The Pat Finucane Centre will be providing weekly news updates on the Net starting this week. The intention is to provide brief but accurate summaries of some key events in the political situation affecting the North. This will not be a definitive news service. Given the organisational constraints on the centre we are unable to engage in discussion groups and would ask that any email be confined to specific queries only.
A young man in his twenties was shot dead by two men in the nationalist Markets area of Belfast at 3.55 this afternoon. Information is sketchy but there are suggestions that the man was an alleged drug dealer who had been ordered to leave the North by the IRA. The killing has been claimed by Direct Action Against Drugs or DAAD. This organisation has claimed a number of killings of alleged drug dealers over the past year. There is much controversary in working class nationalist areas surrounding how the drugs issue should be dealt with. In the Pat Finucane Centre we have argued that neither the RUC (the largely unacceptable paramilitary police force) nor the IRA should be involved in addressing the drugs issue. While it is true that working class nationalist areas do not suffer the same devastation as is evident in Dublin, Manchester or New York due to IRA actions against dealers it is also true that summary execution of alleged dealers is an unacceptable form of justice.
On Saturday night (14.9) a 400 strong loyalist crowd prevented massgoers from attending mass in St Patrick's church in Ballymena, Co Antrim. The following morning three further Catholic chapels were picketed by loyalists in Dervock, Bushmills and Ballymoney. Sectarian abuse and insults were shouted at people emerging from mass by a crowd some of whom were wearing orange sashes and waving Union Jacks. A local DUP councillor, David Mc Allister, joined in the protest outside St Mary's church in Bushmills and called for the protests to be spread throughout the North of Ireland. Ian Paisley Jnr, son of the DUP leade, the Rev Ian Paisley, has also expressed support for the protests. The protesters claim that their "civil and religious liberties" were denied when the RUC refused them permission to hold an orange parade through the nearby nationalist village of Dunloy on the previous Sunday. Prior to the Dunloy incident agreement had been reached between Dunloy residents and the Orange Order which would have allowed a parade to the church hall in the village. The Orange Order withdrew from the agreement however. As a result the RUC (not the villagers!) denied them permission to parade and a five hour standoff ensued.
[There are introdcutory remarks on the Orange Order in the Introductory chapter of the PFC Report "In the Line of Fire"]Some loyalists have sought to justify the blockade of Catholic chapels with the argument that orange parades have been stopped from taking place in predominantly Nationalist or Catholic areas. Further controversary has arisen over the boycott of businesses whose owners are said to have taken part in loyalist protests and road blockages during the Drumcree standoff. [ Again see the PFC Report "In the Line of Fire" for a discussion of that event.]
This has led to allegations that the boycott is sectarian and aimed at Protestants. Both the SDLP and Sinn Fein have condemned any boycott campaign that is sectarian but many people understandably refuse to shop in the business whose owner took part in blockades which paralysed the North in July.
Would afro americans shop in a business whose owner took part in Klu Klux Klan street protests? Is it accurate to refer to such a boycott as racist? The Orange Order is a semi secret anti-Catholic organisation which seeks to link "defence of the Protestant religion" with the continued "Union of Britain and Northern Ireland." As such it is a political organisation whose parades are deemed offensive and triumpalist by many in the North of Ireland. It must be said that a majority of the Protestant community are not members of the Orange institutions. Many prominent Protestant churchmen have condemned the weekend incidents and there is evidence that even members of the Orange Order are opposed to the intimidation of those attending Catholic mass. Many Protestants have called in to loacl radio programms to distance themselves from the incidents.The weekend protests have been condemned by the Antrim County Grand Master of the Orange Order.
The appeal begins today in Belfast in the case of Lurgan man, Colin Duffy, who was convicted of the murder of a former British soldier in 1993. Colin was sentenced to 20 years by Justice Kerr on the evidence of a mystery witness who gave evidence from behind a screen. A month later the mystery witness, Lindsay Robb, praised by the judge for his "honesty and impartiality", was arrested and subsequently convicted in Scotland on charges of gun running for the right wing paramilitary UVF. At his trial it emerged that Robb had been given 2000 pound sterling and a firearm by the RUC following his testimony in the Colin Duffy case. The campaign to free Colin Duffy is supported by former taoisigh (Irish prime ministers), church leaders and more than 20 members of the US congress. The former Irish Taoiseagh (Prime Minister), Albert Reynolds, is attending the appeal. The campaign can be contacted at 5 Drumnamoe Gardens, Lurgan, Co Armagh, Ireland
An independant public inquiry begins on Tuesday 17 September into the murder of Patrick Shanaghan who was shot dead by the right wing paramilitary UDA on 12 August 1991 on the Learmore Rd near his home in Castlederg, Co Tyrone. No inquest was held into the killing until five years later, a common occurance in disputed deaths in the North of Ireland. The Shanaghan family eventually withdrew from the inquest alleging Security Force collusion in the murder. Nine months before the killing Patrick was approached by RUC Inspector Robert Scott Moore, and informed that his life was in danger since his security files had "fallen out" of a military vehicle on route between Rockwood UDR base(a locally recruited British Army regiment) and Strabane. Thousands of security files have "gone missing" in this manner which leads to warnings being issued to the concerned individual that their life is in danger. In fact it is suspected that members of the security forces simply hand these files over to right wing death squads and then issue the formal warnings in order to terrorise the individual.
The Castlederg/Aghyaran Justice Group who have organised the inquiry have said that it will investigate" the circumstances leading up to the murder, the behavior of the RUC at the scene, the nature of the RUC investigation and their attitude at the Inquest held earlier this year". The inquiry will be conducted by three US lawyers including retired Judge Andrew Somers and will be held in the Aghyaran GAA centre on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 11am. For more information contact 0044 (0)16626 70906 or 79976. See the next news update for more information.
The aftershocks continue to rumble on from the marching season this summer with the various unionist parties and paramilitaries fighting among themselves. Following the murder of a Catholic taxi driver, Michael Mc Goldrick, in July by the Mid Ulster Brigade of the right wing paramilitary UVF it became clear that a split had developed in the organisation. The Combined Loyalist Military Command, which coordinates the main loyalist paramilitary organisations ordered the reputed leader of the Mid Ulster UVF, Billy Wright, and another man to leave the North within 48 hours or be shot. The Rev. William Mc Crea, a member of parliament for Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) subsequently spoke at a rally in Portadown in support of Billy Wright, also known as "King Rat". The UVF unit of which Wright is reputed to be the leader has murdered 42 Catholics in sectarian assasinations since 1989 though this would appear not to trouble the Rev. William Mc Crea since he spoke on the same platform as Billy Wright.
The DUP party whose MP supports that loyalist leader whose faction has broken the ceasefire ie the Mid Ulster UVF, then attempted to have the two smaller loyalist parties (PUP/UDP) who have links to the paramilitary leadership expelled from the Talks process. The reason given for this breathtaking exercise in hypocrisy was that the death threats issued to Billy Wright and another man constituted a breach of the Mitchell principles under which only those parties committed to non violence were allowed to participate in the Talks process. The Irish and British Governments rejected the demand that smaller loyalist parties be excluded. The moderate Alliance party have in turn argued that the two larger unionist parties should themselves be excluded given their activities this summer at Drumcree and elsewhere. It is believed that the DUP party are attempting to exploit differences in the smaller loyalist parties because they fear the growing electoral challenge which the PUP/UDP pose. Paisleys DUP party was involved some years ago in the setting up of another loyalist paramilitary group, Ulster Resistance which subsequently "shared" in the illegal importation of a large shipment of arms to loyalist paramilitary groups from apartheid South africa.
Since the 1994 ceasefires it has been the PUP/UDP parties which have shown a greater willingness to dialogue with others.The circus continues but it is sadly no laughing matter. Debate has raged around the issue of a death threat to a man whose UVF unit murdered 42 people in seven years. Not once in this debate was the name of Michael Mc Goldrick, the most recent victim of the Mid Ulster UVF, even mentioned. The talks themselves remain bogged down in procedural matters and Sinn Fein continue to be excluded in the absence of a renewed IRA ceasefire.