Sorry for the delay in posting up the updates but we still appear to have a few gremlins in the system. Our new year1s resolution is to provide the weekly service on a more dependable basis on the Sunday of each week.
Back to Contents ListFor details on the annual commemoration see the update on this site from 25 December1996
Back to Contents ListFollowing a number of serious incidents it remains unclear what the new year holds for the increasingly fragile peace process. The discovery of a booby trap bomb under the car of Derry Sinn Fein member, Liam Duffy, in the Waterside area of the city on December 28 was followed in the early hours of New Years eve by the abandonment by the IRA of a large land mine in the grounds of Belfast Castle in what is believed to have been an aborted attack aimed at a target elsewhere in the city.
The Derry incident is thought to have been the work of the UDA using the cover name UFF and marks the second such attempt on republicans since the IRA shot an RUC officer in the foot inside the intensive care unit of the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children on December 20. In that attack the IRA did more to shoot themselves in the proverbial foot than any dirty tricks conceived by British Intelligence could have achieved. A leading Belfast republican, Eddie Copeland, was injured in the loyalist undercar booby trap attack two days after the hospital incident. The father of the inured man was murdered by the British Army in the early seventies.
Both the SDLP leader John Hume and Martin Mc Guinness of Sinn Fein have called on British PM John Major to call an immediate general election and thus end the impasse caused by Majors dependency on Unionist votes in order to remain in government. It seems certain that no movement is possible until after a general election in Britain which creates a dangerous political vacuum in Anglo Irish relations.
The situation is further complicated by speculation as to the reasons behind the failure of recent attempted IRA attacks. Writing in today1s Observer newspaper journalist Mary Holland claims that republican sources have confirmed that the IRA is fighting a "phoney war" using bombs that are not intended to explode. According to the article "Official sources in Dublin think that this is the only plausible explanation for the number of apparently botched operations in recent weeks..."
Back to Contents ListIn a widely publicised new year statement the Pat Finucane Centre called for confidence building measures to be undertaken by both Unionists and Nationalists in Derry in order to improve community relations in the city. The Centre renewed its call, first made in the summer to the SDLP and Sinn Fein to reinstate Unionist Richard Dallas as Mayor of the city. Dallas had been stripped of his mayoral privileges following his participation in Drumcree related blockades of the bridge in Derry. The centre also called on unionists and in particular the Apprentice Boys to begin dialogue with the Bogside Residents Group in order to avoid a repeat of the parades crisis of last summer.
Back to Contents ListDuring the Christmas holidays a member of the PFC was visited by a posse of RUC officers led by the good Inspector McCrudden of RUC Shantallow.
The errant PFC member was duly informed that he was being "cautioned for having organised an illegal assembly" outside RUC Headquarters on the Strand Rd in Derry on July 11. The alleged illegal assembly was in fact a march and rally held hours after the RUC decision to baton and plastic bullet their way through the Garvaghy Rd in Portadown in order that the Orange Order could parade through an exclusively Catholic housing estate. The Derry rally was attended by thousands of people and one of the speakers was indeed a member of the PFC. Whether or not the law was broken is of little consequence given the activities of the RUC during those traumatic weeks. See our report "In the Line of Fire" on the home page.
Back to Contents ListBail was again denied to Roisin McAliskey this week at the Old Bailey in London. Roisin faces extradition to Germany in connection with an IRA mortar attack on a British Army base in Osnabruck last June. Though five months pregnant and experiencing medical complications the judge agreed with the German Government who opposed bail due to the "gravity of the case." Roisin suffers from ulcers, arthritis, asthma and is dangerously underweight. Access to her cell in an emergency can only be gained when additional warders are called due to her Special Category A status. Messages of support can be sent to:
Roisin Mc Aliskey,Meanwhile a 53 year old man accused of involvement in the 1994 IRA mortar attacks on Heathrow airport has been granted bail by a London court this week. Michael Gallagher will be released on a £250,000 surety, the equivalent of the bail offered by Roisin's defence solicitor, Gareth Pierce.
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Derry Museum Raided
In a daring and dangerous action the RUC has raided the award winning Tower Museum in Derry and removed three guns on display as part of a new exhibition on the conflict. The daytime security operation1 followed complaints by a local DUP councillor that one of the weapons, a Kalashnikov rifle, may have been used by the IRA in the past. The raiding party cleverly managed to gain access to the museum without paying and despite the presence of a number of city employees and potentially dangerous tourists. It is believed that the weapons may be returned now that the ego of the said DUP councillor has been stroked.
Back to Contents ListBefore the Christmas break Derry City Council rejected an invitation to put forward nominations to the new Police Authority (PA) which will be formed next June. The PA oversees the RUC and has been boycotted by the main nationalist parties, the SDLP and Sinn Fein. The SDLP leader on the council, Pat Devine, said "I do not believe the Police Authority can play a part in the policing problems that exist here." The PA includes members of the Orange Order and has consistently rubber-stamped human rights violations by the RUC.
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