Irish Republican Info Svc Double Issue 10/7/97 =========== Posted to multiple newsgroups and lists =========== ===== Redistribute *only* with full header and signature! ===== Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit IRISH REPUBLICAN INFORMATION SERVICE Double Issue Teach Daithi O Conaill Nos. 216 & 217 223 Parnell Street October 6, 1997 Dublin 1, Ireland Phone: +353-1-872-9747; FAX: +353-1-872-9757; e-mail: saoirse@iol.ie Republican Sinn Fein: http://iol.ie/~saoirse/rsf SAOIRSE Online: http://iol.ie/~saoirse Release Josephine Hayden: http://iol.ie/~saoirse/hayden 1798 Ireland: http://iol.ie/~fagann/1798/ In this double issue: (No.217) 1. Dublin minister said Provisionals will accept partitionist solution 2. Unionist veto supreme -- New Stormont an obstacle, not a stepping-stone 3. Brixton prison escaper faces extradition to Britain 4. O Bradaigh home in Roscommon raided 5. Report found "a pattern of ill-treatment" by 26-County police 6. Colin Duffy freed, case to go to Europe 7. Home petrol-bombed in Oldpark area 8. Councillor targets Armagh village 9. McAliskey hearing adjourned again 10. New evidence in Bloody Sunday massacre (No.216) 11. Republican rally in Dublin 12. British intelligence ally calls for disarmament 13. DUP's veto violence threat 14. 'Britz'kreig as Orange gangs attack north Belfast 15. Child (11) slapped around by colonial police 16. Flanagan to face civil actions 17. Prisoner strip-searched 96 times 18. Loyalist throat slasher in transfer to Six Counties prison 19. Family boycott inquest on INLA man 20. County Tyrone man refused parole 21. Loyalist attacks on north Belfast family 22. Harryville protests to be extended 23. Ex-Brit admits hoax bomb 24. Early releases in 26 Counties sop to Provo grassroots 1. DUBLIN MINISTER SAID PROVISIONALS WILL ACCEPT PARTITIONIST SOLUTION THE 'Sunday Tribune' newspaper in Dublin has been standing by its front-page story of September 28 last which quoted the Dublin minister for foreign affairs, Ray Burke, as telling journalists in Washington that the Provisionals would accept a partitionist compromise at the Stormont talks. Burke was talking at a breakfast meeting with reporters on Wednesday, September 24. Since then (October 7) Burke has resigned as minister after being embroiled in controversy over irregularities in issuing 26-County passports to foreign businessmen in return for investment in the State. In its edition of October 5 the 'Sunday Tribune' quoted the 'Chicago Tribune' journalist, Michael Killian who was at the Burke media briefing: "The question was 'did he [Burke] think they [Provisionals] would accept anything short of their goal and he said yes' ". One of the brokers of the Provisionals ceasefires, Niall O'Dowd of the 'Irish Voice' newspaper in New York, attacked the story in his column in the new 'Ireland on Sunday' newspaper saying the "misleading story was bound to cause consternation". The internal temperature in the Provisionals "was raised to a dangerous level" and there was "widespread unease" amongst them, O'Dowd said. But the 'Tribune' quotes Killian as follows: "The question was 'will Sinn Fein accept any compromise peace talks solution that didn't have Brits out and a unified Ireland?' And here's the response verbatim. 'They would have the ambition of a united Ireland and they will argue very strongly for that position, for that outcome of the talks. Realistically that is not going to happen as an outcome." 'All the participants . . . nobody at that table is going to get everything they want, so it's going to need a compromise. I'm convinced that an honourable compromise will be acceptable to everyone around that table'. "I didn't quote this [text] whole thing verbatim but he [Burke] said, 'There's a document called the Framework Document, the result of many years of discussion between the Irish and British governments, published in February 1995, ___that envisaged a situation of an administration in the North, strong links between North and South, and a very strong connection East-West___ " 'It's all laid out in that document, which will probably at the end of the day be the outcome of the talks. It will take us a while to get to it. By its nature it is a compromise. It doesn't represent the ideal for any of us but its a compromise we can all sign up to.' " Martin McGuinness tried to reassure his supporters at a rally in Coalisland on October 5 by saying they were going in to the Stormont talks to "smash the Union", not to strengthen it. Similarly, Gerry Adams said "the aim of democratic Irish opinion must be to seek a change in British policy from one of upholding the Union to one of ending the Union". The reality is that none of the other parties, including the Dublin administration and the SDLP, at the Stormont talks agree with Adams "aim" and the only solution that can emerge from the talks, if any solution emerges, will be governed by the 'triple lock' of (1) 'sufficient consensus' in the talks; (2) a Six-County referendum and (3) a vote in the British parliament at Westminster. The only possible outcome therefore is a new Stormont along the lines given by Ray Burke in his Washington interview. Independent observers of the talks agree that the Provisionals are taking their first steps towards accepting Partition. The position of the Provisionals that the deal emerging from the talks brings an end to British rule closer, rather than reinforcing and updating that rule, is politically transparent and lacks any credibility. What has annoyed O'Dowd and the Provisionals is the frank and revealing nature of Ray Burke's US interview as reported in the 'Chicago Tribune' and picked up subsequently by the 'Sunday Tribune'. Gerry Adams was quick to point out that there had been no step back from the party policy of 'Irish Unity', but then again 'Irish Unity' has been the party policy of Fianna Fail for 70 years but they do nothing to bring it about. Instead their actions, as opposed to their rhetoric, down the years have been collaboration with British rule at every stage and the execution and internment of Republicans when they felt confident enough to do so. Republican Sinn Fein has already described the Provisionals as the 'northern wing of Fianna Fail'. Just as has been seen with Fianna Fail over the years, people should look at what the Provisionals and other Stormont participants do, and not what they say, over the coming weeks and months. 2. UNIONIST VETO SUPREME -- NEW STORMONT AN OBSTACLE, NOT A STEPPING-STONE THE leader of the 26-County administration, Bertie Ahern's comments on RTE on September 28 last that he was prepared to be "flexible" on the Framework Document in the Stormont talks process shows clearly how safer the union is at the negotiations. All the participants: Unionists, SDLP, Provisionals, Dublin, the British Government (and its opposition) have accepted the Unionist Veto which is one of the two pillars on which the process is built. They are totally involved in the process which has shelved, for the present, the question of the surrender or arms, or "decommissioning", which is the other pillar. All the participants have signed up for the Mitchell principles which consolidates the Unionist Veto. Those adhering to the principles "agree to abide by the terms of any agreement reached in all-party negotiations." The basis of these principles is the Downing Street Declaration which enshrines the Unionist Veto, by which 18% of the population of this island can decide the future of the other 82%. With this remarkable consensus we can take it as read that any settlement coming out of the talks, if in fact it does achieve a result, could only be a New Stormont under British rule. All that is at issue at these Stormont talks therefore is how much the Unionists succeed in minimising the so-called 'Irish dimension', or cross-Border boards. The Unionists have been posturing from the beginning of these talks, secure in their bottom line of maintaining the union and seeking the minimum amount of change. In this regard the position of Ken Maginnis is crucial: he represents what is going to come out of the process rather than the puffing and blowing of David Trimble. All the participants, once they sit around the table, have a hand in shaping the settlement, if such emerges at all, and it will be involved in operating the settlement. They will be involved in securing the settlement against those who would want to upset it. From an Irish Republican viewpoint those who continue the struggle will be faced with this new arrangement. In an interview on RTE Radio's This Week programme (September 28) Republican Sinn Fein President Ruairi O Bradaigh referred to John Kenneth Galbraith's maxim that "revolution is like kicking in a rotten door". Instead of the rotten door of the old Stormont which was demolished by Irish resistance in 1972, he said, we will, if this process produces a settlement, be facing a new steel reinforced door which will be much more difficult to deal with. The new Stormont will be that reinforced door and it will represent an obstacle on the road to Irish freedom rather than a stepping-stone to it, as the apologists for this process would have us believe. On October 2 the 26-County police, themselves established 75 years ago as a "stepping-stone" to Irish freedom, were raiding the home of Ruairi O Bradaigh in Roscommon. This is an indicator that the establishment realise that it is Republican Sinn Fein and its message of a free and independent Ireland, an EIRE NUA federation of the four provinces that would end the partition of Ulster as well as the partition of Ireland, that constitutes the real threat to British rule in this country. ** The October edition of SAOIRSE reported that the Ard-Fheis (annual congress) of Republican Sinn Fein will be held in Dublin on November 8-9 next. The 93rd annual Ard-Fheis (since the organisation was founded in 1905) will bring together delegates, visitors and invited guests from the 32 Counties and abroad to debate policy over the two-day period. Unlike the majority of 26-County political organisations which have relegated annual congresses to rallies for the faithful, the Ard-Fheis of Republican Sinn Fein is the supreme governing body of the organisation. When the Ard-Fheis is not in session power is delegated to the Ard-Chomhairle (national executive) which is elected by the delegates every year. 3. BRIXTON PRISON ESCAPER FACES EXTRADITION TO BRITAIN COLLABORATION with British rule continued in the 26 Counties with the Dublin High Court ordering on October 6 that Pearse McAuley (32), from Strabane, County Tyrone, should be extradited to Britain. McAuley, who escaped with Nessan Quinlivan from Brixton prison in London in July 1991, was arrested in County Galway on October 4. His original extradition to Britain was granted by Dublin District Court in December 1995, a month after he was given early release from Portlaoise jail in the 26 Counties following the Provisionals first unilateral and unconditional ceasefire in September 1994. McAuley appealed that order and was released on bail of #70,000 pending the outcome of the appeal. In June 1996 he jumped bail and a warrant for his arrest by the 26-County police was issued a year later. On February 24, 1997 the Dublin High Court rejected his appeal that the offences he was accused of in Britain were political. McAuley's hand-over to the British was halted on October 7 following an application on his behalf by lawyers. 4. O BRADAIGH HOME IN ROSCOMMON RAIDED A force of seven Special Branch men and one uniformed Garda in four cars raided the Roscommon home of Ruairi O Bradaigh, President of Republican Sinn Fein on October 2. He and his wife Patricia were present for the duration of the raid which lasted from 7.45am to 9.30am. The warrant was issued under the Offences Against the State Act. This intensive search followed an eight-week period of intense publicity dating from his denial of entry to Canada on August 8. Press interviews carried during that time included BBC and UTV television, Teilifis na Gaeilge, Raidio na Gaeltachta, Downtown Radio (Belfast) and RTE radio. The 'Ottawa Citizen' (Canada) carried a lengthy interview. Many Irish and foreign journalists have visited the O Bradaigh home and some have been stopped and had their names and addresses taken. During the two-hour raid all rooms and out-offices were searched as well as the garden. Personal letters were read through, family photos examined minutely, an extensive collection of books and historical papers gone through while press releases, correspondence and material for the upcoming Ard-Fheis of Republican Sinn Fein were scrutinised. One Special Branch man made copious notes during the search writing down names, addresses and telephone numbers in Ireland and abroad as well as extracts from paperwork. Nothing was seized. It is over 40 years since the O Bradaigh home was first raided. Ruairi O Bradaigh attributes this harassment to his determined public advocacy down the years of an alternative strategy to permanent peace in Ireland based on a new federation of the four provinces and maximum devolution of power following British disengagement. This of course runs counter to official policy in London, Dublin and Washington, hence his denial of entry to the US for 24 years, his recent exclusion from Canada and the continued harassment of himself, his family and people visiting his home. Dissent, it appears, will not be tolerated. 5. REPORT FOUND "A PATTERN OF ILL-TREATMENT" BY 26-COUNTY POLICE A REPORT on the alleged ill-treatment of people questioned by 26-County police investigating the killing of Special Branch member Gerry McCabe during an armed robbery by the Provisionals on June 7, 1996 has been sent to international human rights groups. The report, carried out by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and British Irish Rights Watch, contains allegations by some of those arrested that they were beaten physically and verbally abused in terms "designed to humiliate and degrade". One woman said the police had called her a "Provo sow" and threatened to take her children off her. Others claimed they were threatened with being raped, shot or put out of business. Some who were arrested said they were told by their interrogators that the Dublin administration, then led by John Bruton, had authorised a Heavy Gang-type approach and that "the gloves were off". Physical abuse consisted of blows to the face, arms and body and repeated pushing or shoving of the victim from one policeman to another. Two men who were charged before the Special [no-jury] Court in Dublin in relation to the incident had injuries apparently sustained while in custody. One of the men was taken to hospital four times during the 48-hour period of his interrogation, When he appeared in court he had to be helped into the dock. His lawyers said he had injuries to his face and body and suffered from periods of unconsciousness and memory loss. When the other man was remanded to Portlaoise prison, the staff were so concerned about his injuries that they immediately sent him to the local hospital. Thirteen other people arrested in the course of the investigation but who were not charged also alleged they had been ill-treated. The ICCL said the allegations were consistent and suggested "a pattern of ill-treatment and oppressive conduct in breach of the law and of Ireland's human rights obligations". It said it had sought an investigation from the then justice minister Nora Owen but found her response unsatisfactory. It then decided to mount its own investigation. The ICCL and BIRW have sent their report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which is currently headed by Mary Robinson, the President of the 26-County State at the time of the arrests, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and other human rights bodies. 6. COLIN DUFFY FREED, CASE TO GO TO EUROPE THE case against Colin Duffy, of Lurgan, Co Armagh, who was charged with killing two British policemen in Armagh in June, collapsed on October 2 when all charges were dropped. The case against Duffy was centred on a woman referred to as Witness D. It is believed the decision to drop the charges was taken after Crown lawyers interviewed the woman described by her own family as unreliable. Opposed to this one Crown witness identifying Duffy were 12 witnesses placing Duffy at other than the scene of the shootings. In September last year, Colin Duffy was released from prison after serving three-and-a-half years of a life sentence. His conviction for the June 1993 killing of an ex-UDR British soldier, John Lyness, was overturned in the appeal court after it was discovered that the main eye-witness in his trial was a member of the UVF loyalist death squad, subsequently convicted for gun-running. 7. HOME PETROL-BOMBED IN OLDPARK AREA A HOUSE in Rosevale Street in Belfast was damaged in a petrol-bomb attack on October 2. The device was thrown across from the loyalist side of the "peaceline", a barrier dividing nationalist and loyalist areas in Belfast. The victim of the attack had already been intimidated out of the Torrens Drive area and said she had nowhere else to go. 8. COUNCILLOR TARGETS ARMAGH VILLAGE RESIDENTS in the south Armagh village of Camloch have reacted angrily to comments from an Ulster Unionist councillor which they say could have led to the death of people there. Speaking live on BBC Radio Ulster on September 16, the day of the Markethill bombing attack on a British police (RUC) barracks carried out by the Continuity IRA, Councillor Danny Kennedy said the attack would not have happened without the help of the residents of Camloch. He said: "Markethill is a reasonably strong Protestant town and it's known to be that it is in an area where there is easy access to Camloch and to the other elements of that area where Republicans are strongest." Residents fear that this comment was setting the nationalist village up for retaliation by pro-British death squads. Almost two weeks after making the comments Councillor Danny Kennedy issued an apology and said he now "accepted that direct linkage to the village and the bombing was neither accurate or fair" and acknowledged that it had been "an error to blame one particular area for the bombing". 9. McALISKEY HEARING ADJOURNED AGAIN ROISIN McAliskey was caught in an apparent Catch-22 situation on September 30 when her case was adjourned. The proceedings should have been what Bernadette McAliskey described as "paperwork", which would have opened the way for Roisin's defence to be argued at a higher level once it was got out of the way. However, the magistrate said he was adjourning the case because Roisin McAliskey was too ill to attend and the case would be re-convened when she was well enough to attend. The decision left Roisin McAliskey's position a matter of confusion. Her mother, Bernadette McAliskey, said her daughter was suffering from "very severe post-traumatic stress disorder" compounded by her pregnancy. She said Roisin would not be fit enough to attend court for at least a year-and-a-half. This raised the possibility of Roisin's case hanging in limbo for that period. "Now we cannot get out of this court. This is just getting crazier by the minute," said Bernadette McAliskey. McAliskey's extradition is being sought by Germany from Britain to face questioning about a mortar-bomb attack on a British army barracks on German soil in 1996. Bernadette McAliskey said that her daughter's lawyers were trying to find out whether stipendiary magistrate Nicholas Evans was saying he "can't or won't" make the extradition order. Roisin McAliskey is currently in a "secure" mother-and-baby unit at a London psychiatric hospital suffering from post-natal depression following the birth of her daughter, Loinnir, earlier this year. 10. NEW EVIDENCE IN BLOODY SUNDAY MASSACRE AN ARCHAEOLOGIST and geo-physicist are due to examine a stretch of earth beneath Derry's Walls on October 7 to determine whether British soldiers fired at civilians from the Walls on Bloody Sunday 1972. The area targeted by the experts is a grass verge running along an alleyway behind Joseph's Place. Many survivors of Bloody Sunday used the alleyway to shelter from the shooting when British soldiers opened fire on an anti-internment march on January 31, 1972. Fourteen, mostly young, men were killed. A large number of eye-witness accounts suggested that at least three of the dead were shot by British soldiers operating from Derry's Walls. These accounts were ignored by the official Widgery Tribunal cover-up. Earlier this year, relatives of the dead men invited New York ballistics expert Robert Breglio to conduct an inspection of the scene of the massacre. He concluded that at least three of the dead were shot from above. This contradicted the findings of the Widgery Tribunal which concluded that all 13 who died on the day were killed by British soldiers shooting from ground level from the Rossville Street and Chamberlain Street areas of the city. The possibility of British army snipers being positioned on the Walls would have confirmed that Bloody Sunday was a deliberate act and was ignored. In a further attempt to prove their theory that the British fired shots from the walls, relatives have invited the experts to search for some of the bullets fired on the day. They hope the experts' findings will confirm the eyewitness account of Thomas Ralph Dawe. Speaking in 1972 Dawe, an Englishman, said: "just then, I heard further automatic fire from the Walls. Bullets landed on the soft earth of the bank above us and clay from the bank showered about the woman and myself." Relatives say that metal detectors have detected the presence of pieces of metal in the spot of earth. 11. REPUBLICAN RALLY IN DUBLIN SPEAKING at the eve-of-All-Ireland Rally for a British withdrawal at the GPO in Dublin on Saturday, September 27, Geraldine Taylor, Belfast Ard Chomhairle member of Republican Sinn Fein advised the large crowd to be on their guard against those who have acquired a position of political leadership in our country. "We would warn you that treachery is afoot, that the so-called nationalist parties both north and south are preparing the greatest betrayal of the Irish people since 1921. They are preparing to guarantee to the British Government and to that rebellious minority of the Irish people who call themselves Unionists the right to hold the vast majority of the Irish nation, the democratic majority, to ransom for the foreseeable future. "They, the rebellious unionist minority have never accepted democracy; they have never understood the word. They have, with the help of their British cohorts flouted the will of the Irish nation by force of arms for as long as one cares to remember. But their greatest victory is at hand, when erstwhile Republicans and nationalist leaders both North and South will give them in writing a guarantee of a return to Stormont rule, under which almost 700,000 nationalists will be condemned to suffer at the hands of their Unionist tormentors for decades to come. "Men and women, claiming to be leaders of our people, sign away our right to self-determination; the right of our people to be united in a democratic State of our making without outside interference. "The Brits must not be allowed to dupe us once again, to make such confounded fools of us. We must demand a total British withdrawal. Nothing more and nothing less will bring peace to our people. Oppose this treachery. Demand a British declaration of intent to withdraw from our shores. Demand that we be left to our own affairs, as we and only we see fit." Earlier, Geraldine criticised the hypocrisy of 26-County politicians who are only too happy to carp on about the treatment of Irish political prisoners in British jails whilst the only remaining woman POW in the 26 Counties, Josephine Hayden, is incarcerated in the most primitive conditions in Limerick prison. Padraig Mac Mathuna of Republican Sinn Fein's POW Department outlined to the crowd the conditions endured by Cumann na mBan prisoner Josephine Hayden, the only woman political prisoner currently incarcerated in the 26 Counties. A native of County Waterford, Josephine has lived in Dublin for the past 21 years. "She is held in primitive and appalling conditions in Limerick prison. At 7.30am on May 30 last, Josephine suffered a heart attack in the prison's C Block. Alone in her cell, she had to get out of bed and walk to the door to ring the alarm bell. At 8.30am she was admitted to the Intensive Care unit of Limerick Regional hospital. The decision to move her back to Limerick prison seven days later on June 6 was deplorable. "Her cell is on the 3rd floor and she has to walk up and down those stairs. Her cardiologist in Limerick Regional hospital said that climbing stairs would be very bad for her and that she needed to be on the ground floor. The prison authorities and the Free State politicians decided to ignore the medical advice. "Due to all this neglect Josephine suffered a second heart attack on July 1 in her cell. Josephine has been singled out for harsher treatment in Limerick prison, than that endured by male political prisoners in Portlaoise. "She has been refused temporary release. Temporary release is usually given to prisoners who are hospitalised, but give their word to return to prison when discharged. In the case of political prisoners this has always been honoured. Josephine was told she was a high security prisoner, and for security reasons could not be given temporary release. "The governor of Limerick prison, Pat Laffan, has admitted that the conditions for women prisoners in the jail are the worst they have. "We must also remember that Josephine's only crime was that she wanted a complete withdrawal of all British authority and interference from this country," Padraig ended. John McElhinney, Sinn Fein Poblachtach Ard Chomhairle member, Tyrone, spoke of the new-found 'constitutionalists' in the Provisionals who seemed to have found their road to Damascus and are now mouthing platitudes about their 'mandate'. This was 'selective democracy', he said. "Martin McGuinness said on September 21 that tens of thousands voted for his Party and Republican Sinn Fein should take note. Should Republican Sinn Fein take note of the larger SDLP vote? Should Martin take note of the very large vote for parties who demanded his removal from the talks. Before the advent of the Peace Train Party people voted in their tens of thousands for Gerry Fitt. Should Sinn Fein have taken note? Thousands voted for UDA and UVF sectarian killers. Does that give them legitimacy? Selective democracy is like the Provos brand of selective Republicanism  it doesn't work." He quoted hunger-striker Terence McSwiney's words: "If only a few are faithful found they must be all the more faithful for being but a few." Addressing the crowd, Deaglan O Donghaile, Republican Sinn Fein, Derry, said that standing on the sacred ground around the GPO they would do well to remember the message of Easter Week, encapsulated by Padraig Pearse's dictum: "Ireland unfree shall never be at peace". "The British have never let us live in peace and never will while they occupy one part of our country and exercise indirect political control over the rest of it. History has shown us only one road, that of revolutionary struggle. "The immediate objective of the Easter Rising was the removal of the British presence from Ireland politically, culturally and morally. This remains the basic objective of the true Republican Movement today, 81 years after the Rebellion of 1916. Only with the removal of British military and political interference from Ireland can there be any peace in our country. "Pearse said that the only honourable attitude for Irishmen and women to adopt while their country is occupied is an attitude of revolt. This fundamental truth remains the basis of the revolutionary politics of the Republican Movement. People who achieve freedom never achieve it by bowing their heads and entering the institutions of the oppressor. To those who say that pragmatic politicians are made in such ways we say 'No! Slaves are made in such ways.' "The colonial connections with Britain will never be broken by those who become what James Connolly described as 'powerless ambassadors to a foreign court'. A British withdrawal will never be achieved by those who attend the imperialist and partitionist assemblies at Stormont, Westminster and Leinster House. How can anyone sit in Stormont, where the British government pays those who attend a daily wage of over #200, and call himself a Republican? "How can anyone draw an annual salary of #40,000 from Westminster or Leinster House and then declare himself a sworn enemy of those institutions? In Christ's day the sum for such treachery was 30 pieces of silver but the effect was the same -- to produce broken men, men dead morally and spiritually. "But the Republican Movement -- the true Republican Movement of Irish history -- has never been broken. It remains committed to the achievement of the three basic Republican demands: a declaration of intent to withdraw from the British, the immediate release of the prisoners of war, and the election of a constituent assembly by the suffrage of the Irish people as a whole. We will accept nothing less. We do not serve Stormont, Westminster or Leinster House. We serve only Ireland. "As conformist politicians pretend that a peace process exists, the British continue to murder and terrorise the Irish people. The British army, the colonial police and their auxiliaries in the loyalist death squads have called no ceasefire. We will never forget those murdered by the British, in and out of uniform, in the past year: James Morgan, only 16 years old, Bernadette Martin, only 18 years old, John Slane, Sean Brown, Dermot McShane and Michael McGoldrick. We also remember the two young Irishmen killed in England -- Ed O'Brien and Diarmuid O'Neill. "The genuine and fearless Republicans in the ranks of Oglaigh na hEireann alone challenge Britain's murderous colonial rule. For their unflinching resolve in striving for the achievement of a British withdrawal we extend our congratulations to the Irish Republican Army under the leadership of the Continuity Army Council. "The Republican Movement is rapidly gaining energy and momentum. For this development to be maintained we need you -- the people of Ireland -- to join us. Freeing Ireland will be no easy task for freedom demands commitment, hard work and courage. "Contrary to what the bogus peace people would have us believe British power is not invincible. Every one of us has a greater power inside. To have courage like the men and women of 1916 is only a matter of accepting and understanding this power. It is the will to resist, what Bobby Sands called 'The Spirit of Freedom', and it is the power that motivates every Irish Republican. It is stronger than Britain's tanks, death squads, blows or bullets and it is a power that exists in every human being. You have only to accept it. "In his defiant statement made to the British before they murdered him, Padraig Pearse left these words to the Republicans who follow in his footsteps: " 'We seem to have lost. We have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future . . . If you strike us down now, we shall rise again and renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland. You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.' "We owe it to them and to the unborn children who will inherit Ireland after us to achieve that freedom. "An Phoblacht Abu! Long live the Irish Republic!" 12. BRITISH INTELLIGENCE ALLY CALLS FOR DISARMAMENT AS PART of Britain's policy of containment and corralling of Irish people similar to their operations in South Africa during the Boer War, they have with the aid of NATO allies established an International Commission on Decommissioning. The Chairman of this body was announced on Monday, September 22. Canadian General John de Chastelain, both of whose parents were agents of British Military Intelligence during World War II, has now taken up the position of defender of the English Motherland. On September 26, the man who was castigated in a Canadian government report for allowing his troops to inflict torture and death on Somali civilians between 1992 and 1993 has called for "some" disarmament. "Let's move there as fast as we can by giving up some weapons during the course of negotiations. So it's very much on the basis of hope as opposed to definite expectation," the Canadian general said. The decommissioning body will have offices in the Stormont environs and also an office in Dublin Castle. De Chastelain said it was necessary to have a mechanism to ensure that the handing in of weapons was "feasible, safe and verifiable". John de Chastelain will also jointly chair Strand Two of the Stormont talks process with Senator George Mitchell and Harri Kolkeri. 13. DUP's VETO VIOLENCE THREAT WHILE the British insist on a denunciation of violence and decommissioning by nationalist parties as a price for entry to an imperialist 'peace process', up steps DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson to put forth the old Carsonist line. Those pro-British fifth columnists would use "every means to defend freedom". Robinson's violent posturing was expounded in an interview with the 'Boston Herald' published in the US on September 22. The DUP henchman declared himself to be a direct political descendant of loyalists who imported 35,000 rifles in 1914 with the connivance of British Tories. Randolph Churchill stated in Westminster that he would use the Orange card to oppose Home Rule for Ireland. "In every society if peoples liberty is denied them then they take recourse to defending that liberty," said Robinson. He added that if the London and Dublin administrations "impose upon us a process leading to a United Ireland, I would oppose it by any and every means". Speaking later of the 'Boston Herald' interview, Robinson maintained the right to use arms was based on the principle of consent (the Unionist Veto). His party leader, Ian Paisley, led a histrionic walkout from Stormont because, he raged, he would not sit in the same room with men of violence. This posturing is of course simply meant for voters and old empire elements in the British Establishment. While the British continue to cement Partition with a Stormont talks process. Meanwhile as the Provos agree to the Unionist Veto there are shenanigans in the cross-Border tourism body regarding the new shamrock logo. Might we suggest a slogan that would have meaning on both sides of the Border, and which would have significance for continental visitors? Failte, Bien Venu. Welcome to Vichy Ireland! 14. 'BRITZ'KREIG AS ORANGE GANGS ATTACK NORTH BELFAST FAMILIES in a neighbourhood of north Belfast had their sleep disturbed when a fascist terror gang launched an attack on their homes at 4am on Sunday, September 28. A number of petrol bombs were launched at the houses in Roseville Street in the Oldpark area and eyewitnesses claim the attackers used a ladder to position themselves behind a wall before lobbing the incendiaries directly at the houses. Mother-of-three, Phyllis O'Donoghue told how metal grills which she had acquired from the British Colonial housing executive, saved her children from a horrific death. "The grill definitely saved my children's lives. I never gave up my fight with the housing executive to have them placed there," she said. She had been awakened by the screams of her children. By afternoon, melted drain pipes and burned-out clothes from a washing line lay among the debris of bricks, tones and other missiles in her yard. The home of Margaret O'Neill, a widowed mother-of-three also came under assault. Re-enforced glass windows had been smashed in twice the previous week by a gang aiming fireworks, ballbearings and stones at her house. She said the gang had even used a crossbow to aim the deadly missiles at her home. Her children had to be kept from the house for their own safety and had not stayed there for a number of weeks. As she was boarding up the windows of her home, she said.: "Last night was the worst ever. The situation has grown worse since the early summer around the time of Drumcree." Meanwhile two families of mixed marriages were forced to flee a loyalist housing estate in Armagh. In one incident, a caller claiming to represent the Protestant Freedom Fighters phoned the Samaritans in Craigavon naming the family in question and warning they had 48 hours to leave the area. Around the same time a young couple received a letter telling them to get out. Gail Quinn, a Protestant married to a Catholic, had been forced to flee the area with her daughter Samantha of a year and eight months and 11-month-old Matthew. They are now living in a caravan in a coastal town. Again and again pro-British expansionists score victory after victory as Britain's reform of her Six Counties colony works itself out. 15. CHILD (11) SLAPPED AROUND BY COLONIAL POLICE AN 11-YEAR old schoolboy was on his way to class at CBS, Glen Road, Belfast when a British police Land Rover pulled up beside him at Norglen Parade, Turf Lodge on September 25. Gerard Daly said he was coming down an alley way when a jeep came up and one of the British Colonial police (RUC) men jumped out and started interrogating him. "He just took my bag off me and asked me where I lived and what was my name and then he started searching my bag". He said "come on into the jeep and we'll sort it out and I said no and he hit me at the back of the head". One of the residents of the area witnessed the bullying activity from her front door. Ann Mackin said she saw what was happening, when the officer shouted across "shut up and mind your own business . . . Then the wee boy turned around and the peeler clipped him on the back of the head," she said. The Land Rover took off and Gerard Daly never saw his schoolbag again. "He was crying and in a terrible state and that's when I took him into the house and got his phone number", Ann Mackin said. His father, Gerard said he had got a phonecall at 8.30 "and was told to come out and collect my son because he was in a very distressed state . . . I thought he had taken an asthma attack and collapsed in the street or something," Gerard Daly said "I'm not going to the RUC. I have contacted a solicitor". Speaking of the RUC man who assaulted his son, Gerard Daly said "I'd love to see his face if I lifted my hand to his son.". 16. FLANAGAN TO FACE CIVIL ACTIONS THE head of the British police in Ireland, Ronnie Flanagan is to face charges in more than 200 civil actions by Portadown nationalists who complained his underlings used unnecessary force during the '97 Drumcree stand-off. Several witnesses from abroad including South African MP, Gora Ebrahim, Alan Hevesi, Comptroller of New York City and two Canadian MPs and a former Canadian Solicitor General will join Green Party activist Patricia McKenna as witnesses against the RUC chief constable. A plethora of vicious assaults were rained down upon peaceful demonstrators as they staged a sit-down protest against a supremacist Orange March along the Garvaghy Road in July. Apart from the 200 lawsuits, another six test cases will be brought before the European Court of Human Rights. Final details of these actions are to be announced shortly, a Garvaghy Road Residents Association spokesperson said. Residents are also to claim against the Colonial police (RUC) restriction on their movements as mass-goers that Sunday. 17. PRISONER STRIP-SEARCHED 96 TIMES AN IRISH prisoner on remand in Belmarsh prison, London has been strip-searched 96 times since January, his family said on September 12. Brian McHugh's sister, Frances, said her brother had been placed on 23-hour-a-day lock-up for 14 days for refusing what he believed was an unwarranted strip search. She claimed that during the night prison wardens, often drunk, are waking him every half hour, kicking the cell door and switching on an internal light. She said she believed her brother was being tortured in the run-up to his trial set for October 23. "Things have got worse since they were downgraded. It seems they are giving us something with one hand and taking it away with the other," she said. Brian McHugh had not received any visits between December 1996 and August 1997. 18. LOYALIST THROAT SLASHER IN TRANSFER TO SIX COUNTIES PRISON A CRAZED loyalist who is also a supporter of Glasgow Rangers football club is to be transferred to jail in the Six Counties. Glasgowman Jason Campbell was jailed for life last year for the murder of 16-year-old Mark Scott outside a pub in Glasgow's Bridgeton Cross in October 1995. The victim was returning from a match at nearby Celtic Park with two friends when they were accosted by jeering Rangers fans. Campbell, who was among the Rangers fans, came up behind the boy, whipped out a knife and slashed mark Scott's throat, leaving the 16-year-old to die a slow agonising death on the pavement. The Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), a mouthpiece for the British-backed death squads, has demanded the transfer. A PUP spokesperson in welcoming the move said of Campbell "he is well rated here". Jason Campbell's father Colin and uncle William are known to have close links to the MI5-controlled loyalist death squads. They were both jailed in 1979 in connection with pub bombings in Glasgow and for conspiracy to further the ends of the UVF by criminal means. The loyalist parties have presented British supremo in Occupied Ireland, Mo Mowlam, with a shopping list of prisoners in jails in Scotland and England they would like to see transferred to the Six Counties as a prerequisite to early release. The time will come soon when these killers will be unleashed by their masters in British Military Intelligence and allowed wreak havoc on nationalist population. 19. FAMILY BOYCOTT INQUEST ON INLA MAN THE family of an INLA member who died in a shoot-to-kill British army operation in November 1990 intend boycotting his inquest in October. Father-of-two Alex Patterson (31) was shot dead by British soldiers following an attempted INLA attack on the home of a UDR soldier at Victoria Bridge outside Strabane, County Tyrone. Gerard Patterson, a brother of the dead man, described the proposed inquest as "farcical". He said the family did not accept the official version of the shooting put forward by British soldiers but believed their brother was killed while in the custody of the SAS. He said they were considering some form of protest when the hearing gets underway at Strabane courthouse. 20. COUNTY TYRONE MAN REFUSED PAROLE A MAN who was shot in the stomach and arrested after an explosive device was thrown outside Coalisland, County Tyrone British police (RUC) barracks was refused parole on compassionate grounds on September 23 to attend the funeral of his grandmother. Gareth Doris (20) is on remand on charges relating to the incident outside Coalisland barracks. A group of undercover soldiers, thought to be SAS, shot Doris near the scene and also raked a priest's car with automatic gunfire as he drove down the main street. Doris's solicitor Paddy Mullan said that the application for time to attend the funeral was vigorously opposed by the RUC. Mullan said he had been under the impression that there was an agreement in the prison on a 72-hour parole for sentenced prisoners in the event of the death of a grandparent. "We weren't even asking for this - we were just asking for part of a day." 21. LOYALIST ATTACKS ON NORTH BELFAST FAMILY A NATIONALIST mother-of-four has requested the British Housing Executive to move her from her home in north Belfast following repeated loyalist attacks over nine years. The latest attack on Breige Hughes's home in Rosapenna Street, off the Oldpark Road occurred on September 21. "Luckily my brother-in-law was here and he chased them; but they ran off and joined a bigger crowd at the bottom of the Oldpark Road. They were shouting at him to come down but obviously he didn't," she said. "They sit and drink outside Oldpark Library every weekend. I'm not the only one getting it but it is not normal to bring kids up like this." The final attack was the last straw for Breige Hughes who now wants to move from the house. Up until the latest attack Breige Hughes had been sleeping in the living-room and her four children had been sleeping in one bedroom to protect them from splinters of glass after the attacks. Throughout her nine years living in Rosapenna Street the 36-year-old woman has had numerous windows smashed. Broken bottles and bricks litter the back of the home where they have missed their target. On one occasion the roof was petrol-bombed. The home is now caged in safety grills. 22. HARRYVILLE PROTESTS TO BE EXTENDED THE 'Irish News' reported on September 29 that loyalists in north Antrim are planning to extend the picket outside Harryville Catholic church in Ballymena to other Catholic churches in the area. The picket outside Our Lady's Church in Harryville continued on September 27 with a small group of loyalists outside. Loyalists are believed to have identified other churches in Ballymoney and Coleraine which they will begin to picket. One loyalist, speaking to the 'Irish News', said the issue of the Harryville picket had become "another line in the sand" and that many loyalists considered the weekly picket outside the Catholic church to be "their contribution to loyalism". 23. EX-BRIT ADMITS HOAX BOMB AN elaborate hoax bomb caused panic in Markethill, County Armagh on September 27. The British police (RUC) in the town received a telephoned warning about a car with a device attached to it. The area was evacuated and a controlled explosion carried out on the car. A former RIR British soldier who is believed to have been drunk at the time of the offence later admitted responsibility for the hoax. The hoax bomb warning came two weeks after the Continuity IRA attacked the RUC barracks in Markethill, causing #3 million damage. 24. EARLY RELEASES IN 26 COUNTIES SOP TO PROVO GRASSROOTS THE game is on: the process is moving forward. The new 'constitutionalists' have told the world they have no demands, they want inclusive dialogue. And having no demands, they will accept what is given them. What about the prisoners? Bit by bit if they are nice boys and girls the prisoners will be released. The grassroots members and supporters have to get something out of the Stormont sale of the century if they are to be kept in line. But first they must make the pretence that they have fought for concessions; it mustn't look like they have been bought off. So white-line picketers demanding the release of prisoners allows their members to let off steam. The Dublin administration is first off the mark with early releases. Five Provisionals from Portlaoise prison on September 26. The five - three Derry city men and two County Donegal men - were captured close to the Border five years ago in possession of heavy machine-guns and rifles. Patrick Villa (28), Dermot McFarland (32) and Kieran McFadden (34) of Derry city were released along with Michael McLaughlin (31), Buncrana and Paul Rodgers (35) of Manorcunningham, Co Donegal. As with previous releases the prisoners had to make a declaration not to return to armed struggle. There are now 35 political prisoners remaining in Portlaoise. Those who remain loyal to the 32-County Irish Republic will not see early release. During the first Provo unilateral ceasefire between August 1994 and February 1996 the Dublin administration granted early release to 33 Provisional prisoners who had to make a declaration promising to keep the peace. Do these prisoners wonder why they were incarcerated in the first place? -end- Please circulate the information in IRIS and credit us if reprinting. We welcome your comments and ideas. Send them via e-mail to: saoirse@iol.ie ================================================================= 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-10.09.97-01:55:29-3990