History > 2006 > UK > Northern Ireland

Future of Ulster:

Their aim? Reconciliation.

Their means? Talking

A British soldier, an IRA volunteer,
a Protestant victim - the extraordinary story of how,
behind closed doors, former foes are now fighting
for the peaceful future of Northern Ireland

Published: 29 November 2006
The Independent
By David McKittrick

Jackie McMullan, who joined the IRA at the age of 13, was given a life sentence for an attack on a military billet. Behind bars he became a republican legend, surviving 48 days of the hunger strike that killed 10 of his colleagues. He served 16 years in prison.

Alan McBride is a Belfast Protestant whose life was devastated when an IRA bomb killed his wife, Sharon, at a Shankill Road fish shop in 1973. It also claimed the life of her father. Mr McBride said the loss of his wife had sent him to hell and back.

But together, Mr McMullan and Mr McBride are engaged in an extraordinary venture where ordinary people - extraordinary people - rather than politicians are taking the lead. Their aim? Reconcilation. Their means? Talk, and specifically talk about the past, with the aim of creating a better future. Among those working with them is Andrew Rawding, a former British soldier who lost friends and comrades during tours of duty in south Armagh.

For two years, behind closed doors, they have united to tackle one of the most deep-seated, difficult and potentially dangerous issues: how to help in healing the thousands of people on whom the Troubles inflicted emotional lacerations.

"I know Jackie McMullan very well now," says Mr McBride. "I have a problem with people who are unrepentant and unapologetic but Jackie acknowledges that the IRA caused hurt." Mr McMullan says: "I learnt a lot from Alan. I have a lot of admiration for him and the position he takes, coming from his circumstances. I believe he has shown moral and political courage."

Mr Rawding said of their work: "This is an incredibly important process. There is no moral high ground for anybody. It is not enough to remain in a comfort zone and sit on the sidelines and do nothing."

Some argue that looking back, and trying to make sense of the Troubles, is just too painful and certain to open old wounds. Yet there is already a striking amount of evidence, that the question will not go away.

Many who have studied the problem have concluded that bottling up the personal and communal hurt will cause it to fester. The fact the group, whose stated aim was "Making peace with the past," did so in a civilised way is an early and encouraging sign that former adversaries can work constructively on the future. "There was a real engagement," said Mr McMullan. "It wasn't as if we were shaking hands and hugging but we didn't spend every meeting arguing and shouting. There were differences but we weren't locking horns."

Another participant, former assistant chief constable Irwin Turbitt, said: "It was a robust and mature set of discussions - more robust early on and then more mature later, as people actually started to listen."

The process produced not unanimity but a comprehensive report with a set of five options that the group hopes "will give shape and depth" to the debate which will continue in the years ahead.

The political world and public opinion have yet to reach a consensus on what to do next but Belfast's newspapers illustrate daily that scores of individuals and groups are seeking information about their relatives.

More and more previously secret information is gradually being disclosed. The expectation is that further revelations are on the way about loyalist assassins being protected by the intelligence community. As one group member put it: "Truth appears to be seeping under the doors, through the cracks in the ceiling and down the chimney, no matter how determined the attempts to stem the flow."

This post-conflict process is sometimes referred to as "truth recovery". The UN calls it "transitional justice", defining it as "a society's attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation".

The Belfast group was assembled by Healing Through Remembering, an organisation that grapples with the notion of how people, in remembering the events of the conflict, can contribute to healing society's wounds.

Northern Ireland is awash with scores of inquiries, investigations and campaigns. Some are official, others are entirely independent, sometimes community-based and sometimes run by just one family.

The Government, for example, established the Bloody Sunday Inquiry to investigate events in 1972, and the police have set up a historical inquiries team to look into most of the 3,700 deaths of the Troubles.

Smaller-scale official inquiries have been announced into high-profile killings such as those of the nationalist solicitor Pat Finucane. The Irish government is looking into 1970s bomb attacks in the Republic as well as IRA killings of senior police officers on the border.

At a local level, dozens of families are seeking information on how their relatives died. In the case of "the Disappeared", some bodies have never been recovered, relatives want to know where the IRA buried them in the 1970s.

What is obvious is that whatever formal moves are to be made, a wide range of truth initiatives are already under way.

All that generates highly sensitive questions. Should those with knowledge of killings be legally compelled to talk about them? Should amnesty be available to some? Should names be named in public? Should large-scale compensation be contemplated to victims? What about apologies from perpetrators?

Questions such as those continue to hang in the air, as yet unresolved. Yet many members of the Healing Through Remembering group say such questions cannot be put aside, and need to be faced. But they did consider the option of "drawing a line under the past".

An argument advanced in favour of that approach was the concern that new revelations could jeopardise a new coalition government headed by Sinn Fein and the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party. That was certainly a strong factor behind the Government's decision, a year-and-a-half ago, to put its consultations on hold.

Northern Ireland Secretary at the time, Paul Murphy, explained: "I have not for one second suggested that we have abandoned the idea. I am simply saying I did not think this was the time for it, and if anything it could be counter-productive ." A committee of MPs concurred, saying "the peace is as yet too fragile, the scars of the conflict too fresh".

Nationalists and republicans tend to be well-disposed towards truth processes of some sort, though Sinn Fein and the IRA have made no definitive commitment. They will not show their hand until concrete proposals emerge, and it will be a finely balanced decision: obviously they would favour a mechanism that would show Britain and loyalist groups in the worst possible light. Those on the Protestant and Unionist side are much more wary.

The loyalist paramilitary groups who were involved in violence say "the painful political conflict is not yet past" and claim digging into the past would "run a real risk of reigniting violent conflict".

They say, frankly, that "pro-state paramilitaries", which is how they describe themselves, typically have more difficulty justifying their actions than groups, such as the IRA, which present themselves as fighting a "liberation struggle".

They also worry that republicans would outperform them on presentation. According to one loyalist: "Republicans - who are seen to be very skilful in the art of propaganda - would use a truth commission as a stick to beat the British state with."

Arlene Foster of the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party said bluntly: "Any commission would amount to nothing more than a Brit-bashing session. Would we ever learn the whole truth from the terrorists? Are we expected to take the word of IRA men? They have made lying and deceit an art form."

The bulk of Protestant opinion is against a large-scale commission on the scale of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which functioned in South Africa.

And not just loyalists but many others recoil from the dimensions of the closest thing to a local example, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. Announced in 1998, it has yet to report. It is the largest and most complex public inquiry in British legal history. The Government has brought in new measures to curtail subsequent inquiries and has attracted criticism. But with the Bloody Sunday exercise costing about £163m, it is almost universally agreed that no future investigation should incur such phenomenal expense.

The search is therefore on new types of institutions that could do the job quicker and cheaper. For some years, the widespread assumption was that the question was bipolar: should Northern Ireland follow South Africa, or do nothing at all? The group's report includes the option of such a full-blown inquiry.

Although it would have a financial cap and a specified time-scale it would have a large staff of lawyers and others, holding public hearings. It could grant amnesty to former combatants who co-operate, and could recommend the prosecution of others.

Tony Blair has shown no sign of favouring such an approach, but he believes there "needs to be some way of trying to allow people to express their grief, their pain and their anger without the past continually dominating the present and the future". It is a view shared by the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, who said: "Instead of the healing process setting in, bitterness arises. Something must happen - I do not know what is the best way to do it."

In addition to examining the South African experience, the group looked at dozens of other countries that had truth mechanisms, including El Salvador, the Philippines, Mozambique, Guatemala, and Rwanda .

Several members were fascinated by the experience of Spain, which seemed to show that attempts to forget atrocities stretching back as far as the civil war of the 1930s have been ultimately unsuccessful.

Although many in Spain went along with a post-Franco pacto del olvido - pact of forgetting - the issue has now resurfaced, with the government appointing a commission to consider truth and reparations. Such research and discussions have produced other options. One envisages paramilitary groups and security agencies voluntarily giving information to families through a central co-ordinating body.

Another is for a commission of historical clarification, placing the emphasis more on devising an independent and authoritative historical narrative that would explore the roots of conflict, employing primarily researchers and historians rather than lawyers. The danger is it could be an arid scholarly process, though one advantage is that people could come forward to tell their stories.

The fifth option is to build on the grassroots initiatives already under way, combining storytelling with investigative work. An oversight body would collect testimony from victims, witnesses and ex-combatants, the idea being to maximise a sense of ownership and empowerment and to allow people to be heard.

The group says the options are not mutually exclusive and could be combined. Other ideas include a museum of the Troubles and a day of remembrance.

Irwin Turbitt, the former assistant chief constable, said: "I think the process that produced the report is as worthy of notice as the report itself. That in itself is a significant sign of progress."

Mr McMullan said: "Republicans have to set the standard in acknowledging the suffering of all those we hurt. Initially, I saw talking about this as a bit of a burden but now I do feel personally committed to it. The past isn't going to go away."

And Mr McBride, who is no stranger to hurt and pain, said: "I believe we need some mechanism for dealing with the past. It could hurt some people but I believe that the good it could do is greater than the hurt."

The soldier turned preacher: 'We can contribute to each other's healing'

The Rev Andrew Rawding's activities are just one example - though a particularly striking one - of the kind of bridge-building work which goes on beneath the radar in Northern Ireland.

As a soldier with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, he served for two-and-a-half years as a platoon commander in dangerous areas such as south Armagh. Today, he is a Church of England minister, and is working with the Church of Ireland in Armagh.

He is in touch with some of the soldiers who served alongside him, too. He said: "What I have learnt from speaking to veterans who served in the 70s and 80s in particular is that they have had the time and space to reflect.

"Or their experiences have caught up with them, and they have questions as to what they were involved in and why. Some of it is simply an exploration of, 'How do I come to terms with my experiences, and how do I move forward in some way?' It's a very complicated issue and there is a mixture of emotions - grief or loss or some form of trauma, or some form of guilt, or just sometimes big question marks."

He lost friends and comrades in Northern Ireland. While training to be a priest, he recalls, "I reflected on the call to love your enemies. So I started a voluntary journey to build a relationship with the IRA and the people who had served in it.

"It has taken patience and perserverance. I say, 'Look, we have been involved in extreme violence, and we actually have more in common with each other than we might have with other people, and we can contribute to each other's healing.'

"I have witnessed some incredible moments. I have sat around a table where a British Army veteran sat alongside a republican combatant, and they talked about the various gun battles they were involved in. We talked about weapon types and tactics, and formed a common bond based on our common experiences."

Even such militaristic encounters have, according to the minister, "helped to counter fear and to humanise the other, so we can see we share a common humanity."

He added: "We are trying to get the message out to communities that if these people can sit down together then maybe in the future there will be possibility for others to enter the dialogue.

"There are many veterans who actually need to come out of their isolation. Did the soldiers who died die in vain?"

The Troubles

3,720 People killed

47,000 People injured

37,000 Shootings

16,000 Bombings

116,000kg Explosives seized

12,000 Weapons seized

Over a million Bullets seized

19,000 Number charged with paramilitary offences

    Future of Ulster: Their aim? Reconciliation. Their means? Talking, I, 29.11.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/ulster/article2023830.ece

11.45am

Stone reveals Stormont attack plans

Wednesday November 29, 2006
Press Association
Guardian Unlimited

Loyalist killer Michael Stone planned to kill Sinn Féin leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in the debating chamber at Stormont, according to a letter received by the Belfast Telegraph.

The letter, which the newspaper says was written by Stone, says he planned to strike as members of the Northern Ireland assembly met in session.

But if the two Sinn Féin chiefs had not been there, Stone would have attacked their party office on the first floor at parliament buildings in Belfast, the letter reveals.

The Milltown cemetery killer said he was wearing body armour and was acting alone as a "freelance dissident loyalist".

His former associates in the Ulster Defence Association have already distanced the paramilitary organisation from last Friday's astonishing solo strike.

Stone, 51, who was released early under the Good Friday agreement after being jailed for murdering three mourners at an IRA funeral in 1988 when his targets had been Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness, gave a detailed account of how his assassination bid was planned.

He said he would either end up in police custody and spend the rest of his natural life in prison or else dead.

But the letter stressed that he did not intend to withdraw from his mission. After being remanded in custody charged with the attempted murders of the Sinn Féin leaders at Stormont, Stone claimed the pair were IRA war criminals.

And despite being crippled with arthritis, he said he planned to use an arsenal of explosives and weaponry to get to both his targets.

He said: "Their very existence in politics is a prime example that Irish republican terrorism pays.

"The fact that the vast majority of Ulster's nationalist-Roman Catholic electorate condone their past atrocities against their Protestant neighbours by religiously voting them into power proves that repugnant fact."

The letter, dated November 24, the day of the crucial assembly meeting, said that Stone was going to be armed with seven nailbombs, three knives, an axe, a garrotte and body armour.

He was going to bluff his way past security guards at the front desk of parliament buildings.

He would ignite a flash bang device in the centre of the Great Hall, causing smoke and creating panic and confusion.

At that stage he planned to move along the corridor towards the debating chamber and seek out his targets. If neither Mr Adams nor Mr McGuinness were there, the letter said he planned to retrace his steps and head for the Sinn Féin quarters.

But the loyalist, who is being examined by psychiatrists while held in Maghaberry Prison, near Lisburn, Co Antrim, never got beyond the front door.

He was overpowered and wrestled to the ground by the assembly's security staff.

Nevertheless, the letter written before he headed for Stormont depicts a man prepared for the consequences.

He ended by saying: "I'm outgunned, but I wouldn't have it any other way. For God and Ulster."

    Stone reveals Stormont attack plans, G, 29.11.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1959667,00.html

Uproar at Stormont as loyalist killer with bomb tries to storm assembly

· Gun and knife seized after attack by Stone
· Paisley 'signals' DUP assent to power sharing

Saturday November 25, 2006
Guardian
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

The loyalist murderer Michael Stone forced the suspension of the inaugural meeting of Northern Ireland's transitional assembly yesterday, when he stormed into the entrance hall of the parliament building armed with a knife, a handgun and what police said was a "viable" bomb.

The extraordinary scenes - as security staff wrestled him to the ground and politicians were evacuated into the rain - overshadowed political rows in the chamber where Ian Paisley was deemed to have signalled the Democratic Unionist party's conditional assent to power sharing with its republican opponent Sinn Féin. Between six and eight devices were recovered after Stone's attack. They were defused by the army's bomb squad.

Northern Ireland's chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, described them as "viable". He added: "They are fairly amateurish in design, that does not make them any less dangerous." He also said a gun and a knife had been recovered following "a sad publicity act by a very sad individual".

Stone, who was freed under the Good Friday agreement after killing three mourners at an IRA funeral in 1988, began his lone assault on Stormont as the crucial assembly session began. He had spray-painted "Sinn Féin/IRA mur ..." on a pillar outside before, presumably, being spotted. He then forced his way into the building through the revolving doors.

A rucksack or holdall was hurled into the main hall, where photographers and cameramen were waiting outside the assembly chamber. According to some accounts he claimed there was a 25lb bomb inside. As Stone yelled "No Surrender" and "IRA fascists", security staff overpowered him and carried him outside. One guard grabbed his pistol. Two security staff were injured in the struggle.

The incident is likely to provoke calls for an urgent inquiry into security procedures at Stormont.

Stone's assault was an attempt to disrupt the long-anticipated day when the province's two biggest parties - the DUP and Sinn Féin - had to "nominate", or at least indicate, their candidates for a restored power-sharing executive.

Mr Paisley's speech did not make an explicit commitment. "This statement is one of the hardest I have ever made in this chamber," he began. He accused Sinn Féin of failing in its obligations to support the police and courts in Northern Ireland. "There can only be agreement involving Sinn Féin when there's been delivery by the republican movement."

But the DUP leader did not demur when the assembly's speaker, Eileen Bell, announced that Mr Paisley had satisfied the criteria for nomination set out in "directions" passed down by the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain. Gerry Adams, Sinn Féin's leader, began his speech in Irish. He nominated Martin McGuinness as "deputy first minister designate".

"He will be a champion of fairness and equality," Mr Adams said, amid ironic jeers of "for the IRA" from Unionists.

The Ulster Unionist leader, Sir Reg Empey, said he believed there was a "hunger in the country to make progress" and that the future "trajectory" was towards "power-sharing between Sinn Féin and the DUP". But he made several digs at Mr Paisley, asking whether what had occurred was a "marriage or an engagement" and noting that "for years people have been telling us about things they would not do, they would never do, over their dead bodies". Mark Durkan, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party, said: "The public are getting fed up with this tired soap opera where we have the same plot line and give each other excuses to get away from the blame."

There were signs of growing tension in the DUP. Twelve DUP assembly members later issued a statement challenging the speaker's ruling. It said: "Given the total lack of movement on behalf of Sinn Féin on the issue of support for the rule of law, the courts and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, nothing that we have said or done today can be taken by the government as an indication that they can imply shadow, designate or any other status to anyone in relation to the office of first and deputy first minister."

In Downing Street, the prime minister said that despite the breach in security, the St Andrews agreement remained the only means of political progress. "No move forward in Northern Ireland is easy, we've learned that over 10 years. It's not because the people, or indeed, the leaders in Northern Ireland want it to be so, but because each step towards a different and better future is taken alongside the memory of a wretched and divisive past."

Backstory

Michael Stone became infamous for carrying out a solo attack on mourners attending the funeral of the three IRA members shot dead in Gibraltar in 1988 by the SAS. Throwing hand grenades and firing a pistol, he burst into Milltown cemetery in West Belfast. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness had been his original intended targets. Three people died that day.

Stone, one of the Ulster Defence Association's veteran gunmen, was caught and convicted of six murders. For some he was a loyalist icon, for others a symbol of Ulster's paramilitary derangement. He was given a 684-year sentence but under the Good Friday agreement qualified for early release. Friends yesterday claimed he had recently been put on heavy medication to cure severe arthritis.

The Ulster Political Research Group, which provides advice for the UDA, condemned his actions: "For Michael Stone to act out this gimmick in the most eccentric way was to make our people look petty and irresponsible."

    Uproar at Stormont as loyalist killer with bomb tries to storm assembly, G, 25.11.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1956753,00.html

The show goes on


Saturday November 25, 2006
The Guardian
Leader

There was mayhem outside the Stormont parliament building yesterday and confusion inside it, on a miserable day that reminded Northern Ireland of the past it has escaped but that left the province's political future unclear. A deadline that the Northern Ireland secretary had promised would be definitive turned out to be nothing of the sort - but that was expected. What no one had predicted was the return of a face from the darkest years of paramilitary violence. Speechmaking came to a sudden end when the loyalist killer Michael Stone attempted to storm the building, attacking security staff and throwing what he claimed was a bomb over security scanners.

A sectarian thug, Stone got the attention he was aiming for, just as he did on a bigger scale in 1989 when he ran, firing a gun, through an IRA funeral, killing three people. But his intervention yesterday was also a reminder of just how much about Northern Ireland has changed. When he attacked nationalists at the Milltown cemetery, violent conflict looked insoluble. Now, the conflict has been ended and Stone appeared a ludicrous and lonely figure, as well as a nasty one, a throwback to old behaviour, not a warning of more trouble to come. But though Northern Ireland's politicians have done well to move beyond violence, they have done much less well at establishing a stable political order to replace it. Even without Stone's intervention, yesterday's session at Stormont would have been inconclusive. It ended with all sides unsure about what had been agreed, if anything. It was enough to save devolution, at least for the moment. But it was much less than the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, had hoped for. Another fudge in a political process that resembles a journey through thick treacle, it showed Northern Ireland's politicians at their worst - obstructive, theatrical and indulged.

Yesterday's session, which followed talks at St Andrews in Scotland last month, was supposed to be the end of such childishness. Mr Hain has handled the process of re-establishing devolution with astute realism, forcing the pace, as he tried to do yesterday, by demanding the nomination of a first and deputy minister. He had threatened to shut down the circus if nominations were not put forward, closing the assembly, ending salaries for its members and formalising direct rule. Sinn Féin, which has played its political cards smartly, says it will nominate Ian Paisley as first minister. But Mr Paisley has been less eager to back Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness as his deputy. Yesterday Mr Paisley gave a speech of such opacity that when the assembly's speaker accepted it as an indication he was at least willing to nominate later - the minimal test that the Northern Ireland secretary set - Mr Paisley could insist that he had made no such promise.

Obstruction runs two ways, however, and though the DUP is getting most of the blame, Sinn Féin has hardly gone out of its way to help. Last month's report from the Independent Monitoring Commission proved again that the IRA has abandoned violence. But Gerry Adams has not rushed to back devolved policing structures or hold the Ard Fheis (conference) where Sinn Féin must agree to take part in them. Until that happens, the DUP will continue to be sceptical, and pressure from hardliners such as Nigel Dodds to shun the process will grow. That can only make Mr Paisley's decision harder. Sinn Féin is procrastinating, putting pressure on the DUP and delaying devolution.

Agreement is possible and Mr Hain is right to try. But a deal has not been done yet. A return to the bloodshed represented by Michael Stone is unthinkable. But peace has not yet produced the settlement that all sides at Stormont say they support. Mr Hain could not pull the plug on Northern Ireland's politicians yesterday. But he should not indulge them much longer. If they really want responsibility, they must start to show that they deserve it.

    The show goes on, G, 25.11.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1956765,00.html

Despite Setbacks, Blair Is Hopeful on Ulster Local Rule

November 25, 2006
The New York Times
By EAMON QUINN

BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Nov. 24 — Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain on Friday held on to his hopes of restoring local rule across Northern Ireland next March, despite a day of high drama in which Protestant and Roman Catholic politicians failed to reach agreement on nominating leaders to a future power-sharing executive.

Echoing the province’s recent violent past, the meeting was cut short after a notorious Protestant militant, Michael Stone, attacked the lobby of the parliament buildings here, carrying a gun and tossing inside a bag of homemade explosives. Shouting threats, he was wrestled to the ground by security staff members and arrested by the police.

Before the disruption, the Rev. Ian Paisley, Protestant leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, refused to nominate himself as first minister of Northern Ireland to serve alongside Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, the main Catholic republican party. Mr. Paisley explained his resistance by saying that Sinn Fein had yet to endorse Northern Ireland’s police force and its courts. Friday was the nominal deadline to do so.

Mr. Paisley, who seeks to maintain the province’s political ties with Britain, had for years based his political career on rejecting sharing power with Sinn Fein because of its links with the Irish Republican Army.

Speaking in London, Mr. Blair indicated that despite the setback the British and Irish governments would continue their efforts to restore local rule, a process that is contingent on the divided parties resolving crucial differences over power sharing and support for the police.

“What is clear is this: If Sinn Fein agrees to the proper and full support of policing in Northern Ireland by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and to the rule of law, then the Democratic Unionist Party will share power with them,” Mr. Blair said.

He also spoke of the need for the province to get away from its “wretched and divisive past.”

The attack on the parliament buildings by Mr. Stone, a convicted killer, was a reminder of a more violent past that many in Northern Ireland now believe is behind them.

Mr. Stone became an iconic figure for Protestant militants when he killed three mourners in a gun and grenade attack on an Irish Republican Army funeral in 1988. He was released early in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday peace accord for that attack and others. This year, Mr. Stone took part in a series of televised broadcasts in which Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the former head of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, brought together victims and perpetrators from the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

The targets and motives for his attack on Friday remained unclear. Politicians and journalists evacuated the buildings. Reuters, quoting a police official, reported that the British Army had defused the six to eight explosive devices in Mr. Stone’s bag.

The level of distrust between political parties has remained high in the eight years since the negotiation of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, which ended much of the politically motivated violence and led to the first power-sharing local government to involve Protestant politicians and Catholic representatives from Sinn Fein. But local rule fell apart in 2002 amid distrust between Catholic and Protestant leaders.

In Scotland last month, Britain and Ireland acted to restore that local government, by putting forward a series of proposals and deadlines for the province’s parties.

Under the proposals, elections to the 108-seat assembly were to be held early in March before the formation of a local executive later that month.

Sinn Fein, which has yet to call a full meeting of its party delegates to endorse policing, is seeking guarantees from the British government over what appears to be their central demand: that powers over policing and the courts will shift from London to the local executive in Belfast.

    Despite Setbacks, Blair Is Hopeful on Ulster Local Rule, NYT, 25.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/europe/25ireland.html

2pm update

Blair dismisses Stormont bomb scare

Friday November 24, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland and agencies

Tony Blair today signalled his determination to keep Northern Ireland devolution on track as a bomb scare provoked by a convicted loyalist killer overshadowed power-sharing talks at Stormont.

The prime minister held a swift Downing Street press conference after the former paramilitary Michael Stone forced the evacuation of the Belfast parliament buildings as talks stalled within the chambers.

Mr Blair dismissed paramilitary attempts to thwart the democratic process as part of the past and called for greater progress to re-establish a Stormont government.

"The events at Stormont ... are what should make us more resolute in consigning that type of activity to the past and ensuring the democratically elected politicians are able to exercise their democratically elected power without paramilitaries interfering with it," he said. The parliament buildings were evacuated after Stone - a former loyalist paramilitary convicted of six murders who was released early under the Good Friday agreement - threw a package into the building, sparking a bomb scare.

Witnesses claimed that the former Ulster Freedom Fighters prisoner barged his way through the revolving doors of Stormont, shouting "no surrender".

Earlier he had written "Sinn Féin/IRA scum" in red paint on a pillar outside the main entrance.

The arrest provided a further twist to today's proceedings after the Democratic Unionist party leader Ian Paisley caused uproar by refusing to nominate a first minister until Sinn Féin declared its support for the police service.

Mr Blair sought to defend the impasse on both sides as he urged Sinn Féin to concede to the DUP's demands. "If Sinn Féin agree to the proper and full support of policing by the police service of Northern Ireland and to the rule of law, then the DUP will share power with them." Mr Blair said it was necessary for both the formal political mechanisms and the "atmosphere" in Stormont to change. "We do not just want devolution to happen, we want it to work."

The prime minister sought to appease Mr Paisley after the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, warned that a dissolution draft order had been drawn up in case parties failed to nominate Stormont leaders today, as required under the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act.

Mr Hain said it was important for the DUP to indicate it would appoint a first minister next March if the public was to have confidence that assembly members wanted to achieve devolution.

The Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams named Martin McGuinness as the party's choice of deputy first minister. but Mr Paisley told assembly members that his party maintained its long-standing position of requiring Sinn Féin to deliver on support for policing, the courts and the rule of law before there could be any agreement to share power.

Mr Blair said he had since talked to both sides and made it clear that Mr Paisley would be prepared to stand as first minister if Sinn Féin agreed to move its position on policing.

"That is my understanding and the only basis under which we can make progress," he said.

    Blair dismisses Stormont bomb scare, G, 24.11.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1956300,00.html

Profile

Loyalist assassin who swore death to the IRA

Friday November 24, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke


Former loyalist hitman Michael Stone shot his way to international infamy in 1988, when he tried to kill Sinn Fein's leaders during a Belfast funeral.

Television cameras captured the horror as he opened fire, killing three people and injuring dozens, including pensioners and children, at the funeral of three IRA members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.

But he failed to kill his targets, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and was captured by mourners, beaten and bundled into a car. He was rescued by RUC officers while he was being driven to an IRA execution. His thighbone was dislocated and he still walks with a slight limp.

He was sentenced to 850 years in prison for a string of killings but was released under the Good Friday agreement in 2000. Born into a sectarian hotbed in east Belfast, Stone joined the Tartans, an infamous loyalist group, when he was 13.

At 16, he had already joined the Ulster Defence Association and served time in Belfast's Crumlin Road jail for possession of firearms. He hatched the idea for the Milltown cemetery hit after an IRA bomb killed 11 people attending a Remembrance Day memorial service at the cenotaph in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in 1987.

Stone is known for his political thinking - his cell at the Maze prison was well stocked with Marxist literature - and for a time there was speculation he would attempt to enter Northern Ireland's political arena.

Instead, he turned his attention to art - he had been able to develop his interest in painting while in prison - and, though he still lives in hiding, has become an established artist. Earlier this year, he revealed that he had been the hitman hired in the early 1980s to kill Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, when he was leader of the Greater London council.

Stone planned to disguise himself as a jogger and shoot Mr Livingstone, who had caused anger for appearing to be sympathetic to republicans, as he entered a London Tube station. The operation was compromised and abandoned days before it was planned to go ahead.

    Loyalist assassin who swore death to the IRA, G, 24.11.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1956385,00.html

Analysis

A thing of the past

Friday November 24, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

The lone assault on Stormont by the loyalist mass murderer Michael Stone is a chilling reminder of the crazed paramilitary past from which Northern Ireland is attempting to escape.

His single-handed commando attack is unlikely to hinder the cautious progress being made towards restoring devolution and power-sharing in the assembly.

If anything the extraordinary scenes created a common determination among politicians that violence must be repudiated.

"What we had today was the past reaching [out] to pull us back to where we have come from," observed Sir Reg Empey, the Ulster Unionist party leader, as he stood in the pouring rain outside the parliament building beside other politicians, journalists and visiting schoolchildren who had been evacuated. Conor Murphy, the Sinn Féin MP, echoed those sentiments when he declared: "People who try and derail the political process are a thing of the past."

Even as Stone was being dragged away there was amazement that a former paramilitary prisoner - armed with a knife, handgun and what police described as a "viable" bomb - could have come so close to the province's politicians.

It is, perhaps, a measure of how relaxed security precautions have become in a place once almost synonymous with terrorism.

There will be calls for an urgent inquiry. Two security staff were injured in Stone's attack.

His eruption into Stormont's main hall overshadowed the raucous scenes inside the assembly chamber and may, inadvertently, have prevented those opposed to power-sharing from doing further damage to the process.

The emergency suspension of the first session of what is now described as the "transitional assembly" ensured that numerous points of order and challenges were never heard.

After the forced evacuation, dissenting voices were left to express their discontent over the airwaves.

Nigel Dodds, the influential DUP MP, insisted that his party leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, had neither nominated, or indicated that he would nominate, himself as first minister in a reconstituted assembly where power is to be shared with Sinn Féin.

There are months of wrangling to be overcome yet before full powers can be handed over to a new assembly after March 26 next year.

Sinn Féin must hold a special party conference, or ard fheis, to confirm that it is prepared to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the courts.

Mr Paisley's speech referred to the republican party simply as 'Sinn Féin'.

In the past the term he preferred was 'Sinn Féin/IRA'. That may be a sign of incremental progress.

On the heavy, classical pillars supporting the portico on the front of Stormont, Michael Stone had spray-painted graffiti declaring: "Sinn Féin/IRA mur[derers?]"

For some, the past is still with us.

    A thing of the past, G, 24.11.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1956434,00.html

Protestant Makes Bomb Threat in Northern Ireland

November 24, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:05 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) -- Northern Ireland's politicians missed another deadline for forming a power-sharing government Friday, then fled from the building as one of Northern Ireland's most infamous Protestant militants burst in claiming to have a bomb.

The attack came shortly after Protestant leader Ian Paisley refused a nomination as the future head of Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration.

Paisley, whose Democratic Unionist Party is the largest in Northern Ireland, said he would work with Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party that represents most Catholics, only when it supports the police force. If that happened, Paisley said he would accept the post.

''When Sinn Fein has fulfilled its obligations with regard to the police, the courts and the rule of law, then and only then can progress be made. There can and will be no movement until they face and sign up to their obligations,'' Paisley told the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Shortly after his speech, police subdued Michael Stone, the Protestant extremist who killed three people at a Belfast funeral in 1988, after he tossed a bag into the building and claimed it contained a bomb.

Politicians and journalists were ordered out of the building as the fire alarm sounded -- and two security guards pinned Stone by both arms to the main doorway.

Police could not immediately confirm whether the bag in the foyer of Stormont Parliamentary Building contained explosives. Stone had tossed it at the building's security checkpoint staff, who operate metal detectors and search bags.

Stone appeared to have been spray-painting the entrance to Stormont with the slogan ''Sinn Fein are murderers,'' but security staff stopped him before he could finish the last word.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the disruption ''should make us more resolute.''

He called on ''all the parties to turn their minds also to the issues of concern to Northern Ireland's people -- the economy, education, health, law and order -- and show that the democratic process is alive and well and capable of delivering a better future.''

Stone was paroled from prison under terms of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord, which permitted early releases for more than 500 convicted members of the IRA and outlawed Protestant paramilitary groups.

Stone was convicted for committing one of the province's most audacious terrorist attacks -- a solo gun-and-grenade strike on an IRA funeral. He killed three mourners, among them an IRA man, before a Catholic mob surrounded and badly beat him.

Earlier, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, said he had drafted a bill to dissolve the assembly if Paisley's party withheld his nomination to become the administration chief.

''I have a dissolution order drafted, which would have to go through Parliament of course next week, and I might have to deploy that today. I hope not,'' Hain said.

Friday was a British-imposed deadline for Paisley and Martin McGuinness, deputy leader of Sinn Fein, the largest Catholic-backed party, to be nominated to serve in the top two power-sharing posts. The event would have been purely symbolic, because the full 12-member administration would not be formed and given powers until late March.

At stake is the revival of power-sharing, the central goal of the Good Friday accord -- a landmark 1998 pact that Paisley opposed chiefly on the grounds it required too little from Sinn Fein.

For weeks, Paisley has insisted he will not accept the office of first minister, the top post, until Sinn Fein abandons its decades-old policy of boycotting the police force in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein insists it will not discuss changing its policy until after McGuinness and Paisley are in office.

In a sign of Britain's desperation to keep the push for power-sharing alive, Blair spoke by phone Thursday night with Paisley and at one point was considering flying to Belfast on Friday, but relented when it became clear that direct intervention would make no difference, officials in the British government and Paisley's party said.

    Protestant Makes Bomb Threat in Northern Ireland, NYT, 24.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Northern-Ireland.html

3.30pm

Nationalists rail against new MI5 role in Ulster

Wednesday November 22, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

The enhanced role of MI5 in Northern Ireland and the size of its regional headquarters are emerging as increasingly contentious issues in the run-up to the restoration of devolution.

Nationalist politicians - who fear that an "institutional bias" against tackling loyalist paramilitaries in the security service could undermine confidence in the political process - are pressing the government to make the agency accountable to public scrutiny.

The Social Democratic and Labour party attempted to table an amendment to the legislation setting up the Stormont assembly at Westminster this week.

The party wants the police ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, to have the authority to investigate complaints against MI5.

The amendment was disallowed on a technicality but is likely to be reintroduced in the coming weeks.

MI5 is due to assume responsibility for national security in Northern Ireland next year, bringing it into line with the division of powers elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

But the handover is provoking political tensions in a divided society more concerned about the agency's use of informers during the Troubles than the threat of al-Qaida suicide bombers.

The implication that MI5 will focus chiefly on dissident republican paramilitaries and leave the monitoring of loyalist groups to the Police Service of Northern Ireland - because they are not deemed to constitute a threat to the state - has further angered nationalists.

The secret funding of MI5's Northern Ireland office has been condemned by the SDLP's leader, Mark Durkan, as "perverse and damaging".

In addition, the scale of the agency's new building - nearing completion inside palace army barracks in Holywood, east of Belfast - has heightened suspicions about the extent of its role.

In one heavily-edited section of the Intelligence and Security Committee's annual report earlier this summer, a paragraph noted: "The new [MI5] headquarters in Belfast, to which the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has contributed £***, will be constructed at a total cost of about £***.

"The NIO has also met programme running costs for the next two years of £*** and £*** respectively."

Ms O'Loan has also expressed "significant concerns" about the handover and is urging that MI5 should be legally required to provide access to intelligence records for misconduct investigations.

In her annual report to parliament, she warned: "Where there is a complaint of collusion by the police... access to intelligence is essential.

"It is vitally important that my office retains an ability to access relevant information and intelligence matters."

This week Eddie McGrady, the SDLP MP, described the expansion of MI5's remit as a "retrograde step" since "the government's own Organised Crime Taskforce has conceded [that] organised criminality and paramilitarism are two sides of the one coin".

Only one force was required in the province, he maintained.

An SDLP spokesman added: "It's been confirmed to us that MI5 are not interested in taking on loyalism. That's institutional bias. How are they meant to create confidence in a new [political] beginning? "Even under the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, in London, complaints can only be brought by those who have been put under surveillance, not by anybody let down by MI5," the spokesman continued.

"That means Osama bin Laden can complain but not the relatives of the victims of the Omagh bomb who have been told by the police that MI5 did not pass on the warnings of bomb threats."

The Northern Ireland Office defended the costs. "From 2007, national security arrangements in Northern Ireland will be brought into line with those for the rest of the UK," a spokesman said.

"Some of the cost for the transfer of intelligence lead is being provided by the NIO."

MI5's overt involvement has become such a sensitive issue that a four-page annexe of the recent St Andrew's agreement - which set out a "road map" towards the restoration of devolution - related to the agency.

The document declared that the "great majority of national security agents will be run by the PSNI".

It also set out five key principles, including that "the PSNI will be informed of all security service counter-terrorist investigations" and that "all security service intelligence relating to terrorism [in NI] will be visible to the PSNI".

The percentage of MI5's budget spent on combating Irish terrorism has dropped in recent years and now stands at around 17%.

    Nationalists rail against new MI5 role in Ulster, G, 22.11.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1954403,00.html

11.15am

Man dies after fire attack

Friday November 10, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

A man who was doused in petrol and set on fire by a gang in Northern Ireland this week has died in hospital, police said today.

Thomas O'Hare, 33, and his 21-year-old girlfriend, Lisa McClatchey, were attacked by a gang of masked men at their home near the market town of Keady, Co Armagh, at around 9pm on Monday.

Ms McClatchey, who ran to a neighbour's house for help while on fire, remains in a critical condition in the burns unit of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.

Detectives - who are treating Mr O'Hare's death as murder - are investigating whether four brothers who admitted themselves to a hospital in the Republic of Ireland with severe burns around an hour after the attack are linked to his death.

The men, aged between 24 and 34, went to a hospital in Dundalk. They have since been transferred to a specialist burns unit at St James's Hospital in Dublin, where they remain seriously ill.

It is believed it could be weeks before the men are well enough to be questioned by detectives. They are understood to be from the south Armagh area, and police have confirmed that officers searched an address in Clady, south Armagh.

Nobody has been charged in connection with the attack. Police in Northern Ireland believe up to six people were involved, and Garda detectives are also involved in the investigation.

Detectives have ruled out a sectarian or racist motive for the attack, and have said they are following a definite line of inquiry.

Nationalist SDLP councillor Sharon Haughey suggested Mr O'Hare had been the target of a vigilante attack, and it was reported that he may recently have been involved in some form of confrontation.

Mr O'Hare, a Roman Catholic, was understood to have separated from his wife - the mother of his two children, both aged under 12 - three years ago. Ms McClatchey is related to a former senior Orangeman.

On Wednesday, the Democratic Unionist leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, urged Sinn Fein to encourage people with information to pass it on to the police.

Mr Paisley said the Armagh inquiry was a "litmus test" for the party's attitude towards law and order.

    Man dies after fire attack, G, 10.11.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1944719,00.html

Brown offers Ulster £50bn aid plan if parties reach power-sharing deal

· Ten-year package used as incentive to get agreement
· Political parties also want cuts in corporation tax

Thursday November 2, 2006
Guardian
Patrick Wintour, political editor

Gordon Brown yesterday held out the prospect of a £50bn aid package for Northern Ireland over the next 10 years so long as the political parties agree to sign up to a power-sharing executive by the government deadline of November 24.

The chancellor made the conditional peace dividend offer at a meeting with the Northern Ireland parties in London amid signs that the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Féin are stalling on an agreement.

Mr Brown met the main leaders of the parties, as well as the Northern Ireland assembly's economic sub-committee.

The Treasury said the government was also willing to commit itself to at least £35bn of funding for the executive over the next four years. The Treasury said it was offering the substantial funding rise at a time when other departments are likely to suffer in the spending review.

The political parties had also been seeking cuts in corporation tax to bring Northern Ireland into line with the south, at least for 10 years. The cut would mean corporation tax would fall from 30% to 12.5%. Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists want to see it cut to 10% in Northern Ireland while Sinn Féin wants an all-island rate of 17%, a position supported by Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister.

Mr Brown argues it would be illegal under EU law for one part of the UK to have a different level of corporation tax to another. If he agreed that Northern Ireland could be classified as a special division of the UK economy, Scottish Nationalists would demand the same for Scotland.

The political parties have until November 10 to decide whether to sign up to the St Andrews agreement. Both Sinn Féin and the DUP are holding internal consultations. Sinn Féin insists it is not yet ready to pledge to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the courts and the rule of law. The DUP has said it will not share power with Sinn Féin unless there is clear support for policing and the rule of law.

In the Commons, Tony Blair condemned a spate of incendiary attacks in Belfast believed to be the responsibility of dissident republicans. Mr Blair has said he will close the assembly on November 24 if there is no power sharing agreement by then.

The aid package involves a four-year spending commitment rising in successive stages from £8bn a year today to £9.2bn a year in 2010-11, a total commitment of £35bn, including capital spending.

It also proposes a strategic capital investment plan totalling £18bn over the period 2005 to 2017 to underpin long-term economic growth and facilitate capital spending on roads, health and schools.

Mr Brown, accompanied by the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, also promised to allow the executive to retain receipts from planned public sector asset sales estimated at over £1bn between 2007-08 and 2010-11 to boost capital investment.

    Brown offers Ulster £50bn aid plan if parties reach power-sharing deal, G, 2.11.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1937010,00.html

Pope: Wounds from clergy sex abuse 'run deep'

Posted 10/28/2006 7:38 AM ET
AP
USA Today

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that the church must urgently rebuild confidence and trust damaged by clerical sex abuse scandals, which have created deep wounds.

The pope made the remarks to a group of visiting bishops from Ireland, an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation where the church has been damaged by sex abuse scandals over the past decade.

"In the exercise of your pastoral ministry, you have had to respond in recent years to many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors," the pontiff told the bishops. "These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric."

"The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged," Benedict said.

Benedict told the bishops that as they continue to deal with the problem, "it is important to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from occurring again, to ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected and, above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes."

    Pope: Wounds from clergy sex abuse 'run deep' , UT, 28.10.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-10-28-pope_x.htm

4.30pm update

Paisley pulls out of Stormont talks

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

Ian Paisley today pulled out of his first scheduled round table talks with Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, as a row intensified over ministerial pledges to support the police.

The Democratic Unionist leader had been due to attend all-party talks at Stormont on a new programme for government in a power-sharing administration.

However, DUP members have become increasing unhappy at signs that a code about ministerial oaths will not be agreed by the time Mr Paisley and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness are due to be nominated first and deputy first minister at Stormont on November 24.

After it became clear Mr Paisley would not attend today's talks, the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, stepped in to postpone them.

Today's talks were meant to be part of a series of confidence-building moves for the deal - announced last week by the British and Irish governments at St Andrews - that is supposed to lead to full devolution and power-sharing by March 26 next year.

Ahead of the nominations for first and deputy first minister, the DUP wants a commitment that Mr McGuinness - Sinn Fein's chief negotiator and a former IRA commander - will swear an oath supporting the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the rule of law.

However, Republicans do not want the code in place before the nominations, partly because they take place before a special conference the party is holding to decide policies on policing.

This morning, Mr Paisley's son, Ian Jnr, said: "The party leader will not be going to today's meeting. We need to talk with the government about these matters before he starts going to programme for government meetings."

This afternoon, a statement by Mr Hain said: "It has become clear to me this morning that there are differences in the understanding of parties of what the St Andrews Agreement will mean for the pledge of office."

He said it was important that all parties had a chance to discuss the issue, but insisted that the matter must be resolved quickly. The prime minister, Tony Blair, and the taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, announced details of the new peace initiative last week amid optimism that power-sharing at Stormont could be resumed. It has been suspended since October 2003.

While Mr Paisley's party remains essentially committed to the process outlined at St Andrews, DUP members have been increasingly voicing anxieties.

The DUP's Jim Allister MEP today expressed reservations about the St Andrews agreement and said the IRA army council would have to disband if Sinn Fein was to sit in government.

He also expressed concern about the prospect of Mr Adams' party being able to sit in government in perpetuity and the lack of any default mechanism to punish parties that fail to live up to their ministerial obligations.

The MEP recognised that progress had been made and said he was raising these concerns to encourage healthy debate within the ranks of the DUP.

It would be a significant blow for both the UK and Irish governments if the nominations for first and deputy first minister did not take place.

In a statement to MPs yesterday in the House of Commons, Mr Hain said: "I do not have to spell out to the house the great significance of these nominations - the more so given those who are likely to be nominated: the leader of the DUP and the chief negotiator of Sinn Fein.

"I pay tribute to the Right Honourable Member for North Antrim [Mr Paisley.] Like anyone who understands something of the history of Northern Ireland, I realise that this is not an easy step for him or for his party."

    Paisley pulls out of Stormont talks, G, 17.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1924457,00.html

Sketch

Paisley, the fiery turtle of politics, and a place of peas

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Simon Hoggart
The Guardian

Some of us can remember when the Rev Ian Paisley was one of the world's most notorious clerics, a terrifying nutcase, famous for rousing in the Protestants of Northern Ireland the rage always just below the surface.

"I see Mr Martin Bell is at this meeting!" he would roar. "I myself detest violence, but I realise your justified anger against Mr Martin Bell ..." Mr Bell and his TV crew had more courage than most of us, and somehow always got out alive and undamaged.

He once reproved Jim Callaghan, then home secretary, who had suggested tolerance and reconciliation: "Come, Dr Paisley, we are all the children of God."

"No, we are not," Paisley bellowed. "We are all the children of wrath!"

Now, at the age of 80, he could well become the next prime minister of Northern Ireland. Yesterday this newly invented statesman, this self-made man of destiny, waddled slowly into the Chamber. He resembles, as I have said before, an ancient Galapagos turtle, older than time itself, five times the age of those who come to gawp at him.

Peter Hain, the Ulster secretary, said that last week's St Andrews agreement was "a pivotal moment in Irish history". (What, like the Sack of Drogheda, the Easter Rising, or Dana's victory in the Eurovision song contest?)

At roughly the same time Dr Paisley was helping to foment 38 years of troubles, Peter Hain was a Young Liberal, demonstrating against South African sporting tours. Now he too is white-haired, sharply suited, with magnificent offices, an important part of the establishment he once vigorously scorned. And on November 24, it may be that Dr Paisley will be lifted from the beach, possibly by a canvas belt hanging from a crane, and levered gently into a similarly splendid suite.

Various MPs stood up and praised the deal, though they all had niggling anxieties. "Peace, justice, democracy and equality" - Mr Hain's aspirations - were all very well, but what was going to happen about water rates? Eh? And while we're at it, selection in schools? And what good would devolution be if nobody restored the car ferry from Scotland?

Then, with great difficulty, the mighty turtle got onto his back flippers He began quietly, but this is always misleading; within 30 seconds he'd hit the full Rolling-Stones-at-Wembley decibel count. The only thing that counted was support for the police. "This matter. MUST! BE! KEPT!" he boomed.

It was the foundation stone, which, if dislodged, would mean "the work is over and it will all crumble and decay!"

Then he did something almost nobody does in the Commons and invoked the deity. "I pray to Almighty God that Ireland will become a place of peace!" (Or, "a place of peas," as he touchingly put it.)

Then he sat down, with almost as much difficulty as he had had in rising. We can only hope he lasts until the time that last turbulent destiny arrives.

    Paisley, the fiery turtle of politics, and a place of peas, G, 17.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1924094,00.html

11am

What is the St Andrews agreement?

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Paul Owen

The St Andrews agreement - which has yet to be agreed by the Democratic Unionists or Sinn Féin, the largest parties in Northern Irish politics - contains two basic elements.

First, the document includes a timetable leading towards the restoration of devolution and power-sharing in the province, which has been under direct rule since 2002.

By November 10, the parties must accept the document, and they must meet to nominate the new first minister - expected to be the Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the DUP - and the deputy first minister, expected to be Martin McGuiness, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator.

A referendum or election to the assembly would follow in March next year, with party leaders nominating members of the executive on March 14 and power returning to Stormont on March 26.

If, however, there is no agreement by November 24, the agreement makes clear that British and Irish governments would work together to implement a "Plan B" over the heads of the Northern Irish politicians.

The St Andrews agreement also details the difficult issues which need to be agreed upon by both major parties in order to fulfil this timetable.

These issues are:

· Policing, an issue most controversial for Sinn Féin. All parties must agree to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland - the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which was seen as favouring unionists - with a view to Stormont taking control of policing by May 2008.

· Acceptance of power-sharing, the most difficult issue for the DUP, which has been unwilling to go into government with Sinn Féin. The DUP has viewed the party's transformation from political wing of an armed movement - the IRA - to a peaceful, democratic political party as incomplete.

· Changes to the Stormont institutions, including possible changes to the roles of first minister and deputy first minister, the implementation of a statutory ministerial code, and other more technical matters.

· Human rights, covering rural and urban deprivation, a possible bill of rights, an equality bill, an act to "protect the development of the Irish language", a review of parades policy, re-integration of former prisoners, and other issues.

· Finance, with promises held out to the parties of a meeting with Gordon Brown to discuss the funding of Northern Ireland, increased north/south economic co-operation and a British promise to cap domestic rates, the province's equivalent of council tax.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, must now wait for a response from the DUP and Sinn Féin.

The deal depends on these two parties - rather than the more moderate Ulster Unionists and SDLP, who were involved in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday agreement - because Mr Paisley and Gerry Adams's parties emerged strongest from the last round of Stormont elections, in 2003.

    What is the St Andrews agreement?, G, 17.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1923849,00.html

6pm update

Blair and Ahern open talks to resurrect Stormont power-sharing

Wednesday October 11, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, Matt Weaver and agencies

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern today opened three days of last-ditch talks aimed at resurrecting a joint unionist and republican power-sharing executive in Belfast.

Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party have 48 hours from tonight to agree to work with each other at the Stormont assembly, or see the British and Irish governments pull the plug on the devolved body on November 24th.

As Gerry Adams and the Rev Ian Paisley arrived at a storm-lashed St Andrews in Scotland for the talks, Mr Blair said the talks were "one-off opportunity" to avoid a resumption of direct rule from London and Dublin.

Although the independent monitoring commission last week gave the IRA a clean bill of health on decommissioning and confirmed that its leadership had taken a stance against criminal and paramilitary activities, major sticking points remain.

Mr Paisley refuses to negotiate with Mr Adams directly, and refuses to enter into a power-sharing agreement with the republicans unless they endorse the new police service of Northern Ireland.

Speaking in the Commons before leaving for Scotland, Mr Blair warned MPs that a collapse in the talks - still the most likely outcome - would not resolve any of the outstanding problems.

He said: "It is necessary, if we are going to make progress in Northern Ireland, to realise the issues aren't going to change.

"They are not going to change, they are not going to go away, they are still going to be there irrespective of what happens."

Arriving in St Andrews, Mr Adams said: "I made it very clear last night that republicans expect, and in fact demand, and have an entitlement to a proper system of civic policing which is publicly, transparently accountable.

"The British government have made a number of steps in that regard and we will see how that works out."

Policing will be one of two central issues at the talks in St Andrews. The other is whether Mr Paisley's party is willing to share power with Sinn Féin.

Republicans have said any move on policing would require the British government to devolve policing and justice powers to a future Stormont Executive. A date for the transfer of the powers was crucial.

Earlier today, the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said that, while Sinn Féin had made the right noises on policing, he agreed with the DUP that Gerry Adams's party would have to endorse the PSNI.

Devolution in the province has been suspended for almost four years.

Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Mr Hain said that Mr Paisley was the "crucial player" in the negotiations.

But earlier he said that the DUP leader was right to insist that Sinn Féin come on board over policing.

"I think Ian Paisley is quite right to say that he will be up for a deal, as he has told me, provided he is sure that criminality has been eradicated from Northern Ireland politics and Sinn Féin are supporting the police," he told GMTV.

Last night Mr Adams said: "Republicans are for policing. Republicans are for the rule of law. Republicans are law-abiding people who want a fair and equitable policing and justice system that is transparent and accountable."

But he also insisted that republicans would not be lectured to by the British government or the DUP about their concepts of law and order.

    Blair and Ahern open talks to resurrect Stormont power-sharing, G, 11.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1892742,00.html

Northern Ireland's Protestant firebrand reaching out to Catholics

Posted 10/8/2006 5:34 AM ET
AP
USA Today

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — The last time Ian Paisley tried to make an impression on a Roman Catholic Church leader, he shouted at the pope: "I renounce you as the anti-christ!"

Paisley, like Northern Ireland itself, seems to be mellowing with age. On Monday, a Protestant leader famous for his anti-Catholic inflexibility — friend and foe alike call him "Dr. No" — plans to shake hands and chat for the first time with Archbishop Sean Brady, leader of Ireland's 4 million Catholics, and other church officials.

Their encounter Monday in Belfast is being billed as a warm-up for Paisley's ultimate handshake of history — with his archenemy, Gerry Adams. The Sinn Fein leader for decades was the demonized mouthpiece of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, but in recent years has become the leading voice for Northern Ireland's confident, growing Catholic community.

If pressure-cooker negotiations starting Wednesday in Scotland have their intended effect, Democratic Unionist Party leader Paisley, 80, and Adams, 58, could end up negotiating face to face for the first time in a 13-year-old peace process. If they can reach the deal that both say is within sight, their parties could be sharing a Cabinet table within weeks and running Northern Ireland in place of Britain.

A decade ago, when the IRA was still bombing London and Paisley was denouncing Protestants who dared hint at compromise, the idea of a Democratic Unionist-Sinn Fein government seemed fanciful, if not downright twisted.

But it could happen soon — because the IRA has belatedly, finally demonstrated that its long war to overthrow Northern Ireland by force is at an end. Even Paisley is starting to believe this.

The U.S.-brokered Belfast negotiations of 1997-98 that brought Sinn Fein in from the diplomatic cold, and produced a Good Friday peace deal with dreams of power-sharing at their heart, didn't include Paisley. His Democratic Unionists bolted for the door as soon as Britain's newly elected prime minister, Tony Blair, admitted Sinn Fein on the heels of an IRA cease-fire.

Paisley denounced the Good Friday deal as conceding too much to Sinn Fein without cast-iron requirements from the IRA in return. In time, he was proven right in the eyes of most Protestants.

The Good Friday accord contained a delicate balance of mutually reassuring moves. To work, it required IRA prisoners to walk free, Sinn Fein to get places in a power-sharing administration, Britain to roll back its army garrison — and in exchange, the IRA would hand over its weapons stockpiles to demonstrate its cease-fire was for good. Blair assured Protestants that disarmament was the test of Sinn Fein's true intentions.

Britain freed prisoners quickly and pruned troops and bases. The pragmatic leader of the main Protestant party of the day, David Trimble, struggled to win razor-thin backing from his Ulster Unionists, which was ultimately destroyed in the process.

But the Good Friday accord's goal of total disarmament by mid-2000 came and went with nothing; Sinn Fein leaders, who denied they were also IRA commanders, argued that the Good Friday deal only required them to try to persuade the IRA to move. Trimble shut down his administration in showdowns with Sinn Fein that did produce furtive starts to disarmament.

But by the time Trimble's administration collapsed amid an IRA spying scandal in 2002, Protestant opinion had shifted to Paisley's not-an-inch negotiating attitude.

A 2003 election for the Northern Ireland Assembly — whose only critical power is to elect or prevent an administration — returned strong majorities for the Democratic Unionists on the British Protestant side, Sinn Fein on the Irish Catholic side. This extremist triumph seemed like the death-knell for power-sharing.

Instead, it awakened painful realities on both sides that in turn have produced dramatic change.

The Democratic Unionists, who used to campaign for votes on the slogan "Smash Sinn Fein," realized that Sinn Fein had grown too big, too permanent a part of the landscape, to marginalize. For its part, Sinn Fein recognized that the days of milking IRA weapons for political concessions had run out — and the political prize required a convincing IRA renunciation of violence.

Paisley and Adams came surprisingly close to a deal in late 2004, but the IRA refused Paisley's demand for visual proof of the IRA's full disarmament. Instead, the IRA proclaimed a formal end to its "armed struggle" and surrendered its weapons dumps in secret in 2005, a move confirmed only by the words of foreign disarmament officials.

For Paisley, this was hardly convincing. If the Sinn Fein-IRA movement was really committed to peace, why was there still an IRA at all?

On Wednesday, experts appointed by Britain and Ireland to analyze IRA behavior published a startling finding: The IRA had disbanded the most military-oriented units of its organization — the bomb makers, the weapons smugglers, the recruiters and trainers of the army's next generation.

The old Paisley would have denounced the experts as useful fools who had been tricked. The new Paisley took credit for bringing the IRA to heel.

He said evidence that the IRA "is progressively abandoning its terrorist structures shows that the pressure being brought to bear on republicans by the unequivocal policies of the Democratic Unionist Party is working."

The big remaining hurdle is whether Sinn Fein will accept the authority of Northern Ireland's police force and, in exchange, Paisley will accept Sinn Fein as partners. In the Scotland negotiations this week, clear-cut commitments on policing by Sinn Fein could unleash a chain reaction that leads to Paisley — long the wrecking ball of Northern Ireland politics — finally saying yes.

    Northern Ireland's Protestant firebrand reaching out to Catholics, UT, 8.10.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-10-08-northern-ireland_x.htm

Provos have been transformed, says monitoring body

· IMC refers to substantial change in republicanism
· Scottish talks offer unique opportunity, says Blair

Thursday October 5, 2006
Guardian
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

The Provisional IRA has undergone a "transformation", disbanding military structures, standing down volunteers and following through on its political strategy of renouncing terrorism and crime, the Independent Monitoring Commission said yesterday.

The long-awaited judgment was immediately welcomed by Tony Blair. In a statement, the prime minister said that "the IRA's campaign is over" and it had "done what we asked it to". He also referred to cross-party talks which are due to start in Scotland next week.

"While issues like policing remain to be resolved, the door is now open to a final settlement, which is why the talks next week in Scotland are going to be so important. This will be a unique opportunity. I hope all the parties seize that opportunity to create a future for the people of Northern Ireland, based on shared democratic and peaceful values."

In its 12th report on the state of paramilitary activity, the IMC - the body established to monitor the ceasefires - detailed the "substantial change" in the mainstream republican movement and the way it has run down its terrorist capability.

The Provisional IRA (Pira), the IMC said, had "disbanded military structures, including the general headquarters departments responsible for procurement, engineering and training, and it has stood down volunteers and stopped allowances". IRA members have been instructed by the leadership not to use physical force and to avoid becoming involved in criminal activity, the IMC noted.

The commission said it did not believe that the IRA was now engaged in terrorism, undertaking terrorist-type training, recruiting, targeting or procuring weapons. All new volunteers have been redirected towards joining Sinn Féin. No shootings were attributed to the Provisionals in the past six months, the period covered by the latest report, and no criminal activity sanctioned by the leadership.

"Nevertheless some individual members of Pira remain involved in serious criminal activity for personal gain, including smuggling and money and fuel laundering...", the report said. "Some members will pursue their own criminal careers ... How the organisation itself is handling the question of previously illegally obtained funds is not entirely clears to us."

Summing up the changes within the Provisional IRA, the report observed: "It is not the same organisation that it was three years ago. [Then] it was the most sophisticated and potentially the most dangerous of the [paramilitary] groups, possessed of the largest arsenal of guns. It is now firmly set on a political strategy."

The switch in strategy had caused some tension within the organisation but there was no sign of mass defections to dissident republican groups attempting to revive the paramilitary campaign.

Of the killing in April of Denis Donaldson, the former Sinn Féin official who spied for British intelligence, the IMC said it had no information indicating who was responsible or whether it had been sanctioned by any paramilitary group.

The small dissident republican factions, such as the Real IRA and Continuity IRA, were said to pose a residual threat and had carried out bomb and arson attacks.

The main loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, continued to engage in violence and crime, but some of the leaders in both groups had begun to seek an alternative way forward.

Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist party, said the IMC's assessment vindicated his party's demands that all criminality must end. "Real doubts remain about the murder of Denis Donaldson and this report has not ruled out the possibility that the Provisional IRA were behind this killing," the North Antrim MP said. "We will be meeting with the IMC at earliest opportunity to discuss issues surrounding IRA criminality and whether progress is permanent."

The IMC report warned that 35 years of the Troubles meant that disbanding paramilitary groups would not necessarily mean an end to all violence. Long-running feuds, such as the dispute between two families in the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast, indicated a ready resort to guns.

The verdict:

Provisional IRA

Committed to following a peaceful path. Running down terrorist capability and disbanding some military structures. Not engaged in terrorism, recruiting or targeting.

Dissident republicans

Active and dangerous. Recruiting and seeking weapons. Arson and bomb attacks. But small in number and often disrupted by arrests.

Irish National Liberation Army

Not capable of sustained campaign.

Ulster Defence Association

Involved in serious crime, including drugs, and sectarian attacks. But signs of desire among some leaders to move away from crime.

Ulster Volunteer Force

Responsible for shooting alleged informer. Some efforts made towards tackling criminality and reducing military capacity.

    Provos have been transformed, says monitoring body, G, 5.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1887941,00.html

4.30pm update

Blair: Northern Ireland final settlement within reach

Wednesday October 4, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matt Weaver and agencies

A "final settlement" to the political stalemate in Northern Ireland is within reach, Tony Blair declared today after an independent commission concluded that the IRA was no longer a terrorist threat.

"The IRA has done what we asked of it," the prime minister said this afternoon. His comments come after the Independent Monitoring Commissioning (IMC) said earlier that the IRA had abandoned terrorism irreversibly.

The conclusion of the commission meant there was now was a "unique opportunity" to reach agreement on power sharing in the province, he said. "The door is now open to a final settlement."

Mr Blair said he understood why unionists were sceptical of the commission's assessment that the IRA was committed to democratic politics. But he added: "It is a statement based on the IMC objective assessment."

Earlier, in a clear message to unionists, the Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said: "It is a fantastic opportunity, which politicians ought to take. If they cannot bring themselves to do it, then they themselves will close the door on devolution."

But he added: "This report leaves no party the excuse to dodge its responsibilities.

"No party should dodge its responsibility - that includes Sinn Fein on policing; that includes all the parties. They should all work together to make it possible for each other to do the deal."

The findings will be the focus of a Northern Ireland summit in Scotland next week, ahead of the deadline for restoring power sharing on November 24.

The prime minister, Tony Blair, and the Irish taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, hope the report will build unionist confidence in Sinn Fein's credentials as a future partner in a devolved government.

The report found that the IRA had stopped targeting members of the security forces, procuring weapons, recruiting and training, and had wound down its department for developing bombs.

It also revealed that people who had tried to join the IRA were directed instead to Sinn Fein as the republican movement shifted towards being a purely political path.

However, the report also acknowledged that individuals within the organisation were still involved in criminality, lining their pockets through their involvement in money laundering and robberies.

The Democratic Unionist party was to seek urgent talks with the IMC to assess whether the progress made by the IRA on paramilitarism and criminality was irreversible, its leader, Ian Paisley, said today.

He said the assessment that the provisional IRA was progressively abandoning its terrorist structures showed the pressure brought to bear on republicans by his party was working.

However, he expressed concern at the continuing involvement of IRA members in criminality, and at the commission's failure to state whether the organisation in April murdered the former Sinn Fein official turned British spy Denis Donaldson.

"Real and serious doubts remain about the murder of Denis Donaldson, and this report has not ruled out the possibility that the provisional IRA were behind this killing," the North Antrim MP said.

"We will be meeting with the IMC at the earliest opportunity to discuss issues surrounding IRA criminality and whether the progress that has been made is permanent and irreversible."

He added: "It is for republicans to demonstrate in a practical and convincing way that their days of criminality and terror are gone for good.

"Democrats have nothing to prove, and if Sinn Fein wish to be treated on the same basis as everyone else, then it is for them to now support the police, the courts and the rule of law. There can, and will, be no toleration for those who are half in and half out of the democratic club."

Policing is seen as one of the critical issues that will need to be resolved at next week's talks.

While three of the four parties that could form a power-sharing government at Stormont support and encourage their community to cooperate with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Sinn Fein has so far refused to recognise the body as the legitimate force of law and order.

Sinn Fein's leader, Gerry Adams, has signalled his party's willingness to have a special conference to debate any change to its policing policy.

However, while his party insists there must be a devolved government before Sinn Fein can move on policing, the DUP wants republicans to commit themselves first to publicly endorsing the PSNI before a devolved government can be formed.

Commenting on today's report Mr Adams said: "It's very, very clear that the republicans have kept to all their commitments. A deal could be done tonight."

Mr Ahern welcomed the IMC's conclusions. He said: "These positive and clear-cut findings are of the utmost importance and significance. They are evidence that the security landscape in Northern Ireland has been radically altered. It is now clearly apparent that the IRA has neither the intent nor the interest in restarting its paramilitary campaign."

Mr Ahern said he and Mr Blair believed, ahead of next week's talks, that sustainable partnership government was achievable in Northern Ireland and that the province could now move forward with confidence that the past had been left behind.

"The governments will play their part, but we expect the parties to shoulder their responsibilities and to come to Scotland ready to address the final obstacles and open to agreement. The context for political engagement has never been better."

    Blair: Northern Ireland final settlement within reach, G, 4.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1887436,00.html

Commission Says I.R.A. Is Committed to Peace

October 4, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:46 p.m. ET

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- The Irish Republican Army is no longer engaged in terrorist activity and has shut down key units for weapons-making, arms smuggling and training, an expert panel reported Wednesday in findings designed to spur a revival of Catholic-Protestant cooperation in Northern Ireland.

The British and Irish governments warmly welcomed the 60-page assessment of the Independent Monitoring Commission which also concluded the IRA has begun reducing its membership.

The four-man panel, including former directors of the CIA and the anti-terrorist unit of Scotland Yard, reported the IRA had recently shut down three command units and ''run down its terrorist capability.''

Last year, the group declared a formal end to its campaign to overthrow Northern Ireland by force and handed its weapons stockpiles to disarmament chiefs.

In a surprise development, the experts said the IRA ''has disbanded 'military' structures,'' including its headquarters units that direct weapons smuggling, bomb-making, training and recruitment. They said IRA commanders also had begun cutting their rank-and-file membership and had stopped making payments to them.

The group also ''seeks to stop criminal activity by members,'' it said.

''We do not believe that PIRA is now engaged in terrorism,'' it added, using the group's full formal name, the Provisional IRA. ''We do not believe that PIRA is undertaking terrorist-type training. We do not believe that PIRA has been recruiting. ... The leadership is seeking to reduce the size of the organization. We have no evidence of targeting, procurement or engineering activity.''

The commission said the leadership of the IRA does not consider a return to terrorism as in any way a viable option and it continues to direct its members not to engage in criminal activity.

''These positive and clear-cut findings are of the utmost importance and significance. They are evidence that the security landscape in Northern Ireland has been radically altered,'' Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair lauded the IRA moves as likely to spur a new power-sharing agreement between leaders of Northern Ireland's Protestant majority and Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party that represents most Catholics.

He said negotiations in Scotland Oct. 11-13 involving all Northern Ireland factions would determine whether a Catholic-Protestant administration -- the central aim of Northern Ireland's Good Friday accord of 1998 -- could be revived.

''The IRA's campaign is over. ... The door is now open to a final settlement, which is why the talks next week in Scotland are going to be so important,'' Blair told a news conference at his Downing Street office in London.

And in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Secretary Peter Hain called on Protestant leaders ''to recognize that the paramilitary situation, in particular the situation of the IRA, has changed absolutely fundamentally and radically.''

''Is there now a security threat from the IRA? The answer's no,'' Hain said. ''I do not believe anybody thinks that the IRA can come back as a war machine. That is over for them, they have chosen a different, democratic path.''

Both governments have given Protestants and Sinn Fein a Nov. 24 deadline to revive power-sharing in line with the complex Good Friday pact. Otherwise, Britain says it will dissolve Northern Ireland's legislature and instead intensify cooperation with the Republic of Ireland -- a threat designed to pressure Protestant leaders who oppose Irish government involvement in Northern Ireland.

A four-party administration established 18 months after the Good Friday deal suffered repeated breakdowns and collapsed in October 2002 over an IRA spying scandal. The major Protestant-backed party, the Democratic Unionists, says it will not cooperate with Sinn Fein until that party drops its policy of refusing to cooperate with Northern Ireland's police force.

On the Net:

Link to report: www.independentmonitoringcommission.org

    Commission Says I.R.A. Is Committed to Peace, NYT, 4.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Ireland-IRA.html?hp&ex=1160020800&en=7254a29e41a05bc4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

12.45pm update

Sickness halts Omagh trial

Wednesday September 6, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Staff and agencies

The long-awaited trial of a man accused in connection with the Omagh bombing was adjourned before it started today after the main defence lawyer revealed he was unwell.

Sean Hoey, 36, from Jonesborough, south Armagh, faces 61 charges, including 29 counts of murder, over the bombing in the Co Tyrone town, the single worst atrocity in 30 years of Northern Ireland's Troubles.

Mr Hoey's trial at Belfast crown court had been due to start this morning as prosecution lawyers seek the first conviction in Northern Ireland over the attack, in August 1998.

However, defence lawyer Orlando Pownall QC astonished some of the victims and relatives of victims watching in the public gallery - and those watching in Omagh via a videolink - when he asked for an adjournment.

The QC told the judge, Mr Justice Reg Weir, that he could not proceed. "I am unwell. I appear before you against medical advice."

With the prosecution expressing no objections, Mr Justice Weir agreed to the adjournment but made clear his deep disappointment at the development, which he had been informally alerted about only yesterday. No date was set for the trial to start.

Even though he could not guarantee that he would be well enough to take charge of the defence later this month, Mr Pownall stressed that his presence was critical for the purpose of achieving a fair trial.

But the prospect of the trial getting under way later this month appeared in doubt when Mr Pownall said: "This is a complicated case, and for another senior [counsel] to recollect the facts within 10 days is, with the best will in the world, an insurmountable task."

Mr Pownall said a medical expert who examined him for an undisclosed illness said it was the first time in 37 years of practice that he had encountered such symptoms.

The trial is expected to last around three months.

Mr Hoey, who has been in jail awaiting trial since September 2003, denies all charges. These include terrorism and explosives offences. The blast, from a 500lb car bomb, came on a Saturday afternoon when the town was busy with shoppers and tourists; the victims included a mother of unborn twins.

The decision to prosecute Mr Hoey follows a lengthy and controversial police investigation. Relatives of the victims have criticised authorities over the lack of convictions so far.

Mr Justice Weir, rather than a jury, is sitting in judgment on the case because of the laws governing terrorist trials in Northern Ireland.

Experts in voice analysis and forensic DNA evidence will be important to the prosecution's case.

    Sickness halts Omagh trial, G, 6.9.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1865911,00.html

Comment

Marching to a different drum

Today' s Orange Order parades will be ignored or avoided by large numbers of people in Northern Ireland for the simple reason that most of them have better things to do with their time, says Henry McDonald

Wednesday July 12, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Henry McDonald

It is the morning of the holiest day in Ulster loyalism's calendar and the street where I live is almost completely deserted. The normal whoops and cries of children enjoying freedom after months of school are absent. The area around resembles the mythical town in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where children are locked away and kept out of a sight by a comical tyrannical ruler.

But instead of a "child catcher" with his sinister black clothing and whip rounding the kids up it is the imminent threat of slightly ridiculous men in sombre suits wearing bowler hats and orange sashes that have chased not only the children but also most of the grown-ups away.

This street in middle-class southeast Belfast and its temporary desolation symbolises the social and culture shifts in Northern Irish society and demonstrate how these changes have left the Orange Order marching into history.

For a start, the street is now religiously mixed where once it was predominantly Protestant. Young, aspiring middle class Catholic families over the last two decades have settled in the surrounding area.

They chose every summer around the second week of July not to protest like those they have left behind in working class Catholic areas that abut Protestant redoubts against Orange Order parades passing by.

Instead they prefer to drive northwest towards Donegal or south to catch the ferry to France for a fortnight or more in Britanny. Or else they dash to the city's two airports (one now named after local hero George Best) and jump on a budget airline to the Spanish costas or the Greek or Turkish Aegean.

They "demonstrate" their contempt for the temporary takeover of their society and its transformation into an orange-blur by getting out.

Yet there are other families on this street and the streets nearby who include police officers serving the British Crown, academics, retired Protestant missionaries and nurses who come from a unionist background but will play no part today in the festivals held to commemorate King William's victory over James II at the Battle of the Boyle in 1690.

They too have either gone abroad or, in the case of a police officer neighbour, will spend the afternoon at a friend's barbecue in the southern outskirts of the city a world apart from the marching, the accordion playing, the drinking and the inflammatory speeches of the 12th.

They are joining the growing exodus of middle class Protestants engaged in "internal immigration" over the next 48 hours.

What should become obvious rather quickly to anyone observing today's parades across Northern Ireland and in particular Belfast is that they are now essentially a working-class, some might argue "ex-working class", pastime.

What you will witness, more so among the camp followers on the pavements from the Lower Shankill Road right up to the field in Edenderry outside Belfast, where the main procession comes to a halt, is akin to the type of caravan that traipses after the England soccer team or parties in certain less salubrious resorts on Mediterranean islands.

A leading authority on the Orange Order (he writes and speaks as an insider) the Reverend Brian Kennaway has tracked the flight of the unionist middle class away from the institution over the last 15 years.

Kenneway contends that this mass defection is due to the order's retreat into extremism, especially its involvement in the various so-called "Sieges of Drumcree" when Orangemen took on the very security forces they pledge loyalty to every year and where Orange leaders openly flirted with loyalist terrorists using them as muscle in their territorial battle with republicans.

However, Kennaway is only half-right. Yes, the violence directed at the police and British army alienated law-abiding middle class Protestants. And the incendiary speeches from Orange platforms and warnings of an Ulster doomsday drove this same sector of society away from the institution.

The paradox though is that even those who wouldn't dream of donning the bowler hat and the sash-my-father-wore are voting in large numbers than ever before for Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist party, mainly because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that Tony Blair granted too many concessions to Sinn Féin at David Trimble's expense.

So if voting DUP is ok among people who regard marching with the Orange Order as at the very least socially embarrassing, why then are the order's numbers dwindling and its middle class support base dribbling away?

The answer is simple and social: They have better things to do with their time.

Instead of swaggering in sweltering heat to a field where all they can eat is fried food while surrounded by gangs of inebriated teenagers who can barely hear the speeches urging sobriety and temperance as well as loyalty to the Queen, the Protestant absentees will be sunning themselves on a beach somewhere or flipping their organic burgers over the barbecue in between discussions over this week's announced 25% hike in the value of the average house here.

The British government has recently announced it is giving £100,000 to the Orange Order to turn the 12th into a "Notting Hill style" carnival for all.

They are wasting their time and taxpayers' money. Given the growing numbers (Protestant and Catholic) joining Ulster's great escape' each July, if Peter Hain et al want to ensure future peaceful summers, they would be better offering everyone a free plane ticket out to the destination of their choice.

· Henry McDonald is Ireland editor of the Observer.

    Marching to a different drum, G, 12.7.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1818571,00.html

Belfast murals to be replaced

Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent
Guardian
Wednesday July 12, 2006

Paramilitary murals will be replaced under a government-funded scheme to redecorate Northern Ireland's gable ends and public spaces with more welcoming images.

The £3.3m project, unveiled yesterday, is to be administered by the Arts Council as a means of helping communities present themselves in a more positive light and develop a "shared future".

But the proposals were criticised by some tour guides. "Tourists can see a lot of contemporary history in the Bogside," William Kelly, a tour guide in Derry, told BBC Radio Ulster. "It's a picture book that shows the last 35 years of conflict."

Roisin McDonagh, head of the Arts Council in Northern Ireland, said: "This [project] is not just about replacing murals but also about getting people to think more broadly about how arts and artists can improve their quality of life in local neighbourhoods."

Some paramilitary murals should be in museums, she said. "They are about our troubled past. We are a society moving forwards."

Endorsing the scheme, the Northern Ireland Office minister David Hanson said it would be up to local communities to decide what they wanted. "In Tullycarnet in east Belfast they have put a local Victoria Cross winner up on a mural; that is very positive."

    Belfast murals to be replaced, G, 12.7.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1818436,00.html

Loyalist gunman who killed Pat Finucane goes free after three years under early release pact

· Hain fails to overturn cut in UDA man's 22-year term
· Public inquiry into murder still awaited

Wednesday May 24, 2006
Guardian
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent


Ken Barrett, the loyalist gunman convicted of killing the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, was freed yesterday under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, after serving three years in jail.

Barrett, who had been sentenced to 22 years, walked out of Maghaberry prison, County Antrim, in accordance with the agreement, which enables those convicted of terrorist crimes during the Troubles to apply for early release.

The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, objected but the sentence review commission found in Barrett's favour.

Finucane, 39, was shot dead at his north Belfast home on a February evening in 1989. He was having supper with his wife, Geraldine, and their three children when two masked Ulster Defence Association gunmen broke down the door with sledgehammers. They fired 14 bullets into him before escaping in a stolen taxi.

The murder ignited a political furore and led to the progressive exposure of links between British intelligence and loyalist paramilitaries. The former chief constable of the Metropolitan police, Lord Stevens, held three successive inquiries into allegations of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces.

The inquiries exposed the activities of Brian Nelson, a British army agent who became the intelligence officer of the loyalist UDA, where he was in effect in charge of pinpointing potential victims. Nelson, who had been working for the army's force research unit (FRU), was subsequently convicted of five counts of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Finucane, a Catholic who had represented many senior republicans, had been identified as a nuisance to the establishment. Three weeks before the murder, Douglas Hogg, then a junior home office minister, told the Commons that certain solicitors in Northern Ireland were unduly sympathetic to the IRA.

Barrett, one of the UDA gunmen involved in the killing, later fled to Britain when a BBC Panorama team recorded him claiming that a police officer had told him Finucane was a senior IRA man. "The peelers wanted him whacked," he was recorded as saying. "We whacked him and that is the end of the story."

Barrett is believed to have carried out many more murders.

The Finucane murder still awaits a public inquiry. The government has so far been unable to find a judge to chair the proceedings, and his family has criticised the terms of reference of any hearing under the Inquiries Act. It is understood, however, that a venue for the inquiry in London could be ready for October.

Last Friday, US politicians in the House of Representatives urged the UK government to widen the scope of any inquiry into Finucane's murder. It is understood the Finucane family were not informed in advance of Barrett's release.

Sinn Féin's justice spokesman, Gerry Kelly, said yesterday: "Nobody believes the murder of Pat Finucane was planned, organised and carried out by loyalists from the Shankill acting alone. Ken Barrett was himself a self-confessed British agent; so was William Stobie, the man who supplied the weapon, along with Brian Nelson, the man who supplied the intelligence.

"The case of Pat Finucane goes to the very heart of the British state policy of collusion with unionist paramilitaries. We will continue to lobby the British government to act on this issue."

The SDLP's justice spokesman, Alban Maginness, said: "Whatever Barrett's role in the murder, it remains essential that the full truth behind the murder, the activities of the FRU and the approval for the FRU in and around government must be made public and acknowledged."

Backstory

Ken Barrett, now 43, grew up on Belfast's ultra-loyalist Shankill Road. He became a trusted hitman in the Ulster Defence Association, carrying out numerous shootings, but avoided making a show of his paramilitary position. One detective described him as a compulsive gambler and one of the most cold-blooded killers he had met. In covert recordings played at his 2004 trial, Barrett described his emotions after killing Pat Finucane. "I lost no sleep over it. All is fair in love and war. I have to be honest, I whacked a few people in the past."

    Loyalist gunman who killed Pat Finucane goes free after three years under early release pact, G, 24.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1781605,00.html

Comment

The reverend's reason

Henry McDonald on why Ian Paisley turned down Sinn Fein's nomination for him to become Northern Ireland's first minister

Tuesday May 23, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Henry McDonald


There were two "nominations" in East Belfast yesterday, one successful, the other not; one captured the Northern Ireland public's imagination, the other left the population cold and indifferent.

Wedged between the main dual carriageway out of the city centre into the eastern suburbs and the Lough, Belfast City airport officially became the George Best airport. The change in nomenclature occurred on what would have been Best's 60th birthday and was heralded with an unveiling cemetery at the airport, the promise of a permanent memorial to the soccer superstar there and later, a reception at Belfast City hospital for family, friends and former Northern Ireland colleagues of the player.

Re-naming Belfast's second and rapidly growing airport after arguably Northern Ireland's most famous son was a hugely popular move and one supported across the sectarian divide. In death, as in life, Best had that unique ability to appeal to all creeds and classes in the north of Ireland.

Just a ten-minute drive from the George Best airport, on an incline with a commanding view of the city, lies the Stormont parliament. In this other famous east Belfast institution there was a seemingly remarkable "nomination". Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, a leading member of the republican movement for nearly four decades and mortal enemy of the Reverend Ian Paisley, nominated his old adversary to become first minister of Northern Ireland. Adams proposed Paisley as the north of Ireland's top politician in the vain hope of a power-sharing government being restored.

The reason Paisley, less bellowing or truculent than in the past, turned down the offer with a firm "certainly not" is that to accept would have made him as popular with the unionist electorate as the flamboyant Shahbaz is currently among the Big Brother 7 housemates. Paisley knows he is the unassailable head of unionism today - a life long and for decades frustrated ambition - because he hasn't been willing to share power with Sinn Fein. The prospect of going back into government with the IRA's political wing, even when the IRA has gone out of business, is repellent amongst that unionist constituency ... at least for now.

Yet after seven days of a shadow assembly there are perhaps some sparks of hope amid the gloom of a dank and rainy May. One of the dominating stories of the last week has been the decision of the Ulster Unionist group to take David Ervine into its assembly bloc. Ervine is the sole representative of the Progressive Unionists, a party with strong links to the loyalist terror group the Ulster Volunteer Force. The UUP's reasoning was that by taking Ervine into their group the party is now the second largest and thus can get three ministerial seats as opposed to two for Sinn Fein. In fact, the move has spectacularly backfired on the UUP. A stream of Protestant victims of relatively recent UVF violence have come forward in the media to denounce what they have labelled as a piece of immoral opportunism. Senior UUP figures and some external advisers concede the Ervine trick has been a self-inflicted wound. If anything, the UUP's disarray over the controversy strengthens Paisley's Democratic Unionists even further.

In turn, the DUP in this situation no longer has to look over its shoulder to its unionist rivals. If and when it chooses to move closer towards restoring devolution, it won't have to worry about criticism from the rival unionist party.

The DUP will none the less take its time shifting towards restoration and sharing power in a government with Sinn Fein. Tony Blair and Peter Hain's deadline of late November will come and go. Paisley will play a longer game than the luckless David Trimble. The DUP leader knows that some nominations can result in ignominious exits. The octogenarian housemate wants to remain in the "Big House" on the hill until he takes the final prize.

· Henry McDonald is the Observer's Belfast correspondent

    The reverend's reason, G, 23.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1781342,00.html

5.30pm

Teenagers appear in court over schoolboy's murder

Thursday May 11, 2006
Staff and agencies
Guardian Unlimited

Five teenagers accused of the murder of a Catholic schoolboy who was allegedly attacked with baseball bats appeared in court in Northern Ireland today.

Michael McIlveen, who was 15, died in hospital on Monday, a day after being savagely beaten by a gang in the town of Ballymena, Co Antrim.

He was attacked after buying a takeaway pizza in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The five youths - all from Ballymena - were remanded in custody after their appearance at Ballymena magistrates court pending their next court appearance in June.

Groups across the political spectrum condemned the killing, which is believed to have been sectarian.

Detectives believe Michael and two friends were chased through the streets of the town from a car park before the attack. He managed to stagger home to the Dunvale estate, and was taken to hospital.

His family remained at his bedside until his life support machine was switched off on Monday evening.

The court was told that Aaron Wallace, 18, and Christopher Kerr, 19, had said "not guilty" when formally accused of the murder at Antrim police station.

The 15-year-old suspect said "no" when charged, while the other two, both aged 17, made no reply, Detective Inspector Robert Paul said.

The 15 and 17-year-old suspects cannot be named for legal reasons. None of the five spoke during the hearing this morning.

Ballymena, a town north-west of Belfast, has seen frequent sectarian clashes, and tensions have been running high since the killing.

There was a heavy police presence for the suspects' court appearance. Abuse was hurled at them during the proceedings and as they left the building.

The charges were confirmed hours after Michael's family and friends held a candle-lit vigil outside his home. Flowers were also left outside the house.

Politicians in Ballymena urged the community not to retaliate, and Sinn Fein called for the Northern Ireland Assembly to hold a minute's silence when it reconvenes next week.

Martin McGuinness, the party's chief negotiator, described the killing as needless and unjustifiable and urged civic leaders not to "turn a blind eye" to sectarianism.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, this week said he was appalled by the "sickening" attack, while Ian Paisley, the local MP and Democratic Unionist party leader, appealed for calm as the marching season approached.

    Teenagers appear in court over schoolboy's murder, G, 11.5.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1772872,00.html

Bomb was for major attack, say police

· Four arrested after explosives found in Ulster
· Warning of continued threat to security forces

Thursday April 20, 2006
Guardian
Owen Bowcott


Dissident republicans had been preparing a major attack, police warned yesterday after finding a partially assembled 250lb fertiliser bomb in a breakers' yard in Northern Ireland.

The discovery of such a large device comes after a warning from the Independent Monitoring Commission that small breakaway groups such as the Real IRA and Continuity IRA continue to pose a threat to the security forces.

Four men, aged between 22 and 46, were arrested under the Terrorism Act, three in the scrapyard near the Antrim Road in Lurgan, County Armagh. Officers spent most of the day searching the site, which was close to a railway line. Army bomb disposal experts were called in.

Police in riot gear later clashed with local youths hurling bricks and paint bombs. There were reports that petrol bombs had been thrown and masked men spotted in the area. There were also reports of fires being started near the yard where the components were found. No one was injured, although police vehicles were damaged. Railways services were halted during the disturbance.

It is thought the explosives were being prepared for a car bomb. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed that "suspected bomb making materials" and "a quantity of fertiliser" - the main ingredient of home-made explosives - had been discovered.

Superintendent Alan Todd said he did not know what the target was, but expressed alarm that the bomb was being made so close to the Kilwilkee housing estate. "Material of that sort is by its nature unstable," he said. "The device was being constructed for immediate use. We believe it's linked to dissident republican organisations. It's a very worrying escalation, at a time when the community is trying to move forward, that there is still a small number of individuals intent on swimming against the tide of public opinion."

Residents at a private housing development metres from where the bomb components were seized were stunned that a device was being constructed so near to them.

Liam Thompson, 24, who lives in Belvedere Manor, described as one of Lurgan's most sought-after locations, said: "If it had gone off around there, God only knows what sort of damage it could have caused.

"It's especially frightening considering all the schoolchildren around here."

There have been a series of poorly coordinated attacks by dissident republicans in recent months. Most have been aimed at army barracks or police stations. The dissident groups, opposed to the peace process, have denounced the Provisional IRA's decision to dispose of its weapons.

Last week an attempt to damage Strand Road police station in Derry was blamed on dissidents. Armed men hijacked a van and ordered the driver to take the vehicle, which contained an incendiary device, to the station. He abandoned the van and raised the alarm.

Sinn Féin condemned those responsible for the Lurgan bomb. "These groups have little or no support within this community and they do not have a strategy to deliver Irish unity and independence," said local assembly member John O'Dowd. "The discovery of this device has ensured disruption and inconvenience for local people and has caused anger within the community."

Dolores Kelly, the Social Democratic and Labour party assembly member for Upper Bann, said: "The people of Lurgan are horrified that dissident republicans have been plotting and planning a major attack. Four men have been arrested while making what is believed to be a 200lb bomb in the middle of a built-up area.

"There is no doubt that these dissident republicans were intent on causing major trauma and damage. They were playing with the lives of the people of Lurgan by making such a sophisticated device in the heart of the community.

"The good people of the north of Ireland want to move away from the shadows of the conflict and dissident republicans must come on board and realise the days of guns and bombs are over."

The concerns raised by the Independent Monitoring Commission are shared by some officers at Scotland Yard, who fear that a small hard core of dissidents disaffected with the peace process still pose a threat.

Last month's IMC review warned that dissident republicans were a "continuing threat to the security forces", training members and acquiring equipment. "Their capacity for sustained campaigns is limited but they are prepared to resort to extreme violence."

It said the threat was greater in some areas, such as South Armagh. "They are heavily engaged in organised crime," the commission noted.

In February, the Continuity IRA said there would be "no decommissioning, no ceasefires and no surrender". It claimed responsibility for leaving explosive devices outside police stations in Belfast and East Tyrone.

The last major bomb attack in Northern Ireland was in August 1998, when the Real IRA planted a 500lb bomb in the market town of Omagh, killing 29 people and injuring 200. It was the single worst attack in the Northern Ireland conflict.

Since then, the peace ushered in by the Good Friday agreement has largely held.

    Bomb was for major attack, say police, G, 20.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1757183,00.html

4.30pm

Emergency bill to recall Stormont

Tuesday April 18, 2006
Press Association
Guardian Unlimited
 

The government is to rush emergency legislation through the House of Commons over the next week to recall the Northern Ireland assembly, Peter Hain confirmed today.

The Northern Ireland secretary told MPs that the emergency bill would enable the province's 108 assembly members to gather at Stormont on May 15 for the first of two bids this year to elect a power-sharing executive.

As he outlined Tony Blair and Irish taoiseach Bertie Ahern's plan for reviving devolution, Mr Hain said the British and Irish governments wanted a locally elected administration to be formed in the province by November 24.

He warned if a devolved government could not be established:

· assembly salaries and allowances would be stopped.
· there would be no election to a new assembly next year.
· both governments would have to close the book on devolution in Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future until there was a political willingness to exercise devolved power.
· the British and Irish governments would develop cross-border bodies and areas of cooperation under the Good Friday agreement.

Mr Hain told MPs: "The experiences of devolution in Scotland and in Wales have demonstrated the huge benefits which local politicians exercising locally accountable power can reap. "Both nations have seen increased self-confidence, increased economic growth, increased social cohesion and an increased international profile. Northern Ireland has also undergone a positive transitional experience but the potential of full devolution remains tantalisingly out of reach.

"The blunt truth is that Northern Ireland is in great danger of being left behind as, not only the rest of the United Kingdom strides on successfully but as the Republic of Ireland continues to be one of the biggest global success stories of our generation.

"It is now for Northern Ireland's politicians to catch up and catch up fast. Northern Ireland's people demand nothing less."

Devolution has been suspended in the province since October 2002 when allegations of a republican spy ring at the heart of former Northern Ireland secretary John Reid's office threatened to destroy power sharing for good.

A new assembly was elected in November 2003 but its 108 MLAs have never taken part in any debates or committees because no power-sharing government has been formed.

There have been three failed bids to restore power sharing - each stumbling over the issue of Provisional IRA intentions towards the peace process.

Last July, the Provisionals announced an end to their armed campaign and last September completed their programme of disarmament.

However, the province's largest party, the Reverend Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, have remained sceptical about Republicanism, insisting there must be proof that all PIRA criminal and paramilitary activity has ended before they will sit in a government featuring Sinn Fein.

Mr Hain said today while there had been momentous moves from the Provisionals over the past year, the only people who could deliver a return to devolved government was the province's politicians.

"We have come to the point at which those outside of the Northern Ireland political parties themselves can do little more to facilitate the process," he said.

"I know that the decisions which will have to be taken are not easy ones but I honestly believe that history will not look kindly upon those who miss the opportunity that stands before us."

The Northern Ireland secretary paid tribute to Eileen Bell, the former deputy leader of the cross community Alliance party, who he appointed last week as the Speaker of the new assembly.

With the assembly being recalled on May 15, the minister said the bill which would be introduced in parliament this week was designed to enable the 108 MLAs to take up their responsibilities next month with the express purpose of electing first and deputy first ministers on a cross community basis and a multi-party executive within six weeks.

If that could not be achieved, MLAs would be given a further 12-week period to complete the task. "During this period, it will be open to the parties to engage in further discussion, both amongst themselves and with the government, on improving the running of the institution," he said.

Mr Hain also confirmed the assembly would be offered the chance to prepare for government by considering issues crucial to the future of Northern Ireland in the run-up to the second attempt to form a power-sharing government by November 24.

MLAs, he suggested, could look at issues such as education reform, the economy, water charges and the review of public administration.

Orders in council affecting Northern Ireland could also be referred to the assembly, the minister said.

He continued: "Ministers will naturally be willing to take account of views on such matters, if they are provided on a cross community basis.

"It would be preferable to all democrats that the parties were quickly to take up the mantle of government so that the decisions which affect the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland were taken by locally-accountable politicians."

However, in a word of warning to the province's parties, he stressed: "In the meantime, I will not delay in implementing vital reforms which this government considers essential to the better running of Northern Ireland."

    Emergency bill to recall Stormont, G, 17.4.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/northernirelandassembly/story/0,,1756199,00.html

Adams: Party won't force Protestants

Posted 4/15/2006 11:10 PM ET
USA Today

DUBLIN (AP) — Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams told supporters Saturday that his Irish Republican Army-linked party will not force Northern Ireland's Protestants into a united Ireland, but it was demanding that they share power within the British territory.

Adams, delivering his traditional address on the central Dublin spot where rebels launched a failed Easter 1916 rebellion against British rule, said Sinn Fein members would attend the May 15 revival of Northern Ireland's legislature, which last met 3 1/2 years ago.

The legislature wields the critical power to elect, or block, the formation of a joint Roman Catholic-Protestant administration. Such power-sharing was a central goal of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday pact of 1998, but fell apart in 2002 over an IRA spying scandal.

Protestants say they will not cooperate with Sinn Fein, the major Catholic-backed party in Northern Ireland, until the IRA — which last year formally ended its violent campaign and disarmed — also disbands.

"We will be there for one reason and one reason only: the election of a government in line with the Good Friday agreement," said Adams, who challenged the dominant Protestant politician, Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley, to form a coalition alongside him.

"Ian Paisley has a decision to make. He has failed in his campaign to smash Sinn Fein. He has failed in his bid to see unionist majority rule returned," Adams said, referring to the Protestant-only government that ran Northern Ireland from its creation in 1921 to 1972, the bloodiest year of the province's modern conflict, when Britain took direct control.

He said Paisley would only be able to govern in Northern Ireland alongside Sinn Fein.

But Adams, a Belfast Catholic, also told his supporters they had to do a more serious job of building diplomatic bridges with Protestants, many of whom despise the IRA and want it crushed by military force rather than accommodated within the Good Friday agreement.

Adams said that, while Irish republicans wanted Britain out of Northern Ireland's affairs, "unionists have a different opinion. That's fine. Let's talk about these matters.

"And let us begin by reassuring unionists that we are not in the business of coercing them into a united Ireland."

    Adams: Party won't force Protestants, UT, 15.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-04-15-ireland-sinn-fein_x.htm

Donaldson murder

Hain issues warning as killing casts cloud over Ulster talks

· Minister sets six-month deadline for assembly
· Spy had been warned his life was in danger

Thursday April 6, 2006
Guardian
Owen Bowcott and Patrick Wintour

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, will today set a six-month deadline for re-establishing devolved government and warn that without agreement to restart the Northern Ireland assembly there will be more cross-border cooperation with the Irish republic.

In an article for the Guardian, he warns that it would be "ludicrous to once again elect politicians who won't do their jobs to an assembly that doesn't exist. If political agreement to work together cannot be reached by November at the very latest, elections for a new assembly due in May 2007 will be cancelled".

His warning comes as the British and Irish premiers are due to meet near Armagh today to launch a fresh attempt to restore devolved government to Northern Ireland. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern are expected to endorse setting a final deadline in November for the power-sharing executive to be re-established and direct rule from Westminster abolished.

Despite the impact of the murder of the Sinn Féin official Denis Donaldson in Co Donegal, the two governments made clear yesterday they were determined to move forward with plans to revive the assembly in May in shadow form, without full executive powers. Sinn Féin has signalled its opposition to a shadow assembly, even if it is given powers to scrutinise direct rule legislation.

In his article Mr Hain seeks to put pressure on unionists and nationalists to end the political vacuum, warning if no agreement is reached "British direct rule ministers will work with our counterparts in Dublin to drive forward cooperation across the border with common-sense north-south partnerships".

In remarks that will unnerve some unionists he said there would be fresh north-south cooperation on policing, including two-way secondments of police officers, tackling child offenders, establishing a single energy market and a common mobile phone tariff.

The first period of the revived assembly is expected to run for six weeks, to break for the traditional marching season, and then resume deliberations in the autumn. Mr Blair will introduce an order in council in parliament allowing the assembly to go on meeting after six weeks. Current laws require the assembly to stop meeting if it cannot agree to elect a first minister and assembly within six weeks.

Yesterday it emerged that the influential Sinn Féin official, who had spied for British intelligence for 20 years, had been warned about threats to his life. The DUP policing board member, Ian Paisley Junior, called on the Irish government to give more details. "Was the threat from the republican movement?" Mr Paisley asked. "Did it come from the Provisional IRA? What is the detail of this threat?"

The killing of Mr Donaldson, if it turns out to have been sanctioned by the Provisional IRA or even nodded through by the organisation, would be a blow to the peace process. But statements from the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin condemning the murder appeared to have reassured the British and Irish premiers that the leadership of the mainstream republican movement was not involved. Martin McGuinness, the party's chief negotiator, yesterday said: "The killing of Denis Donaldson was a tragedy for his family and has been condemned by people the length and breadth of Ireland. While we don't yet know who was responsible, it is unfortunate that already we have seen opponents of the Good Friday agreement try to use this death to undermine efforts to make political progress."

Mr Blair said the timing suggested that it was an attempt to derail the peace process: "Our response should be to deny them what they want." Hinting that the murder had perhaps been carried out by IRA members who disagreed with the new republican policy of allowing informers to escape the traditional death sentence, he said: "Sometimes these things can be perpetrated by people in disagreement with their leadership."

In Dublin, the Irish taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, said of the killing: "Perhaps it was blind and bitter retribution. I do note that the murder has been condemned by the republican movement - both Sinn Féin and the IRA. It is right that they did so in an unequivocal and timely matter."

    Hain issues warning as killing casts cloud over Ulster talks, G, 6.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1747902,00.html

Ulster thrown into crisis by murder of Sinn Féin spy

Shooting and mutilation of informer jeopardises return of Stormont assembly

Wednesday April 5, 2006
Guardian
Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent

Denis Donaldson, the senior Sinn Féin administrator who had admitted being a British agent for 20 years, was yesterday found shot dead inside the isolated cottage to which he had retreated in Co Donegal. Reports last night suggested his body had been mutilated and his right hand almost severed.

Suspicions that he had been murdered by dissident republicans cast a shadow over the government's hopes of reviving the stalled political process. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, are due to meet tomorrow in the hope of restoring devolved government to the province. Downing Street insisted Mr Blair's visit would go ahead. Mr Donaldson had been one of the key figures charged in connection with the so-called Stormont spy ring, an affair which brought down the last devolved assembly in 2002.

The case against him and two others eventually collapsed when it emerged last December that he had been spying for British intelligence since the 1980s.

Irish police found his body after a tip-off from a local resident. Shotgun cartridges were found at the scene and Ireland's justice minister, Michael McDowell, said: "He was shot in the head and there was mutilation done to his body. We can conclude it was a murder. The Gardai are searching the area and have sealed off roads."

The killing immediately prompted an official statement from the IRA denying responsibility for the murder. In a brief statement, the IRA insisted that it had "no involvement whatsoever" in the killing. It was signed, as with all statements, from the leadership, P O'Neill.

While suspicion will inevitably fall on former republican colleagues, Mr Donaldson had so many potential enemies it may never be known who carried out his murder. Acting at the heart of the republican movement and working for more than 20 years for British intelligence, he carried a heavy burden of secrets from both. The shock of his recruitment when he revealed it last year stunned his former colleagues. He had spent time in jail for the republican cause, some of that with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, and the pair had a close working relationship.

His death was condemned last night, with Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, saying he was "completely appalled by this barbaric act".

Mr Ahern added: "We hope that whoever was responsible for this callous act will be brought to justice as soon as possible."

Mr Adams said he condemned anyone who had killed Mr Donaldson. Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, said last night: "I'm very angry. I see this not just as an attack on Denis Donaldson, but on the peace process. I condemn the murder and I want to give my sympathy to the Donaldson family who are not involved in this. We disassociate ourselves from this brutal murder."

The Democratic Unionist leader, Ian Paisley, told Channel 4 News: "We don't know who has done this but the finger must be pointed towards those who were angry at what this man had done."

The Ulster Unionist leader, Sir Reg Empey, said the authorities might never uncover the perpetrators. "There was an inevitability about this. A lot of people in the republican movement and other organisations will sleep better knowing he is out of the way. Some people will see it as tidying up loose ends."

    Ulster thrown into crisis by murder of Sinn Féin spy, G, 5.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1747202,00.html

4.15pm update

Spy 'told life was in danger'

· Blair condemns 'barbaric act'
· Devolution talks 'will go on'
· Man's wrist 'practically severed'

Wednesday April 5, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

Denis Donaldson, the former Sinn Fein official who spied for Britain for 20 years and whose mutilated body was found yesterday, had been warned his life was in danger.

The Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, today revealed that, in January, Irish police had become aware that Mr Donaldson was living in an isolated, run-down cottage in Glenties, Co Donegal.

Mr Ahern told the Irish parliament that Garda officers had visited the farm to advise the 56-year-old that his life was at risk.

They offered him advice on security and gave him the telephone numbers of local Garda stations.

"Garda visited him in the light of the public attention that he received and advised him, because of his circumstances, there was a perceived element of threat to his life," Mr Ahern said.

He added that Mr Dondaldson - who had also spurned British protection - had not asked for any special Garda protection.

The taoiseach also confirmed reports that Mr Donaldson's hand had been "practically severed" at the wrist.

Mr Dondaldson, a former Sinn Fein administrator who admitted to being a spy last December, had been shot in the head.

Mr Ahern said the body was discovered next to two shotgun cartridges after a neighbour dialled 999 after becoming concerned that the cottage's door was open.

The Garda pledged that no resources would be spared in the attempt track down Mr Donaldson's killers.

"We will leave no stone unturned to bring those people to justice," Garda Chief Superintendent Terry McGinn said.

He revealed that a window was broken and the door forced open when a gunman burst into the cottage and opened fire.

The murder has plunged Northern Ireland's peace process into fresh turmoil, with Mr Ahern and Tony Blair due to meet in Armagh tomorrow amid expectations that devolved government would be restored in the province.

Both Mr Ahern and Mr Blair today insisted the talks would go ahead as planned, but admitted that the murder had made them more difficult.

Speaking in east London, Mr Blair called the murder a "serious, appalling barbaric act" and said that, while the timing appeared calculated to damage the peace process, terrorism would not prevail.

"If people are trying to wreck the peace process, you don't give into them," he said.

The prime minister added that if the IRA were responsible, it would have "serious implications", but he added: "Sometimes, these things can be perpetrated by people in disagreement with their leadership."

He noted the Sinn Fein leadership's quick condemnation of the killing and, in a statement last night, the Provisional IRA also denied any involvement "whatsoever".

Asked on Sky News whether he still trusted Sinn Fein and its president, Gerry Adams, Mr Blair said: "I believed the republican leadership are dedicated to following this [peace] process through."

There has been speculation that dissident republican militants killed Mr Donaldson, and the Reverend Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, expressed scepticism over the PIRA's denial of involvement.

"The finger must be pointed at those who were angry at what this man had done," he said last night.

Mr Donaldson was one of the key figures identified in the alleged republican spying ring at Stormont, an affair that brought down the last devolved assembly in 2002.

He was the head of Sinn Fein's office at the assembly at the time.

The case against him and two others collapsed last December and, within a week, he made an astonishing televised confession that he had been a British intelligence asset since the 80s.

Sinn Fein had offered assurances that his life was not in danger after the confession. Mr Donaldson said he had become an agent after being compromised at a "vulnerable time" in his life, but did not elaborate.

He served time in prison for the republican cause after being caught trying to bomb government buildings as a teenager in 1971. He was sentenced to four years, and spent some of his time in prison at the same time as Mr Adams, to whom he became close.

Mr Donaldson had been living in Donegal since being unmasked as a spy and was tracked down by an Irish newspaper, the Sunday World, last month.

He reportedly appeared gaunt and troubled, living in diminished circumstances in a building without electricity or running water.

Irish police were today continuing to examine the scene of the murder, and pressure was growing on London and Dublin to order a special investigation of the killing by the Independent Monitoring Commission, the ceasefire watchdog.

Mr Ahern told the Irish parliament: "I do not know what calculations were in the mind of whoever was responsible.

"Perhaps it was blind and bitter retribution. Whatever the reason, it was a foul murder. The investigation will have to go on."

    Spy 'told life was in danger', G, 5.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1747507,00.html

Death of an informer

In a squalid refuge, double agent's past finally catches up with him

· Spy had been living like hermit in rural hideaway
· Unionists will use killing to put pressure on IRA

Wednesday April 5, 2006
Guardian
Owen Bowcott Dublin Sam Jones


When Denis Donaldson's past as a British spy emerged last December, he probably feared the traditional punishment meted out to informers: a bullet in the back of the head. Even though the Provisional movement announced last summer that it had destroyed all its weapons and was following an exclusively political course, Mr Donaldson decided to leave the family home in west Belfast. Some republicans had vowed that he would never be allowed to return to live in the city.

Last night it appeared his past had finally caught up with him. Mr Donaldson, 56, was found dead in a squalid cottage in a valley in County Donegal, where he had taken refuge. Police found his body at 5pm after a tip-off from a neighbour. He had suffered shotgun wounds to his head and his body had been mutilated.

The repercussions of his death could destabilise attempts to reinstate the power-sharing government and cause further sectarian tensions.

The former head of Sinn Féin's administration in Stormont had escaped to the Republic to begin a hermit-like existence but was tracked to his bolthole a few weeks ago by Hugh Jordan, a journalist for the Sunday World. "He looked like a hunted animal," said Jordan last night. "He was extremely depressed. The nerves in his eyes were trembling."

The reporter also noted that Mr Donaldson's previous swagger had disappeared and that he spent his days drawing water from a well, cooking over an open fire and reading. "He seemed like a man who didn't think he would come to any harm. He did not see his life to be in any danger, but felt the only future he had was where he was, living in that dreadfully squalid situation," said Jordan. "It's desperate that something like this happened. He was alone and threatened no-one. He was no harm to anybody."

Although the article disclosed Mr Donaldson's new location - in County Donegal, an area of the Republic of Ireland known as the Costa del Provo because of the number of IRA members who have holiday homes there - he had decided to stay put.

Those who had been in contact with him in recent weeks said he had not shown any indication of contemplating suicide. When he was photographed earlier this year outside the cottage he appeared to be in reasonably good health.

The immediate question raised by unionist politicians was whether the IRA, in its new mode, could have sanctioned his killing.

Mr Donaldson's troubles began last December when the 55-year-old confessed that he had been spying for the British for 20 years. He said he was recruited in the 1980s as a paid agent and deeply regretted working for British intelligence.

His confession, which resulted in his expulsion from the party, came in the wake of "Stormontgate", in which allegations of an IRA spy ring in Northern Ireland's parliament led to the suspension of the assembly in 2002 and three years of direct rule. Mr Donaldson was working as the party's administrator in Parliament Buildings when police raided his Sinn Féin offices in October 2002 and seized computer disks.

After unionists threatened to resign, the government dissolved the assembly. Mr Donaldson and his son-in-law, Ciaran Kearney, a community worker, were arrested and charged with having documents likely to be of use to terrorists. A civil servant, William Mackessy, was charged with collecting information on the security forces. Hundreds of prison officers whose names were believed to have fallen into IRA hands were also warned about threats to their safety.

But the case against the three men was later dropped at an unscheduled Belfast court hearing. The court heard that the director of prosecutions felt the case was "no longer in the public interest".

In a statement to the Irish state broadcaster RTE recorded in a Dublin hotel room last December, Mr Donaldson said: "I was a British agent at the time. I was recruited in the 1980s after compromising myself during a vulnerable time in my life. Since then I have worked for British intelligence and the RUC/PSNI special branch. Over that period I was paid money. I was not involved in any republican spy ring in Stormont. The so-called Stormontgate affair was a scam and a fiction. It never existed; it was created by special branch."

The admission seemed to explain why the case had been dropped so suddenly. Unionists believed the IRA had been gathering intelligence and demanded to know if the government had forced the case to be dropped to spare Sinn Féin's embarrassment.

After the charges were dropped Mr Donaldson, once photographed with hunger striker Bobby Sands, appeared with Gerry Adams outside Stormont, jubilant that his name had been cleared. Soon afterwards, police told him his life was in danger because he was about to be outed as a spy. This prompted him to confess his double life to senior party officials. He said he regretted working for British intelligence and apologised to his "former comrades" and to his family.

Last night, Mr Adams said he was keeping an open mind about who was responsible. "Some of us are trying very very hard to build a future in which everyone can share. Those who carried out this killing have no interest in that."

Targeted: Alleged turncoats

Scores of IRA members have been accused of being British agents over the years. They include:

Eamon Collins Battered to death in his hometown of Newry in 1999. He had renounced violence, turned informer and written an explosive book, Killing Rage, that revealed the organisation's violence.

Freddie Scappaticci Said to be a former senior member of the IRA's internal security unit, Scappaticci, codenamed Stakeknife, was alleged to be the highest-ranking British agent working inside the Provos. He quit his west Belfast home following newspaper allegations in May 2003. He gave a press conference to deny the claims but has since vanished from public view.

Robert Lean Twenty years ago Lean, one of the IRA's top men, turned Special Branch informant. Police believed his evidence would be enough to bring down the Provisionals. He revealed dozens of names before he was moved into Palace Barracks, near Belfast. But his former allegiances got the better of him and he escaped and confessed to his ex-associates. They immediately ordered him to leave the city. He has not been heard from or seen since.

Gregory Burns, John Dignam, Aidan Starrs The IRA murdered all three and dumped their bodies in 1992. It was claimed they were police and MI5 informers who had been tried and executed by the organisation.

    In a squalid refuge, double agent's past finally catches up with him, G, 5.4.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1747017,00.html

I.R.A. Turncoat Is Murdered in Donegal

April 5, 2006
The New York Times
By BRIAN LAVERY
 

DUBLIN, April 4 — Denis Donaldson, a former member of the Irish Republican Army who was exposed last year as a British spy, was found shot dead Tuesday evening at his isolated home in Donegal.

Ireland's justice minister, Michael McDowell, confirmed that Mr. Donaldson had taken a shotgun blast to the head, and that his right forearm was "almost severed," a mutilation similar to those inflicted on I.R.A. informers throughout Northern Ireland's sectarian conflict.

Mr. McDowell said Mr. Donaldson, 55, had been tortured in his home near Glenties, in northwest Ireland, The Associated Press reported.

In a statement, the I.R.A. denied any involvement, but the killing threatens the fragile equilibrium that has lasted since last summer, when the group declared an end to its war against British rule in Northern Ireland.

In 2002, Britain accused Mr. Donaldson of spying for the I.R.A. by stealing documents from government offices at the Northern Irish parliament.

At the time, Mr. Donaldson was receiving paychecks from the British intelligence agencies MI5 and Special Branch while he was serving as Sinn Fein's chief administrator for the power-sharing provincial parliament.

The charges brought down the coalition that was formed under the Northern Ireland peace accord of 1998.

His killing came just two days before the Irish and British prime ministers, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, are to meet in Northern Ireland to discuss restoring the local government.

Mr. Donaldson's spying for the British became public last December after the 2002 spying charges against him and two others were dropped suddenly by the British government.

After he was informed that the charges were being dropped, he admitted his dual role to his Sinn Fein colleagues, an announcement that came as one of the movement's most embarrassing scandals in years.

When he confessed in December, he told the state broadcaster RTE, "I was recruited in the 1980's after compromising myself during a vulnerable time in my life."

He added, "I apologize to anyone who has suffered as a result of my activities, as well as to my former comrades, and especially to my family, who have become victims in all of this."

Gerry Adams, president of the I.R.A.'s political wing, Sinn Fein, after personally offering his condolences to Mr. Donaldson's family, said: "It has to be condemned. We are living in a different era, and in the future in which everyone could share.

"This killing seems to have been carried out by those who have not accepted that."

Ian Paisley, the leader of Sinn Fein's Protestant rivals, the Democratic Unionists, said the killing "has put a dark cloud" over the talks Thursday between Mr. Ahern and Mr. Blair.

"Eyes will be turned towards I.R.A./Sinn Fein on this issue," Mr. Paisley said.

As the province's largest party, the Democratic Unionists are exercising a de facto political veto by refusing to share power with Sinn Fein.

Mr. Blair and Mr. Ahern plan to restart the fledgling legislature in May, despite Protestant worries about the continued existence of the I.R.A.

Many Northern Irish republicans, who want the province to break away from Britain and join Ireland, might be happy to see Mr. Donaldson dead, and Mr. Adams suggested that his death might have been the work of British intelligence agencies seeking to move blame back toward the republicans.

Mr. Donaldson had earlier earned his bona fides as Mr. Adams's cellmate when they were jailed in the 1970's. He was also arrested after training in guerrilla warfare with Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980's.

Since his admission of spying and his expulsion from Sinn Fein, Mr. Donaldson seemed to age decades. When he finally admitted that he had been spying for the British, he fled his home in Belfast to a remote part of County Donegal, and a cottage that had no electricity or running water.

Hugh Jordan, a journalist who found Mr. Donaldson and reported on his situation recently, told the Press Association in Britain that "he looked like a hunted animal."

"He was extremely depressed," Mr. Jordan said after the killing. "The nerves in his eyes were trembling. He seemed like a man who didn't think he would come to any harm. He did not see his life to be in any danger, but felt the only future he had was where he was, living in that dreadfully squalid situation.

"He was alone and threatened no one. He was no harm to anybody."

    I.R.A. Turncoat Is Murdered in Donegal, NYT, 5.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/world/europe/05irish.html

3.45pm

IRA 'still involved in crime'

Wednesday February 1, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver and agencies

Some members of the IRA are still involved in intelligence gathering and criminality but the group overall is making progress towards a peaceful transformation, a report said today.

The report by the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) said some IRA members were still involved in assaults and organised crime and revealed a small number had been accused of holding on to handguns.

It said there was no evidence, however, to suggest the IRA leadership had made any change to its strategic decision to end its armed struggle, which was announced in July last year.

The government pointed to the positive aspects of the report, but it is likely to fuel unionist resistance to forming a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin at some stage this year.

Talks aimed at reviving the Stormont assembly, which was suspended in October 2002 amid allegations of an IRA spying ring, are due to start on Monday.

The Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist party, suggested today's report had vindicated the misgivings his party had over the IRA.

Mr Paisley asked Tony Blair at prime minister's questions whether he was alarmed that the commission was now "admitting there were perhaps misjudgments" about earlier assessments of the IRA.

Mr Blair said although concerns about violence and criminality remained, "it would be quite wrong to say there has not been any significant progress".

The IMC monitors paramilitary activity and delivers reports every three months to the British and Irish governments.

The last report in October came just a month after the body responsible for overseeing the IRA's decommissioning of weapons, the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), said the IRA had disarmed. Commissioners then said it was too early then to assess the group's commitment to a peaceful transformation.

Today's report said the IRA was changing and, while some signs were "disturbing" and others were "at best neutral", it concluded that most indicators suggested it was evolving in a "positive direction".

However, there were several strands in the report that will fuel unionist scepticism about the IRA's promises.

The report revealed security sources had told the four-member commission that some handguns had allegedly been retained by a number of IRA members for personal protection and "area defence".

In a separate report, the IICD said it had tried to corroborate the claims about the IRA retaining handguns with the police in the Irish Republic but had not been able to do so. The IICD said it had met two IRA representatives last week who insisted no weapons had been retained and hidden in secret arms dumps.

The IMC's claim that the IRA continues to gather intelligence may have a significant bearing on next week's talks about resuming power-sharing, given that the collapse of the assembly was prompted by a spying row.

In today's report, the IMC said the IRA continued to gather information on individuals and groups, including members of the security forces. The commission said it did not think the purpose of the intelligence was to plan terrorist attacks.

The report said: "We are of the firm view that the present PIRA (Provisional IRA) leadership has taken the strategic decision to end the armed campaign and pursue the political course which it has publicly articulated.

"We do not think that the PIRA leadership believes that terrorism has a part in this political strategy."

The commission said the IRA appeared to be restructuring and there was no evidence of any recruitment, training or any intention to attack members of the security forces.

However, the IMC said there was evidence of IRA money laundering, which is being investigated by around100 detectives in the Irish Republic. The IRA has been accused of trying to launder money that the British and Irish governments allege it stole in the £26.5m Northern Bank robbery in Belfast in December 2004.

The IMC said senior members of the organisation were accused of laundering money, with the proceeds of crime being used to buy property or legitimate businesses.

The report said a number of IRA units were closing down criminal operations and clearing their stocks of contraband, the IMC said. However, some members and former members continued to be heavily involved in organised crime, including tobacco and fuel smuggling, the commission said.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, said he was cautiously optimistic after reading the IMC report, adding that the IRA was "going in the right direction".

"There are no murders. There is no recruitment. There's no bank robberies," he said.

The IMC report also accused a loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, of gunning down one of its former brigadiers, Jim Gray, in east Belfast on October 4 last year.

The UDA has been accused by the IMC in the past of murder, trying to procure weapons, drug dealing, extortion, money laundering, producing and selling counterfeit goods and robbery.

Today the IMC said the picture of the UDA since October last year was "essentially the same" despite the group signalling in November last year that it wanted to talk to the government about its future.

When talks about power-sharing begin next week, the Democratic Unionists, Northern Ireland's largest party, are expected to press London and Dublin to accept its plan for phased devolution. Sinn Féin demands that full devolution be restored, which it says is a required part of the implementation of the Good Friday agreement.

The IMC was established by the British and Irish governments in January 2004 to monitor the activities of paramilitary organisations and assess progress in "normalising security".

    IRA 'still involved in crime', G, 1.2.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,,1699736,00.html

Probes start for 3,268 killings from Northern Ireland conflict

Posted 1/20/2006 2:43 PM
USA Today

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — A special team of detectives is traveling back to the start of Northern Ireland's conflict 37 years ago to investigate more than 3,200 unresolved killings in this long-disputed British territory.

The team will work chronologically through long-closed cases from 1969 to 1998, the year of Northern Ireland's peace accord, in hopes of finding the truth for relatives of victims — but not to put killers behind bars.

Dave Cox, commander of the new 84-member Historical Enquiries Team, said his detectives would reopen files Monday on the first 100 unresolved killings dating back to April 1969.

Cox, a 52-year-old former senior officer in London's Metropolitan Police, refused to specify any cases.

However, public records show that only one person suffered fatal injuries in April 1969: Sam Devenney, a 42-year-old Catholic who was clubbed by police in his home. He died that July, two days after another Catholic man, 67-year-old Francis McCloskey, suffered fatal head wounds when baton-wielding police charged into a stone-throwing Catholic mob.

The British and Irish governments and most Northern Ireland parties welcomed the effort to investigate the old cases as providing an essential support for the Good Friday peace accord.

However, that landmark deal granted a prison amnesty for all convicted members of truce-observing groups. This means that anybody caught by the new probe could face a trial and conviction but would be paroled immediately.

Cox said the key aim was to seek the truth for the relatives of 3,268 people killed in political and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. Of those cases, he said, more than 2,000 are completely unsolved, while the rest involve suspects who were not arrested or charged.

Other cases facing re-examination stem from the first key event of the conflict: Protestant-Catholic riots in Belfast and Londonderry on Aug. 14-15, 1969, that forced Britain to deploy troops as peacekeepers, a move that sparked the rise of the modern Irish Republican Army. Eight people were killed on those nights, most by police gunfire.

For decades, Catholic politicians and human rights activists have demanded that former police officers involved be identified and charged in all those cases.

However, most cases to be reinvestigated involve the IRA, a Catholic-based group that killed nearly 1,800 people from 1970 to 1997, when the outlawed group ceased fire without achieving its aim of abolishing Northern Ireland.

The project, announced in March and expected to take at least six years, has a $55 million budget and its own headquarters southwest of Belfast.

Police and crime experts said some investigations could depend on using modern forensic-science techniques on old pieces of evidence.

Forensics specialists with the probe last year combed through files in police stations across Northern Ireland in hopes of finding items to analyze for suspects' DNA.

"DNA may uncover new evidence, and witnesses may feel more secure about coming forward," said Irwin Montgomery, chairman of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, which represents more than 7,000 serving officers and supports the families of more than 300 officers killed, most by the IRA.

"I hope that those who think that they have got away with past atrocities will now start to look over their shoulders and realize that justice may catch up with them after all."

Cox has assembled a team of current and retired detectives from throughout the United Kingdom: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Detectives exclusively from outside Northern Ireland will lead probes into about 50 killings committed by the province's police, largely from the early years of the conflict.

Members of the team will discuss their findings with each victim's family — to see whether they want suspects, if identified, to be charged with murder or other crimes.

"I do not for a moment underestimate the complexity of this challenge or the potential emotional stress for relatives associated with revisiting these tragic events," Cox said.

Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Hain, applauded the effort, saying the identification of those behind the killings would allow relatives of victims "to reach some understanding and closure on the past."

But An Fhirinne, a pressure group that accuses British security forces of having colluded with Protestant extremists to kill hundreds of Catholics, said it did not have faith in any effort led by British police.

"Those accused of murder are being asked to reinvestigate themselves," group spokesman Robert McClenaghan said. "Only an independent, international inquiry will have the authority and confidence of victims' families to get to the truth about collusion and state murder."

    Probes start for 3,268 killings from Northern Ireland conflict, UT, 20.1.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-01-20-northernirelandkillings_x.htm