IRA Dropped from US "Terrorist" List/Republican News id UAA12365; Fri, 10 Oct 1997 20:32:39 -0400 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: Paddy Newell Fri, 10 Oct 1997 00:17:01 From RM Distribution 09 October 97 >>>> IRA dropped from US 'terrorist' list Sinn Fein said today the US government's decision to not include the Irish Republican Army on a US State Department list of banned foreign "terrorist" organisations had been taken to support the current peace negotiations in the north of Ireland. The list names about 30 groups around the world for which it would be illegal for Americans to provide weapons, funds or other support. A new US law also denies U.S. visas to "aliens abroad who are members or representatives" of the groups on the list. Sinn Fein party spokesman Michael Browne, speaking to local television, said the US government had a strong record of supporting Irish peace efforts and that yesterday's decision was in keeping with that record. Irish-Americans have also praised the move, which they said would help to end the demonisation of US-based organisations working for a just and lasting peace in Ireland. The organisations named yesterday by Madeleine Albright include Middle-East, Asian and Latin American groups. Well-known groups on the list include Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Abu Nidal Organisation (Middle East), Aum Shinrikyo (Japanese), Khmer Rouge (Cambodian), the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the Kurdistan Workers Party and Shining Path (Peruvian). No Irish organisations are included on the list. The United States later said the IRA, which has fought a 28-year armed struggle to end British rule in the north of Ireland, was not on the list because a ceasefire was in place and it supported the view that the truce was genuine. The US government would keep the matter under continuing review, according to a State Department spokesman. Furious Ulster Unionist spokesman Ken Maginnis accused the US administration of making a huge mistake which would return to haunt them. "To suggest that the IRA is not one of the top 30 terrorist organisations in the world is wishful thinking," he said. But party leader David Trimble put a more positive spin on the decision. Claiming his Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) had been made aware of the decision during a visit to the US earlier this week, he said the list would act as a "sword of Damocles" over the IRA to ensure the ceasefire would be maintained. Right-wing Tories today added their criticism, describing the decision as an example of American "naivete" on Ireland. On Tuesday, the White House welcomed the opening of Inclusive and substantive negotiations on the future of the Six Counties. "I think this is a historic and perhaps unique opportunity that exists right now in Northern Ireland," President Bill Clinton's national security adviser Sandy Berger told reporters during the visit by the UUP delegation. "I think there is a potential here that hasn't existed for a long time and may not exist for a long time after this to end this bloody war that has so savaged that portion of the world," Berger said. He recalled the crowds that welcomed Clinton in the north of Ireland in 1995 as evidence that the people want peace. "There's no question in my mind that the people of Northern Ireland, Protestant and Catholic, want peace and now we hope that the leaders of Northern Ireland, the leaders of the various parties...will seize this opportnity because I'm afraid that it will not come back for a very long time," he said. ---------------------------- >>>> Colin Duffy re-arrested Armagh republican Colin Duffy is back behind bars tonight. Despite his release on Friday after four months in jail, when murder charges were withdrawn for the second time in 13 months, Duffy has again been locked up without any apparent pretext. Duffy was today detained at a British Army checkpoint in his native Lurgan and later formally arrested by the RUC who claimed he had assaulted a British soldier. While the sequence of events is still not clear, friends of Duffy have described it as another example of an ongoing campaign of harassment and that his rearrest had not been unexpected. On Saturday night, a day after his release, Duffy and a friend were detained by the RUC in the Kilwilkie estate near his home. "I was in the estate when the RUC drove past us. They shone a flashlight on us and when they recognised me they turned and come back. They took our details and radioed them in. Obviously it was harrassment," Duffy said after the weekend incident. The persecution of Colin Duffy was described by Sinn Fein Northern chair, Gearoid O hEara as further evidence of a "rotten corrupt little system". He said Duffy's case "goes to the heart of the problem here. The law is manipulated by the RUC to suit their ends and the judiciary assist them. It is now time to scrap the Diplock system". To date Duffy has spent over four years in jail despite being innocent of any charges: * On Friday, a crown lawyer was forced to concede "there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction" after an RUC attempt to frame Duffy for an IRA ambush on an RUC patrol in June. The only evidence against Duffy was the alleged eyewitness evidence of a psychologically unstable woman, Witness D, who was pressurised by the RUC into identifying Duffy. Despite 12 alibi witnesses contradicting Witness D, and a member of her own family describing her as unreliable the RUC persisted in their case against Duffy for four months. * In 1990 in one of the most blatant acts of collusion between the RUC and the loyalist death-squads, Duffy's friend and fellow republican, Sam Marshall was gunned down after signing a bail bond in Lurgan RUC barracks. Duffy narrowly escaped death. * Shortly afterwards, Duffy was convicted of killing a UDR soldier, largely on the 'evidence' of Lindsay Robb, himself later convicted of running weapons for the UVF. Robb gave his evidence from behind a screen. __________________________________________________________ >>>> Policing a matter for negotiations - Sinn Fein A senior Sinn Fein member last night said the party would be unlikely to accept an invitation to meet the authority which supervises the RUC police in the Six Counties. The party believes that discussions on policing are an issue for the talks at Stormont. Dodie McGuinness said Sinn Fein considered the RUC to be unacceptable as a police force and that the Police Authority and the RUC were part of the one body. Ms McGuinness was speaking after unionists reacted furiously to the news that Sinn Fein had -- for the first time -- been invited, along with other political parties and groups, to meet the Police Authority to participate in their "ongoing consultation process". Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) deputy leader Peter Robinson said this was "scandalous" and described Sinn Fein -- which received more votes than Robinson's own party in recent Six County elections -- as the "enemy of everybody in Northern Ireland". Although Sinn Fein has not yet given a definitive official response, Dodie McGuinness said discussions on the future of the 93% Protestant RUC police force was a central issue which needed to be resolved in the negotiations currently underway at Stormont Castle. "We would have the view that the Police Authority are a grouping that we haven't met in the past, that they have responsibility within their remit for the RUC... and we have been very critical of them in the past in terms of how the RUC have conducted themselves, particularly with regard to plastic bullets, informers and shoot to kill." Pending a decision on the invitation, her first reaction was that Sinn Fein wouldn't meet with the authority, she said. "This is the business of the negotiations, not of the RUC Authority. The RUC is not a police service and must be disbanded. We need a democratically accountable, unarmed policing service." She said a discussion with the authority at this stage would be very superficial. __________________________________________________________ >>>> University language protest continues Irish language activists at Queen's University, Belfast have begun replacing the bilingual signs in English and Irish Gaelic removed over the summer by the university's Students Union. The new signs, in the form of computer printouts, have been removed by the union staff but are being replaced by the students as quickly as they are taken down. The dispute over the language signs has continued since union officers removed the original bilingual signs while the student body was on summer vacation, after a review group claimed they were off-putting to Protestant students. Students at the University have also organised a petition to force the students union to put the issue to the student body in a referendum. Sinn Fein Northern Chairperson Gerry O hEara has commended everyone involved in the referendum initiative. Mr O hEara said he supported efforts to have the issue of the Irish language raised in a way "in which everyone rather than a select few can have a say. "The way in which the Irish language signs were removed during a holiday period merely exposes the lack of support that existed for such a move. Already hundreds of students have signed the petition to have a referendum on the matter. This clearly reflects the widespread support within the University for the issue to be raised in a democratic way. "If those opposed to the Irish language feel that they have a case then they can have no objections to a referendum" From RM_Distribution an Irish Republican news and information service. http://irlnet.com/rmlist/ ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-10.10.97-20:32:37-27286