jan 2009

CRITICISED: Police were accused of facilitating attacks on a civil rights march at Burntollet on January 4 1969

THE significance of the Burntollet march in the deteriorating situation in the north is accepted by key figures on both sides of the political argument today.

According to writer and journalist Eamonn McCann, who took part, the march inadvertently led to the creation of the first no-go area in the north when the people of the Bogside pledged to stop police wrecking their community.

Then deputy secretary to the Northern Ireland cabinet Sir Kenneth Bloomfield said the march, the police and government reaction hardened attitudes and made it difficult for reforms to work.

Sir Kenneth said there was a change in mood among nationalist politicians following the reforms promised in November 1968 by then Unionist prime minister Terence O’Neill.

After O’Neill’s ‘Ulster stands at a crossroads’ speech and his sacking of hardline minister Bill Craig, Sir Kenneth said nationalist leaders were willing to give his planned reforms a chance.

“It was obvious there were divisions within the People’s Democracy movement but the radicals took possession and they pushed ahead with the march,” he said.

“In hindsight, if the march had been ignored I don’t think its impact would have been as great. From memory, I think there were only 70 or 80 people on it.”

Sir Kenneth said O’Neill’s reaction did as much damage as the attacks on the students.

“He issued a statement, I think, saying it was a pity that [People’s Democracy] had disrupted the peace. While I think it was right to say that, it was one-sided and he made no mention of the people who attacked them,” he said.

“Having made a one-sided statement, O’Neill lost support from moderate nationalists, I think.”

Sir Kenneth said the fact that the attacks at Burntollet were played out in the full glare of the new television age increased the impact of what happened.

Mr McCann said the police reaction was the most significant factor.

“It must be remembered that this was a completely legal march and the police at best did not protect the marchers from criminal assault and at worst joined in with those attacking them,” he said.

“I remember being hit by a cop that day although I wasn’t as seriously hurt as others.

“The fact that the RUC had facilitated the attacks on the marchers was important.”

While he did not agree with Lord Cameron’s criticism of march organisers, Mr McCann said even the Scottish law lord criticised police who attacked homes in Derry’s Bogside on the night of January 4 following the Burntollet march.

Mr McCann said the Cameron report noted that drunken police attacked homes at St Columb’s Wells which were mostly inhabited by pensioners.

He said the need to protect homes led to the creation of no-go areas in the Bogside and Creggan.

“It had a huge effect on the people of the Bogside. They took action to protect themselves and their homes,” Mr McCann said.

He believes police were withdrawn from the Bogside on political orders.

“But their withdrawal was seen as a huge victory by the people of the Bogside,” Mr McCann said.

BY Seamus McKinney
Irish News
05/01/09

Many people believe the People’s Democracy march from Belfast to Derry in January 1969 was one of the most significant marches of the early Troubles and marked the point of no return in the growing conflict.

Seamus McKinney recalls the event on its 40th anniversary

IN his report into the civil unrest in Northern Ireland in 1968 and 1969 Lord Cameron noted that the attack on a People’s Democracy march at Burntollet, just outside Derry, on January 4 1969 polarised communities in Northern Ireland.

The march from Belfast to Derry in the opening days of 1969 was organised by the newly-formed, left-wing People’s Democracy (PD) group at Queen’s University Belfast.

While it supported the aims of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association People’s Democracy wanted even more radical reforms.

In late 1969 the student group decided to hold a protest march to run from January 1 to 4.

The march was predictably opposed by the unionist government of the day but it was also opposed by Nationalist Party leader Eddie McAteer on the grounds that it was expected to lead to violence.

While the Derry Citizens’ Action Committee was not enthusiastic about the PD march it agreed to organise a welcome rally once the marchers reached the city.

The student leaders said they were imitating Martin Luther King’s march for black civil rights from Selma to Montgomery.

Throughout the early part of the march the 80 students taking part were harassed by loyalist protesters.

In Antrim marchers took up an offer of police transport past 100 loyalists.

The students were frequently re-routed by police away from their chosen route.

A feature of many of the loyalist protests along the route was the presence of Major Ronald Bunting, a key supporter of the emerging Ian Paisley.

On the night of January 3 serious rioting broke out in Derry after a meeting at the city’s Guildhall led by Mr Paisley and his supporters.

Lord Cameron in his report said: “The windows of the Guildhall were smashed and the men inside the hall were apprehensive for their safety and that of the women and children who were present.

“Major Bunting in addressing the audience and instructing them to organise for defence of their women and children as they left the hall stated that the rioters outside were a civil rights mob.

“Improvised weapons were obtained by breaking up chairs and stair bannisters and in a protective formation the audience attempted to leave the hall.

“There was a serious melee in the Guildhall Square and although Mr Hume and others associated with him in the Citizens Action Committee endeavoured, in assisting the efforts of the police, to get the rioters to disperse they were not successful.”

Lord Cameron concluded that Bunting’s claim that the rioters were civil rights protesters was wrong. He also noted Bunting’s rallying call to the Paisleyites to be close to Burntollet the following morning to “see the marchers on their way”.

Leaving Claudy on the final day of their march, PD leaders chose to ignore police advice that they should avoid Burntollet bridge, five miles from Derry.

At Burntollet the marchers were attacked by a well-organised loyalist mob which included many members of the B Specials. The attackers had stockpiled stones and other missiles, including sticks studded with stones, with which they beat both male and female students.

At the loyalist Irish Street in Derry, the students were attacked again.

However, word of the violence had reached the nationalist part of the city and by the time the marchers reached the west bank, thousands of Derry people were waiting to welcome them.

Lord Cameron said: “For moderates this march had disastrous effects.

It polarised the extreme elements in the communities in each place it entered.

“It lost sympathy for the civil rights movement and led to serious rioting in Maghera and Londonderry.

“It divided the civil rights movement and weakened the Derry Citizens’ Action Committee.”

While he criticised the People’s Democracy leaders, Lord Cameron also stated that the protection afforded to them by police was “not always adequate”.

For nationalists, the Burntollet march, as it became known, was another indication of the loyalist and anti-Catholic nature of the Northern Ireland state.

It led to the formation of the first no-go area in Derry’s Bogside and Creggan, an area where the writ of British rule did not apply.

It also led to the eventual disbanding of the B Specials in April 1970 to be replaced by the Ulster Defence Regiment.

The Burntollet march for civil rights was another signpost in the deteriorating situation in the north.

By Barry McCaffrey
Irish News
5 Jan 09

A WEST Belfast grandfather last night demanded a public apology from the Real IRA after his family were held hostage by men claiming to be carrying out a tiger kidnapping on the organisation’s behalf.

Joe O’Halloran was speaking after his wife, their 11-year-old granddaughter and a family friend were held hostage by a masked gang at his Springfield Park home in west Belfast.

The 59-year-old, who is waiting for a heart operation, was chatting to a friend in a sun-room at the rear of his home shortly before 8pm on Saturday when they were confronted by four masked and armed men.

“I thought it was a sick joke when they first appeared but then one of them put a gun to my friend’s head and said they’d kidnapped his son Martin and wanted £80,000,” he said.

“My friend told them he hadn’t got a son called Martin and then they turned the guns on me, but I told them I hadn’t got a son called Martin either.

“They wouldn’t believe me and told me they’d kidnapped one of my sons and were holding him hostage.

“They said he was a drug dealer and had £80,000 hidden in a secret compartment in a chair in my house.

“I told them to search the house all they wanted because we’re an ordinary, hardworking family and have never seen £80,000 in our lives.

“I was annoyed because my wife was trying to comfort my granddaughter Nicole over the death of her other grandmother at the time.

“They didn’t care who they hurt and were pointing the guns at my wife and granddaughter.”

Mr O’Halloran, who is a former republican prisoner, said the gang claimed to be from Oghlaigh Na hEireann, a name regularly used by the Real IRA.

“We kept telling them we had no son called Martin and had nothing to do with drugs.

“The one in charge kept making phone calls and questioning us.

“After 20 minutes they told us they were leaving and tried to tie us up but we refused.

“They said we should call the police and that we could get a few pound compensation – we told them what they could do with themselves and their compensation.”

Insisting that he now wanted a face-to-face meeting with the gang to clear his family’s name, Mr O’Halloran said:

“I want these people to look me in the eye and admit they were wrong.

“I want them to state publicly that neither my son or any of my family have anything to do with drugs.

“They were tough guys when they were holding guns to the head of an 11- year-old girl and her grandmother so now they should be man enough to admit that they were wrong and we are an innocent family.”

Meanwhile police are investigating a hijacking in the same area where a woman in her thirties was pushed from her car.

The woman was driving along the Springfield Road in her black Mitsubishi Shogun when she was flagged down at about 9.30pm on the same night.

When the car stopped, three men including the male who stopped her got into the car.

They then travelled a short distance before coming to a police vehicle checkpoint, before pushing the woman out of the car and driving off.

The car was recovered in the Clonard Heights area an hour later.

Police and British army bomb experts examined the car at the scene.

Derry Journal
**Via Newshound
02 January 2009

The Real IRA have vowed to continue their armed campaign and say they are prepared for a “long war.”

In the organisation’s New Year message, the leadership of the Real IRA said they would continue to target police and British military targets, as well as drug dealers.

“In the past 12 months Óglaigh na h’Éireann have continued to organise, developand consolidate,” the statement reads. “We have carried out a number of attacks against British state interests in Ireland and our volunteers have stood shoulder to shoulder with our communities against the scourge of drugs. Óglaigh na h’Éireann have taken direct action against a number of drug networks across the country and, in the coming year, we not allow our communities to face this menace alone.

“In the coming year Óglaigh na hÉireann will continue to resist the British occupation of Ireland by any and all means including the force of arms. However, all republican organisations must remain disciplined and no one should engage in attacks or threats that they cannot immediately defend or explain. For our part, Óglaigh na h’Éireann will stand behind any actions we take,” the leadership’s statement said.

The dissident group acknowledged it is facing a difficult task, insisting their campaign would last as long as necessary.

“Republicans must develop realistic short and medium term goals.

“2009 will not be the year of victory and another phase of the long war is yet to begin in earnest. Óglaigh na h’Éireann is facing a huge uphill struggle but we will face it full-on; make no mistake, we are here for the long haul.”

The Real IRA also slammed the Catholic Church’s criticism of their campaign. “We would advise the church to clean up their own back yard before commenting on others. They should take the plank out of their own eyes before worrying themselves about the splinters in others.

“It is perhaps a small mercy that the church is no longer a major player in forming opinions in Irish society,” it said.

By Allison Morris
Irish News
05/01/09

THE Real IRA has warned that it is intent on killing police officers in 2009 following several unsuccessful attempts last year.

Despite pressure on the dissident republican group to disband and engage with the peace process a spokesman for the organisation told The Irish News it is determined to step up its campaign.

The group has compiled a list of people it claims are involved in the drugs trade in Belfast and Derry and says it will “execute” them.

Last year the Real IRA was believed to have been behind several attempts to kill PSNI members including an attack on an off-duty policeman in Co Tyrone in May.

Ryan Crozier (27) sustained serious leg injuries after a booby-trap bomb which had been placed under his car exploded in Spamount, near Castlederg. The perceived threat led to increased security.

The Real IRA was also believed to be responsible for orchestrating several incidents of public disorder over the past year.

The organisation’s spokes-man said it was more determined than ever to kill members of the security forces.

He said the group had already lined up several potential targets and was engaged

in “gathering intelligence on their movements”.

In a new year statement the dissident group, founded in 1997 by former members of the Provisional IRA, said it would use the following year to “organise and develop”.

The statement read: “We must think and act strategically and in the long term the British are not going anywhere soon and neither are we.

“Make no mistake, we are here for the long haul. We will continue to exist until the illegal occupation of our nation has ended.”

(John Coulter, Irish Daily Star)
Newshound

A papal visit to the North and a new dissident IRA terror gang emerging – two predictions my crystal ball tells me will happen this year.

Pope Benedict has scored mega brownie points with hardline Protestant fundamentalists by condemning homosexuality.

In a single speech, he became the most popular pontiff among Northern Protestants since Alexander in 1690, who ordered a special Te Deum celebration to mark Orange champion King Billy’s victory at the Boyne.

In other developments, dissident republican unease with Sinn Féin’s policing policy will see the formation of a new, politically driven IRA terror gang.

The Real IRA is tainted by Omagh, while Continuity IRA and the INLA are just common criminals, gangsters and drug pushers.

In June’s European poll, the UUP’s Jim Nicholson and the Shinners’ Babs de Brun will hold their seats, but DUP deputy boss Nigel Dodds will snatch back wee Jimmy Allister’s Traditional Unionist Voice seat.

The SDLP’s failure to win back John Hume’s old European seat from Sinn Féin will spark a leadership coup against Mark Durkan.

Ironically, this will leave Euro runner Alban Maginness in the driving seat with a merger with Brian Cowen’s Fianna Fail a dead cert.

Sinn Féin will also lose October’s expected second Southern referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, paving the way for Gerry Adams to announce he is stepping down as Shinner President.

Dublin MEP Mary Lou McDonald will emerge as the party’s hot favourite, closely followed by Stormont education chief Caitriona Ruane – alleged to be the IRA Army Council’s preferred choice.

Coup will be 2009’s choice word. Expect Alliance’s David Ford and the DUP’s Peter Robinson to face unrest in their respective camps.

MLAs Naomi Long from East Belfast and North Antrim’s Ian Paisley Junior will edge to the fore as future successors.

Naomi is a strong bet for the new Minister for Coppers, while Ian Junior is hot tip to step into his da’s Commons shoes when Prime Minister Gordon Brown calls a snap UK election later this year.

Despite the Brown Bounce to combat the credit crunch, the election move will misfire for the Labour chief.

With the drift in support back to the UUP, expect DUP MPs David Simpson, Willie McCrea and Sammy Wilson to lose out.

And stand by for an announcement Shinner MPs will dump abstentionism and celebrate the 90th anniversary of Dial Eireann by taking their Westminster seats.

As for the loyalist terror arsenals, the credit crunch will soon persuade them of the wisdom of a ‘dumps before dosh’ policy.

Expect the TUV to cause major political migraines for the Robbo camp, ensuring nationalists retain South Belfast and Fermanagh South Tyrone.

Remember, you read it first in the Fearless Flying Column. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

January 6, 2009
________________

This article appeared in the January 5, 2009 edition of the Irish Daily Star.

News Letter
05 January 2009

UNIONISTS have described remarks made by Irish President Mary McAleese about men from the Republic joining the British Army before the First World War to escape poverty, as “not accurate”.

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson insisted that soldiers who had fought for Britain in battle had done so “out of a deep sense of patriotism”, and that such interpretation was a “poor attempt at rewriting history”.

The Irish leader made the comments at last night’s centenary celebrations held by the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union in Dublin.

She referred to the “grim days back in 1909″ when SIPTU’s forerunner, the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, had been founded by Jim Larkin.

She said that the world he had lived in back then was one where “the struggle was against starvation, disease and exploitation, where the lack of education of the masses was matched only by the ignorance of the economic and political elites”.

President McAleese continued: “Here was what Thomas Kettle would memorably describe, less than a decade later, as ‘the secret scripture of the poor’ that would drive tens of thousands of young Irish men into the British Army to sacrifice their lives so that their families could eat.”

Kettle was a nationalist Home Rule politician and journalist, barrister, writer, poet and economist who died at the Somme.

Junior Minister Mr Donaldson said that any suggestion that Irishmen had joined the Army solely to alleviate their own poverty was “certainly not accurate”.

He said: “Whilst there may have been some young men who joined the Army at the time because of poverty, I believe there was a majority of soldiers who took part in the First World War out of a deep sense of patriotism and a need to defend democracy and to oppose those who set out to use military methods to oppose people and nations.

“It was only after the Irish state was founded in 1921 that recruitment from the Irish Republic to the Army dropped. Prior to that there had been a long and proud history of Irish regiments playing a military role (in the British Army].

“It would be entirely wrong to suggest that this was only due to poverty. History does not recall that.”

The DUP minister added: “I do think that the Irish president should give a lot more thought to what she says on occasion. Either inadvertently or deliberately, at times she uses phraseology that is a poor attempt at rewriting history.”

Ulster Unionist peer and former UDR Major Ken Maginnis said that Mrs McAleese was “diminishing” the important role played by her fellow Irishmen in the war, and described her words as a “second faux pas” – her first, he said, being her comments four years ago that Protestant children were taught to hate Catholics in the same way Nazis despised Jews.

“The whole idea that men joined the Army to keep their families off the bread line is absolute nonsense,” he said.

“In any case soldiers were paid a pittance in those days, so in actual fact Mrs McAleese is not only doing a disservice to Irish history, but to her fellow Irishmen, by diminishing the role they played, and indeed that they continued to play during the Second World War.”

As part of its homecoming campaign coverage, the News Letter spoke to one soldier from the Republic last summer who explained that he had decided to join the Army to give himself a sense of purpose.

Former Irish Defence Force reservist Billy Heffernan, 23, from Kilkenny, joined the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment last July.

“The English Army has a lot more to offer – I can go on to further education maybe after a few years and there are plenty of options for combat tours, going to Iraq, Afghanistan or other areas like that,” he said.

“I think it will give me a personal sense of achievement to come home from these places and say to myself, ‘I did that’.”

A spokesman for Mrs McAleese last night said that he had “nothing further to add”.

News Letter
05 January 2009

THE body set up to deal with the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland is to publish its report later this month.

The Consultative Group on the Past, co-chaired by Denis Bradley and Lord Eames, is to publish its recommendations on January 28.

The group - who have met numerous groups and individuals over the space of the past18 months - are expected to recommend the setting-up of a five-year commission to re-investigate all murders associated with the conflict.

The News Letter revealed last year that this option was being considered.

It was reported within this fixed time period, terrorists will be granted immunity as part of a truth process.

However, indications are the Eames-Bradley Consultative Group would stop short of proposing a full amnesty for terrorists.

The panel also includes former Gaelic football star Jarlath Burns, former Ireland rugby international Willie John McBride, academic James Mackey, Elaine Moore who works with prisoners, Belfast-based Presbyterian minister Rev. Dr. Lesley Carroll and David Porter, Director of the International Centre for Reconciliation.

News Letter
05 January 2009

FAMILY and friends gathered on Monday to mark the anniversary of one of the worst single sectarian attacks in the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Standing on a south Armagh roadside on a cold winter morning, relatives stood in dignified silence to remember loved ones brutally murdered in the Kingsmills massacre 33 years ago.

On 5 January 1976, 10 Protestant workmen were shot dead by republicans as they returned home in a mini-bus from their work at nearby Bessbrook.

>>Watch Video

Only one man, Alan Black, survived the attack despite being shot 18 times.

A Catholic work colleague, also caught up in the ambush by a reported dozen gunmen, was ordered away before the shooting.

No-one has ever been charged in relation to the mass murder.

Speaking at the temporary memorial outside the village of Whitecross, victims’ campaigner Willie Frazer revealed his hopes that a permanent memorial would be in place by next year’s annual commemmoration service.

“The reason we want a permanent memorial is that republicans want to wipe history out, especially in south Armagh, about what they did in this part of Ulster,” he said.

“The memorial will not only be for the Kingsmills people but also the south Armagh people who have suffered at the hands of the IRA.”

The short service at Kingsmills was conducted by Pastor Barrie Halliday and included a two minutes silence.

Wreaths were also laid in memory of the ten victims.

BBC
5 Dec 2009

The team tasked with advising on how to deal with the legacy of the Troubles will publish its recommendations later this month, it has been announced.

The Consultative Group on the Past, co-chaired by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, is to publish its report on 28 January.

The group is co-chaired by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley

This would be about six months later than initially anticipated.

The Consultative Group on the Past has met more than 100 individuals and groups in the last 18 months.

It has also received more than 250 written submissions.

Lord Eames and Denis Bradley are expected to recommend the creation of a five-year commission to re-investigate all murders, something currently carried out by the Historical Enquiries Team.

“If prosecutions are not possible, the police, army and paramilitary organisations will be asked to provide details about their roles,” said BBC NI home affairs correspondent Vincent Kearney.

“There won’t be a general amnesty - but those who agree to meet the commission will be given immunity for the information they provide, meaning it could not be used for prosecutions.”

BBC
5 Jan 2009

A west Belfast man has accused a republican splinter group of being responsible for bursting into his home and demanding money.

Joe O’Halloran was at home with his wife and family, and a friend and his 11-year-old daughter, when an armed gang forced their way in.

The men, who claimed they were from Óglaigh na hÉireann, left empty-handed.

Mr O’Halloran, a former republican prisoner, called for the organisation responsible to make a public apology.

“One of them came into the living room and put a gun to my friend’s head, and told him that his son Martin was a drug dealer,” he said.

“My friend told them he had no son called Martin.”

Mr O’Halloran said the robber demanded money and told him his son was being held hostage.

“He said ‘There’s a secret chair in this house with £80,000 in it’. I told them: ‘There’s something wrong with your head’.”

None of Mr O’Halloran’s sons was being held, and he said he wanted a face-to-face meeting with the group behind the attack.

BBC
5 Jan 2009

Gardai are questioning five people in the Irish Republic about dissident republican and criminal activity.

The four men and one woman were arrested in Dublin on Sunday night.

Gardai also seized seven guns and some ammunition during the operation. These are being examined by the Garda Technical Bureau.

The five people are being detained in Terenure, Blackrock and Shankill garda stations. Four of them are in their 20s and one of them is in his 60s.