Irish Republican Info Svc #225 12/2/97 =========== 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 (no. 225) Teach Daithi O Conaill 223 Parnell Street Dublin 1, Ireland Phone: +353-1-872-9747; FAX: +353-1-872-9757; e-mail: saoirse@iol.ie December 2, 1997 Internet resources maintained by SAOIRSE - Irish Freedom: http://iol.ie/~saoirse In this issue: 1. Bobby Sands family's criticism of current process 2. UDA / UFF threaten Belfast nationalist 3. Aghagallon RUC attack inquiry slammed 4. Band hall killer to go free 5. McAliskey extradition report slams German government 6. LVF figure in Belfast critical after UVF gun attack 7. Bloody Sunday relative rejects inquiry reports 8. Cosmetic changes in British army presence 9. Kelly extradition order 10. US Rights group's Garvaghy report 1. BOBBY SANDS FAMILY'S CRITICISM OF CURRENT PROCESS IN A public statement issued at the end of November the entire family of Republican hunger strike martyr Bobby Sands -- who died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh on May 5, 1981 -- has expressed its "grave reservations" about the talks for a New Stormont. The family also said they were taking legal action over media claims in regard to a family member. The west Belfast family, who have always carefully guarded their privacy, were apparently spurred into issuing the statement through their lawyer by false reports circulated by the Provisionals to the media which alleged that Bobby Sands' mother Rosaleen had intervened to stop another family member from appearing on Radio Free Eireann in New York as a spokesperson for the Provisional "dissidents" on November 22. The "well-placed source" and the spurious report was the lead story on the front page of 'Ireland on Sunday' the following day and in the London 'Times' on November 25. The Sands described the report as "dangerous and manipulative". The entire family, comprising the parents, brother and sisters of Bobby Sands, said in their statement that they remained committed to supporting the aims and objectives for which he died. This will be read, in the context of their stated "grave reservations" about the current process, as implied criticism of the Provisionals for moving away from those Republican objectives to embrace that process and accept continuing British rule in Ireland. The Provisionals' response to the Sands' statement ('Sunday Tribune', November 30), ie that the family's reservations were due to the unionists not "engaging" in the process, will not fool anybody and insults the intelligence of the Sands family. The full statement issued by the Sands family reads: "Because of the untrue sensationalist reports in various national and international media, the parents, brother and sisters of the late Bobby Sands feel obliged to make the following public statement: "Our family to date has made every effort to maintain a dignified and private existence. In recent days we have witnessed unfounded vicious attacks on a member of our family which we refute entirely. Legal proceedings are in train. "We are reluctant to be drawn into any public debate but feel we must clarify our position. We wish to state that no member of our family is claiming to lead any 'renegade IRA faction'. Furthermore no member has been visited by representatives of the republican movement. Nor has any family member been involved, as claimed, with any attempts at reconciliation between those of differing views. We are united in condemning these false reports as dangerous and manipulative. "Mindful of Bobby's extraordinary sacrifice, we remain fully committed to supporting the aims and objectives for which he died. We would, however, have grave reservations with the current political negotiations and maintain a close interest in the developing situation." 2. UDA / UFF THREATEN BELFAST NATIONALIST A NORTH Belfast nationalist who was arrested by the colonial police on Monday, November 24 received a chilling message written on a sympathy card and addressed to his dead brother on November 26. The man's ordeal began when he was arrested by the colonial police in the early hours of November 24, handcuffed and bundled into a Land Rover. "I was beaten in the back of the Land Rover on the way to the station and took pains to my chest when I got there. I have heart trouble and a doctor sent for an ambulance and I was taken to the Mater," he said. The man who did not wish to be named said he was taking the threat seriously. Inside the card the message reads: "UFF Second Battalion. From your friends who can't wait to see you again. Just missed you at the Mater, you lucky ****. Won't be so lucky next time. Say hello to brother. We'll get the right one next time. See you soon." The brother referred to on the card was killed by a loyalist death-squad five years ago. The man is said to be mystified as to how loyalists discovered he was in hospital or how they discovered his mother's address. "I just don't know how they got my mother's address. She has only moved there recently," he said. The explanation probably lies in the fact that the British colonial police are in constant collusion with the loyalist death-squads. The man, who is now in a defenceless position due to the Provo surrender, has consulted his lawyer about being placed under the British colonial office's Key Persons Protection Scheme. 3. AGHAGALLON RUC ATTACK INQUIRY SLAMMED AN ATTEMPT to sanitise a gun attack by the British Colonial police (RUC) in March of this year has been condemned by a lawyer involved in the case. The British-appointed Independent Police Complaints Commission (ICPC) published its findings into a botched undercover operation by the colonial police in a recent issue of its information bulletin. On November 28 the lawyer representing 72 complainants accused the ICPC of glossing over the incident. Paul Fitzsimons described the article as a poor public relations exercise. In its initial paragraph it reads "During the evening of Friday, 15 March, 1997, police discharged a number of shots outside the Derryhisk Inn at Aghagallon outside Lurgan near the shores of Lough Neagh." The correct date of the shooting was March 14, not March 15. "This account reads like a tourist board advertisement for the shores of Lough Neagh. It makes the event sound like a duck hunt," Paul Fitzsimons said. "It omits to say that undercover police, from an elite police squad, are alleged to have fired shots from Heckler and Koch semi-automatic weapons at bar staff and that people in this bar were said to have been terrified by armed men who failed to identify themselves as police officers." Over 100 formal complaints were lodged against the colonial police giving rise to an inquiry. Despite this the ICPC article states: "In the initial stages no formal complaints were made by any member of the public." It has now emerged that Adam Ingram, security minister at the British Colonial Office at Stormont has recently written to SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon to defend the inquiry's findings. 4. BAND HALL KILLER TO GO FREE CHRISTOPHER Sheals, who was convicted of the horrific band hall murder of Margaret Wright in 1994 is expected to be released early in December after a review of his life sentence. Margaret Wright was stripped, beaten and shot in a loyalist drinking den simply because it was believed she was a Catholic. Another man, Stephen Rules, was also found guilty of the 1994 murder. Two others, Billy Elliott and Ian Hamilton were later shot dead by loyalist death squads for complicity in the deaths of the 31-year-old Protestant woman. The viciousness of the attack on Margaret Wright, motivated purely by sectarianism, sent shock waves across the Six Counties at the time and Margaret Wright's mother has described the campaign to free the two men as "sickening". Christopher Sheals had led the innocent woman to her killers. An appeal court ruling on Sheals and Rules was due on December 5. 5. McALISKEY EXTRADITION REPORT SLAMS GERMAN GOVERNMENT "THE threat to the peace process this arrest imposes will be compounded when it is known publicly that Roisin was in Ireland and can be proven to have been in Ireland at all times and specifically during the period June 14 through June 28 which the German warrant cites," warns a report into the arrest and detention of Roisin McAliskey compiled on October 26. The report, written by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark for the Roisin McAliskey Emergency Inquiry Commission, asserts that "there is no factual basis for the arrest, detention or extradition of Roisin." Describing its conclusions as "startling and inescapable," the document states that the reasons for her "detention and interrogation are political". The Commission met and discussed all aspects of Roisin's case with several witnesses to Roisin's presence in Belfast and Coalisland in June and July of 1996. Lawyers, hospital personnel where she is receiving treatment and their experts were also contacted. Roisin was arrested five months after a failed mortar attack on the British Rhine army's base near Osnabruck, Germany on June 28, 1996. She was interrogated relentlessly from 8am to 1am, 17 hours a day in Castlereagh torture centre. "This length of interrogation has been unknown since the European Court condemned the practice early in the '90s," the report stated. The report says that Roisin was never questioned about Germany. "This revealed the political desire of her interrogators to obtain a confession damaging to Roisin's mother and her lifelong struggle for Ireland." The attempted extradition of Roisin McAliskey to Germany and her continuing detention by the British "would obviously violate the US Constitution and would seem to violate the laws of the UK." In fact, according to the document all laws protecting human rights against detention and torture have been violated including the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document says it is "impossible that she was outside Northern Ireland during the critical period". The alleged witness to Roisin's presence in Germany, a Mr Schmidt said on German TV on March 25, 1997 that he could not identify Roisin as the woman he had seen during the time of the attack. The report concludes: "if Roisin was in Germany, why did she not leave scores of fingerprints . . . There is not only no evidence Roisin was in Germany and convincing evidence she was in Ireland, but there is no evidence any woman played any role in the planned attack on the British Rhine army." Meanwhile, the Dublin foreign minister told the 'Sunday Business Post' on November 30 that he had made a "personal approach" to the German foreign minister, Klaus Kinkel, to drop the extradition case against Roisin McAliskey due to the "patently weak" case against her. He expected a reply from the German justice ministry within weeks. 6. LVF FIGURE IN BELFAST CRITICAL AFTER UVF GUN ATTACK A FORMER member of the loyalist PUP's team at Stormont, Jackie Mahood, was gunned down on November 27. Mahood was shot three times in the head and neck when his attackers burst into his taxi company office on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast. Jackie Mahood is known to have links with the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). A close associate, Thomas Stewart, was shot dead in October 1996 after being stood down as a UVF commander in north Belfast. The PUP, in a statement on November 28, tried to play down talk of a loyalist feud by blaming the attack on a criminal element. However, the LVF death squad challenged the UVF to deny involvement in the attempted killing. It is understood Mahood was aware the UVF was out to get him and had applied for and been granted personal security under the British colonial office's Key Persons Protection Scheme. Mahood, who was taken to Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital, was described by hospital staff as seriously ill, sparking fears of internecine wars between the death squads. The UVF is keen to halt any growth of the LVF in the Belfast area. This latest attack from the loyalists -- despite their so-called ceasefire -- follows the car bomb killing of Glen Green (28), in Bangor, Co Down on October 25 last. Although unclaimed by the UDA/UFF, it was believed to have been carried out by them. There were reports that Green was killed because of misappropriation of drug money. In Belfast on the night of November 25 cars and buses were hijacked and set alight in loyalist areas of the west of the city, including the Shankill, Crumlin and Ballygomartin Roads, after several loyalists were arrested on drugs charges. 7. BLOODY SUNDAY RELATIVE REJECTS INQUIRY REPORTS THE Chairperson of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign has angrily denounced proposals to set up a new inquiry to be headed by a senior Scottish political figure. John Kelly, whose brother was one of those killed in the massacre of 25 years ago, said no inquiry without an international element would be acceptable to the relatives of the dead men. John Kelly was responding to reports in the 'Ireland on Sunday' newspaper of November 30, which claimed that British prime Minister Tony Blair intends establishing an inquiry before Christmas. The newspaper claims the name of the proposed chairman of the inquiry, a senior Scottish figure, has been relayed to Dublin foreign minister, David Andrews. John Kelly said: "The word independent is as important as the word inquiry. We don't want to see another inquiry like Widgery carried out. At the end of the day if a Scotsman carries out the inquiry he is still British and can be influenced by powers in Britain." 8. COSMETIC CHANGES IN BRITISH ARMY PRESENCE THE great sell is on at the colonial office at Stormont with British direct-ruler, Mo Mowlam, playing the role of master of illusion. While the British continue to extend and reinforce their bases in the Six Counties and continue to corral Irish people into secure zones, Mowlam assures us that "since July 20 the chief constable and the general officer commanding have been able on the basis of their continued assessment of the threat to take a considerable number of incremental steps to reduce the impact of security measures on everyday life in Northern Ireland". The illusion was put into effect on November 27 with the removal of British army foot patrols from the streets of west Belfast during daylight hours. This was extended throughout Belfast on December 2. However, it does not cover mobile patrols, foot patrols at night and British army accompaniment of RUC patrols. Mowlam, also had other sops for the pan-nationalist front who are calling for the disbandment of the RUC and its replacement with a new-look British colonial police force. Another proposed cosmetic change is to the wording of the RUC oath to exclude swearing service to the British Queen. This already applies to British judges in the Six Counties and to the British police in Scotland. The genesis of a new British police force can be seen in Mowlam's proposal to introduce the subtitle 'Northern Ireland Police Service' (NIPS) to the RUC. Pandering to the pan-nationalists and lulling the loyalists in order to achieve a compromise colonial settlement is Britain's aim. The Brits want to withdraw to barracks in the hope that their Irish underlings will administer the colony for them under the illusion of autonomy. Meanwhile Britain's NATO bases will remain safe. 9. KELLY EXTRADITION ORDER A DUBLIN court ordered the extradition to the Six Counties of Long Kesh escaper Anthony Kelly on November 27. Judge Peter Smithwick told Kelly he should be handed over to the British colonial police. He also informed Kelly that he had 15 days to appeal to the Dublin High Court. Derryman Anthony Kelly (36) was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from Long Kesh in 1983. He is also wanted in the Six Counties for the killing of a reserve member of the colonial police in 1979. Kelly was readmitted to bail in Dublin's High Court on November 28. 10. US RIGHTS GROUP'S GARVAGHY REPORT BRITISH Crown Forces broke their own rules during the Garvaghy Road disturbances last July according to a report launched on November 27 by US rights group Peacewatch Ireland. Crown Forces behaved in a highly provocative and heavy-handed fashion by attacking peaceful protesters, the report said. The report made a scathing attack on direct-ruler Mo Mowlam whom the report says made a "deeply flawed decision" to abandon incomplete efforts at a negotiated solution. "Her failure to inform the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition of her ultimate decision caused lasting damage to the nationalist community's trust in the Blair government . . . Mowlam broke her own personal word and the Labour Party's campaign promise that residents would know ahead of time whether or not the Orange march . . . would be re-routed." The fact that an internal memorandum was leaked to the press revealed that Mowlam's decision to force the Orange march down the Garvaghy Road "was a forgone conclusion". Residents were assaulted with a torrent of shields, batons and plastic bullets "with neither warning or any order to vacate the road". Britain's imperial government chose a military rather than a political solution to the crisis. The investigation found that Crown Forces "fired hundreds of plastic bullets at close range, many aimed directly at residents' heads and chests in violation of their own official statements (and in violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights". Peacewatch informed the Dublin meeting that Britain's military intervention resulted in clear civil and human rights violations. "Plastic bullets must be banned. The British security forces proved themselves unable to abide by their own regulations for the so-called appropriate use of plastic bullets," the report stated. -end- Please circulate the information in IRIS and credit us if reprinting. We welcome your comments and ideas. 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