FREEDOM CHECKPOINTS RETURN IN IRELAND AS PSNI RETREAT FROM IRA

A PSNI spokesperson for the British police force based in Armagh, Ireland, says that his colleagues are relieved to have escaped with their lives and they are furious that they had no prior warning of a high profile IRA checkpoint. It is still not clear if they were being set up from within for an ambush by disaffected sectarian colleagues.

The road block set up by heavily armed IRA volunteers in south Armagh, has also upset Loyalists, the SDLP and other British establishment politicians.

A British PSNI spokesperson said the patrol retreated as they witnessed IRA units stopping vehicles in the Meigh area near Newry on Friday evening. According to the BBC British Police have asked for anyone with information about the incident to get in touch. PSNI spin doctors also warned of a serious breakdown in police intelligence after being allowed by colleagues to drive into the republican roadblock without prior warning. There are a series of reports, of serious sectarian tensions within the PSNI itself, after the rout of their patrol without a single shot being fired.

Six masked volunteers carrying rifles were seen stopping vehicles on the outskirts of Meigh, in county Armagh on friday last. It is understood that a PSNI partol car had driven to within 100 meters of the checkpoint before turning back, in full view of more than 30 heavily armed volunteers, who were giving cover to the checkpoint with their Artillery, rocket launchers, armour piercing machine guns, along with ground to air missiles. Locals speak of snipers with Barret rifles, who had the patrol cars in their sights, however there were some civilians in the vicinity.

Many of the PSNI complained "We are getting vague breifings every single day that terrorists are highly active in and around Newry and South Armagh," he said. "But surely intelligence circles should be fit to warn us if illegal vehicle checkpoints are being carried out in our patrol area. "It doesn't bear thinking about what would have happened if the officers had driven straight into the trap." Unconfirmed reports speak of resignations on the basis that its getting too dangerous for the PSNI to operate in South Armagh and that some have refused to man PSNI checkpoints.

Others are believed to be furious with frustration at continous police intelligence failures, to locate heavy calibre tripod-mounted machine guns and the heavy artillery of the IRA, which is known to be in the hands of local Republicans. "We know they have DShK machine guns and if they are out in daylight doing vehicle checkpoints then they would probably feel confident enough to bring out the big stuff and take us on," he said. The Soviet made DShK's fires a 12.7mm round a minute and are capable of piercing armoured vehicles.

A statement by former republican Martin McGuinness, calling Irish freedom fighters "traitors" is believed to have sparked resignations within provisional Sinn Fein, created uproar within the Republican Movement in general and triggered a renewal of popular support for the fighters. Republicans point out the unmistakable contradiciton in the two statements below which has caused outrage all over Ireland.







Below is a small selection of recently acquired IRA weapons:

Ajanta Caves, Carolan and Celts (http://ping.fm/AKm6V)

Perfidious Albion's PSNI on the Euphrates (http://ping.fm/COpXh)

PSNI DUMP INTIMATE PERSONAL DETAILS IN LOYALIST BELFAST SKIP (http://ping.fm/BLUwT)

BOGSIDE BHOY 40 YEARS LATER

Martin McGuinness recently attacked dissident journalists. It would also appear that he has forgotten the old adage that when you point your finger at someone there are three pointing back at you. The word traitor has serious overtones and reprecussions in most countries worldwide as it has in Ireland. It is not normally a word used publicly by leadership but rather by bar room republicans, as it is simply a term of abuse, of other Irish people and the only ones who clearly benefit are the Brits, with their constant policy of divide and conquer.

Martin McGuinness doesn't drink and has done immeasurable damage to the "peace process" by inflaming those who were giving him and Adams the benefit of the doubt and who against their better judgement, were trying hard to give peace a chance for almost 20 years now !

Below are three links to some interesting discussions around all of this. I personally believe it is possible to disagree vehemently with someone's politics, without attacking them personally, so that we can learn the lessons of history, that we stop repeating the same mistakes over and over. We have all made mistakes if we are honest with ourselves,I certainly have but then the only ones who haven't are those who have done nothing !



“These people, they are traitors to the island of Ireland. They have betrayed the political desires, hopes and aspirations of all of the people who live on this island and they don’t deserve to be supported by anyone.” Martin McGuinness

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/Ed Curran




The first time I laid eyes on James Martin Pacelli McGuinness was in a back street of the Bogside in 1972.

I had gone there to gauge the mood and report on what was then Northern Ireland’s most infamous trouble spot.

There were no soldiers or police on patrol. Young men manned barricades and drove around the rock-strewn streets in hijacked cars. Up on the ancient walls of the city, over-shadowing the Bogside, troops peered down through their binoculars.

Martin McGuinness, I had been told, was the man to meet because he was in control of these dangerous streets. As I walked towards the Brandywell Inn, notebook in hand, an old battered Ford Cortina drew alongside me. A group of youths jumped out and ordered me into the vehicle.

The muzzle of an American carbine protruded from under the driver’s seat. I sat in the front and behind me the youths examined the contents of my wallet.

I said I was going to see a Mr McGuinness but mention of his name seemed to make no difference to their threatening mood as we drove around and around the dilapidated neighbourhood.

Half an hour elapsed and then the car swung into a street of old terraced houses. Ahead, through the windscreen, I could see a young, curly-haired man, dressed in a soiled Aran sweater.

He was lolling up against the wall but sprung to attention as my captives drove up and spoke to him.

“This is Martin McGuinness,” said the driver, beckoning in the direction of the young man who was already disappearing through a doorway. “You can get out and go in. Martin will talk to you now.”

I remember not being able to take in how youthful Martin McGuinness was. At only 22 years, he was clearly in charge.

That day, in 1972, I listened to his trenchant denunciation of the RUC and British Army and his vow that they would never walk the streets of the Bogside again.

There was no doubting his republican credentials and revolutionary zeal. He had piercing eyes and a chilling determination in his voice.

His message was dour and uncompromising, so much so that I remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable in his presence.

Fast forward 37 years to the steps of Stormont last week as 58-year-old Martin McGuinness denounced dissident republicans to the media with these words: “These people, they are traitors to the island of Ireland. They have betrayed the political desires, hopes and aspirations of all of the people who live on this island and they don’t deserve to be supported by anyone.”

The message from his lips was very different from that which I had heard all those years ago on a May afternoon in the Bogside but the determination in his voice was still the same.

Standing there alongside the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the leader of the Democratic Unionist party, it was a defining moment for this community, and surely most of all, for him.

How far, I thought, had he and every one of us travelled in the 37 years since our paths had first crossed? The young man of violence in 1972 has become a defender of peace in March 2009. In saying that, I am mindful of the dreadful deeds with which he and his cohorts were associated for so long.

The terrible tragedy for all of us is that he directed his undoubted leadership qualities for so much of his own life, and ours, in such a negative, destructive manner just as Ian Paisley too did for so long with his language of intransigence.

The past week’s events have galvanised people across Northern Ireland as never before. The deaths of two soldiers and of a police officer have focussed our minds on the importance of preserving and nurturing political agreement.

These murders were meant to drive a wedge between us but instead they have pulled us closer together. They have given a new meaning to the old slogan: ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’

The side by side appearance of Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and the Chief Constable on Stormont’s steps may well turn out to be the point of no return on the long road to a lasting settlement.

First there was Paisley and now there is McGuinness. From 1972 to 2009, what road to Damascus they have trodden.

How relieved and thankful every one of us should be that human nature can change and that politics can be made to work.

There is surely no better proof of that amongst us at this moment than James Martin Pacelli McGuinness, the Deputy First Minister of a new Northern Ireland — one that is desperate to go forward in peace and not back to its terrifying past.




Discussion 1



Discussion 2



Discussion 3



Discussion 4



The consequence of Martin McGuinness's inflammatory rhetoric is described in this song by Christy Moore.


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