Irish News 10 October 97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: Paddy Newell Fri, 10 Oct 1997 00:35:17 +0000 The Irish News 10 October 97 http://www.irishnews.com Why Clinton fought tough over change to terror list As the American government removed the IRA from the list of active terror groups, Ray O'Hanlon reports from New York on the behind-the-scenes moves which led to the decision THE IRA was only left off a US State Department list of world terrorist groups after a vigorous argument with the White House. The White House won. As a result, both the IRA and Sinn Fein dodged the bullet which would have had the most severe implications for the latter's fund raising efforts in the US. The State Department list issued this week includes 30 groups from around the world including the Basque separatist group Eta in Spain, an organisation which has frequently been compared to the IRA. However, as one observer put it, Eta did not have a constituency in the United States. The IRA's omission from the terrorist group listing was noted in a number of US newspaper stories yesterday including the New York Times. The IRA would remain under "active review" State Department spokesman James Rubin was quoted as saying in the Times. "Any resumption of violence by the IRA is totally unacceptable to the United States and would have a direct impact on the on-going review" Rubin told reporters. The outcome of the debate however, places the State Department in what is at very least asituation replete with irony. The agency which is US diplomacy's governing arm releases an annual report on terrorist activities around the world that is distinct from this week's list which was itself ordered up by Congress under recently enacted anti-terrorist legislation. The existing annual report, called Patterns of Global Terrorism, is a chronology of terrorist actions around the world in any given year. The 1996 report, which was published in the spring of this year, included the IRA because of its renewed campaign after the first ceasefire. And the 1997 report, due to be released next spring will also include the IRA because of its activities in the first half of this year up to the renewed ceasefire. As a result the definitive list between the two reports would appear all the more unusual given the fact that the IRA is noticeably absent. However observers were saying that the White House had no other choice given that it is exerting strong pressure on Sinn Fein to maintain the IRA ceasefire and at this point to suddenly proscribe Sinn Fein's fund raising activities, carried out by Friends of Sinn Fein in the US would have run counter to this current high priority policy. Such a move by the State Department would also have caused uproar among Irish/Americans. The department has long been viewed as a bastion of Anglophile thinking that is hostile to Irish nationalist sentiment in the United States. Also, the new list is being viewed as one very hard to get off. Had the IRA been included all manner of mandatory legal sanctions would have been imposed against Sinn Fein and Friends of Sinn Fein that again would have caused considerable consternation and discomfort in the White House. _____________________________________________ Andrews confident of talks settlement By William Graham Political Correspondent NEWLY-APPOINTED Foreign Affairs Minister David Andrews said last night he was confident the Stormont political negotiations can deliver a settlement. Mr Andrews, who yesterday spoke by telephone to Secretary of State Mo Mowlam, is due to travel north on Tuesday for strand two negotiations. Today British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern will review progress in the peace process when they meet in Strasbourg. They are in Strasbourg for a European heads of state summit and are expected to have a pre-lunch bilateral meeting. It is understood that Mr Ahern and Mr Blair will visit the Stormont talks soon to meet all the delegations, including Sinn Fein, but no firm date has yet been pencilled in. Foreign Affairs Minister Mr Andrews said he is looking forward to leading the Irish delegation during Tuesday's talks at Castle Buildings, Stormont. "It seems that the real business of the talks - in searching for agreement in the three strands - has got underway. "We have set ourselves a demanding task for advancing the negotiations. I am wholly committed to the talks and will do my utmost to ensure that the political process delivers a settlement that all of our people so fervently desire. "It is a challenge and a privilege to be involved in this process at a time of such hope in Northern Ireland. While in no way minimising the difficulties ahead I remain confident we can succeed, and I am determined we shall do so." Yesterday Mr Andrews was briefed by officials and also consulted his predecessor Ray Burke. The new minister, while being regarded as having a safe pair of hands, is also known as a straight talking politician with a tough edge, who throughout his career has taken a close interest in northern politics. He was appointed earlier this week following the resignation of Mr Burke - from both the Dublin cabinet and the Dail - after a series of allegations and talk of a smear campaign. Mr Andrews, a veteran representative for the Dun Laoghaire constituency, is seen by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern as capable of taking a reliable grip on imminent key developments over the Northern peace process. He was Foreign Minister before, for a period of less than two years, and was involved in the last northern talks in 1992. ___________________________________________ Fury over loyalists' march block Organisers hit out at group's march threat By Steven McCaffery ORGANISERS of a commemorative march in Co Fermanagh have hit out at speculation it is to face a loyalist blockade. Residents in the border village of Roslea are set to stage a candlelit procession from Enniskillen to the village on Sunday. The walk will re-enact the final journey of three United Irishmen hung for their part in the revolutionary movement exactly 200 years ago. But yesterday the Belfast Telegraph said the newly formed "Combined Loyalist Residents' Committee of Co Fermanagh" would block the march on the grounds they believed it was "Sinn Fein backed" and passed through Protestant areas. A spokesman for the committee organising the Roslea Martyrs Bicentenary commemoration, Oliver McCaffrey, last night said he was disappointed the "historic reenactment" was being portrayed as an exclusively nationalist event. "This is part of a weekend-long celebration commemorating an event that has important historical significance throughout Fermanagh. "It refers to the United Irishmen and also to the ideal they espoused of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter." The parade will carry three symbolic coffins along the 22-mile route taken by mourners who carried the remains of Patrick Smyth, John Connolly and Brian McMahon back to Roslea, following their hanging in Enniskillen on October 12, 1797. As on the original procession, they will carry lit candles marking the progress of the cortege as it winds its way along the route through the hills and countryside along the way. It is thought the weekend long series of commemorative events will feature a speech from leading Sinn Fein representative Mitchel McLaughlin and will also hear from a spokesman for the Presbyterian Church. SDLP representative for the constituency Tommy Gallagher said it would be unfortunate if the parade was to become divisive. "Unfortunately if loyalists insist on having a counter demonstration it will turn the occasion into a conflict between two cultures," he said. "Any aspect of remembering the United Irishmen should not be a divisive issue as that group brought together people from both traditions. Their aim was to unite and not divide." Commemoration organiser, Mr McCaffrey, said the martyrs had been remembered at three separate ceremonies over the last 200 years and were now part of local folklore. The report outlining the blockade threat said the Fermanagh loyalist grouping was formed at a meeting last Thursday night in Enniskillen.A spokesman for the group, who did not wish to be named, said he had the backing of the Spirit of Drumcree and expected "a couple of thousand men" to join the protest. ___________________________________________ PUP stands over killer's transfer By Peter McVerry THE Progressive Unionist Party yesterday spoke for the first time in defence of the part it played in securing the controversial transfer of a sectarian murderer from Scotland to Northern Ireland. PUP spokesman David Ervine said the transfer had been "an absolute demand" by the UVF to the British government in order to test a perception within the community that the IRA cessation was being treated more favourably than the Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire. Mr Ervine said he believed that the decision to grant the request had helped pave the way for the PUP to enter the historic negotiations at Stormont since it showed the loyalist and republican ceasefires were being treated equally. Mr Ervine yesterday acknowledged that the murder committed by a man his party prisons spokesman William Smith had described as "well-rated here" could never be classed as anything else other than "a brutal sectarian attack without justification." Jason Campbell was last year sentenced to life for slashing the throat of 16-year-old Celtic fan Mark Scott in a Glasgow street on a busy Saturday afternoon. Two weeks ago the PUP, acting on behalf of the UVF, asked Secretary of State Dr Mo Mowlam to arrange Mr Campbell's transfer to the Maze as part of a "shopping list" of demands and "confidence building measures". News that the NIO had agreed to the transfer caused a public outcry Both here and in Scotland amidst fears that Mr Campbell was seeking to exploit loyalist connections to earn classification as 'a political prisoner'. Fears were also expressed that 'political' status might earn Mr Campbell early release as part of an overall settlement in the north. Mr Campbell's father Colin and uncle William have both been linked with loyalist paramilitaries and both were jailed in 1979 for the UVF bombing of a Glasgow pub. Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback Mr Ervine said there was no "sleight of hand" about the transfer since Mr Campbell met all of the transfer criteria. Acknowledging that the crime could never be classed as anything other than "a brutal sectarian attack without justification", he said his party had been asked by "the UVF foot soldiers to recognise Jason Campbell as a victim" of the circumstances created in Northern Ireland. The PUP spokesman said the Campbell family had asked for help in moving Mr Campbell from Scotland. He said the Campbell family felt that moving the prisoner to Northern offered "a greater opportunity for Jason Campbell to live a different life, to learn a different way than there is in Glasgow' and said that it was felt the "dynamic" currently at work within loyalism could be of benefit to the rehabilitation of Mr Campbell. _______________________________________ IRA bomb factory men sent to prison Sentence cut because of ceasefire By Diarmaid Mac Dermott in Dublin TWO men were given lengthy jail sentences at the special criminal court in Dublin yesterday after they were convicted of having improvised detonating cord used in IRA explosions. Denis Lahiff (45), a single man of Carrick Road, Portlaw, Co Waterford, was jailed for nine years and Simon Kieran Maxwell (31), a married father-of-one, of Stonehall, Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath was jailed for six years. Mr Justice Robert Barr, presiding, said that if the current IRA ceasefire did not exist the court would have considered imposing sentences closer to the maximum life sentence available for such offences. "However, whatever the prospects are for the continuation of peace in Ireland the court must take into account the gravity of the offences and that at the time the offences were committed, terrorists were using bombs in support of their political objectives," he said. The court was told that after Lahiff and Maxwell were arrested by Special Branch detectives in the car park of Mother Hubbard's restaurant in Co Kildare gardai discovered 258 feet of the detonating cord packed in two plastic pipes in Lahiff's van. Later they searched Lahiff's house in Co Waterford and uncovered a manufacturing operation to produce the detonating cord. The two men were convicted of possession of improvised detonating cord containing the explosives PETN and RDX with intent to endanger life at Ballyonan, Moyvalley, Enfield, Co Kildare on February 17 last. Lahiff was also found guilty of possession of explosive substances with intent to endanger life at his home at Portlaw, Co Waterford on the same date. Outstanding charges against the two men of IRA membership were adjourned until November 18 next. A Garda ballistics expert said that a sophisticated process was found in Lahiff's kitchen to make the detonating cord from plastic tubing and white powder containing explosives extracted from Semtex. Det Sgt Brendan McArdle said the detonating cord was used by the Provisional IRA as a booster charge in explosions. Mr Justice Barr said the two men had been convicted of offences of "the utmost gravity". He said the detonating cord was used to detonate bombs which had an appalling potential for loss of innocent life, grievous serious injury and destruction of property. The judge said the two men must have been aware that, either directly or indirectly they were the instruments of grievous crimes. The judge said that Lahiff not only delivered the cord but the evidence established that he manufactured or allowed others to manufacture such detonating cord at his home which contained "a sophisticated system" for its manufacture. He said the court accepted defence submissions by Mr Patrick Gageby SC that the recent IRA ceasefire has led to round table negotiations on the future of Northern Ireland between all the parties and that such negotiations have a potentially profound effect on the deterrent aspect of sentencing for the offences. Earlier Detective Superintendent Basil Walsh, of the Special Detective Unit said that the items found during the Garda investigation were "significant and important". ================================================================= 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-10.10.97-20:34:08-30020