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Seamus

American by birth, Irish by the Grace of God

About Me

"That the influence of England was the radical vice of our Government, and that Ireland would never be either free, prosperous, or happy, until she was independent, and that independence was unattainable whilst the connection with England existed." - Theobald Wolfe Tone. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law. Martin Luther King Jr. US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968) .. width="425" height="350" .. I believe in Justice for America's working class. My favorite color is green. I hate liars. I love all things Irish. Below are Pics of New Orleans 1 year after Katrina during an Organizing drive I took part in. The City .. width="425" height="350" ..
IRA STATEMENT ON END OF ARMED CAMPAIGN---- The following is the text of the IRA statement:-The following historic statement was issued by Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Irish Republican Army, today, Thursday 28 July 2005.The leadership of Óglaigh na hÉireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign. This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon.All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms.All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.The IRA leadership has also authorised our representative to engage with the IICD to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use in a way which will further enhance public confidence and to conclude this as quickly as possible. We have invited two independent witnesses, from the Protestant and Catholic churches, to testify to this.The Army Council took these decisions following an unprecedented internal discussion and consultation process with IRA units and Volunteers. We appreciate the honest and forthright way in which the consultation process was carried out and the depth and content of the submissions. We are proud of the comradely way in which this truly historic discussion was conducted.The outcomes of our consultations show very strong support among IRA Volunteers for the Sinn Féin peace strategy. There is also widespread concern about the failure of the two governments and the unionists to fully engage in the peace process. This has created real difficulties. The overwhelming majority of people in Ireland fully support this process. They and friends of Irish unity throughout the world want to see the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.Notwithstanding these difficulties our decisions have been taken to advance our republican and democratic objectives, including our goal of a united Ireland . We believe there is now an alternative way to achieve this and to end British rule in our country. It is the responsibility of all Volunteers to show leadership, determination and courage. We are very mindful of the sacrifices of our patriot dead, those who went to jail, Volunteers, their families and the wider republican base. We reiterate our view that the armed struggle was entirely legitimate.We are conscious that many people suffered in the conflict. There is a compelling imperative on all sides to build a just and lasting peace.The issue of the defence of nationalist and republican communities has been raised with us. There is a responsibility on society to ensure that there is no re-occurrence of the pogroms of 1969 and the early 1970s. There is also a universal responsibility to tackle sectarianism in all its forms.The IRA is fully committed to the goals of Irish unity and independence and to building the Republic outlined in the 1916 Proclamation. We call for maximum unity and effort by Irish republicans everywhere. We are confident that by working together Irish republicans can achieve our objectives. Every Volunteer is aware of the import of the decisions we have taken and all Óglaigh are compelled to fully comply with these orders.There is now an unprecedented opportunity to utilise the considerable energy and goodwill, which there is for the peace process. This comprehensive series of unparalleled initiatives is our contribution to this and to the continued endeavours to bring about independence and unity for the people of Ireland.//END STATEMENT---WHEATHER OR NOT THIS WILL WORK IS HIGHLY DEBATABLE---
---PEACE PROCESS--- It is important to remember that the Peace Process did not begin with initiatives from the British or Irish government's. It began in 1988 when the two leaders of Irish nationalism in the north, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams and SDLP (Social Democratic Labour Party) leader John Hume, held a series of discussions over a five year period that culminated in a joint document outlining a framework towards a negotiated settlement. This document, known as the Humes/Adams Initiative, forced the reluctant British and Irish governments to face up to their responsibilities of beginning a process towards a lasting agreement.On August 31, 1994, the IRA gave a quantum boost to the peace process with their courageous announcement of a "complete" ceasefire. After three years of delay, deception and inaction by the British government, all-party talks finally began in the fall of 1997. Out of those difficult negotiations, the Good Friday Agreement was agreed on April 10, 1998.Since then, the British government has not fully lived up to it's commitments on policing, demilitarization, criminal justice reform and the equality agenda. They have also allowed the unionist political parties to continually obstruct, minimize and wreak havoc on the political institutions set up by the agreement.Throughout all of these difficulties, the Republican Movement has shown it's unwavering support for the peace process. The IRA has taken historic, unilateral moves including putting a substantial amount of it's weapons beyond use on two occasions, witnessed and verified by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, and stating repeatedly that they are committed to a permanent peace.This massive gesture by the IRA came in the face of over 500 pro-British Loyalist pipe bomb attacks on nationalist communities in the last 18 months alone and Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble determined efforts to undermine the agreement at every turn.Sinn Féin has worked tirelessly to move the process forward and to maximize the potential of the Good Friday Agreement. They were rewarded for their commitment by the electorate in July 2001 by becoming the largest nationalist party in the north of Ireland. They also made major gains in the Irish General Election in 2002 taking five seats in the Irish Parliament.Irish America has continued to play a crucial role in supporting peace and justice in Ireland. It's long standing commitment to freedom in Ireland has been a invaluable resource.--(JC)--IN 2006-07 ONE SHOULD ASK "WHAT HAS THE GFA DONE?" "WHO HAS BENIFTTED?" "IS DEMOCRACY POSSIBLE UNDER THE GFA?" "IS IT A FAILED DOCUMENT?" RESEARCH THE FACTS AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF.
IRISH HISTORY OVERVIEWThroughout history the island of Ireland has been regarded as a single national unit. Prior to the Norman invasion from England in 1169, the Irish people had their own system of law, culture and language and their own political and social structures. Following this invasion the island continued to be governed as a single political unit, as a colony of Britain, until 1921.At various times over the next 800 years, Irish men and women resisted British rule and attempted to assert Irish independence. Such resistance was repeatedly crushed as the British attempted to subjugate the Irish population.Between the years 1916 and 1921 Irish nationalists waged a combined political and military campaign against British occupation. In 1920 partition (dividing Ireland into two sections - the 26 southern and the 6 northeastern counties) was imposed by a British Act of Parliament. The consent of the Irish people was never sought. It was never freely given. The partition of Ireland was merely an innovation of the British government's tried and trusted colonial strategy of divide and rule, used throughout its former colonial empire.1500 Years A Nation The division of Ireland into two separate states was imposed by England under the Government of Ireland Act passed in the Westminster parliament in 1920. Yet the nationhood of all Ireland has been an accepted fact for more than 1500 years and has been recognized internationally as a fact. Professor Edmund Curtis, writing of Ireland in 800 AD says that "she was the first nation north of the Alps to produce a whole body of literature in her own speech." And he continues: "the structural unity of Ireland had now remained intact for four centuries in language, law, religion and culture." There was national kingship in Ireland under the High King for more than five centuries before the foundation of an English or French monarchy, and a large number of these High Kings of Ireland came from Ulster.The Viking invasions of the eight, ninth and tenth centuries were repulsed under the leadership of the High Kings.In 1169, the Norman invasion began. The Irish resisted strongly and it was not until 1601 in the reign of Elizabeth I of England that the Gaelic system of law and organization was broken. In that year a combined Spanish and Irish force was defeated at Kinsale, County Cork, in the province of Munster. In 1607, the resistance of the Northern province of Ulster collapsed and the Northern chieftains went into exile.After being under attack for more than four centuries, all of Ireland was now under English control. During that time many of the English settlers had become "ipsis hibernicis hiberniores" -- more Irish that the Irish themselves. In 1609, the lands of the Ulster chieftains were confiscated and planted with settlers from England and Scotland, many of whom were English soldiers.County Derry was completely taken over by the merchants of the city of London who renamed it "Londonderry". [Today, the majority of the people of Ireland refer to the historic and political entity as "Derry". Pro-British loyalists -- and more and more the US press -- use the term Londonderry. The political implications of which name is used are obvious.] The Scot colonizers predominated in the north of Ireland. These Scots "planters" came from another Celtic people who had the same basic language, law and literature as the Irish but differed from them in religion. But the native Irish were Roman Catholic, the colonizers were Presbyterian and Protestant -- or Anglican. Scottish nationalism, and the Catholic religion, had also been subjected to brutal repression and military outrage against civilian populations amounting to near genocide [see the film Brave Heart for an insight].Most of the Irish remained on their lands because the planters needed their labor, but they remained as tenants rather than owners of their own land. By 1641, the Irish revolted, establishing a national parliament in Kilkenny which stood not only for independence but for full liberty of religion and conscience. This national revolt of the Irish people was brutally crushed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649, its people murdered by the tens of thousands, the Catholic religion outlawed, and the rights of its native people reduced to little more than livestock.Unionist Rule Throughout the 19th century and until partition in this century, the British government provided its colonial rule in Ireland with a cover of "democracy". In the changed conditions of a partitioned Ireland it now used the wishes of Irish Unionists in North East Ireland as justification for its continued occupation.Within the Six County statelet, the British government fostered political division between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants through a system of political, social and economic privilege. The inbuilt, manufactured unionist majority meant continuous government by the Unionist party. Today, the Unionist community represents some 20% of the Irish nation.For nationalists, life under Stormont rule meant institutionalized discrimination, electoral gerrymandering and human rights abuses and sectarian pogroms instigated by a sectarian state. Indeed, patterns of discrimination which existed at this time remain today with nationalists still 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed.Resistance There has always been a tradition of armed resistance to the British military and political occupation of Ireland.Inspired by the example of the American War of Independence and by the democratic ideals of the French Revolution, the United Irishmen of the 1790's sought to unite the people of Ireland in a common effort to achieve equality and freedom. Choosing initially non-violent means to win their aims, the United Irishmen quickly met with a repressive response from the British government. It was only then that they exercised their right as Irish people to defend their liberty by the use of arms.Armed uprisings against British rule took place in 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867. The 45 years between 1803 and 1848 saw the Irish population mobilized in one of the first mass movements for political reform in the history of Europe. The demand for legislative independence for Ireland was denied by the British government.The Great Hunger of 1845-1852 saw a million people starve to death and a million more emigrate yet this catastrophe befell an unarmed people and there was only sporadic resistance. The ill-fated uprising of 1848 was localized and abortive.The Fenian Movement of the late 1850s and 1860s won widespread support in Ireland and America for its program of armed struggle to achieve an Irish Republic. The uprising of 1867 was crushed and another 49 years were to pass before Irish nationalists attempted an armed resistance.Political Agitation Another long period of parliamentarian agitation ensued which culminated in the support of the British Liberal government for Home Rule in 1911. Once again the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Irish people were to be denied. The Conservative Party Opposition joined with the Unionists in Ireland to defeat the Liberal government's plans for Ireland.While at this time there was little organized support for armed insurrection by nationalists, the Unionists and Conservative organized the importation of arms illegally and pledged to resist Home Rule by force. The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was established in 1913.This was the background to the establishment of the organization which was to become the Irish Republican Army. The Irish Volunteers - Oglaigh na hEireann in the Irish language - were established in Novembers 1913 to ''secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland''.The Easter Rising, Conflict with Britain and Civil War The Easter Rising of 1916, led by the volunteers, was the defining event in the history of Irish republicanism. Many would regard the Proclamation of the Republic issued then as the founding document of the IRA. It declared an independent Republic and pledged republicans to ''equal rights and equal opportunities'' for all the Irish people.The Easter Rising was crushed after a week. Sixteen of its leaders were later executed by the British government.By now the faith of nationalists in the Home Rule party had been completely undermined. In the General Election of 1918 an overwhelming majority of the Irish people voted for the Sinn Fein party which sought to establish an Irish Republic.Reorganized in 1917 the Irish Volunteers had wide popular support. But it was not until well into 1919 that a widespread and effective guerrilla campaign began.In January 1919 Sinn Fein had established an independent Irish parliament Dail Eireann and declared the sovereignty of Ireland as a Republic. They formed independent institutions including a functioning central government, ministerial departments and republican courts of law. The Irish Volunteers became the Army of the Republic, under the Ministry of Defense and pledging its allegiance to Dail Eireann.The response from the British government was to ban all these institutions and declare war on the new Irish democracy.Three mayors of Irish cities, all members of the IRA, were killed by the British; martial law was declared through nearly half of the country; streets, shops and factories in many towns were burnt to the ground; there were executions in prisons and torture in internment camps. In response the IRA waged an increasingly effective guerrilla campaign against the British.The guerrilla tactics used at this time later became textbook examples of this type of warfare. The popular Irish struggle, both in its civil and military side, inspired future anti-colonial struggles throughout the world.On the basis of agreement by the British government to negotiate with Irish leaders - and with no question of a surrender of arms - the IRA called a Truce in July 1921. Subsequent negotiations produced a Treaty which split nationalist Ireland.The IRA split in 1922 - as did Dail Eireann. In the Civil War which followed the Irish Republican Army held out for the complete independence of Ireland from Britain and for a United Ireland. In May 1923 the Civil War ended with the IRA order to its Volunteers to dump arms.Reorganization and continued conflict Throughout the 1920s the IRA reorganized and once again attracted a wide following. Throughout the 1930s the IRA sought a successful political and military strategy but this evaded the organization as left/right divides in the ranks manifested themselves in splits and dissension. Among the Chiefs of Staff of the IRA in the 1930s was Sean MacBride, later a distinguished international human rights lawyer and winner of the Nobel and Lenin Peace Prizes.In 1939 the IRA began a bombing campaign in English cities. This was effectively over by 1941. With internment without trial introduced in both states in Ireland the IRA was at a low ebb. The early 1950s saw an anti-partition campaign conducted by Irish governments and supported by all parties in parliament. Its ineffectiveness in the face of the British government's indifference contributed to the renewal of the IRA.In the early to mid 50s raids for arms were carried out by the IRA on British installations in the Six Counties and Britain. This was in preparation for an armed campaign which was conducted between 1956 and 1962. This campaign was mainly confined to border areas.After the border campaign ended the leadership of the IRA decided that support should be given to campaigns to highlight the status of second-class citizenship for nationalists in the Six Counties. The emergence of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1960s was to transform the political situation. Their demand for basic rights - to jobs, housing, voting - threw the Six-County state into a crisis. The peaceful demand for civil rights was met with violence from the forces of the sectarian British statelet.The Current Conflict In Belfast and Derry in 1969 nationalist districts were attacked by the state police (RUC) and by unionist mobs. The demand for defense made by nationalist communities could not be met initially by the IRA because, through the 1960s, the leadership had abandoned planning and preparation for a future armed campaign. As a military organization the IRA had been run down.The events of 1969 precipitated a split in the IRA. Once more the peaceful pursuit of change in the form of the Civil Rights Movement had been met with violence from the British state and so it was that the armed struggle gained predominance again as the republican strategy.Through 1970 and 1971 the IRA gained increasing support in nationalist districts in the Six Counties and among nationalists throughout Ireland. This accelerated with the introduction of internment without trial in 1971. IRA Volunteers carried out a campaign of urban guerrilla warfare against the British army and economic bombings.In July 1972 republican leaders were flown to London for talks with British government ministers during a Truce between the IRA and the British army. It quickly became clear that the British government was simply using the Truce as a tactical device in its military campaign and the Truce broke down.The conflict in the Six Counties intensified. In England the IRA carried out a bombing campaign. Another truce was called in 1974 - 1975, but once more there was no political will by the British to reach a just political settlement.Despite the British military saturation of urban areas and widespread deployment in the countryside, the IRA, with wide support in nationalist communities, continued to wage an effective campaign, making some parts of the country inaccessible by road to British forces. In August 1979 the IRA inflicted its greatest number of casualties on the British Army in a single incident since the 1919-21 period when it ambushed and killed 18 British soldiers at Warrenpoint, County Down.Throughout the 1970s and 1980s confidential contacts were maintained between British government representatives and the IRA. These channels proved unproductive of an understanding on the British part of how to resolve the conflict. Both the IRA and the British Army publicly admitted that military victory for either side was not possible.
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WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE BRITISH LEGAL SYSTEM... Most Americans believe that the American legal system is probably the best in the world. It is commonly thought that the American system derived from the old British common law. Therefore, many conclude, the British system must be nearly as good and fair as our own. Sounds logical, doesn't it?The reality is anything but logical. The two systems are actually worlds apart in both the way they operate and in the goals they seek to achieve. This is especially true in the Six Counties, or "Northern" Ireland, where special rules and procedures that could never be allowed in America have been implemented specifically to make convictions easier to secure. The British system is in many ways the complete antithesis of the American system. Yet many people wonder how such a system could exist in Britain, home of common law, John Locke and fair play. Apparently most people consider the British system to be as good as our own, if not downright superior. The truth is that, generally speaking, the British system is riddled with injustice and unfairness.So what exactly is wrong with the British legal system? Plenty.But the Criminal Laws of BOTH COUNTRIES are based on similar constitutions, right?WRONG! Britain has NO constitution, and therefore criminal defendants have no constitutional rights or guarantees. Obviously, there is no British Bill of Rights either. In Britain, individuals have the right under an unwritten "understanding" to do whatever is not prohibited by law.This is completely contrary to the very foundation of American jurisprudence. The American founding fathers insisted on a written constitution precisely because they were aware of the dangers and inherent unfairness of the British system. One of the main reasons both the American and Irish Revolutions were fought was the desire to escape from the serious injustice intrinsic to British jurisprudence.Isn't the MAGNA CARTA the British version of our constitution?It's not even close. Although this document received much hype in grammar school, even a casual student of history knows that it really has no legal significance whatsoever. The Magna Carta has nothing to do with constitutional safeguards and even less to do with a criminal defendant's rights. Instead, the paper merely redefined the relationship between the king and the super rich British upper class.Neither legal system, nor any defendant, enjoys any benefits derived from the Magna Carta.But under British COMMON LAW, don't defendants in N. Ireland have the same basic rights that American defendant have?Not hardly. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution grants a defendant the right to remain silent and not testify at his or her trial. Concomitant to that right is the rule that neither judge nor prosecutor may refer to a defendant's exercise of that right and tell a jury (if there is a jury) to draw an inference of guilt as a result. In fact, in America the trial judge is obligated to instruct the jury that they cannot infer guilt or draw any negative inference from the fact of a defendant's silence or refusal to testify.The contrast between the Fifth Amendment privilege in American and a defendant's silence in Northern Ireland could not be any greater. Or more disturbing. In Northern Ireland a defendant literally has no right to silence whatsoever.Anything he says can be used against him in a court of law.Anything he does NOT say can also be used against him in a court of law.The British literally outlawed this fundamental right in 1988. In fact, an arrested individual cannot even remain silent during police interrogations since this silence can also be used against him or her in court.In Britain the police need not charge a person whom they arrest. That means a man or woman can be arrested (and detained for up to 7 days) without being charged. If during that time he or she remains silent for whatever reason, that silence can be used in court as "evidence" of guilt of a crime the police later (usually much later) allege that he or she committed.The police can detain a person for 7 days FOR NO REASON AT ALL?That's right. The British have a unique system of 7 day detentions. It's so unique, in fact, that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that these 7 day detentions violate the European Convention. The British threw a temper tantrum and responded to the ruling by opting out (or derogating) from the Convention, thus ignoring the condemnation of the Court for violating established international legal principles. In other words, what is generally considered illegal everywhere else is considered legal in Britain and Northern Ireland.But they need PROBABLE CAUSE to arrest and detain you for 7 days, right? And you get to SEE YOUR LAWYER, of course....don't you?The police most definitely do NOT need probable cause to arrest someone anywhere in the north of Ireland, nor do they need to articulate any basis whatsoever for their decision to arrest. They can deny a detained person access to his or her lawyer for the first 2 days for no reason at all; but fortunately they aren't completely unfair: if they want to deny access to a lawyer for the whole 7 days they have to articulate "certain specified reasons" first. So how can detainees complain?DESPITE ALL THAT, a defendant still can't be convicted until the jury finds the state HAS PROVED ITS CASE BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT, Correct?Actually, that's wrong on both counts.First of all, there is NO jury. A senior British judge, Lord Diplock, was appointed in 1973 to figure out how the legal system could best aid the government's counter insurgency operations in the British Occupied Counties. Lord Diplock, well trained in the "fair play" tradition of British jurisprudence, immediately provided the solution: abolish trials by jury, surely the most basic right of all. Diplock set up one judge, no jury courts (affectionately named Diplock courts) for all politically related offenses. In Northern Ireland political activists simply have no right to a trial by their peers.Additionally, Lord Diplock put in several hours rewriting the rules of evidence so that the defendant actually bears the burden of proving his or her innocence. The state (or the crown) does not have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, in complete derogation of all fundamental notions of justice.Lord Diplock was applauded and sent home where he waited in vain to receive news of his International Jurist award, which the British seemed to think he was entitled to. It never came. "Now that's unfair," he was quoted as saying.But I can't believe that SUCH A CIVILIZED PEOPLE would allow such a system to exist for such a long time.Believe it! These facts are only the tip of the injustice iceberg. Following is an overview of British law. It is some of the world's most repressive legislation. And as Americans, we support and sustain it with out foreign aid policies.--------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------Overview of British legislation and criminal procedure IntroductionRepressive legislation has been in operation in Northern Ireland since 1921, when Britain militarily partitioned the six counties of north east Ireland from the rest of Ireland's national territory and established a pro British, or unionist , government. The "law" of Northern Ireland systematically discriminates against Catholics, and has consistently denied them access to the "one person one vote" standard in elections. It has denied them equal access to state housing, education and employment.Since the inception of the Northern Ireland state, the British have always feared political uprisings and civil unrest. As a result, they have always maintained repressive laws to deal with the situation.The Special Powers Act of 1922After the creation of Northern Ireland, the British immediately passed repressive legislation to silence any and all dissension. The Special Powers Act (SPA) of 1922 gave the police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the power to outlaw political parties, political meetings and peaceful demonstrations. The SPA gave the RUC the power to arrest and detain people at random without providing any reason or basis for the arrest. Naturally, the RUC could search any premises without a warrant.RUC personnel were almost 100% Protestant, as were the members of its civilian auxiliary, the notorious "B Specials." Together they made certain that the SPA was used exclusively to intimidate, harass and brutalize Catholics.The SPA was so repressive that the South African government used it as a model for its "New Coercion Bill" in 1962.Emergency Provisions Act of 1973 and Prevention of Terrorism Act of 1974A peaceful civil rights movement began in Northern Ireland in 1968. Despite the nonviolent nature of the campaign, the British moved to literally crush the entire movement. The SPA was widely used to suppress, silence and detain those who sought only modest reforms for nationalists such as voting rights, housing and economic equality. One of the goals of the movement was to secure the repeal of the SPA. This was accomplished in 1972, but it was a purely illusory victory. The British quickly replaced it with even harsher legislation: The Northern Ireland Emergency Provisions Act (EPA) of 1973; and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) of 1974.Combined, these two acts have allowed the RUC and British military to harass an entire population.Arrest and detentionSection 18 of the EPA gives the RUC and British Army the power to stop and question any person to "ascertain identity and movements." This is used to harass people on a daily basis.Section 11 of the EPA is the section under which most people are arrested. That's because it's so damn easy to use. The RUC may arrest any person they suspect of being a "terrorist" and detain them for at least 72 hours without charge. Of course there is no requirement that suspicion be reasonable or supported by probable cause.This section is obviously abused and used strictly for purposes of intimidation and intelligence gathering. Most people are arrested under this section in pre- planned operations. That means the RUC literally break into their homes in the early morning and drag them out of bed. Over the past 25 years more than 60,000 people have been arrested under this section and Section 12 (1b) of the PTA. No further legal action resulted from the majority of these, thus demonstrating that these arrests are designed to collect information and harass the Irish.Section 12 (1b) of the PTA is similar to Section 11 of the EPA but differs in that the RUC can arrest (without a warrant obviously) anyone they reasonably suspect "to be or have been involved in acts of terrorism." There is no requirement that the police name a specific incident to validate an arrest.Search and seizure and the PTA Bill of 1988 Limitless powers of search are provided for under the Acts. Over 400,000 premises have been searched by the RUC and British Army. The searches are extensive, which means the place gets torn apart and serious damage results. Any property can be seized by use by the military. Residences, schools, industrial premises, sport grounds and farmland have been seized for use as military installations. The British government has even given itself the power to seize the homes of political opponents.The 1988 PTA amendment allows the police to probe through and seize bank accounts and personal savings. It can be used to intimidate both groups and individuals. It also allows them to detain people in their homes while carrying out raids. This bill also removes the 50% remission for prisoners won through long and difficult prison protests. Prisoners must serve two thirds of a sentence before release.
THE BRITISH MILITARY GARRISON IN IRELAND "What they are saying is that the British army is doing a wonderful job sorting out a few criminals, a few terrorists, who are sort of making life terrible for the vast majority of peaceful law abiding citizens... But that is a total travesty of the truth. In Northern Ireland there is a war situation by any sensible definition of the term." --a British Army soldier [quoted in Decade of Terror] Brigadier Frank Kitson, one of Britain's most experienced counter-insurgency officers, served in Malaya, Kenya, Muscat, Oman, and Cyprus. In 1969, he was at Oxford writing, Low Intensity Operations, Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-keeping. All of his concepts were to be implemented in Ireland, including establishing coordinating committees of military, police and civil authorities; the formation of intelligence networks; psychological warfare units; the 'judicious promise of concessions' to temporarily appease the disaffected; setting up 'dirty tricks' and covert units; and using the law 'as a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public.'According to Dillon and Lehane [Political Murder in N. Ireland], Kitson argued that the "Army is the creation, and governed by the prevalent morality, of the State to which it is accountable... If an individual soldier cannot stomach these actions, he can refuse to support it, but Kitson says, he must 'take the consequences... The spirit of [Kitson's] book would seem to countenance under certain circumstances a campaign of assassination by the British army undertaken by plain-clothes troops. There are few, if any, courses of action that Kitson would not have his special force take if they seemed likely to achieve the ultimate aim.'"From The Start, A Military State Since the British government's enforced partition of Ireland in 1921, they have systematically created and sustained a military state in the six northeastern counties of Ireland.This garrison comprises regular British army regiments, the Royal Irish Regiment recruited totally from the local loyalist community, and the militarized state police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, an over 93% Protestant force,Add to the above "Special" covert units. The Special Air Service is a unit of the British army which was established for covert operations. Some SAS personnel were sent to the north of Ireland in 1969, although not formally assigned until 1976. The SAS is ideally suited to direct the special units recommended by Kitson.David Bundy, in a '77 Sunday Times [London] article, summarized SAS operations: setting off bombs that the IRA would be blamed for; planting ammunition on suspects; carrying out 'sectarian' assassinations; discrediting politicians deemed hostile to the government; and engaging in 'shoot-to-kill' attacks on unarmed, targeted or surrendering individuals.Albert Baker, a British army SAS operative, went on the record. He had been planted in the Ulster Defense Association and had personally participated in the killing of 21 Catholics. He also admitted transporting explosives later used in the bombing of Dublin which resulted in 2 deaths and 100 injured. This is the tip of the iceberg of British army covert operations.Training for Military Duty in Ireland British army units receive special training before going to Ireland. "Within the barracks there is a mock town consisting of several streets, alleyways and generally resembling any ordinary working-class district. Practical training is given in riot control, house searching, interrogation techniques, sniper positioning, setting up secret observations posts, etc., etc. The training is so realistic that every day, people were injured [British Soldiers Speak Out On Ireland]."A sample of the final briefing before going to the North is given by A.F.N. Clarke, a former paratroop officer [quoted in Contact]. "If you can see them, you can shoot them. Just remember, you are still bound by the conditions of the yellow card [the army rules of military engagement]. That means whatever happens, they always shoot first. Whether they actually do or not, nobody will ever know. Get my meaning?"Brian Ashton, who served in Ireland, testified his training created the impression that Catholics were the violent section in the North. "We were told to become a funeral march, a Protestant funeral march, and the rest of the troops were told to be Catholics and attack us, and steal the coffin, and we were led to believe that his was common practice, and this sort of thing created in people's minds an idea what Catholics were like." [Quoted in Voices for Withdrawal]"I was sent to the North the day of my 18th birthday. At the time Protestant paramilitaries were at the peak of their sectarian assassination and bombing campaign. Nevertheless, all our activity was directed against the Republicans. Local Catholic pubs were being bombed frequently, and yet in the week following four attacks not one Protestant suspect was brought in. But all the time we were picking up Catholics." - a Soldier [British Soldiers Speak Out... ]The Current Level of British Military Occupation (1994): 32,085 Armed Personnel Today, the combined British military force, made up of regular British Army regiments, the Royal Irish Regiment, the armed colonial constabulary [the RUC], and covert SAS operatives hold the occupied area with a combined military strength of 32,085 personnel.The British army has a total of 135 instillations within its control.The RUC has 161 military-type installations.The Greater Derry City area has a total of 11 Barracks, 3 Permanent Vehicle checkpoints, and 20 closed border roads.There are 55 British military installations located within Greater Belfast.Two large, high-security prisons at Long Kesh and Maghaberry are maintained by heavily armed military personnel and hundreds of warders.There are countless surveillance installations and procedures -- from military spy-towers with electronic equipment to satellite phone surveillance. Permanent photographic devices are trained on nationalist neighborhoods as are concealed spying devices.The British government has installed a massive network of security restrictions and permanent border check points which affect every aspect of civilian life.RUC and army road check points are another means to control the nationalist population and to keep records of the whereabouts and patterns of the civilian population.The RUC Special Branch targets and blackmails the nationalist community for informers and their Mobile Support Units are a heavily armed military force.The skies are dominated by the sight and roar of military helicopters going into and out of army bases or hovering over nationalist districts.The operation of interrogation/torture centers in Gough Barracks, Derry's Strand Road, and Castlereagh near Belfast, adds to the militarism and police state status of the Six Counties.Thousands of military house raids collect data as well as terrorize and families. Designed for "the creation and maintenance of as complete a dossier as was practical on all the inhabitants of suspect areas... The principle mechanisms were regular house searches and head counts, frequent arrests and 'screening' of those who might be likely to become involved and the interrogation in depth of selected suspects." [Ten Years On In N. Ireland]Statistically, every house in the North of Ireland has been raided more than twice by British military personnel. These raids are always violent to people and property, The ratio is 10 to 1 Catholic to Protestant. Many Catholic families have been subjected to scores of early morning military operations as a part of "normal" life in British Occupied Ireland.
SHOOT TO KILL: The Stalker and Stevens Inquiries "Shoot-To-Kill" is a covert strategy of assassination of targeted unarmed Republican supporters, of active or inactive IRA personnel, or the killing of combatants without the chance of surrender or during the act of surrender, in other words, "summary execution".As a result of this policy, over 300 individuals, more than half civilians unassociated with the IRA or the broader republican movement, have been killed by British crown forces in the North since 1969.The failure to prosecute soldiers for the slaughter of 14 unarmed, innocent civil rights marchers in Derry on Bloody Sunday in 1972 set the stage for future murders of civilians by British military and marked a watershed in the Nationalist community's attitude to the assorted military forces of the British crown.The "shoot-to-kill" policy is the result of this indulgent attitude of the courts toward the murder of Irish nationalists or republicans.Of all these cases of 'suspicious' killings by British soldiers or RUC, few have gotten to the courts. From 1972 to 1987, only 17 trials against British military personnel took place for the murder of Irish people. Only two were found guilty. One was sentenced to 12 months detention in a Young Offenders Centre, suspended for 2 years. The other, Pvt. Ian Thain, was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released after little more than 2 years and immediately reinstated to his former regiment!In 1994, another British army private, Lee Clegg, was convicted of the murder of a teenage, Catholic girl in West Belfast [see the Case of Pvt. Lee Clegg in the Prisoners section on the Main Directory]. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, after an army cover-up failed to obscure the truth of the "shoot-to-kill" nature of the killing.Like Pvt. Thain before him, Pvt. Clegg was released from prison after serving only two years of his life sentence, returned to the British army, and given a promotion to boot."Shoot-to-Kill" S.O.P. Between late 1977 and late 1978, the number of selective assassination increased dramatically as 10 people were murdered by crown forces in covert operation. It was, however, the success of Provisional Sinn Fein in the October 1982 assembly elections that led to the full unleashing of shoot-to-kill operations against the nationalist community. Between 1982 and 1985, 35 people were killed by crown forces, 23 of them in covert operations. Only one of those 23 was not a known or suspected Republican activist. The lack of accountability for these killings shows that British military forces in Ireland have, to a large degree, been granted the power to decide the guilt or innocence of suspected Republican activists without recourse to the courts.The Summary Execution of Gervais McKerr, Eugene Toman, and Sean Burns On November 11, 1982, Gervais McKerr, Eugene Toman, Sean Burns were driving in Lurgan when an RUC patrol opened fire, killing all three. All were unarmed. It was claimed that the men had driven through a police roadblock and refused to stop. The RUC opened fire on the car and claimed that fire was returned. The car then came to a halt. The RUC officers said they heard the sound of a gun being cocked and they opened fire again. Toman was found lying out of the car with bullet wounds in his back. The officers had fired 109 bullets into the car. They were not just RUC men, but members of a British army trained Special Support Unit.These officers originally claimed to be part of an ordinary RUC patrol and did not disclose that three dead men were under surveillance and stalked for some time. They changed their story when they were re-interviewed and the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act waived.Justice Gibson held that this RUC special unit acted in "self-defense" and had used reasonable force in attempting to effect an arrest -- 109 rounds fired into unarmed men!He stated that the prosecution never had "the slightest chance of sustaining a conviction" and then commended the RUC men for their "courage and determination in bringing the three deceased men to justice; in this case, to the final court of justice."On August 22, 1984, Armagh coroner Gerry Curran resigned due to "grave irregularities" in police files. Just the following week , the acting corner, James Rodgers said he would be unable to take over the inquest due to "professional commitments" and he too pointed to a number of differences between the RUC account as contained in files versus the account given in court. The inquest was adjourned pending an inquiry by John Stalker and members of the Manchester Police from England. The inquest into the deaths of McKerr, Toman and Burns was transferred to the Belfast coroner, James Elliot.The Stalker Inquiry and the Official Cover-up John Stalker, Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, conducted an inquiry into a number of 'suspicious killings' by the RUC. Mr. Stalker concluded that there were grounds for charging a number of police officers, including senior RUC men, with a range of serious offenses.During his investigations he carried out forensic tests, the results of which contradicted evidence presented in court. In the case of the RUC killing of Michael Tighe, it was apparent that an ambush led directly to the "cold blooded murder" of the wrong man.Then came the cover-up. Stalker wished to interview Chief Constable Herman and one of his deputies "under caution." The tapes in the Tighe case had been mysteriously wiped clean! He also discovered that an informant was paid £2,000 after the execution of McKerr, Toman and Burns and was also involved in the Tighe killing. The RUC prevented Stalker from interviewing the informant.In January 1988, eight RUC officers were accused of "conspiracy to pervert the course of justice" and responsible for obstructing the Stalker inquiry. The Director of Public Prosecutions for N. Ireland declared that there would be no prosecutions. Because of "National Security!"It is difficult to see what "National Security" interests outweigh the public interest of bringing prosecutions against those in positions of trust and power who have committed serious crimes. This, and the many decisions like it, undoubtedly represents a potent reason for the Nationalist community to view the RUC as operating beyond the reaches of the law.Stalker's Findings: Sanctioned, "Deliberate Assassination" Stalker said "the killings had a common feature: each left a strong suspicion that a type of preplanned police ambush had occurred, and that someone had led these men to their deaths."He believed that:"The circumstances of those shootings pointed to a police inclination, if not a policy, to shoot suspects dead without warning rather than to arrest them. Coming as these incidents did, so close together, the suspicion of deliberate assassination was not unreasonable... There was no written instruction, nothing pinned upon a notice board. But there was a clear understanding on the part of the men whose job it was to pull the trigger that was what was expected of them."The fact that a large number of these incidents involved specialist units excludes the explanation of occasional aberrations by members of the crown forces operating in situations of stress. The remarks of the trial judges provide further official endorsement of such a policy.The Result: The Stalker Inquiry was suppressed. Stalker was rewarded for his efforts by being pulled off the inquiry befpre its conclusion, not before being publicly smeared in a concocted media campaign that destroyed his career.Amnesty International Critical of "the secrecy shrouding police/military investigations" In 1991, Amnesty International published a highly critical report which blamed the British government for not properly investigating serious allegations of unarmed civilians unlawfully killed and positing that "the government has failed to set up independent inquiries to openly scrutinize overall patterns of police and army malpractice.""The secrecy shrouding police and military investigations has led many victims and their relatives to allege that authorities have actually suppressed important information and deliberately concealed unlawful actions," the report said.Amnesty said that even though more than 300 people have died in disputed killings by "security forces in N. Ireland" there has still been no wide-ranging investigation into this pattern of killings. The report concluded with a criticism of the coroner's inquest system that follow such killings but "by law cannot compel members of the security forces to testify at the inquest."New Constable, New Inquiry, and New Political Murder Strategy Comes to Light After the Stalker fiasco, new disclosures came to light in 1989 of concrete and damning evidence linking the RUC with the widespread proliferation of secret British/RUC intelligence documents on nationalists and alleged "IRA suspects" directly to Loyalist Murder Squads, whose primary function is sectarian and political assassination.The RUC covertly or otherwise provided classified information, not on scores or hundreds, but on thousands of potential nationalist targets to the murder gangs. Considering the fact that many members of the sectarian RUC and the sectarian Ulster Defense Regiment [now the sectarian Royal Irish Regiment] are also deeply involved Loyalist paramilitary organizations, and the British army and intelligence agents focus almost exclusively against the nationalist community, the flow of crown force intelligence to Loyalist murder gangs must be seen as inevitable.Another "Internal" Inquir

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BUY IRISH REPUBLICAN MINDED CLOTHING FROM AMERICA'S MAD SWEENEY ONLINE STORE CLICKHERE Visit the IRISH FREEDOM COMMITTEE CLICKHERE Visit the IRISH NORTHERN AID, INC. CLICKHERE SUPPORT THE IRISH HISTORY DVD PROJECT CLICKHERE COISTE POLITICAL TOURS OF NORTHERN IRELAND CLICKHERE KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THE ANTI-AMERICAN WORKER GROUPS AND POLITICIANS AT CLICKHERE .. width="425" height="350" .. object width="425" height="350" BRITAIN'S DIRTY WAR IN THE NORTH OF IRELAND The evidence that British Army, RUC and British Intelligence "dirty tricks" and murder units are operating in Ireland and Britain, that there is a "shoot-to-kill" policy among military/police personnel, and that the Loyalist sectarian, Catholic murder campaign is part of a larger plan, is overwhelming.Britain's Dirty War in Ireland is into its 28th year, or well into its 800th year, depending on your vision.Introduction Covert, British Military operations against Republicans and Catholics, in the North and South of Ireland, take several forms:Those carried out directly by British army and British Intelligence undercover units, or army trained RUC units, to either murder targeted individuals or to engage in "dirty tricks" operations to discredit the Republican movement, the IRA, or Catholic political leaders, such as strategic murders or setting off bombs to incite anger, counter-terror, or provide rationale for official repression.Those carried out indirectly through Loyalist murder squads that are very willing to kill, given the military/police clearance to operate freely in a particular Nationalist area, arms sufficient to do the job, and the personal data needed to know whom to murder, how and where.The other aspect of the "dirty war" strategy is the Loyalist "sectarian murder" campaign against random Catholics -- seemingly for no better reason than they are Catholics. The cynical strategy behind these murders, however, is not random. They are designed to punish and terrorize the Nationalist/Catholic community for nationalist thinking, pushing civil rights demands, or Republican activity, even of a purely political nature.The random sectarian murder of Catholics heated up, for example, as the Irish Peace Initiative of Gerry Adams [Sinn Fein], John Hume [Social Democratic and Labour Party] and Albert Reynolds [former 26 County Taoiseach] began to make progress. Twenty four totally uninvolved Catholics were murdered by Loyalists from the announcement of the Adams/Hume agreement in December 1993 through the clarification of the Downing Street Declaration [between the London and the Dublin governments] in June of 1994 -- just two months prior to the IRA's historic cessation of military operations.The more innocent or uninvolved the Catholic victim, the more profound the leverage, the higher the random terror, the more the price of freedom and democracy is raised for ordinary people trying to live and make a life for their families.

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Seeds Of The Modern Conflict Discrimination in the north Discrimination in employment and housing has been used strategically on a large scale by unionists against the non-unionist population to ensure that the minority never thrives or rises in relative numbers. Forced immigration and chronic poverty were the primary tools of unionist oppression.Sir Basil Brooke, Stormont Minister for Agriculture and later prime minister, made a policy statement in 1933: "I can speak freely on this subject as I have not a Roman Catholic about my own place. I appreciate the great difficulty experienced by some in procuring suitable Protestant labour but I would point out that Roman Catholics are endeavouring to get in everywhere. I appeal to loyalists, therefore, whenever possible, to employ good Protestant lads and lassies."In 1948, E.C. Ferguson, MP for Enniskillen, stated: "The nationalist majority in County Fermanagh, notwithstanding the reduction of 336 in the year, stands at 3,604. I would ask the meeting to authorize their executive to take whatever steps, however drastic, to liquidate this nationalist majority." Figures taken from the Fermanagh County Council pay sheets in April 1969 show that in this county with a Roman Catholic majority, only 32 Catholics were employed in a force of 370 workers. In 1971, there were 74 school busmen employed by Fermanagh Education Committee -- only 3 were Catholics.In 1934, Lord Craigavon expressed the unionist viewpoint: "We are a Protestant parliament and a Protestant state. I am an Orangeman first and a member of this parliament afterwards."Between 1945 and 1970, 1,589 local authority houses were built, only 35% went to members of the Catholic majority. Ghetto housing schemes were built all over the occupied six counties. A unionist council member declared: "We are not going to build houses in the South Ward and cut a rod to beat ourselves later on. We are going to see that the right people are put into these houses, and we are not making any apologies for it."Civil Rights Organized discontent began to emerge in the late 1960s leading to the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. Their moderate demands were:one person one vote an end to the gerrymandered local government boundaries an end to discrimination in the allocation of housing an end to discrimination in employment the repeal of the Special Powers Act These demands were viewed by the Unionist majority as a threat to their privileged position. However, the violent reaction of the state shocked the world as television cameras relayed scenes of unprovoked attacks on civil rights marches and demonstrations. As widespread political unrest spread the British government saw its position being compromised and on August 14th, 1969, British soldiers were deployed in Belfast and Derry. Within a relatively short period came the introduction of curfews in nationalist areas, internment without trial and the murder of 14 unarmed civilians in Derry on Bloody Sunday in 1972. Within weeks of this massacre the British government abolished its local assembly, Stormont, and resumed direct rule.Government by Repression Since its creation 74 years ago, the Six County statelet has been in constant crisis. Its survival has always been dependent on repressive legislation, coercion and discrimination with human rights abuses long accepted as a fact of life.Emergency legislation renewed last year includes widespread powers of arrest and detention. In the last 26 years over 60,000 people have been arrested and held for a period of up to seven days in British interrogation centers such as the one in Castlereagh where many were subjected to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. The British government has been found guilty of human rights abuses by the European Court of Human Rights on numerous occasions.Since 1969 British forces have killed 357 people in the Six Counties with 294 killed by the British Army and 53 by the RUC. Almost 200 of those killed were civilians. With a handful of exceptions members of the British forces have received immunity for these murders. This is in stark contrast to the cruel sentences given to members of the nationalist community.In addition to this oppression, nationalists have suffered from attacks from loyalist murder gangs. Over 900 people (almost 90% nationalist) have been assassinated by loyalist paramilitaries, many of these killings carried out in collusion with members of the British army and RUC.The Civil Rights Movement In 1967, a broadly based, non-political and non-sectarian civil rights movement composed of all shades of non-unionist opinion and of all religious denominations was formed in the six-counties. By peaceful protest demonstrations it demanded such reforms as one vote for each citizen [amazingly not the case in the north], equal opportunity housing and employment and the abolition of the abusive, police-state Special Powers Act. Most who supported the civil rights reforms were not interested in a free and united Ireland, but merely wanted justice within the British, partitionist system.On October 1968, a peaceful civil rights march was brutally attacked by the RUC on the instructions of William Craig, Stormont Home Affairs Minister. A peaceful students march in January of 1969 from Belfast to Derry was attacked in an organized fashion by unionists and was later joined by the RUC in an vicious attack on the nationalist Bogside area of Derry.Pro-British violence [both official and unofficial] culminated in a brutal attack on the Bogside on August 12 through the 14th, 1969, and an invasion of the nationalist areas of Belfast and other centers on August 13th - 15th. In the ensuing "pogrom", 500 houses were burned to the ground, 1,500 people forced from their homes, and nine people murdered. Realizing that Stormont rule had broken down, Westminster ordered British troops into action to save the system. A reform program was promised. The gerrymandered Derry Corporation was abolished and replaced by an undemocratic commission. Local government reform was promised but never implemented. The infamous Ulster Special Constabulary ["B Specials"] was disbanded but replaced by the Ulster Defense Regiment of the British army. Ex-members of the B Specials reorganized as gun clubs and were allowed to hold arms. By 1971, there were 102,000 licensed firearms in the six-counties, the vast majority in the hands of former members of the sectarian B-Specials. No change was made in t he Special Powers Act.Internment Following a change of government in Westminster, the British army launched a punitive military action against the people of the Lower Falls area of Belfast on 3rd, 4th and 5th of July, 1970. An illegal curfew was imposed and four innocent men were shoot dead by British troops. From July 4th onwards, all confidence in the British army as "peace keepers" evaporated. The troops were seen as the agents of the sectarian Stormont regime.Between July 1970 and July 1972, the British army, on their own or supporting armed loyalist gangs, made brutal attacks on nationalist areas, shooting innocent nationalist civilians. Defense of the nationalist areas was then organized by the IRA, which also took retaliatory action against the British army. Sinn Fein organized the people and undertook a program of political action seeking nothing less than a united, independent republic. It was now obvious that the six-county statelet was totally unreformable. Only in a free nation could full civil rights be guaranteed.When the British army brutally murdered two unarmed civilians in Derry in July, 1971, opposition members withdrew from the Stormont parliament. On August 7th, another civilian was murdered by the British army in Belfast. On August 9th, almost 300 men were arrested in dawn swoops and interned under the Special Powers Act. Not one unionist extremist was interned. Word soon got out of the internment camps that the men were being routinely mistreated and tortured. Sectarian attacks continued, supported by the British army.The nationalist community reacted strongly. A widespread and effective campaign of civil disobedience began. A wave of anti-British feeling swept Ireland, North and South, as 8,000 refugees fled the pro-British terror and sought refuge in the South. The IRA took strong action and guerrilla warfare on a scale exceeding even that of 1919-21 developed. Irish people throughout the world organized and collected funds to make republican campaign the final phase in Ireland's 800 year-long struggle for freedom.In 1970, Irish Northern Aid was founded in America to support the families of the internees and refugees burned out of their homes

1972 Bloody Sunday On 30 January 1972, 30,000 people marched in Derry to protest internment. The march, the biggest ever organized by the Civil Rights Association, peacefully made its way towards Guildhall Square. British troops blocked blocked the route at William Street so the people assembled at "Free Derry Corner" in the Bogside area. Suddenly, armored cars appeared from behind barriers and headed for Rossville Street. British troops effectively boxed in hundreds of people on waste-ground between the Flats and William Street. Soldiers spilled out of the armored cars, their helmets identifying them a Paratroopers. None of the soldiers carried batons and shields as riot control troops do. All were fully armed with combat rifles. They used these rifle as clubs as the waded through the crowd.Without warning, the clear and unmistaken sound of shots from British army issue SLRs rang out. More shots, and then people began to fall. The air rang to the sound of rapid gunfire and screams. Causally soldiers fired indiscriminately, often from the hip, into a fleeing and unarmed crowd. At the end of the day, 13 people lay dead and 17 wounded, one of whom died later. One man who was photographed being arrested and taken into a British army Saracen was later found shot dead.Within hours, the British propaganda machine was in full operation claiming that they had shot dead thirteen "gunmen" and bombers, in an attempt to justify the planned, cold-blooded murder of peaceful, unarmed civil rights protesters.The Irish Republican Army was now the last resort of the nationalist people. To protect them from the combined official and unofficial forces of the 6-County statelet, and then to go on the offensive to rid Ireland once and for all of British interference and tyranny, the IRA was forced to reorganize from near extinction. With nothing available but a few old and unreliable weapons, the ranks of the IRA were nonetheless swelled by a risen people who would no longer wait to be crushed by an undemocratic and despotic state.

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.. width="425" height="350" ..TARGET DEMOCRACY: The British and Loyalist murder and intimidation campaign against the Sinn Fein Party The Nationalist community in the North of Ireland overwhelmingly supported and voted for Sinn Fein prior to the establishment of the garrison sectarian State in December, 1920. The political party was then made illegal and in the early months and years of the Loyalist regime hundreds of Sinn Fein supporters were murdered by the Royal Ulster Constabulary -- often in reprisal killings strikingly similar to the shoot-on-sight killings of today. The civil rights campaigns of the sixties made many Nationalists more conscious of the need for political voice. When Sinn Fein was made legal in 1975, England's greatest fears were realized. Instead of an impotent and ineffective showing at the polls as they had counted on, Sinn Fein showed surprising strength across the community.Britain has always made Nationalists pay dearly in blood for democratic freedom. The campaign to silence the voice of the victims never really ended. Now it was to accelerate. In January 1977, Michael McHugh, Chairman of Sinn Fein in Castlederg, Co. Tyrone, was assassinated. Brendan McLaughlin was killed in February, 1980 in an attempt to assassinate Sinn Fein Councilor Joe Austin. A Sinn Fein member in Co. Monaghan, Jeff McKenna, was killed on November 8, 1982. This preceded by two weeks the killing of Peter Corrigan, a Sinn Fein election worker, on October 25, 1982.Bobby Sands, elected to British Parliament In 1981, Bobby Sands was elected to the British Parliament while on hunger strike, followed after his death by the election of his election agent, Owen Carron. Two other protesting, Republican prisoners, Kieran Doherty and Kevin Agnew, were elected to the Dial in the South. All this, added to the election success of Sinn Fein in October, 1981, made the prospects for the 1982 Assembly elections intolerable for the British. A special RUC unit was established in December, 1982, for the express purpose of improving intelligence data and thereby hardening the targets -- Sinn Fein activists. By feeding information on the movements of these activists and leaders of Sinn Fein to the Ulster Defense Regiment and Loyalist paramilitaries, their death certificates were as good as issued.In March 23, 1984, a Sinn Fein Councilor, Sean McKnight, topped the poll in a local election in Belfast defeating a Paisley backed Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] candidate and badly defeating a Social Democratic and Labour Party [SDLP] candidate. The SDLP share of the vote had dropped 50%! This showing despite every manner of intimidation, censorship, and official skullduggery that the British and their Loyalist allies could conjure up.Murder and Official Cover-up The anti-Sinn Fein campaign includes many elements of abuse of law and civil rights and this sample listing is intended to reflect only a part of the total number of incidences. The Stalker Inquiry found government cover-up of official killings and the Stevens Inquiry found government collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries. Neither report was made public for reasons of national security. Her Majesty's government has thus "enabled" the violence against organized and democratic political opposition. This study will show that a pattern has emerged establishing a prima facie case for British government-sponsored violence against a democratically elected political oppositionAll of these unsolved murders take place in areas heavily patrolled by British forces. Many of these areas like the Sinn Fein Advice Centre on the Falls Road in Belfast are under constant electronic surveillance (secret and open). In a recent example, Sam Marshall, a Sinn Fein activist, was killed coming out of an RUC station with two companions. A secret camera monitoring the house of one of those companions was discovered days later. The Government makes little effort to investigate or prosecute those responsible for these type of killings. Why should they? The trail would simply lead back to them. Constable Stalker, who led a British investigation into killings by the RUC, was dismissed precisely for that reason.The 1990s: Sinn Fein makes advances despite harassment and murder campaign In August, 1991, Sinn Fein, for the first time ever, won the North Belfast Council seat in a straight, fair one on one political showdown. Joe Austin's victory gave Sinn Fein 9 seats in Belfast making it the second largest party on the City Council. No sooner had Austin won than the RUC arrested, beat and inflicted burns on his son Damien while in custody. This resulted in the first ever Urgent Action Alert that Amnesty International has ever issued for Northern Ireland. This election success of Sinn Fein only invited more attacks. The loyalists finally took away the Parliament seat held by Gerry Adams by voting for the SDLP candidate; for Loyalists to vote for a Catholic for any reason was considered unthinkable, but this example of strategic voting was well organized. It was a triumph for bigotry, violence and injustice. It was a victory for forces against democracy and in favor of the armed enforcement of the British occupation. The successful SDLP candidate, Joe Hendron, was subsequently found guilty of election violations, but the court refused to call for another election.In the Fall of 1992 Sheena Campbell was killed as she socialized with friends who were fellow students at Queen's University. Sheena was the second woman Sinn Fein leader to be assassinated since 1975. Just before Christmas, Malachy Carey, a Sinn Fein candidate, and Martin Lavery, the brother of a Sinn Fein Councillor Bobby Lavery were gunned down.Election 1993: 12th Sinn Fein Murder Since The Last Local Elections The latest, local council elections brought more state-sponsored violence against Sinn Fein. On Sunday, May 3rd, 1993, just 2 weeks before the elections and at the height of the campaign, Alan Lundy of Sinn Fein was murdered in the home of Sinn Fein Councilor Alex Maskey. The murder squad claimed that Councilor Maskey was the intended target. It was noted that there was considerable security force activity around the Maskey home during the week -- "then suddenly they left." Councilor Maskey has survived two previous murder bids. In November 1986 his house was bombed and in May 1988 he was shot at point blank range in the stomach by a gunman carrying a sawn-off shotgun.Two days prior to the 1993 elections, a man armed with an AK47 assault rifle entered the Sinn Fein Advise Centre in the New Lodge area of North Belfast and opened fire. Bullet proof glass shattered and election workers dived for cover as up to thirteen high-velocity rounds were fired. The gunman fired a further burst through the security gate before fleeing. A statement from the "Combined Loyalist Military Command" - which includes the UFF and UVF - said its "members will be watching the results of tomorrow's council elections" and warned of "a Loyalist backlash." The statement said that the UFF had intended to murder "a Sinn Fein Councilor and two Sinn Fein workers."The following article, "Sinn Fein Councillor's Son is Shot Dead By Loyalists", By Barbara Graham, The Irish News, 9 August 1993, shows the extent of the sacrifice made by republican political leaders, and their families, who attempt to participate in British "democracy":"The son of Belfast Sinn Fein councillor Bobby Lavery was shot dead at his home in north Belfast last night. Sean Lavery [21] was wounded when up to 30 shots were fired from automatic weapons at the house on the lower Antrim Road, near the New Lodge area. He died in hospital."Sinn Fein condemned the attack as an 'attempted mass murder of the Lavery family.' The UFF later claimed responsibility. The dead man's father, Bobby Lavery, is on of ten Sinn Fein members of Belfast city Council. He, along with his wife, and five of their seven children aged between 5 and 21 years, were in the living room at the time when the shooting started just before 9:30pm. A number of neighbors' children were visiting the Lavery home when the gunfire started."Only Sean was hit in the sustained gun attack. He was shot three times in the upper body and critically wounded. he was taken to the nearby Mater Hospital where he died a short time later. Sinn Fein Councillor Joe Austin who visited the family shortly after the shooting, said it was an indiscriminate attack on the family. 'This was not an attack on Bobby Lavery alone but on his entire family. It is only the latest of a series of similar attacks in which loyalists have tried to murder Sinn Fein members and their families.'"It is the second time that tragedy has hit the Lavery family within the last six months. Five days before Christmas, Councillor Lavery's 40-year-old brother Martin was shot dead in a similar attack as he sat wrapping presents with his five-year-old daughter in his north Belfast home. Last month Councillor Lavery escaped unhurt when loyalists attempted to bomb a Sinn Fein office in the New Lodge area while he was working inside."This latest murder came hours after thousands of people marched into the centre of Belfast from all over the city to mark the 22nd anniversary of internment. It was the first time that a major nationalist parade had been permitted to enter the centre of the city to hold a rally outside the City hall. In the past year there have been nearly a dozen attacks on the homes of Sinn Fein members."The Price of Political Participation for Sinn Fein Is Often Death Sinn Fein political leaders, workers and their families and neighbors put their lives on the line for their political beliefs. None of these Sinn Fein political activists over the many years covered by this study, were doing anything illegal. On the contrary, all of the victims were unarmed and often at home, work or engaged in electioneering for their political party.Murders of Sinn Fein Party Members, Family Members and Elected Representatives Jim Murphy 4/74 Paul Best 2/76 Colm Mulgrew 6/76 Noel Jenkinson [Leicester prison] 10/76 Maire Drumm [Sinn Fein Official] 10/76 Michael McHugh [Sinn Fein Official] 2/77 Sean O'Conaill [Parkhurst prison] 10/77 Brendan McLaughlin 2/80 Peter Corrigan 10/82 Jeff McKenna 11/82 Paddy Brady 11/84 Aiden McAnespie [brother of SF candidate] 2/88 John Davey [Sinn Fein Councilor] 2/89 Phelim McNally * 11/89 Sam Marshall 3/90 Tommy Casey 10/90 Fergal Caraher 12/90 Martin McCauhey 1990 Eddie Fullerton [SF Councilor - Donegal] 8/90 Thomas Donaghy 8/91 Patrick Shanaghan 8/91 Jim Carson 8/91 Bernard O'Hagan [SF Councilor] 9/91 Larry Murchan ** 9/91 Michael O'Dwyer *** 2/92 Patrick McBride *** 2/92 Patrick Loughran *** 2/92 Philamena Hanna **** 4/92 Dan Cassidy 4/92 Sheena Campell [SF Candidate] 10/92 Malachy Carey [SF Candidate] 12/92 Martin Lavery 12/92 Peter Galagher [while canvassing for SF] 3/93 Alan Lundy 5/93 * Killed in assassination attempt on Sinn Fein Councilor Liam McNally, his brother.** Killed for selling Sinn Fein newspaper An Phoblacht.*** Murdered in SF Advice Centre by off-duty RUC man.**** Mistaken for sister of SF Press Officer Richard McAuleyAttempted Assassinations Joe Austin [Sinn Fein Councilor] 2/80 Sean Kennan [SF Councilor] 3/84 Gerry Adams IMP and SF President] 1/84 Alex Maskey [Sinn Fein Councilor] 5/86 Ivan Barr [Sinn Fein Councilor] 12/86 Alex Maskey [Belfast Lord Mayor, Sinn Fein Councilor] 5/87 Tony Driscoll 1990 Tommy Casey 1990 Sean Keenan 6/90 Denis O'Hagan 4/91 Gerard Ramsey 8/91 Damien McBride 10/91 Gerard McGuigan [SF Councilor] 2/92 Denis O'Hagan 2/92 Brendan Curran [SF Councilor] 4/92 The McGuigan family* 3/93 Joe Austin [SF Councilor]** 4/93 Denis O'Hagan 4/93 Alex Maskey [Belfast Lord Mayor, SF Councilor] 5/93 Joe Austin [SF Councilor]*** 5/93 Colette and Gearoid Adams**** 6/93 * Grenade attack on wife and children at home** Grenade attack on home*** Machine gun attack on SF Advice Centre, No. Belfast, during election campaign**** Grenade attack on Gerry Adams' wife and son at home

Orange Myths The Order's origins are with King William of Orange's war in Ireland in 1689 -1699King Billy won "civil and religious liberties" and the Battle of the Boyne.The Orange Order represents Irish ProtestantsThe Orange Order has always been Unionist Orange Facts The Orange Order was founded not in the 1690s, but in the 1790s as a reaction to efforts, especially by the United Irishmen who were predominately Protestant, to unite people of all religious persuasions in the cause of civil rights in Ireland and independence from England.Far from William's victory bringing civil and religious liberty, it ushered in a century of loss of rights, not only for Catholics in Ireland, but for the majority of Protestants who were members of the Presbyterian Church and who also suffered loss of rights because they did not adhere to the "established" or state church, the Church of Ireland.When it was founded the Orange Order was exclusively for members of the Church of Ireland. Presbyterians were not admitted until 1834. It is a minority within Irish Protestantism; opinion among Protestants about the role of the order is divided and many oppose it.Dominated from the start by wealthy Protestant landlords, the Orange Order initially opposed the Act of Union [with Britain] of 1800 because the abolition of the Irish parliament, which only represented a tiny wealthy minority, seemed to threaten their privileges.The legal system of the Six Counties continues to be presided over by judges and magistrates who are members of the Orange Order. Many RUC also swear alliance to the Order.Qualifications [from the Order's handbook]: "An Orangeman should... strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome, and scrupulously avoid countenancing any act or ceremony of Popish Worship; he should by all lawful means, resist the ascendancy of that Church, it encroachments and the extension of its power..."Expulsion: "Any member dishonoring the Institution by marrying a Roman Catholic shall be expelled; and every Member shall use his best endeavors to prevent and discountenance the marriage of Protestants with Roman Catholics..."The Penal Laws against Catholics were zealously backed by the Orange Order. Under these codes, the law did not even recognize the "existence" of an Irish Roman Catholic. The Marching Season The Orange Marching Season begins at Easter and continues to the end of August. There are between 2,500 and 3,000 processions and parades altogether in every city, town and village in the North.The Orange Marches are designed to demonstrate the power of the order in the life of Ulster. The symbols of power are the beating of big drums and the shouting of sectarian slogans, such as "Croppies lie down" and "Taigs out."The marches are triumphant, sectarian occasions and go through Catholic areas to provoke the people and establish domination.

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COVERT MILITARY OPERATIONS: British Agents Nelson and Holroyd The Brian Nelson case reveals the extent to which the British government is prepared to use covert operations and 'counter gangs' in order to advance its political objectives in Ireland.Brian Nelson, a native of Belfast, was a British soldier and was active in the Ulster Defense Association's MURDER SQUADS in the 1970s. He was jailed with two other UDA operatives for the kidnapping and torture killing by electrocution of a nearly blind Catholic man.Nelson rejoined the UDA as a British Intelligence agent in the 1980s, working closely with his MI5 handlers. He became UDA Director of Intelligence and was responsible for selecting Catholic/nationalist targets for the UDA's murder squads and organizing arms shipments -- with the full backing and knowledge of British Intelligence until his arrest in 1990.On 3 February 1992, a senior British judge, Basil Kelly, handed down a minimum prison sentence to Nelson describing him as a man who had shown "the greatest of courage."Nearly 200 innocent Nationalists have been murdered by Loyalist Murder Gangs since 1988 when Nelson traded for high powered arms, fragmentary grenades and other modern weapons from South Africa for missile system secrets and hundreds of detailed 'security forces' files on nationalists found their way into the hands of the loyalists .Background On 3 February 1992, a senior judge and former Attorney General for the unionist government at Stormont, Basil Kelly, handed down a minimum prison sentence to a British agent, Brian Nelson. Justice Kelly praised Nelson and described him as a man who had shown "the greatest of courage". The Director of Public Prosecutions [DPP] also received a letter sent on behalf of British cabinet minister, Tom King, in support of Nelson and saying that he was a valuable agent.The sentencing of Nelson to ten years imprisonment on a series of charges relating to killings in the Six Counties was the result of a deal struck between the office of then British Attorney General, Patrick Mayhew, Nelson himself and the North's judiciary. The deal was to keep Nelson from disclosing embarrassing information about British Intelligence and its deep involvement with loyalist death squads. Fifteen of the 35 charges against Nelson, including two charges of murder, were dropped by the Crown Prosecution at an earlier court appearance in return for guilty pleas on 20 lesser charges, five of which related to conspiracy to murder. Brian Nelson has since been transferred to a prison in England and is expected to be released in three or four years time.Who Is Brian Nelson? Nelson is a 45-year-old native of Belfast, who once served with the notorious Black Watch Regiment of the British army. He joined the Ulster Defense Association [UDA] in the 1970s and was later recruited by British Military Intelligence. He worked undercover for British Intelligence in Ireland from within the ranks of the UDA.In 1973, he and two UDA members kidnapped a half-blind Catholic man. The victim, Gerald Higgins, was abducted as he was walking along North Queen Street in the North Belfast area. Nelson and the other two electrocuted him and burned his hair off. The RUC labeled Nelson the ringleader of the gang and in a subsequent court report the Belfast News Letter said:"The abducted man was taken to a UDA club in Wilton Street off the Shankill Road, searched, punched, had a gun drawn across his head and had his hair set alight."Mr. Higgins had his spectacles taken away from him, leaving him almost blind. The injured man had a heart condition and his assailants refused to let him take pills which gave him relief. The men wet his hands and then put two wires in his hands connected to a generator and sent an electric shock through his body. In a notebook belonging to Mr. Higgins were the words: This is one, two to follow'."Gerald Higgins was dead not long afterwards of the effects on his torturous ordeal.Nelson and his two UDA accomplices were not even charged with attempted murder. They pleaded guilty to charges of false imprisonment of Gerald Higgins and possession of a revolver. Nelson was sentenced to only seven years in jail.On his release from prison, Nelson, still working for British Intelligence, became active again in the UDA until the mid 1980s when he left Ireland to work in Germany. While in Germany Nelson maintained contact with the UDA and his British Army handlers.In early 1987, his former British Army 'handler' and a representative of MI5 met Nelson outside London and asked him to return to Belfast to resume his role as a British agent within the UDA. The UDA, at that time a legal organization, is the largest loyalist paramilitary force with responsibility for the killings of hundreds of nationalist/Catholic civilians. Nelson became Director of Intelligence for the UDA. He was in control of selecting targets for loyalist death squads. He was actively assisted in this by his British intelligence 'handlers' who directed the reorganization and the rearming of the UDA.From the time he returned to Ireland until his arrest:Nelson was assisted by British Intelligence in compiling information on people who would be targeted for assassination;The British Intelligence/Nelson combination was directly responsible for murders and attempted murders; British Intelligence allowed Nelson to organize a huge arms shipment from South Africa, to come into the Six Counties to be used against the nationalist population;The Nelson/British Intelligence ring was responsible for the shooting dead of solicitor Patrick Finucane and for the targeting of fellow solicitor, Paddy McCrory, the man who faced the SAS at the Gibraltar inquest;A British Intelligence officer suggested that the UDA should bomb the huge Whitegate Oil Refinery in Cork Harbor. Nelson was arrested in January 1990 as part of investigations into the widespread leakage of British Intelligence documents to loyalist murder squads. This investigation, headed by senior British police officer, John Stevens, followed increasing public concern about collusion between British Crown Forces and loyalist paramilitaries. It later emerged that Nelson's British Intelligence handlers impeded the Stevens Inquiry by delaying for months the handover of 1,000 Crown Forces photo montages which Nelson had in his possession as the UDA's Director of Intelligence.In mid-January 1993, British Secretary of State for the North, Patrick Mayhew, denied that weapons imported by Brian Nelson with the knowledge of British Intelligence, are being used to kill Catholics. This is untrue. Mr. Mayhew's denial came in the midst of a sustained loyalist killing campaign.The modern weapons used in recent killings, including the Milltown cemetery attack, the Ormeau and Oldpark bookmakers' shop attacks, and individual killings, came from the consignment brought in by Nelson with the assistance of British Intelligence.British Intelligence and the British government were kept fully informed of all Nelson's activities including a weapons shipment which came in in January 1988 and included 200 AK47 rifles; 90 Browning pistols; around 500 fragmentation grenades; 30,000 rounds of ammunition and a dozen RPG7 rocket launchers.At Nelson's trial a 'character witness', a Military Intelligence Colonel referred to as 'J', stated that he was the commander of a Military Intelligence Unit in 'the North between 1986 and 1989 and had been responsible for Nelson.Colonel 'J' admitted that he gave monthly briefings to the British army GOC in the North and other senior officers. He said that it "would be normal for Nelson's information to be referred to at these briefings. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland might also be interested in such information."Evidence given in court and uncovered by journalists has revealed the extent of the import of these weapons and that Colonel 'J' knew of these events.Brian Nelson's case reveals the extent to which the British government is prepared to use covert operations and 'counter gangs' in order to advance its political objectives in Ireland.South African Connections Informal contacts between loyalists and South Africa were first established in the mid 1970s when some former Ulster Defense Regiment [UDR] men went there as mercenaries. By 1989, however, the situation had changed considerably: "the Pretoria link with the Ulsterman has been developed over some considerable time and was (sic) a well established two-way traffic".The starting point for this new relationship was the visit to Belfast in 1985 of a 48-year-old ex-merchant seaman originally from Portadown, Ireland who went to live in South Africa. Dick Wright's Ulster connections made him a useful intermediary -- he was the uncle of Alan Wright, leader of the Ulster Clubs and co-founder of Ulster Resistance. He was also an agent for Armscor, the South African state-owned company which, in defiance of the 1977 United Nations arms embargo, set about making South Africa self-sufficient in military hardware.Within a decade it had made the country one of the world's top ten arms exporters. It was particularly anxious to acquire a missile system for use in Angola and Namibia. Israel (which had given South Africa its start in the arms business, supplying designs for ships, missiles and small arms) was equally keen to get details of the most advanced missile available -- the Starstreak being developed by Shorts in Belfast.Wright visited the home in East Belfast of a senior UDA leader and offered to supply guns; the order would have to be worth at least a quarter of a million pounds, missile parts or plans would be an acceptable alternative to cash.The offer was taken seriously by the UDA. John McMichael sent UDA intelligence officer Brian Nelson to South Africa to investigate the possibility of a deal. The crowds traveling from Belfast to London over weekend of 7 & 8 June 1985 for the McGuigan/Pedroza boxing match provided cover for the part of Nelson's journey.During the two weeks in South Africa, Nelson was shown warehouses full of weapons by Dick Wright, the Armscor agent representing the South African state. The conditions of the deal offered by his host became decidedly more attractive: the loyalists were to supply South African agents with secrets or parts -- if possible a complete Shorts missile system -- in return for a substantial shipment of arms and finance of up to £1 million.A British Agent Inside the Murder Squads for 10 Years By 1985, Brian Nelson had been a British agent for least ten years. Official knowledge of the South African negotiations however may have gone far beyond the reports of Nelson on his return. Private Eye claimed in February 1992 that Nelson's visit had been cleared not only by the Minister of Defense but by an unnamed government minister.The DPP's deal with Nelson at his trial was intended to ensure that no mention would be made of either the South African visit or the British government minister. (In 1987, a US State Department report named Britain as one of the countries which had violated the UN arms embargo against South Africa.)In June 1987, the robbing of the Northern Bank in Portadown provided the money for the deal to go ahead -- £150,000 of the £300,000 taken in the raid was spent on South African arms. This bought more weaponry than the UDA could handle, so the Ulster Volunteer Force [UVF] and Ulster Resistance were made 'partners' in the enterprise. A top secret unit responsible for developing channels of communication on behalf of several loyalist paramilitary groups were set up. Roy Metcalfe, a member of the unit, represented Ulster Resistance in the negotiations. When he and Thomas Gibson were executed by the IRA in October 1989, Ulster Resistance claimed that they had been 'set up' by British Intelligence.The deal was completed and final arrangements were made in December 1987. Military Intelligence had been informed by Brian Nelson of developments at every stage of the proceedings; he passed on all the details including the method to be used to smuggle in the weapons. No action was taken.At the end of December 1987 Joseph Fawzi, a Lebanese intermediary employed by a US arms dealer working for the South Africans, dispatched a huge consignment of arms which landed without difficulty in January 1988 somewhere along the County Down coast. Two hundred AK47 automatic rifles, 90 Browning pistols, around 500 fragmentation grenades, 30,000 rounds of ammunition and a dozen RPG7 rocket launchers disappeared without trace, the haul having apparently been divided into 3 parts shortly after its arrival.If discovered, the arms would not have revealed their true origin; many were Czech-made weapons initially used by the PLO in Lebanon where they had been captured by the Israelis and sold to Armscor. The shipment had not been let in through negligence, mistake or oversight. The decision to allow it to go ahead had been taken (presumably at the highest levels) months before. Nelson states in a prison journal:"In 1987 I was discussing with my handler Ronnie the South African operation when he told me that because of the deep suspicion the seizure would have aroused, to protect me it had been decided to let the first shipment into the country untouched."Nelson's involvement in setting up the UDA's transport system meant he, and therefore British intelligence, knew the location of the farmhouse where the weapons would be stored initially after landing.In January 1988, Davy Payne, an ex-British paratrooper and a UDA Brigadier was arrested outside Portadown as he transported 60 assault rifles, rockets and handguns -- most of the UDA's portion of the shipment. At the time the arrest was attributed to good luck and keen observation. Payne's arrest drew attention to Ulster Resistance -- a telephone number written on Payne's hand turned out to be that of Noel Lyttle, a civil servant, former member of the UDR and close associate of Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson [top leadership of the DUP]. Lyttle had stood for the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] as a candidate in local government elections.Lyttle was warned on two or three occasions that he was under surveillance by the crown forces. Even his questioning and release without charge did not interrupt Ulster Resistance's attempts to renegotiate with the South Africans.Hightech Missiles for Murder Arms The Starstreak, being developed under a £225 million Ministry of Defense contract at Shorts was what the South Africans wanted. A fully operational unit had been on display until a few hours before a raid in 1987 in which Ulster Resistance had stolen a Javelin aiming unit. The extraordinary coincidence did not raise any suspicions: Lyttle's questioning and the warnings were ignored and three Ulster Resistance members traveled to Paris to negotiate with the South Africans, who had already made a down payment of £50,000.They were offering not only the parts (which though not operational could be used for research purposes) but expertise in firing the weapons -- one of the three, Samuel Quinn, was a senior NCO in the Ulster Air Defense Regiment of the Territorial Army. Quinn trained recruits in the use of the Blowpipe missile. One of the weapons offered to the South Africans was a dummy Blowpipe, stolen from Newtownards, where Quinn served. In April 1989, the three -- Noel Lyttle, Samuel Quinn and James King were arrested in Paris along with arms dealer Douglas Bernhardt and a South African diplomat, Daniel Storm.Storm claimed diplomatic immunity and was expelled from France. A diplomatic row blew up -- but there was more noise than genuine surprise on the part of the British authorities, who were well aware of Bernhardt's activities. A naturalized American citizen, born in South Africa and married to an Englishwoman, he had operated a gun dealership Field Arms in Mayfair for three years -- it had received assistance from the Department of Employment.The security services knew of Bernhardt's loyalist connections; they knew he was the US dealer involved in the January 1988 arms shipment. They would also have known that Armscor agent Dick Wright had been employed as a marketing executive by Field Arms. Noel Lyttle later admitted he had known Wright as an Armscor agent representing the South African state for "quite a few years".No request for the extradition of the three was made. Although the Swiss authorities began an investigation of Bernhardt's Geneva-based container leasing company Agencia Utica, the British made no request for an examination of Bernhardt or his company. The Ulster Resistance members were released on bail. Following the 'revelations' of contacts between the South African government and the Paris trio, the British government expelled the three South African embassy personnel. They were Staff Sergeant Mark Brunwer, who did not appear on the diplomatic list and was described in the press as a "technical officer": the First Secretary at the embassy, Jan Castelyn; and, Etienne Fourie. Although the British Foreign Office emphasized that they had been chosen at random, it must have been just another coincidence that one of them, Etienne Fourie, was considered the 'eyes and ears' of the London embassy and had worked as a journalist in the North in the 1970s.Loyalist Arms Shipments Known by British Authorities Two thirds of the arms shipment landed with the knowledge of British Intelligence on the County Down coast almost five years ago remains unaccounted for. The other third was seized at a road checkpoint. The results of its arrival, however, are unmistakable. In 1985 the UDA and UVF between them killed three people. Since January 1988 more than 160 people have killed by loyalists. The AK47 assault rifles were used in the killing of five people at the Ormeau Road shop in February 1992; and the killings in Murray's bookies on Belfast's Oldpark Road in December 1992; Michael Stone attacked the mourners in Milltown Cemetery in March 1988 with Russian RPG5 splinter grenades and a Browning pistol from the same arms consignment. The weapons created a secure base for a renewed and sustainable campaign of sectarian violence and murder by loyalist paramilitary groups. If his British government handler's explanation is to be believed, Brian Nelson must have an extraordinarily valuable agent if his safety had been paid for in hundreds of lives. How many more Brian Nelsons does British Intelligence have operating in the various loyalist murder squads?The above chronicles one episode of Loyalist/British Intelligence gun-running activity. How other shipments have been secured since then?

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DEATHS DIRECTLY LINKED TO THE POLITICAL CONFLICT IN IRELAND July 1969 through 31 December 1993 [Based upon the revised figures of the Belfast Independent Research Group ]According to the Belfast Independent Research Group, 3,285 people lost their lives as a direct result of this latest phase of the Anglo/Irish conflict. The vast majority of deaths occurred in the Six Northeastern Counties of British Occupied Ireland. The political violence in these six, small counties of Ireland with a million and one-half people has meant that 1 out of every 500 citizens has been killed. In American terms, it would be the equivalent of 500,000 deaths, 10 Viet Nams. This slaughter is a direct result of the politically motivated gerrymander of Ireland to solve the very short term needs of British political interests.The Bare Facts The bare facts are that of the 3, 285 deaths in the conflict from July 1969 to December 1993, Republicans have killed 1,928, Loyalists 911, British forces 357, Irish Republic forces have killed 3 and "others" [deaths impossible to link to a military group] 86. Of these, 3,059 occurred in N. Ireland, 91 in the South, 118 in Britain and 17 in continental Europe. The breakdown:Loyalist Killings The IRG lumps all 911 Loyalist paramilitary killings into one group although many groups operate. The IRG lists the groups as:Ulster Defense Association [UDA] They have never claimed responsibility for any killings, probably to preserve their legal status, preferring to use a nom de guere, Ulster Freedom Fighters [UFF]. The UDA was eventually banned by British authorities in 1992. Their youth wing, Young Militants, have carried out some killings.Ulster Volunteer Force [UVF] Banned in 1966, but made legal by British authorities between April 1974 and October 1975, when they were banned again. Their offshoots are the Protestant Action Group and Protestant Action Force.The Red Hand CommandosLoyalist Retaliation and Defense Group which emerged during the Summer of 1991. Republican Activists Killed: Loyalist paramilitaries have killed 20 IRA volunteers, 4 members of the now defunct Official IRA, 4 members of the INLA/IPLO for a total of 28.Internal Loyalist Feuds: 45 Loyalists operatives [and 1 Civilian] from their various organizations have been killed in internal feuds for a total of 46.Nationalist Political Activists: [see Target Democracy section re. murder campaign against Sinn Fein] Loyalist paramilitaries have killed 32 Nationalist/Republican political activists, 19 official members and elected councillors of the Sinn Fein party [and many family members in attacks on their homes not considered in this category by IRG]. Also killed by Loyalists were 5 Irish Republican Socialist Party members, 2 Social and Democratic Labor Party members, and 6 from smaller Nationalist political parties.Sectarian Killings: 670 people were deliberately targeted by Loyalists because they were Catholics, including Protestant civilians killed because they were mistaken for Catholics or married to or associated with Catholic civilians. 73.5% of Loyalist targeted killings were innocent Catholic/Protestant civilians. IRG's assessment is "Given the clandestine nature of Republican military organizations, the identity of many of their members in not know to Loyalists, therefore they have launched attacks on many occasions against the Catholic civilian population, probably in an attempt to intimidate and terrorize this community to abandon its rebellion against Unionist and/or British rule."Irish Republic: 33 Irish civilians were killed on one day, 17 May 1974, in simultaneous car bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan. A total of 43 Irish Republic 43 citizens were deliberately killed by Loyalists.British forces: A total of 12 members of the British forces were killed by Loyalists, 3 being killed in attacks against Catholic civilians. One Ulster Defense Regiment member was killed because he was a Catholic and one member of the British forces was killed in a bomb attack against a business that remained open during a Loyalist strike. Only 7 of these killing were deliberate [4 RUC members, 1 British soldier, and 2 prison warders].Premature Bomb explosions: 24 people died in this manner, 23 being Loyalists killed by their own bombs.Others: 56 individual deaths were considered by IRG to conform to none of the above categories, including the deaths of informers, civilians killed in attacks on Nationalist politicians, Republican military activists, etc. Civilians [i.e., excluding informers and punishment attacks] in this category number 35 [including 17 killed for no known reason].Analysis: Loyalists paramilitary organizations have killed 911 people, the vast majority were innocent civilians. The tactical objective of the Loyalist campaign is obviously to target for attack the Nationalist/Catholic civilian community. Purposely targeted, civilian deaths [not including accidental civilian deaths], number 713 people or 78.2% of all of their killings and 21.7% of deaths in the conflict as a whole.They have in fact killed more of their own military activists [45 and 1 civilian] in feuds, and more Sinn Fein and other opposition political activists [32], than they have Republican military forces [28].The Irish Republican Army According to the Independent Research group, the IRA are responsible for 1,757 killings, broken down into several categories: Crown Forces, Loyalist Military and Political Activists, Civilian Accidents, Operations in Britain, Sectarian, and other.Crown Forces: The vast majority, 1,008, fall into the first grouping--British military forces. Of this category the vast majority are full-time or part-time members of the British army--698. The IRA have killed 287 members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary [RUC] and 23 Prison warders. Another 100 deaths were civilians working for British forces, either informErs -- 59, magistrates -- 8, contractors or civilians directly employed by the British army/RUC -- 33.Loyalist activists: The IRA have killed 24 Loyalist military personnel and 9 political leaders for a total of 33 from this group.Accidental deaths: A total of 142 civilians were killed by mistake during attacks on British military forces -- 90 in bombings of commercial property [included are 10 outside N. Ireland and 6 killed trying to stop a bomb attack to their property.] Another 130 people died in premature IRA bomb explosions. The vast majority in this category, 102, were IRA members; 28 were civilians.Britain: 14 British politicians were killed by the IRA and 34 civilians died in IRA attacks, 32 of which took place between July 1974 and March 1976.Sectarian: According to the Independent Research Group, 133 Protestant civilians were deliberately killed by the IRA: "In response to the killing of Catholics by Loyalists, the IRA has launched indiscriminate attacks against the Protestant civilian community in an attempt to get the Loyalists to stop their attacks on the Catholic community. 85 of these killings occurred during the two years 1975 and 1976."Other: 73 deaths were considered by IRG "not possible to fit into any of the above categories." 35 of these could be considered civilians [including 12 the IRG considers "precise reason unknown"].Analysis: It is important when assessing the actions of any military organization to factor in its military objectives, the targets considered militarily legitimate, and occurrences of mistakes or "collateral damage", a euphemism coined during the Persian Gulf military operation -- are these accidents reasonable considering the circumstances of the conflict? It is also important to consider percentages relative to the level of military activity and the total numbers of deaths involved.During the period reported by IRG, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of IRA operations were directed against British military personnel, which include the full and part-time British army, the armed, sectarian police force which operates in conjunction with the army, and those working directly for the British army.Military targets killed by the IRA would include the 1,008 considered British military personnel and 24 Loyalist military [and exclude all political activists and civilians whether killed by mistake or on purpose.] Regarding accidental deaths, 272 occurred as a result of operations against military or commercial targets, of these 100 were IRA Volunteers themselves killed in premature explosions. Civilians killed in these operations represent 9.6% of all those killed by the IRA and 5.1% of all those killed by all forces in the conflict.Those that were killed in Britain [14 politicians and 34 civilians] and those considered by IRG to be sectarian in nature whether justified tactically to prevent murders of Catholics or not -- 133 Protestants, must be considered non-military in nature. This represents 10.1% of the IRA's total and 5.5% of the conflict's total.Of the 3,285 people who died in the Anglo/Irish conflict from 1969 through 1993, 1032 people were connected to the British crown forces and died in targeted operations of the IRA. 5.1% [170 people] of the total deaths in the conflict occurred in premature explosions or other mistakes as a result of IRA operations against British forces. Of all those considered by IRG to be either political or sectarian, 5.5% were caused by the IRA.British Military Forces British army killings total 357, these include 8 by off duty British forces members.Civilians: A total of 194 non-military individuals were killed by the British military, the vast majority innocent civilians. Only 33 were involved in criminal activity [15 were involved in robberies; 16 traveling in stolen cars, mostly nationalist youths; 1 was attempting to steal a car; and 1 damaging property]. Three members of the Sinn Fein party were killed by the British military. All but one of the 194 were unarmed. 54.3% killed by British forces were civilians.Republican Military: 121 IRA volunteers and 20 other republican military personnel were killed by British forces. Many were killed in disputed circumstances leading to allegations of a British "Shoot-To-Kill" policy of summary execution of unarmed individuals believed to be members of the IRA. These allegations have been sustained by international legal bodies and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, and suppressed British government reports that have come to light. These killings represent 39.4% of the British military total.Loyalist Activists: Only 13 Loyalist military activists have been killed by British forces, 3.6% of their total. Only 2 Loyalists paramilitaries have been killed by the British military since 1975.Other British Forces: Four off duty British soldiers were killed by other British forces who assumed they were civilians when shot. Five undercover British forces were deliberately killed by other British forces during covert operations.Analysis: Civilians, overwhelmingly Irish Nationalist/Catholic, mark the number one category of British military killings, closely followed by Irish Republican military forces. These killings, confined to the Nationalist community, represent 93.7% of all those killed by official British military forces, the vast majority unarmed.Summary The raw data clearly indicates that the IRA is engaged in a military conflict against the British army and its operatives. It is in consideration of the nature of the conflict for insurgent forces against a modern, highly mechanized, sophisticated and armed occupation force that holds all of the ground, that IRA civilian causalities needs to be accessed.Killings by British and Loyalist forces, individually and in collusion with each other, must be similarly judged, as both absolute numbers and as percentages of the total deaths they are responsible for.The vast majority of killings by Loyalist paramilitaries have been innocent civilians in an effort to terrorize the nationalist community. 670 people were deliberately targeted and murdered by Loyalists because they were Catholics, including Protestant civilians killed because they were mistaken for Catholics or married to or associated with Catholic civilians. 73.5% of Loyalist targeted killings were innocent Catholic/Protestant civilians.The vast majority of Irish people killed by British crown forces were unarmed, Catholic non-combatants.

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British Army to use North as training ground

The North of Ireland is to be used increasingly to train British soldiers before they are sent to conflict zones such as Afghanistan and Iraq, it has been confirmed. The British Army says training in...
Posted by Seamus on Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:41:00 PST

PARADE LIMITED

Extraordinary conditions have been imposed on a republican parade in Ballymena, County Antrim. The Parades Commission has told organisers they must not leave the Fisherwick housing estate during the i...
Posted by Seamus on Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:40:00 PST

Craigavon riot after bomb find

Republican youths fought running battles with the PSNI police yesterday [Monday] following a day-long military-style police operation in the town of Craigavon, County Armagh. Crowds hurled petrol bom...
Posted by Seamus on Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:39:00 PST

Adams calls for Truth Commission

 An independent truth commission, including international experts, should be considered for dealing with the past conflict, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said yesterday. Mr Adams criticised pr...
Posted by Seamus on Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:38:00 PST

U.S. COURT WON'T HEAR ASYLUM SEEKER'S PLEA

Court Won't Hear Asylum Seeker's PleaAssociated PressWASHINGTON - An asylum seeker found to have engaged interrorist activities in Northern Ireland lost his battleMonday to have the Supreme Court revi...
Posted by Seamus on Tue, 28 Nov 2006 07:45:00 PST

ANALYSIS: UNIONISTS STILL BELIEVE THEY OWN THE NORTH

Analysis: Unionists still believe they own the north By Brian Feeney (for the Irish News) You could be forgiven for thinking that the only issue in Irish politics at present is whether Sinn Fein '...
Posted by Seamus on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 02:46:00 PST

OBJECTION TO MURDER ENDED BRITISH ARMY OFFICER'S CAREER

Objection to murder ended British Army officer's career A former senior British army intelligence officer has claimed that his British military career in the Six Counties was ended after he raised o...
Posted by Seamus on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 02:44:00 PST

FAMILIES GETTING CAUGHT IN POVERTY TRAP

Families getting caught in poverty trap Most households dependent on unemployed persons or those on minimum wage do not have enough income to sustain a basic standard of living, new research has sho...
Posted by Seamus on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 02:42:00 PST

QUESTIONS OVER STONE ATTACK

Questions over Stone attack Notorious unionist paramilitary killer Michael Stone has been charged with five counts of attempted murder over his attack on the Belfast Assembly at Stormont buildings o...
Posted by Seamus on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 02:41:00 PST

CONFUSION AND TERROR AT STORMONT

CONFUSION AND TERROR AT STORMONT The peace process has survived one of its most dramatic days in recent years despite a major political crisis and an almost simultaneous gun and bomb attack at the B...
Posted by Seamus on Sat, 25 Nov 2006 02:37:00 PST