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News Letter
28 January 2010
A SINN Fein councillor in Tipperary has threatened to quit the party if Gerry Adams does not step down as leader.
Seamus Morris, of Nenagh Town Council in North Tipperary, said an increasing number of Sinn Fein members were growing disillusioned with the party and Mr Adams’ leadership.
In an interview with The Nenagh Guardian, the Sinn Fein man said: “I am extremely concerned that the leadership of Sinn Fein has not come to grips with the fact that we are becoming totally irrelevant in Irish politics.”
Gerry Adams
Mr Adams’ position as party president has been under pressure since he was asked to explain why he did not do more to prevent his brother Liam Adams, who has faced allegations of abuse from his daughter Aine Tyrell, from working with children while the claims were investigated.
However, this is thought to be the first time a member of his own party has called for him to step down.
Councillor Morris claimed voters in general had lost their faith in politicians, and were looking for an alternative that Sinn Fein could not provide because it is “in such a mess”.
He further claimed Sinn Fein is “haemorrhaging” votes and people in the south, because the party was concentrating on political success in Ulster.
He added: “It’s all down to leadership. It’s Gerry Adams and whoever is around him. We need to change the leadership and spruce up all the cumainn (local groups) in the country. We should be going around encouraging the cumainn to keep up the good work. The party needs to be refreshed.”
Stating that Sinn Fein had been going downhill for the last 18 months, he revealed that he has been talking to young fellow party councillors who were “demoralised”.
Mr Morris claimed the party was much keener about being a “top player” in the political process in the North, asking: “But at what cost down here in the South?”
Mr Morris also expressed his disappointment that party headquarters had not congratulated him when he was elected Mayor of Nenagh in 2004, and failed to send a representative to the funeral of his sister Monica who was killed in a road crash a number of years ago.
Asked about whether he would remain on in the party, he said: “If my party is keen to commit political hari kari I cannot stay in the party.”
Since last summer Sinn Fein has seen the defection of three of its Dublin city councillors: Christy Burke, Louise Minihan and Killian Forde. Other councillors who have left the party in recent times include John Dwyer (Wexford) and Gerard Foley (Strabane).
Sinn Fein did not respond when approached by the News Letter for comment last night.
By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith
Irish Examiner
January 28, 2010
GARDAÍ investigating the brutal murder of a convicted Cork-based drug dealer are sceptical of claims a Real IRA hit squad was behind the shooting.
Reports yesterday claimed the illegal organisation had claimed responsibility for the shooting of 42-year-old Gerard “Topper” Staunton eight days ago.
In a letter sent to a number of newspapers, representatives of the group behind the 1998 Omagh bombing claimed they murdered Mr Staunton because of his drugs world connections.
Gardaí are treating the matter seriously and have said they are continuing to investigate all lines of inquiry. However, it is understood officers are treating the claim with a degree of scepticism and, instead, believe the murder may have been the result of a personal altercation.
In the letter sent with a recognised code word, a group reportedly representing the Real IRA in Cork said they were responsible for the lethal assault.
The document continued to allege that the murder was necessary after previous warnings from the group to drug dealers last September were “ignored”.
“We warned then that our actions would speak louder than a thousand words and last week was testament to that. On this occasion our hand was forced,” the correspondence read.
Mr Staunton died after he was shot in the chest with a shotgun as he got into his Audi car outside his home in Westlawn estate on the Sarsfield Road just before 8pm last Wednesday.
The 42-year-old, who had a previous conviction for drug offences, was killed in front of his partner, while stray bullets hit the rear seat of a car in which the children of the Cork man’s partner were sitting. Gardaí say the children were lucky to escape unharmed.
They believe a woman aged between 25 and 35 with shoulder-length blonde hair, who was seen in the nearby vicinity at the time of incident, can help them with their inquiries.
An incident room has been set up in Togher Garda Station and can be contacted on 021-4947129.
Anyone concerned about drug dealing in their area, contact the confidential Dial to Stop Drug Dealing line on 1800-220220.
The leaders of Ireland’s four main churches have urged politicians to redouble their efforts in talks to save the future of the Stormont power-sharing government.
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28 January 2010
Their plea came after Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Taoiseach Brian Cowen left the talks venue at Hillsborough Castle on Wednesday without securing agreement.
The premiers asked, however, that First Minister Peter Robinson and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness return to the negotiating table and report on their progress by Friday morning.
In a further development senior clerics offered their prayers and support in a joint statement from Cardinal Sean Brady, Church of Ireland Archbishop Alan Harper, Presbyterian Moderator Dr Stafford Carson and Methodist President Rev Donald Ker.
The men said they wished to put on record their “admiration for the commitment of all parties engaged in the talks to resolve the issues surrounding the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly”.
They added: “The people of Northern Ireland expect their representatives to ensure that agreement is reached. There is an overwhelming desire throughout Northern Ireland for continued political progress and for the peace process to be sustained.”
Secretary of State Shaun Woodward and Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin are stewarding the latest phase of talks which come after three days and two nights of intensive discussions, which were led by the two premiers, but which failed to secure a breakthrough.
If the parties cannot agree, the governments will publish their own set of proposals which attempt to meet Sinn Fein demands for the swift devolution of policing and justice powers to the Assembly, and to address DUP calls for the Parades Commission to be replaced.
The two men said they believed devolution could happen in May, with a vote on the move brought before the Assembly as early as March, if the outstanding matters were dealt with.
The governments formulated proposals that also seek to find common ground on the parades issue and other hurdles such as legislative protections for the Irish language.
Mr Cowen said the problems were not insurmountable, saying: “There is far more in common than what divides us.”
But Sinn Fein said it was “deeply disappointed” with the outcome and blamed DUP demands for changes to the process of managing controversial loyal order parades for blocking an agreement.
DUP leader Peter Robinson insisted his party was committed to the devolution of policing powers, but said it would not let that happen until the conditions were right.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown finishes holding holding a news conference with his Irish counterpart Taoiseach Brian Cowen
BBC
28 Jan 2010
The President of Ireland Mary McAleese has described two police officers who were targeted in dissident republican attacks as “community heroes”.
Mrs McAleese said Stephen Carroll, who was shot dead last year, and Peadar Heffron, who lost a leg in a car bomb, “inspired respect from all sides”.
She revealed that she had met Constable Heffron’s parents and said speaking to the couple “would break your heart”.
The president made her remarks during a visit to the PSNI College in Belfast.
She told an audience of police recruits that they had “opted for one of the most challenging and responsible of vocations, a vocation that demands bravery, leadership, honesty and sheer hard work”.
“It takes courage to face into the worst of human nature in defence of the interests and values of the best,” she said.
Difficult transition
The president said the dissident republicans who murdered Constable Carroll last March and seriously injured Constable Heffron earlier this month had “failed abjectly” in their attempt to destabilise the peace process.
Mrs McAleese added that the “transformation of policing has been amongst the great and most outstanding dividends of peace”.
She said she was conscious many of the recruits “were only youngsters” during the talks process which led to the Good Friday Agreement and massive changes in policing in Northern Ireland.
She told them: “You are part of a difficult process of transition from a culture of conflict to a culture of consensus.
“More than that, you are leaders of that transition, for the handover from the RUC to the PSNI was effected with remarkable success and generosity of spirit.”
She added that it was very encouraging “to see the hugely collegial relationship” develop between the police on both sides of the Irish border.
By Duncan Crawford
BBC
28 Jan 2010
The family of a punishment shooting victim in Northern Ireland say the police should be doing more to stop them.
For years the number of paramilitary style attacks has dropped but figures show 41 were carried out last year, more than double the year before.
David (not his real name) was watching Big Brother on TV in a bedroom with his girlfriend when four men forced their way into his house.
“They pulled out a gun and pushed me down,” he said. “One punched me in the face, and someone knelt on my back. I was kicking my legs and they told me to stop or it would be worse. They shot me four times.”
Continue reading the main story
They had scarves round their faces and balaclavas on to disguise their identities.
One held his grandmother in the lounge, while the others went upstairs to carry out a punishment shooting, also known as a kneecapping.
“I was shot in the shin, thigh, ankle and calf. I was in shock but shouted to my girlfriend, ‘Call an ambulance’. Then I passed out.”
David says they thought he was a drug dealer, which is something he denies.
It’s believed a rebel republican group called Oglaigh na hEireann was responsible for the attack.
It’s a splinter group from the Real IRA, thought to be behind the bomb which was placed under a policeman’s car earlier this month.
His family say no one’s ever been charged over the attack and criticised the police for not doing enough to help them.
Shootings rise
The police say they’re working with local communities to prevent paramilitary-style attacks and have had significant success at stopping them.
David’s mum said the police needed to do more: “A majority of people in the local area are in these dissident groups or supporting them. The police need to stop it from happening.”
After For decades, paramilitaries in both loyalist and republican areas used punishment shootings as a way of controlling communities.
After falling, punishment shootings rose in Northern Ireland last year
With policing often absent in parts of Northern Ireland, the attacks were carried out on those believed to be guilty of anti-social behaviour.
There was a distrust of the police force, particularly in the Catholic community.
They viewed it as being largely Protestant and felt that the Catholic community was unfairly targeted, a feeling that’s exploited by the paramilitaries.
According to police figures, there were 186 punishment shootings in 2001, of which most were carried out by loyalist groups.
Since then, the total number of attacks has fallen dramatically, to just six in 2007.
In 2008 the figures rose slightly to 16 attacks but the latest figures show 41 punishment shootings were carried out in 2009 and all but one was blamed on rebel republican groups, such as the Continuity IRA.
The number of punishment beatings last year also went up, to 81, compared to 40 in 2008 with most being blamed on loyalist groups.
Warnings
Harry Maguire is an ex-IRA prisoner who was convicted of murder. He now works for Community Restorative Justice, an organisation who try to stop punishment shootings.
“A number of the shootings that have taken place over the last year have been done in a very haphazard manner,” he said.
“They’re unprofessional with what they’re doing. There’s been a number of these punishment shootings where the intention has been to shoot someone in the knees. On one occasion a person was shot in the shoulder.”
Father Gary Donaghan is from the Holy Cross Church in Belfast and explained the different sort of attacks.
“There are beatings, and then kneecappings,” he said. “Then there’s what they refer to in a very sadistic way as a six-pack. Somebody shot in the elbows, knees and the ankles.”
Paramiltaries sometimes warn him a punishment attack is about to take place.
He says he negotiates with them to stop them taking place.
He said: “They would contact the monastry, say they belong to an actual organisation and say that a person was under critical threat, and say within a certain period of time this person is to be shot.”
‘I don’t feel safe’
Often negotiations will lead to a person having to leave their home.
It happened to this man, who again, didn’t want to be identified.
He said: “Paramilitaries told me I had 48 hours to leave the country or else I would be severely dealt with. It could be anything, your legs or arms broke, even shot in the head. Executed as they would call it.”
David now hopes to get on with his life and can now walk again but he still has nightmares.
He’s planning to leave the area, even though that means leaving his family behind.
“I’m still scared,” he admitted. “For a long time I couldn’t leave the house. Now I’m starting to go out more but I’m nervous. I don’t trust anyone.”
His mum told Newsbeat she was also trying to move house but couldn’t find a new home.
She said the whole family was struggling to get over what happened.
“We’ve all gone through the whole process of nightmares, medication, counselling,” she said.
“It’s something that’s never going to end. I don’t feel safe. I don’t think anyone feels safe.”
Andersonstown News
28th of January 2010
THE MAN whose boundless energy and unswerving idealism helped to found both the Andersonstown News and the Andersonstown Civil Resistance Committee passed away yesterday (Wednesday) after a courageous fight against illness.
Basil McLaughlin died in the Hospice on the Somerton Road surrounded by close family at around 4am yesterday morning. He was 74 years of age.
A lifelong resident of West Belfast, Basil gave up a promising civil service career to work in favour of civil rights and against internment –- coming together with a number of other concerned individuals in the early 1970s to fight against injustice and to form a local newspaper to give a voice to the voiceless in his part of the city.
The Belfast Media Group HQ on the Glen Road –-Teach Basil –- is named in honour of him and as the rest of West Belfast prepared to say goodbye to Basil, friends and colleagues paid tribute to one of the best-known and most widely-respected figures in the West of the city and beyond.
BBC
28 Jan 2010
A 400lb bomb was left at the Policing Board headquarters in Belfast in November
The Northern Ireland Policing Board has been told it will have to either spend millions to improve security at its headquarters or move to new premises.
The board has become a target for attacks by dissident republicans who left a 400lb car bomb outside its headquarters in Belfast in November.
The bomb failed to explode but police said that if it had, the docks area of the city would have been destroyed.
The PSNI believe there is a substantial risk of another attack on the building.
They have warned that security needs to be improved.
At a special private meeting of the Policing Board on Thursday, members were told of a number of options.
They include making the area around the building a pedestrian zone, spending about £2m to bomb-proof the building, and even moving to new offices in a more secure location.
BBC Northern Ireland’s Home Affairs Correspondent, Vincent Kearney, said he understood that moving to new offices was “the least favoured option”, but added that nothing has been ruled out at this stage.
Board members are expected to discuss the options again next week
BBC
28 Jan 2010
An all-party session of talks to try to break the deadlock over policing and justice is being held at Hillsborough Castle.
The British and Irish prime ministers have given the parties until Friday to close the gap, or they will publish their own proposals.
Alliance Party leader David Ford said talks were likely to go on late into the night.
He denied politicians were going through the motions.
Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey reflected on fact that while politicians continued to talk people outside were losing their jobs.
Referring to the announcement that 210 jobs were being lost at a drill bit company in east Belfast, he said: “If ever there was an example of the disconnect between politics and the experience of people in their everyday lives, today’s announcement was clearly evidence of that.
“It’s a matter of very deep regret that all these manufacturing jobs are being lost.”
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister, who is not taking part in the talks, accused Sinn Fein of having an “insatiable agenda for destabilisation and conflict”.
“The manner in which Sinn Fein seeks to advance its agenda, not through accepting the processes within devolution, but by loading its gun to the DUP’s head with every pet project, is a reminder that even if the present Stormont crisis is sorted, Sinn Fein will be back for more and more,” he said.
At a roundtable session on Thursday afternoon, the talks were widened to consider the problems at the heart of the executive.
Parades
Earlier, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams reiterated that devolution of policing and justice and controversial Orange Order parades could not be linked.
He was speaking before briefing party officers on the state of ongoing talks at Hillsborough Castle.
Mr Adams said there was still a lot of work to be done.
“Anybody who thinks that the price of policing and justice is a walk down the Garvaghy Road or Ardoyne is just ridiculous,” he said.
DUP MLA Sammy Wilson said that his party was focused on resolving the parading issue.
He added that the party believed disputes were best resolved at “a local level” but that there needed to be a mechanism in place to allow that to happen.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan said the talks were making more progress than they had on Wednesday, when the British and Irish prime ministers left Hillsborough without a deal.
The negotiations are being led by Secretary of State Shaun Woodward and Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin.
Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen left Hillsborough, after hosting two marathon days and nights of intense political negotiations over the issue which has threatened the stability of power-sharing at Stormont.
The two biggest political parties in Northern Ireland, the DUP and Sinn Fein, have been arguing over the timetable for the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster to locally elected politicians for months.
Before leaving Northern Ireland on Wednesday, the British and Irish prime ministers said they believed there was a “firm basis” for the parties to set a date in early May for the devolution of policing and justice and to “enhance the existing framework to deal more effectively with contentious parades”.
The issue of parades has caused friction in the negotiations, with Sinn Fein complaining that the DUP had made the abolition of the Parades Commission a “pre-condition” to a deal on policing and justice.
Churches’ support
Late on Wednesday night, the leaders of Ireland’s four main churches called on all the political parties to redouble their efforts to reach a settlement.
Cardinal Sean Brady, Archbishop Alan Harper, Presbyterian Moderator Dr Stafford Carson and Methodist President Rev Donald Ker said they believed that “the people of Northern Ireland expect their representatives to ensure that agreement is reached”.
J. D. Salinger, who was thought at one time to be the most important American writer to emerge since World War II but who then turned his back on success and adulation, becoming the Garbo of letters, famous for not wanting to be famous, died Wednesday at his home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. He was 91.
By John Murray Brown in the Kilwilkie estate in Lurgan, Northern Ireland
Financial Times.com
January 27 2010
The Police Service of Northern Ireland website carries an apologetic note for those trying to download job forms. “We are currently experiencing large numbers applying,” it says.
It is a reflection of the changed image of policing in the province that it is now seen by many as a good career. Yet it is a fair bet few of those would-be recruits are from the hard bitten Catholic estate of Kilwilkiein Lurgan, county Armagh.
Police have often depicted this drab pebble-dashed neighbourhood as one of the strongholds of those former supporters of Sinn Féin, who now oppose the party’s decision to sit in the Northern Ireland assembly – some using violence to express their opposition to the peace process.
Certainly when Colin Duffy, a resident and well-known local republican, was arrested and charged with the murders of two British soldiers at Massarene Barracks in March, local youths poured onto the streets to pelt police with petrol bombs and other homemade ordnance.
But there are some signs public hostility towards the police, even here, is softening. “There’ll always be a fear towards the police here. We can never forget they’ve been involved in a lot of murders. But I think most people would like to see police on the streets,” says Frank Withers, a retired bookmaker.
Normalisation of policing has been one of the key goals of the Northern Ireland peace process, after years when the largely protestant dominated force was seen by ordinary Catholics as an armed wing of unionism, and was the target of IRA assassination attempts, with more than 300 officers killed since 1971.
But parties are currently divided over the next step – when should local politicians assume responsibility from London for running the policing, courts and prisons systems.
It is this issue which forced Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister and Brian Cowen, his Irish counterpart, to intervene this week in a bid to avoid a collapse of the power sharing administration.
It is one of the twists of Northern Ireland history, that it was the refusal of local unionist politicians to cede local control of policing to London that led to Edward Heath to close down the old unionist-dominated Stormont parliament at the start of the Troubles in 1972.
Today it is Sinn Féin, once the scourge of British “injustice” in Northern Ireland, that is the champion of policing devolution. The Democratic Unionists, meanwhile, are dragging their heels. With one eye on hardliners in their own community, they argue there is insufficient confidence to see local politicians – by which they mean the IRA-tainted politicians of Sinn Féin – having any say in such a sensitive portfolio.
In Lurgan and the nearby towns of Craigavon and Portadown it is easy to see why policing remains such an emotive issue for both communities.
This part of Northern Ireland still lives with the reality of violence. It was in nearby Craigavon in March that PC Stephen Carroll was shot dead, the first officer of the reformed and renamed Police Service of Northern Ireland to be killed – a murder claimed by the Continuity IRA.
The only other policeman to die since the Good Friday power sharing agreement in 1998 was Frank O’Reilly, killed in a loyalist blast bomb attack that year in disturbances linked to the ban on a local Portadown Orange Order parade.
Two public inquiries set up by the British government concern murders in the area – the 1997 Lurgan car bomb attack on Rosemary Nelson, the defence lawyer, and the 1999 beating to death of Robert Hammil by a loyalist mob in Portadown. Both investigations have raised questions about the police’s role.
“All these things stick in people’s minds,” says Paddy Allen, a local taxi driver. “People here don’t know what to expect from the police. There’s been so much bitterness and hostility.”
He lives in the largely Protestant town of Portadown but as a Catholic chooses to work in Lurgan.
He says he would be happy to see Sinn Féin concede DUP demands that former police officers be allowed to keep their personal protection weapons (PPWs). The DUP also wants the largely Protestant police reserve, set for abolition under government reform plans, to be retained.
Peter Robinson, the DUP leader, has also linked DUP support for policing devolution to changes in the way traditional Orange Order parades are approved. The DUP is demanding the scrapping of the Parades Commission, an independent body with powers to block controversial marches such as the parade from the Drumcree church in Portadown through the Catholic Garvaghy Road.
The last time the parade took place was in 1997, since when it has been banned by the Commission – becoming a flashpoint for community tensions ever since.
“I can’t see why the police can’t have their PPWs,” says Mr Allen. “I have no real problem with the reserve either. That’s just jobs for the boys. But Sinn Féin shouldn’t give way on parades. There’d be riots if they did. We all know in Portadown that was always a coat trailing exercise. It was never about the shortest route from the church.”
BBC
27 Jabuary 2010
More than a million people died in Auschwitz
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp survivors have been among those marking the 65th anniversary of its liberation at UK Holocaust Memorial Day events.
Many attended a national commemoration at London’s Guildhall, with other survivors of genocide and politicians.
In a statement, the Archbishop of Canterbury urged people to hear their stories and remember their legacy.
He also warned against “attitudes in ourselves and in others which were the harbingers of the Holocaust”.
Among the survivors at the Guildhall was Lilly Ebert, 79, from Golders Green, north London, who was taken to Auschwitz with her family in 1944.
________________
AT THE SCENE
By Tamsin Smith
Guildhall
Politicians and dignitaries filed into the great hall giving out polite handshakes. The Holocaust survivors greeted each other with bear hugs and knowing smiles; long-lost friends with a shared past.
The ceremony began with the crystal clear voices of a school choir, silhouetted against a backdrop of grainy black and white images. Forever associated with the horrors of the Holocaust, emaciated faces stare soullessly from behind the barbed wire of concentration camps.
It’s hard to believe some of those skeletal figures shivering in Eastern Europe’s icy winters are sitting here, surrounded by the families they went on to build. They too have been affected by the horrors their parents suffered.
At the back, one woman kept her hand on the door for a swift exit. She and her sister both suffer from claustrophobia. “Too many stories about gas chambers and cattle trucks from my parents,” she explained.
__________________
She remembers her time in the largest Nazi concentration camp “so vividly, it could have happened yesterday” and remains traumatised by the experience.
“The most important thing is to be alive,” she told the BBC.
“It’s important to be tolerant with each other. It makes no difference what religion you are or the colour of your skin.”
The theme for the 10th annual Holocaust Memorial Day is Legacy of Hope, which focuses on the lessons future generations can learn from the Holocaust.
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chief executive Carly Whyborn said the words of Holocaust survivors should set an example.
“They don’t talk about revenge or hatred, they don’t talk about enacting revenge on anybody, they talk about hope, they talk about creating a cohesive society for all of us,” Ms Whyborn said.
In a statement to coincide with the memorial, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, warned against “dehumanising attitudes”.
“We need to be vigilant about every expression of ungenerous feeling towards people in need and all who may for a time be dependent on the wider community – the refugees and asylum seekers,” he said.
“We need to be alert to the signs of a casual attitude to the value of human lives, whether by acts of terrorism or more subtly, in relation to disability, or the beginning or end of life.”
Arriving at the Guildhall event, Conservative leader David Cameron told BBC News it was a “fantastically important” anniversary.
“It is important to remember what happened in the Holocaust and it is important to remember how many genocides there have been since then.
“Just looking at the pictures of the survivors with their children gives me immense hope that we can do better in future.”
Survivors’ legacy
Lord Janner of Braunstone, the chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said it was important to carry on the legacy of Holocaust survivors.
“Holocaust Memorial Day is a chance for us to honour our incredible Holocaust survivors, many of whom work extremely hard telling others about what they endured during the Holocaust.
“They are an inspiration but sadly are growing fewer each year,” he said.
Holocaust Memorial Day is marked with the intention of remembering and honouring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and those from subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and the ongoing atrocities in Darfur.
BBC
20 Jan 2010
The Bogside Artists have been honoured with a prestigious art award.
The group won this year’s Joseph Beuys/Demarco European Art Foundation Artists of Achievement Fellowship.
Tom Kelly, William Kelly and Kevin Hasson were commended by the judges for their “extraordinary achievements”.
Their mural depicting Bloody Sunday is one of 12 in the Bogside.
“They kept faith with their community throughout one of the most difficult times, and their artistic integrity and vision continues undiminished.”
Tom Kelly said the group was “humbled” by the award.
“This is great for us, because its also a recognition of the cathartic power of our work, and the power of art to achieve healing.”
Kevin Hasson agreed.
“It’s extremely encouraging, but the important thing for us has always been on the ground, on the street, with the people.
“Our 12 murals in the Bogside are about the people and what they understand and what it expresses.
“For us it’s always been about the people and the community,” he said.
Judge Richard Demarco said the Bogside Artists’ work was very much in keeping with the beliefs of the award’s founder, Joseph Beuys.
“I believe these extraordinary artists are continuing the work of this extraordinary man to achieve healing through art.”
The award ceremony will take place in the Bogside Gallery in February.
IAIS
27 Jan 2010
The Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition has expressed its widespread concern as the handling of Loyal Order marches becomes a deal breaker between the DUP and Sinn Fein.
The DUP wants to scrap the Parades Commission which currently oversees marches in flashpoint areas such as the heavily nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.
As the Hillsborough talks ended today, Peter Robinson repeated the party will not give their go-ahead until there is progress on the “outstanding issue”.
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, meanwhile, blamed the devolution stalemate on the decision by the DUP to make the abolition of the commission a “pre-condition”, saying he will “not be made subject to a unionist veto or an Orange Order pre-condition.”
A so-called “Derry Model” has been suggested as a way of breaking the deadlock.
The model, centered on local mediation, was devised by Derry businessmen after the opposition between Bogside’s residents and the loyalist Apprentice Boys spilled over into violence, damaging the local economy.
The business community intervened in a bid to improve relations between nationalists and the Apprentice Boys in the city.
“By devising a system that allowed for communication, that allowed for confidence building”, Derry businessman Garvan O’Doherty said.
“And also, you know, maybe people have to give up certain aspects of territory to gain other aspects of territory.”
“It’s important we work off a clean sheet whereby all the prejudices of the past are left behind and we work towards the future.”
But Garvaghy Road Residents have said the proposal was unsuccessfully put forward by the British government over 10 years ago.
“That proposal was withdrawn by the British Government as unworkable when it was shown that the representation on such a political and civic forum would, in fact, have favored the pro-Orange Order lobby and placed nationalists in Portadown at a distinct disadvantage”, a spokesman for the Garvaghy Road Residents said.
“The Derry model didn’t have to deal with parades that were going directly through the Creggan or the Bogside, unlike here where the parade is going through 100% residential nationalist community,” Breandan MacCionnaith said.
The residents insist the Parades Commission has helped improve the situation since the end of the bitter Drumcree dispute which brought Northern Ireland to the brink at the end of the 1990s.
“The rerouting of contentious marches away from the Garvaghy Road and Obins Street by the Parades Commission has meant that our community – and the wider community – has enjoyed successive peaceful summers”, residents claimed.
But north Belfast DUP MLA Nelson McCausland is calling for a ‘new and fair’ system.
“It is quite clear that the Parades Commission has failed”, he said.
“What we need now is a new start, a new system, a new structure that will produce a fair system and fair outcomes in regard to parades.”
IAIS
01/27/10
The British and Irish Premiers have left Northern Ireland without a settlement in place to save the power-sharing government, but Gordon Brown assured a “reasonable deal” was within reach.
Speaking alongside Brian Cowen, Mr Brown said three days of intensive negotiations between the main parties had seen progress, adding that a “pathway” to a deal had been laid.
He said the party leaders had now been given 48 hours to try to work on a deal under the chairmanship of Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward and Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin.
Mr Brown said: “We believe we have proposals that make for a reasonable deal on devolution of policing and justice, we believe we have proposals that make for a reasonable settlement on all the outstanding issues.”
But he added in regard to the 48-hour deadline: “If we judge that insubstantial progress has been made we will publish our own proposals.”
The British PM said devolution of policing and justice could be “achieved around the beginning of May”, with a vote in the Assembly as early as March.
Moments later, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness vented his anger that the summit had failed to secure a settlement.
Mr McGuinness said he was “deeply disappointed” with the outcome of the talks and blamed DUP demands for a concession on loyal order parades for blocking an agreement.
Flanked by party colleagues including president Gerry Adams, he said: “I believe we have displayed extraordinary patience and commitment over the past 18 months as we sought to persuade the Democratic Unionist Party to be partners of progress.”
“Over recent days the two Governments have joined that effort. The decision by the DUP, at the behest of the Orange Order, to make the abolition of the Parades Commission a pre-condition for the transfer of powers on policing and justice flies in the face of all that.”
The party would nevertheless study the proposals tabled by the two Governments, he said.
“But one thing is certain – and it is absolutely certain as far as we are concerned – that citizens’ rights and entitlements will not be made subject to a unionist veto or an Orange Order pre-condition.”
Soon after, DUP leader Peter Robinson said his party remained committed to the devolution of policing powers, but repeated it would not let that happen until the conditions were right.
Mr Robinson said his party would not bend under the threat of a Sinn Fein walkout.
He said: “The Democratic Unionist Party is committed to ensure that devolution works in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland and will not accept any second rate deal simply to get across the line to suit someone else’s deadline.”
“The DUP will only sign up to an agreement which we believe deal with the unresolved matters satisfactorily. We will do what’s best for our community.”
He added: “If others choose to walk away then I believe that the wrath of the community will be upon them for doing that.”
The UUP, the SDLP and the Alliance also gave their reaction to the stalemate.
Sir Reg Empey said the prize was too great to fail now.
“Having come the distance we have come, I think it would be a tragedy that we would falter at this last stage,” he said.
He warned his party would not be forced to sign up to a deal just because Sinn Fein was demanding immediate progress.
“I want to make it clear Sinn Fein are not going to bully us. We have our issues, we have our mandate and we intend to have our agenda discussed with the other parties.”
SDLP leader Mark Durkan insisted there was still the opportunity to make progress.
“We need to just wind our necks in, calm down, sit down and face all of the issues with all of the parties.”
Leader of the moderate unionist Alliance Party David Ford, who is tipped to take on the justice ministry if powers are devolved, said the situation was “desperately” serious.
“The governments have their thought about a potential timetable. The importance over the next two days is to get the parties to engage seriously to live up to their responsibilities and see what they can do.”
TUV Leader Jim Allister, who opposes power-sharing and didn’t take part in the Hillsborough talks, said: “The reality that the unworkable doesn’t work should not surprise anyone, nor that the insatiable demands of Sinn Fein cannot be met. ”
The British and Irish Prime Ministers met all the parties in a final plenary session before holding their press conference.
Before leaving Hillsborough Castle, Taoiseach Brian Cowen urged the parties to deal with the “spirit” of the peace process.
“The spirit of these agreements is about everybody’s place being respected, all our traditions being cherished and confidence building measures and clear signals given that we do understand and accommodate each other,” Mr Cowen said.
**Received via email
27 Jan 2010
The REPUBLICAN NETWORK for UNITY (RNU) spokesperson, DANNY MCBREARTY, commenting on today’s events at Stormont said:
“RNU finds itself in unlikely agreement with the description of Gerry Adams last Saturday, who noted that if, the Stormont ‘institutions are not working and not delivering-then they become pointless…no self respecting public representative or political party would want to be part of what would be nothing less than a charade.’
“Today’s’ flight of the prime ministers, distancing themselves from the talks, signals that not even a compromised Stormont ministry with a unionist veto over its minister and mechanisms to ease the way for Orange feet to march down nationalist roads would be granted .
“Republicans were urged to endorse the British constabulary and told that the administration of the Crown constabulary and courts through a compromised Stormont ministry would somehow be a major transition away from British rule. A much delayed deal loomed, by virtue or perhaps more accurately by lack of virtue in the Robinson household, by the desire of the DUP to avoid being led into Stormont elections against the TUV, and the willingness of some nationalists to see others trampled upon by sectarian Orange marchers. It now appears that the DUP has opted to ally itself with the UUP and Conservatives and assure favored treatment from the next British government.
“We challenge Republicans to look at how much has been given up to achieve so little. A watered down Stormont ministry, like the structures of constabulary boards and partnerships erected has not made the British constabulary accountable but merely made Sinn Fein accomplices in imposing British rule and law. The European Court has recently condemned the use of Section 44 searches as a repressive violation of rights. Republicans, their families and children continue to be victimized by these searches while the timid scripted questions at board meetings are dismissed by the British constabulary chief and touted by the British as a visible show of Irish endorsement for such repression.
“Behind the cosmetic façade and charade the British have imposed 28 day mini-internment, used release on license as a license to lock-up at will in the case of Terry McCafferty, continued Diplock courts, and constructed a supergrass wing at Maghaberry, and fired CS gas and plastic bullets. No doubt many Republicans will witness such measures first hand if Orange marches are facilitated in their streets.
“Will Sinn Fein continue to be part of this charade?
SAOIRSE32 
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