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McGUINNESS REFUTES McCAIN ALLEGATIONS
03/18/05 14:26 EST
Sinn Féin Chief Negotiator, Martin Mc Guinness has strongly refuted the accusation by US Senator John Mc Cain that comments he made in a BBC interview were a veiled threat to the Mc Cartney sisters.
Mr Mc Guinness said: “Senator John Mc Cain’s accusation that I made a ‘veiled threat’ to the sisters of Belfast murder victim Robert Mc Cartney are as uninformed as the original report carried by the Press Association Wire Service was malicious and inaccurate.”
“Perhaps the Senator should have made the effort to listen to a transcript of the interview before making such baseless accusations informed only by a lurid PA misrepresentation of my comments. For those that are interested in what I actually said I will repeat it. I cautioned against alienating large sections of the nationalist community throughout Ireland who supports 100% the quest for truth and justice by politicising the campaign. I explained that the campaign was in danger of being used for ulterior motives by politicians and others with their own agendas.”
“The revelation this week around the PSNI manipulation of the case by refusing to interview witnesses is an example of this. I reiterate my total and unqualified support for the Mc Cartney family in their search for truth and justice and I will do everything I can to help,” Mr. McGuinness said.
We Say
No justice for Francis
We report today that the PSNI’s Serious Crime Review Team will not hold an investigation into the death of 11-year-old Divis boy Francis Rowntree, killed by a British army rubber bullet in April 1972.
That will come as good news for the British government as it’s widely believed that the local schoolboy was killed with a rubber bullet that had a battery inserted to ensure that it caused maximum devastation. Indeed, the local MP, Paddy Devlin, provided the RUC with the doctored rubber bullet that is said to have caused the death of Francis.
Unsurprisingly, that rubber bullet has now disappeared. Also, the RUC didn’t interview the British soldier who fired the bullet or any of his colleagues – something that was the rule rather than the exception when it came to the killing of Catholics. And because this evidence does not exist, the PSNI say they cannot review the case.
There’s a bitter irony here in that the incompetence or indifference of the RUC – call it what you will – has reached out across the years to let their present-day comrades off the hook. In other words, the RUC/PSNI has been rewarded for doing an appalling job.
The likelihood is, of course, that this is a story that will be repeated with depressing regularity, because not only were RUC investigations often deeply unsatisfactory, in many cases none took place. And, as we saw with the British army rifles used on Bloody Sunday that were ‘inadvertently’ destroyed, crucial evidence has a funny habit of disappearing when it’s in the hands of the British.
There is a huge incentive for the agents of the state to disappear any hard evidence or compelling witness statements that might actually put somebody in uniform in the frame for a killing.
Not that Francis’ mother Theresa wants to see anybody go to jail. All she wants, as she tells us today, is an acknowledgement that the murder of her son was wrong and should never have happened. That might not seem like much to ask, but clearly it is too much for the state to countenance.
Victims of Plastic and Rubber Bullets
Francis Rowntree
Frank Rowntree 11 years, Lower Clonard Street, Falls Road, west Belfast, shot with a (doctored) rubber bullet on 20 April 1972, at the Divis Flats, by members of the British Army’s Royal Anglian Regiment. He died in the Royal Victoria Hospital three days later on 23 April.
Frank was the second youngest in a family with six children. He was a pupil of St Finian’s Primary School on the Falls Road.
In the mid 1990s, Frank’s mother spoke to the Relatives for Justice about her young son and about the day he was fatally injured. Frank had one leg slightly shorter than the other after a series of operations to correct a bone deficiency when he was four, but despite this she said her son was mad about soccer.
She recalled the afternoon of 8 August 1971. Frank had gone to play a football match and not long after he left a man passing the Springfield Road joint British army/RUC Barracks was shot dead by soldiers. Serious rioting broke out in the streets surrounding the barracks. When she heard about the trouble, and worried that Frank might get caught up in it, she went out to look for him. She found him standing on his own at the corner of the Springfield Road and Falls Road dressed in his football kit, his ball under his arm and waiting for his football team’s minibus. All the area around him was in an uproar with rioting, shooting and vehicles burning, but he ‘wouldn’t believe me the man who usually collected him and his friends wasn’t coming.’ She said it took a quite sometime to convince him there would be no football that evening and to come home.
Five days before Frank was fatally injured Joe McCann, a senior member of the Official IRA, was shot dead by British paratroopers in a shoot-to-kill operation in the Markets area of Belfast. Serious violence followed in several areas in Belfast and other parts of the North. The violence following the McCann killing had mostly abated by 20 April, with only sporadic and minor stone throwing incidents continuing in the Falls Road area.
On the afternoon of Thursday, 20 April 1972, Mrs Rowntree said her son came home from school as usual and went out to play in the street with a friend. The area was quiet, and Frank and his friend were still playing in the street when she went to do some shopping. Not long after she left the street Frank and his friend made their way down the Falls Road to the Divis Flats complex. When the two boys arrived at the flats complex there was some minor stone-throwing going on involving small groups of children flinging stones at passing British army armoured vehicles. The two friends were in the flats complex for only a short time before they decided to return home. As they were making their way out of the complex Frank was struck by a doctored rubber bullet fired by a soldier from inside a parked British army armoured vehicle.
The young boy with Frank later described what happened. He said as ‘we approached the corner of Whitehall Pall’ and as we ‘rounded the corner we could see the back end of a British Army Saracen (armoured vehicle) sitting out from the corner. Frank walked straight out and down the wee path to reach the Falls Road. The next thing I heard was a bang, and Frank fell backwards, his feet sticking out from the corner. As the bang came I noticed splinters. This object, what ever it was, disintegrated. I think it was a battery because the stuff looked like the black carbon that is inside a battery. There was no rubber bullet that I could see.’
Immediately after the shooting the army Saracen drove off and Frank was carried unconscious into a nearby flat. The woman who lived there described his injuries. ‘There was a big dent across his forehead, as if the bone was broken at the side of his temple; it appeared to me as if his forehead had collapsed. There was a deep dent at the side of his eye leading to his ear. His ear was enlarged and very discoloured, almost black. His hair was scalped from his hairline at the back of his right ear right round to the back of his head. There was not much blood from the wounds on his head, he was not cut very much—more crushed.’ An ambulance eventually arrived and he was taken to the hospital.
Other residents and eyewitnesses to the shooting were also definite the rubber bullet fired at Frank had been doctored. This involved cutting off the pointed end of the rubber bullet near to the cartridge casing, the bullet was then hollowed out while still in the casing. A battery was then inserted in the cavity. The pointed end was also slightly hollowed out before being forced over the top of the battery, effectively encasing the battery inside the rubber bullet. When the bullet was fired the pointed end dropped off exposing the battery. During the early 1970s it was not unusual for British soldiers to make their rubber bullets more deadly using a variety of items including inserting coins as well as batteries. Several local politicians supported the claims that the rubber bullet used was doctored.
Mrs Rowntree said when she returned home from the shops at 4.30pm she found two teenagers waiting at her front door who told her son had been shot. After contacting her husband they rushed to the near by Royal Victoria Hospital where they found their son in a coma. She said the hospital staff told them there was no hope for him, and if he survived would be blind and seriously brain-damaged.
His death a few days later was the first reported death from the use of rubber and plastic bullet guns by British forces in the North. These weapons, first deployed in August 1970 (ironically on the same streets Frank spent his young life) are still used today, over 31 years later.
An inquest into the death of Frank Rowntree was held in October 1972. None of the British soldiers involved attended the hearing. A representative of the British army read out their statements, identifying each by a letter of the alphabet. The army representative denied the rubber bullet that killed the child was doctored. He also claimed the soldiers inside the Saracen had come under heavy attack by a crowd. One soldier claimed the crowd surrounded their vehicle and he fired the rubber bullet that struck the boy.
A civilian witness said he was walking pass Divis Flats when he saw a boy being struck by a rubber bullet. He also the child was not with a crowd when the soldiers fired their weapon.
Questioned by representatives for the Rowntree family, the British army representative admitted he did not know at what distance it was permissible to fire a rubber bullet gun, or at what part of the body it should be aimed.
A state pathologist rejected eyewitness accounts that a doctored rubber bullet had been used.
Mrs Rowntree said the inquest lasted about an hour before the jury returned an open verdict.
No British soldier was ever charged in connection with the killing of Frank Rowntree
US backs Finucane inquiry campaign
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Senior officials in the Irish and US governments are planning to “strategise” opposition to the British government’s refusal to establish an independent public judicial inquiry into the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, Daily Ireland has learned.
An informed source said that the US administration had indicated that it would support the Irish government’s calls for an independent inquiry to be held.
The news emerged last night after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told United States President George Bush of his concerns about the controversial new Inquiries Bill during a meeting in Washington.
Mr Finucane’s family had a meeting in Dublin last week with Mr Ahern, during which he said he accepted that the British government’s current proposals were “not compliant” with recommendations made by Canadian judge Peter Cory.
At the request of the Irish and British governments in 2001, Judge Cory conducted an independent review of state collusion in the assassination of Mr Finucane.
The review reported last April.
Pressure has been mounting on the British government since the start of this week after a US Congressional subcommittee heard scathing criticism from Judge Cory about the role of the Inquiries Bill in relation to the Finucane case. Under the bill, a minister would essentially be given the power to run any inquiry.
In a letter to the subcommittee chairman, Congressman Chris Smith, Judge Cory wrote, “It seems to me that the proposed new Act would make a meaningful inquiry impossible.
“For example, the minister — the actions of whose ministry was to be reviewed by the public inquiry — would have the authority to thwart the efforts of the inquiry at every step.
“It really creates an intolerable Alice in Wonderland situation.”
Judge Cory also strongly advised the Canadian judiciary to steer clear of becoming involved in such a process.
“If the new Act were to become law, I would advise all Canadian judges to decline an appointment in light of the impossible situation they would be facing,” he wrote.
Speaking from Washington after meeting Senator Hillary Clinton yesterday, Mr Finucane’s son John said he welcomed Judge Cory’s intervention.
“We entirely welcome it. It carries weight to our argument,” he told Daily Ireland.
“Judge Cory was due to testify in person and then by video link but neither materialised, so it’s very significant that this letter has been placed on record, particularly given the language of his position.”
Mr Finucane also welcomed the “very receptive” attitude of Senator Clinton and other political heavyweights on Capitol Hill, such as the US special envoy Mitchell Reiss.
“Senator Clinton has been on board for a long time and my mother has met her on numerous times, both in America and in Derry last year, as well as during the time she and Bill were in the White House.
“Basically she asked us, ‘What can I do?’, so the widespread support for the family’s position from people like her and Mitchell Reiss and many others is very apparent,” Mr Finucane said.
The judge’s remarks criticising the Inquiries Bill were also backed by the SDLP justice spokesman Alban Maginness.
“Judge Cory is absolutely right when he says that the British government is creating ‘an intolerable Alice in Wonderland situation’ on the Finucane case,” Mr Maginness said yesterday.
“Its legislation would make a meaningful inquiry impossible and should be withdrawn. Judge Cory is advising that no member of the Canadian judiciary should serve on such a spurious inquiry.
“The British government is not only flying in the face of the express commitments it made at Weston Park.
“It is acting against the wishes of the Finucane family, the Taoiseach, Judge Cory and the representative of the US administration. It should withdraw this outrageous bill immediately.”
Carnival of craic
Belfast city centre was transformed into a carnival of craic yesterday as thousands took to the streets to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
Floats and bands from all parts of the city led the carnival to City Hall, where a huge crowd had gathered to join in the fun.
Foreign tourists mingled with face-painted locals as music blasted out from loudspeakers, and performers took to the stage.
The organisers said it had been one of the best-attended St Patrick’s Day parades, despite Belfast City Council refusing funding for the eighth year in a row.
“People have came out in their thousands and have really bought into the idea of fun, which is what it is all about,” said festival organiser Conor Maskey.
“The atmosphere has been brilliant and we have shown that St Patrick’s Day in Belfast really is a day for all the community.
“We are delighted with the turnout and how the day went. This carnival is the result of a lot of hard work put in by a lot of people over the past few months. It is events like this that can make Belfast proud.”
Former Boyzone singer Keith Duffy was the star guest chosen to compere the day’s fun. The Dublin-born singer proved a hit with the revellers.
The streets around City Hall were sealed off to traffic as stallholders set up along the length of Royal Avenue.
Bars in the side streets thronged with drinkers as traditional musicians took to the stage to entertain the crowds.
Leaflets calling for St Patrick’s Day to be made an official holiday in the North of Ireland and in Britain were handed out.
Campaigners have also organised a web petition and they urged the public to sign it.
Top Irish bands such as Snow Patrol have already lent their support to the cause.
In Downpatrick in Co Down, the week-long celebrations culminated in a parade through the town centre.
Spectators thronged the streets as the parade wound its way through the crowds with a huge “rock ’n’ roll rainbow” as the central banner.
A cavalcade of vintage cars entertained the revellers earlier in the day.
The Downpatrick festival ended last night with a concert in aid of the tsunami appeal.
Court rejects bid to see files on lawyer’s murder
18/03/2005 – 17:29:42
A human rights group today lost a High Court bid to gain access to files on the murder of lawyer Rosemary Nelson.
The Belfast-based Committee for the Administration of Justice was seeking papers from Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s probe into claims the RUC ignored threats against Mrs Nelson.
Although Mrs O’Loan had briefed the CAJ on her inquiry, the organisation applied for a judicial review after other confidential documents were refused by her team and police.
In his ruling the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Kerr, stressed the applicants should only be given access if they could show the Ombudsman had not been thorough enough.
He said: “I am satisfied that they have not done so.
“As I have said the Ombudsman’s office was prepared to go to significant lengths to involve the applicants at all material stages of the investigation.
“They have been open to suggestion and comment and have met representatives of CAJ on a number of occasions.
“This approach betokens a willingness to listen and to reassure.
“Judged objectively, I consider that it constitutes proper procedures for ensuring the accountability of agents of the state.”
Mrs Nelson, a high-profile lawyer who represented nationalist residents during the Drumcree marching crisis, was killed by loyalist terrorists in a booby-trap car bomb attack at her home in Lurgan, Co Armagh in March 1999.
It emerged at an earlier court hearing that the ferocity of the intimidation she faced included a letter sent to her with the chilling message: “We have you in our sights you republican bastard, we will teach you a lesson RIP.
Allegations that police failed to investigate the threats prompted Mrs O’Loan to launch an inquiry which is due to be completed later this year.
A public inquiry into the killing is also due to begin next month following recommendations by Canadian Judge Peter Cory.
The CAJ, where Mrs Nelson sat on the executive committee, had insisted it should be allowed to see papers including relevant correspondence between the RUC and Northern Ireland Office.
The organisation declined to make any comment after today’s ruling.
A spokesman for the Police Ombudsman said the decision would be studied as she prepared to reveal her findings.
He said: “We will look at what the judge has said with a view to establishing when we can publish the main findings from our report into the circumstances surrounding the death of Rosemary Nelson.”
DUP and UUP fail to reach agreement on anti-SF pact
18/03/2005 – 14:30:28
The Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Unionist Party have failed to reach agreement on an anti-Sinn Féin electoral pact ahead of the upcoming British general election.
Representatives of the two parties attended talks arranged by the Orange Order today to discuss the possible pact, which would mainly be aimed at preventing Sinn Féin from becoming the largest Northern party at Westminster, which is a possibility in the May election.
Although the UUP and DUP are currently bitter enemies, united unionist candidates could defeat SDLP and Sinn Féin candidates in two constituencies – Fermanagh/South Tyrone and South Belfast.
Despite failing to reach a deal today, the DUP did agree to study UUP proposals for a joint unionist campaign in the May ballot.
PSNI raid victims may try to block Sproule retirement
18/03/2005 – 14:43:00
A number of people whose homes were raided by police investigating the pre-Christmas Northern Bank raid may try to delay the retirement of the officer heading the investigation.
Detective Superintendent Andy Sproule is due to take early retirement in June.
Mr Sproule was in charge of the Northern Bank investigation when raids were carried out on a number of republican homes in north and west Belfast.
Nothing connected to the robbery was discovered and complaints were later lodged with the Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan, who has the right to block Mr Sproule’s retirement pending the outcome of her inquiries.
SF and Orde in war of words
Row over PSNI’s response over McCartney suspect.
By Chris Thornton
cthornton@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
18 March 2005
PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde was “defensive, confused and, indeed, unbelievable” in explaining why a Robert McCartney murder suspect was not interviewed, Sinn Fein said today.
As Gerry Adams claimed that “there is sufficient evidence there to bring charges”, Mr Orde said the PSNI knows how to run a murder inquiry better than Sinn Fein.
“We are the professionals. Not Sinn Fein. Not Provisional IRA,” he said.
Throughout this week, Sinn Fein have attacked the PSNI for failing to interview a suspect who presented himself at a Belfast police station, accusing the police of using the case to attack the party.
“It has now been established that an individual believed to be a suspect in the murder of Robert McCartney offered to make himself available for interview.
“His solicitor was told that nobody from the PSNI was available to interview this man,” said Sinn Fein vice president Pat Doherty.
“It has also been established that a number of eyewitnesses have made statements naming people. Again none of these people have been charged with any offence and no identity parade has been arranged,” he said.
“There is a real belief that the PSNI are deliberately failing to arrest and charge those responsible for this murder in a bid to cause political damage to Sinn Fein.”
Mr Orde, who has been visiting Washington and New York for Saint Patrick’s Day, responded by saying that his officers are aware of who the suspects are and need to build a case against them.
He indicated there was no point in interviewing a suspect who does not answer questions.
“I think the public understand the difference between intelligence and evidence,” he said.
“I think the public are ahead of us on this. They know very well that we need a case to put to people.
“There is no point bringing someone in who then, quite properly, if a suspect exercises their right to silence and says nothing. That does not develop the case.
“We know. We are the professionals. Not Sinn Fein. Not Provisional IRA. We know how to investigate crime and we are doing it very well.”
But Mr Doherty claimed that nationalists saw that response “as defensive, confused and, indeed, unbelievable.”
McFARLANE DENIES HUNGER STRIKE ‘DEAL’ WAS STRUCK
**from Bobby Sands Trust – Brendan McFarlane, OC H-Blocks
Brendan McFarlane, the leader of the H-Block prisoners during the hunger strikes of 1981, has rejected any suggestion that a deal was rejected before the death of Joe McDonnell.
The North Belfast man said the claims in Richard O’Rawe’s book entitled Blanketmen: The Untold Story of the H-Block Hunger Strike had caused distress among the families of the hunger strikers.
In his book O’Rawe claims the final six men to die were sacrificed for political reasons and to help the election of Owen Carron to Bobby Sands’ Westminster seat.
“All of us, particularly the families of the men who died, carry the tragedy and trauma of the hunger strikes with us every day of our lives.
“It was an emotional and deeply distressing time for those of us who were in the H-Blocks and close to the hunger strikers,” said Brendan McFarlane.
“However, as the Officer Commanding in the prison at the time, I can say categorically that there was no outside intervention to prevent a deal.
“The only outside intervention was to try to prevent the hunger strike.
“Once the strike was underway, the only people in a position to agree a deal or call off the hunger strike were the prisoners – particularly the hunger strikers themselves.
“The political responsibility for the hunger strike, and the deaths that resulted from it, both inside and outside the prison, lies with Margaret Thatcher, who reneged on the deal which ended the first hunger strike.
“This bad faith and duplicity lead directly to the deaths of our friends and comrades in 1981″.
Raymond McCartney, a former hunger striker and now Sinn Féin MLA for Foyle, also said O’Rawe’s claims lacked credibility.
“Richard’s recollection of events is not accurate or credible.
“The hunger strike was a response to Thatcher’s criminalisation campaign.
“The move to hunger strike resulted from the prisoners’ decision to escalate the protest after five years of beatings, starvation and deprivation.
“The leadership of the IRA and of Sinn Féin tried to persuade us not to embark on this course of action.
“At all times we, the prisoners, took the decisions.”
info@irelandclick.com
Journalist:: Staff Reporter
Venezuela celebrates Irish liberation hero
18/03/2005 – 07:05:28
Flower wreaths adorned the tomb of an Irishman who fought alongside South American independence hero Simon Bolivar as Irish descendants and admirers held a ceremony yesterday to remember the foreigner who helped Venezuela win independence from Spain.
Daniel Florence O’Leary became Bolivar’s aide-de-camp and rose to the rank of general before Venezuela became independent in 1821. O’Leary lived out much of the rest of his life in present-day Colombia, and his tomb lies near Bolivar’s remains in Venezuela’s National Pantheon.
“There are not many descendants, if any, left in Venezuela,” said Peter O’Leary, a 79-year-old great-great-grandson who lives in the general’s home city of Cork.
He and another descendant, 82-year-old Michael O’Leary, were treated as guests-of-honour by top officials including Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez.
Any such links to “The Liberator” are held in high regard in Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez, a history buff, frequently praises Bolivar and his vision of a united South America, and in 1999 a national assembly formally changed the country’s name from Venezuela to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The Irish delegation invited Chavez and Rodriguez to visit Cork, where they aim to erect a bust in honour of O’Leary.
He belonged to the British Legion, battalions of mostly Irish volunteers sent by Britain to South America in the early 1800s to support rebel troops fighting against the Spanish.
O’Leary was among thousands of Irish who joined Bolivar in his decades-long fight to free several South American colonies from Spanish rule. Those colonies became the independent republics of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Panama.
In 1821, at the Battle of Carabobo on the outskirts of Caracas, the British Legion played a key role in routing royalists who had pinned down Bolivar’s calvary. Hundreds of English, Irish and Welsh soldiers were killed in that decisive battle.
“Our motivation is to maintain the rich heritage and culture that the legacy of O’Leary has given us,” said Gearoid O’Mannan, another member of the delegation and a co-founder of the General Daniel Florence O’Leary Society. He said the group is planning to make a documentary film on O’Leary.
Rodriguez called the Irishman “one of Bolivar’s most loyal companions” and said “the visit by family so close to the general is an honour.”
Maria Lucia Jimenez, a descendant of O’Leary’s oldest daughter, who lives in Colombia, said he was a skilled diplomat, naturalist and historian in addition to being a decorated officer in Bolivar’s army.
The 32-volume “Memories of General O’Leary” are considered one of the most accurate and complete accounts of Bolivar’s independence campaigns.
Before his death in 1854, O’Leary wrote the first three volumes. The remaining 29 volumes were compiled by his eldest son, Simon, who referred to notes and correspondence between his father and “The Liberator”.
18 March
Sheelah’s Day
In the old Celtic calendar, today is Sheelah’s Day. In ancient Ireland, it was an annual festival to honor the fertility Goddess known as Sheela-na-gig. Naked Sheela-na-gig figures appeared in Irish churches constructed before the 16th century, but most were defaced or destroyed during the prudish Victorian age.
According to some sources, the origins of “drowning the shamrock” have also been traced to this date. In the eighteenth century, William Hone reported on the celebrations surrounding Sheelah, who has been variously identified as the wife, mother, or other relative of St. Patrick – noting that, the people of the day “are not so anxious to determine who ‘Sheelah’ was, as they are earnest in her celebration. All agree that her immortal memory is to be maintained by potations of whisky.” At the end of the day, the faithful would then take their shamrocks and drop them into their respective glasses before downing the contents.
Photo Credit: British Museum
Statue is 11th-13th century AD and from Chloran, Co. Meath, Ireland
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