The killing of Ciaran Doherty by the Real IRA just outside of Derry City on Wednesday evening was laden with evocations of the ‘bad old days’ when bullet lacerated bodies, were left bound and gagged at the side of a road on full public display. Over the decades many Derry men met a similar a fate; Jock Lynch in 1974, Franko Hegarty in 1986, two of the names that spring to mind. Killings which look no different from the slaying of Ciaran Doherty: brutal, chilling and sordid. The likeness drew the following precise observation from Brian Rowan: ‘all of what the dissidents are doing comes from an IRA book.’
There has been much condemnation of the killing. The North’s British First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy Martin McGuinness spoke on behalf of the Northern Executive when they repudiated the ‘dirty deed’. McGuinness made the point that the republicans responsible for the killing need to realise that the war is well truly over. It might have helped fortify his repudiation of the killers had he said the war is well and truly over because it was well and truly lost; that the lesson of the Provisional IRA campaign has been salutary – do not fight wars that are not winnable, achieve little and exact a price in gross excess of the purchase.
Martin McGuinness’s Assembly colleague Martina Anderson also criticised the killing in strong and forthright terms. She put a lot of visible energy into challenging the people who took Ciaran Doherty’s life: her judgement, how dare they bring this type of activity to the streets of Derry. She may well be genuinely sincere in her revulsion. But the background of her party always places a low hanging ceiling on the moral authority Sinn Fein representatives can reach when making such condemnations. Representatives of other parties which have no history of association with republican political violence sound all the more plausible in their rejection of events like that which took place on Wednesday evening. The condemnation issued by Mark Durkan of the SDLP sounded natural rather than forced.
The Real IRA in claiming responsibility for the killing of Ciaran Doherty, who was the one time commander of the group’s volunteers in Portlaoise, accused him of knowing the consequences of certain associations he had maintained. In its statement the republican military group alleged that Ciaran Doherty was a senior member who had relationships with a criminal gang linked to the drugs trade.
That is no reason for having killed him. There is no war or legitimate targets. The Real IRA might well think it is carrying on in the tradition of the Provisional IRA when it dispenses this type of brutal justice; that because an army council signs off on the action that it somehow becomes morally superior to any other killing that takes place on the streets. While Real IRA inflicted fatalities may differ from a criminal killing it can hardly be claimed in their defence that they are any more meritorious.
The growth of the Real IRA, despite it being effectively red carded after the Omagh bomb, is in part a consequence of a growing realisation that the Sinn Fein leadership negotiated a very poor return on the Provisional IRA campaign. Sinn Fein being able to sit in the middle of a British administration and label other republican traitors is not what any republican ever envisaged as a worthy objective.
This realisation that little in the way of republican objectives were secured should be extended to the point where it allows for an acknowledgement that the Provisional Movement did not sell out a campaign that could have been prosecuted successfully. The Provisional movement sell out lies not in the defeat it sustained but in the management of that defeat which saw it defect to the British side and has it body and soul now backing an armed British police force.
The logic is stunningly simple: unwinnable wars are invariably lost. The Real IRA in trying to reinvent the Provisional IRA wheel will do what wheels do – go round in circles. No matter how many bodies like that of Ciaran Doherty lie strewn on darkened roads, that circle of futility will not be broken – just hearts.
Re: Killing Ciaran Doherty
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I do not interpret the events I have witnessed in my lifetime as defeat of republicans in Ireland. I find the above article strangely defeatist. Indeed I would assert, that all of the events that have transpired since 1969, including the surrender of the Provos, like the Stickies before them, as just another discarded layer of the onion being shed.
The Blanketmen in particular and the 12 hunger strikers guaranteed a successful legacy, that gives the movement of the people of no property in all of Ireland, a deep rooted resistance tradition, that will without doubt bear fruit and guarantee victory
Recent revisionist and morphed republican reformist leadership in the movement, appears to have weakened us but it is the inevitable process in the learning curve of principles before personalities, that in fact makes us stronger. The enemy, its media, its propaganda constantly seeks to distract us from the principles. It is the responsibility of good leadership to ensure all volunteers and activists are thoroughly informed of them and refresh them in constructive debate regularly facilitated. This is something that was sorely absent and missing in the provisional tenure. Neither were activists made aware of party procedure and rules, which ultimately led to manipulated takeovers, based on ignorance of procedure and media generated personalities.
There are no shortcuts, the lessons must be learned or repeated over and over, until they are learned the hard way, as part of the development of a genuine revolutionary leadership, that can be trusted to act in the interests of the people, rather than ego and greed when unbridled power corrupts. This can and is only being built on the bitter lessons of the struggle's experience of what works and what doesn't, a leadership of principle, forged to lead in the evolved tradition of Connolly, in the event of the inevitable collapse of the various forms of empire visited our land. The politicized people of no property are the guarantors of a successful outcome, when the various discarded layers of the reformists and revisionists are recognized for the layers of self-deception they really were.
The death of Ciaran Doherty is without doubt a tragic consequence of British Imperialism in Ireland. I am certain that volunteers recognize when they volunteer their lives, the sacrifice they make to the movement of the people and its risks of the tragedy that happens in battle.
To speculate on the rights and wrong of this specific execution as outsiders, is not realistic but in the fullness of time , no doubt, more will be revealed. I just know the young man from his photograph and of course I am sad at the loss of any young life particularly a volunteer but I cannot afford the luxury of speculation based on what is in the public domain. It serves no purpose other than to demoralize. Perhaps someone can come up with a solution with how to deal with the spirit and cause of freedom being compromised, rather than just idle speculation which from my own experience can cause untold damage to the families concerned whom I genuinely commiserate with.
The only people qualified to weigh the evidence are his peers, while the war is happening and unlike the Pensive Quill, I have no doubt that the British Empire in its various aspects is at war with Mr Doherty's community, it has been a relentless, ceaseless war of centuries that always demands expansion and further exploitation of the community, surely the Pensive Quill from considerable experience would be quite clear about this.
The lesson for any young person, is to consider well, the decision of volunteering, a liberation war can often demand the ultimate price and should not be taken lightly. Freedom fighters want the British Empire out of Ireland as soon as possible, lock, stock and barrel, with all of the misery they have brought for centuries to our land. Those fighters bearing in mind their sacrifices, deserve in return the protection of the community without idle talk which also can cause untold grief to innocent family members and children.
Personally, I abhor violence of any sort but I know of no alternative of getting these brutal invaders and their native consequence, out of our Island other than armed resistance. If I thought there was a genuine alternative, I'm sure like many others I would go there immediately. The sacrifices made of previous generations, is the driving force that will not allow brave volunteers and principled leadership compromise a peace without justice.
May Ciaran's spirit rest in peace and hopefully other volunteers have not been compromised or sacrificed as result of this particular affair. Incidentally I do not support the politics of Friedrich Nietzsche. Ultimately the truth will set us free and with it will come a clearer understanding of the circumstances of Volunteer Doherty's execution. In the meantime I hope I personally do not forget the basic lesson of united we stand, divided we fall. There are many out there, particularly in the media, who make a profession out of dividing our resistance.
Padraig Pearse along with Connolly and the Hunger Strikers are living icons of the Irish form of republicanism. The revisionists of history in the media, are working ceaselessly to smash these icons. It is becoming clearer with the lessons of experience, subsequent to his declaration in "Defenders of this Realm" that this often repeated statement, holds strong and true and is an invincible principle, that can be relied on in times of doubt in the wake of weak leadership.
"They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! - they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace."
beir bua,
boru
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A major propaganda war has broken out in Ireland, following controversy after the Newry car bomb last week. Conflicting accounts and dis-information of warnings given, have caused fear and panic of more atrocities again being orchestrated by the British police in occupied Ireland. Many traditional republicans in occupied Ireland now believe that the newly named British Police are still purposely misleading the public on Real IRA bombs and are actively engaged in enabling more atrocities like the Omagh, Dublin and Monaghan bombs all co-ordinated to explode and murder the maximum number of people previously by British secret police and their MI agents.
All three explosions were co-ordinated by the British secret services in Ireland and murdered more than 51 innocent people, in a propaganda campaign by the occupying British to discredit Irish republicans. British secret service police MI5, have staffed all the senior position to oversee their new British police force in occupied Ireland away from the prying eyes of local government or ombudsman, the British secret services have enlisted the help of the FBI, to murder innocent Irish people in the last bombing in Omagh it has emerged. The British secret services have almost total control of the Irish media, Irish police in the south and Irish politicians with their thousands of agents embedded in senior positions in the corporate Irish media who are also engaged in censoring all honest accounts of the atrocities with journalists and civil servants being threatened with assassination, imprisonment and a campaign of discredit if they speak out about it.
As a result traditional republicans in Ireland have advised all Irish people to use their commonsense, ignore the propaganda and all of the British police in Ireland who are not to be trusted. They say they are the very same police who have the blood of hundreds of innocent Irish people on their hands but just had a superficial name change, in a fake process, rubber stamped by media politico stars created by their secret agents in the media. They also warn that the British police are definitely not honest brokers acting in the interests of ordinary Irish people on bomb warnings and are in fact enabling and co-ordinating the next atrocity.
Traditional Irish republicans demand resistance in the form of all bomb attacks on British Crown forces, materials, ordinance and their symbols of British Empire in occupied Ireland, be given a clear concise bomb warning, relating to any resistance operations that involves bombing British targets. They say that British secret police along with MI5 through its network of thousands of British agents and recruited spies spread all over the island of Ireland, is actively promoting an agenda of discrediting traditional Irish republicanism, using the manipulation of bomb warnings, with its agents creating atrocities such as the Dublin and Monaghan bombings which killed 33 ordinary innocent people.
A letter from serving British Army intelligence officer Colin Wallace to Tony Stoughton, Chief Information Officer of the British Army Information Service at Lisburn, on August 14 1975, laid bare the nature of the collusion that was organised by MI5, the SAS (through the 14th Intelligence Company) and RUC Special Branch:
“There is good evidence the Dublin bombings in May last year were a reprisal for the Irish government's role in bringing about the [power sharing] Executive. According to one of Craig's people [Craig Smellie, in charge of MI6 in the North at the time], some of those involved, the Youngs, the Jacksons, Mulholland, Hanna, Kerr and McConnell were working closely with SB [Special Branch] and Int [Intelligence] at that time. Craig's people believe the sectarian assassinations were designed to destroy [then British Northern Secretary Merlyn] Rees's attempts to negotiate a ceasefire, and the targets were identified for both sides by Int/SB [Intelligence/Special Branch]. They also believe some very senior RUC officers were involved with this group. In short, it would appear that loyalist paramilitaries and Int/SB members have formed some sort of pseudo gangs in an attempt to fight a war of attrition by getting paramilitaries on both sides to kill each other and, at the same time prevent any future political initiative such as Sunningdale.”
Wallace wrote again on September 30 1975, and revealed that MI5 was trying to create a split in the UVF:
“because they wanted the more politically minded ones ousted. I believe much of the violence generated during the latter part of last year was caused by some of the new Int people deliberately stirring up the conflict. As you know, we have never been allowed to target the breakaway UVF, nor the UFF, during the past year. Yet they have killed more people than the IRA!”[2]
Justice Henry Barron noted that Wallace's August 14 1975 letter was, at the very least, "strong evidence that the security forces in Northern Ireland had intelligence information which was not shared with the Garda investigation team."
In his evidence to Barron, Colin Wallace noted that:
“several of the key players in the mid-Ulster UVF were working for the Special Branch and for ourselves... giving information and liaising and so forth. If you just draw the line there and don't even go any further than liaison, and if the informers were doing their job - and if they weren't doing their job we wouldn't have been using them - an operation of that size, in terms of the logistics and planning was so big that there was something seriously wrong if the Security Forces as a whole did not know that (a) an operation was going on; and (b) had some idea about it, because of the scale of it. That would have been a prime target for the intelligence agencies to get to grips with.”
British investigations into the bombings was closed down a very short time after the bombings, said Wallace. He was told in no uncertain terms: ‘don’t go there’. Wallace was shocked.
There were clear attempts to undermine Colin Wallace's credibility in his evidence to Barron. British Army Captain Fred Holroyd and former RUC Special Patrol Group officer John Weir suffered the same fate, but Barron saw through it.
Wallace ran the main psychological warfare, or 'psyops', department at British Army Headquarters in Lisburn, Between 1968 and 1975. This was a task involving "dissemination of information and disinformation". In September 1974 Wallace refused to become involved in what he saw as attempts by the security services to subvert British government policy. Wallace also discovered that at the infamous Kincora Boys Home a member of an "extreme loyalist organisation", William McGrath, was involved with others in paedophile abuse. The home was not closed down and Wallace suspected that "the intelligence services were using the information to blackmail the extreme loyalists into helping them".
Wallace made his opposition known.
Wallace later attempted to expose security force involvement in the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings, and attempts by MI5 to undermine "left wing organisations and individuals", including the then British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.
Barron noted that Wallace was targeted by the same security services he had served. He was forced out of government service on a charge of attempting to pass a restricted document to a journalist, Robert Fisk.
Later, in 1980, after being forced into civilian life, and after attempts to highlight the injustice done to him, Wallace was charged with and then convicted of manslaughter in Arundel in Britain. With this conviction under their belt, the British tried to proclaim Wallace a ‘Walter Mitty’ character with an imagined and fantasised role in their intelligence services. As it turned out, Wallace was framed and his claims were true.
After his release from prison on parole in 1985, Wallace proclaimed his innocence and campaigned to have the British government recognise his official role in its Army intelligence services. He was successful in both.
Wallace had his conviction quashed by the British Court of Appeal on October 9, 1996.
Wallace was also separately paid £30,000 pounds sterling compensation (which was the maximum allowable) for unjust dismissal from government Service. His role within the British Army intelligence service had already been officially, though belatedly, acknowledged in 1990.
MI5's foreknowledge of the Omagh Bomb came during the inquest into the bombing. According to the Sunday Business Post (26/8/2001) leading British barrister Michael Mansfield QC, acting for Lawrence Rush, cross-examined several RUC ( British Police in Occupied Ireland) witnesses. It emerged that a warning specifying the precise location of the bomb had not been passed on to local officers in time to clear the area.
"After that, we started getting threatening calls. We were told by RUC (British Police) that our name was on a death-list," Solicitor Des Doherty said. The RUC also confirmed to Doherty that a newspaper report of a spy satellite picking out the car used to transport the bomb was correct. Doherty said. "It is understood that when the RUC contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in America, they produced information from the satellite.”
This suggests that the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier contained a tracking device which enabled a US GPS satellite not only to follow the car's movements but also pinpoint its exact location on the day of the bombing. At the request of MI5, US intelligence would have monitored the car as a priority and would have conveyed this surveillance data to MI5 without delay. Yet MI5 chose not to relay this information to RUC officers on the ground on August 15. Furthermore, the presence of a tracking device on the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier indicates the involvement of an MI5 agent in the planning or the execution of the Omagh bombing, at some point between the unlawful procurement of the maroon Vauxhall Cavalier and the detonation of the explosives on August 15.
There have again been calls for an independent public inquiry into the
1998 Omagh bomb following the collapse of the retrial of Colm Murphy.
On Wednesday, the Dundak man was cleared over involvement in the
tragedy for a second time. He walked free from the Special Criminal
Court in Dublin when judges cut the trial short and admitted he had no
case to answer.
In August 1998, twenty-nine people died when telephoned warnings failed
to clear the area around the 'Real IRA' bomb in Omagh town centre.
The bomb detonaed in the middle of a street crowded with civilians. It
later emerged that state forces on both sides of the border were
closely monitoring the movements of the device throughout the day, but
failed to prevent the attack.
Campaigner Michael Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son Aiden was one or
those who died, said he was angered by the second acquittal and renewed
calls for a cross-border public inquiry.
"It has been the history of this process that the families have been
disappointed time and time again but when it happens it is still hard,~
Mr Gallagher said.
Speaking outside the court yesterday, Mr Murphy urged the media: "Find
out who was behind it. MI5 agents setting people up.
In recent years, investigative journalists have revealed that British
military intelligence was tracking the bomb's movements by satellite as
well as monitoring the IRA unit's cellphones on the day of the attack.
Speculation over the reluctrance of the Dublin and London governments
to hold an inquiry has fuelled widespreead speculation that the bomb
may have been allowed to cause civilian casualties in order to erode
support for the 'Real IRA'.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler said the fact that the notes
were falsified, combined with the fact there was no explanation given
as to why, meant Murphy must be given the benefit of the doubt and set
free.
"There Is no evidence before the court upon which a jury, properly
charged, would convict the accused," the judge said.
As expected, three senior judges In the non-jury Special Criminal Court
were forced to dismiss a conspiracy count against Murphy on the grounds
that the Garda notes lacked credibility.
Murphy was jailed for 14 years before being cleared on appeal. A
retrial was ordered despite the apparent lack of credible evidence
against Mr Murphy.
The two senior gardai who helped secure the conviction against him
later found themselves before the courts on charges of perjury and
forgery.
Detective Garoa Liam Donnelly and Detective Garda John Fahy were
accused of lying under oath and using forged notes In the case against
Murphy but found not guilty. Both gardai were acquitted of all
charges.
As with his original conviction in 2002, the case against Mr Murphy
collapsed when interview notes taken by Garda detectives when he was
questioned about the Omagh bombing were shown to have been fabricated.
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The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin, has visited Gaza despite being blocked entry by Israel. Mr Martin entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing on its border with Egypt. Earlier Mr Martin said, “Industrial estates were levelled, civilians were killed, women and children were killed [in the Gaza offensive],”
Mr Martin said. “In my view there was no justification for that level and scale of violence, and the continuing blockade is not acceptable either.“All of that in my view just nurtures the fundamentalists and extremists and actually undermines the voice of moderation.”But the Minister stressed Ireland’s position did not pose a threat to any country in the region. “We’ve taken a position on the Middle Eastern peace process which we believe is a fair one, and an honest assessment and objective,”
Mr Martin said. “We’re not anti-Israel. We have very a clear position in terms of how the peace process should be advanced.”Mr Martin is the first EU foreign minister to gain access to Gaza since Sweden foreign minister Carl Bildt visited last February. British, French, Turkish and Belgium have all been excluded from entering in recent months.Mr Martin met Irishman John Ging, head of the United Nations operation in the Gaza strip.
The Minister visited a UN food distribution centre, met with businessmen to discuss the impact of the Israeli blockade and held talks with Palestinian human rights activists.Almost 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day Gaza Bombing, 20,000 people remain homeless as a with 70 per cent of the 1.5 million-strong population classed as refugees.Micheál Martin later in the day pleaded with Israel to end the blockade of Gaza and vowed Ireland would continue to speak out on the issue During his historic first trip to the occupied territory, Mr Martin said the blockade was affecting ordinary people and helping swell the ranks of the Islamic Hamas administration. His claim was backed by Gaza business chiefs who claimed it was breeding another generation of hostility and hatred.
Mr Martin further said, “I would appeal to the Israeli Government and all concerned to lift this blockade,” Mr Martin said. “When you see it first hand you see how it’s choking the life out of ordinary Palestinians and how it’s creating a very bleak presence for them, not to mind the future.”Mr Martin said. “The hundreds of thousands of people who are now in poverty, who have to queue up with their ration cards for food everyday at the food distribution centre; the impact of the blockade can clearly be seen,” he said.
While acknowledging Ireland as a small country but stressed that as a member of the EU its voice counted and pledged to continue to speak out. “That’s a fundamental political thing we can do as a country and we will continue to do that.”Irishman John Ging, UNRWA head, praised Mr Martin for having the “political courage” to visit the territory, but he said aid money pledged by international donors was not getting through. “It’s massively frustrating for everybody here when they know that 4.5 billion dollars were pledged.“That’s 4.5 billion dollars to relieve 4.5 billion dollars’ of misery and not one dollar has actually come to Gaza for recovery and reconstruction,” he said.
Mr Martin voiced concern that materials for reconstructing homes and repairing schools damaged during the Israeli offensive were not allowed into the region. “There is crying need for this situation to end, to allow proper living standards return in terms of food supplies and the rebuilding of homes,” he said.
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) welcomed Mr Martin’s visit, saying the EU needed to be more “vocal and active” in its opposition to what Israel was doing. Chairperson Dr David Landy said: “The people of Gaza are suffering terribly as a result of the ongoing Israeli blockade and the infrastructure remains in tatters since the massive Israeli military assault last year.”
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Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Muphry's Law; (sometimes confused with Murphy's Law) dictates that if a mistake is as plain as the nose on your face, everyone can see it but you.
Provisional Sinn Fein Member of the House of Commoners, British parliament for Newry and Armagh, Conor Murphy has hit out at the targeting of leading republican Seán Hughes and his family by the London based SOCA (Serious Organized Crime Agency) organisation. Sean Hughes’s home and that of a number of relatives were raided by the occupying British paramilitary police in John Bull's other island as revisionist and reformist former republicans such as Murphy would call it.
Seán Hughes is a member of Sinn Féin's leadership and head of their Organisational Development Unit. Following South Armagh raids and targeting of Seán Hughes, Sinn Féin Newry/Armagh MP Conor Murphy said the following:
“Seán Hughes is a sound republican. He has spent his entire adult life engaged in the struggle for Irish unity and Independence. He has championed the Peace Process and the campaign to end political policing. There have been numerous attempts over the years to smear Seán’s character.
“The raids today on Seán’s home and those of a number of his relatives have caused deep anger in South Armagh. There is no justification for the deliberate targeting of Seán and his family today. Seán has been charged with nothing. Neither have any members of his family. It is unacceptable.
Undoubtedly many people will see a more sinister hand behind the SOCA operation this morning. SOCA (Serious Organized Crime Agency) is based in and run from London. As in the past when political unionism gets itself into difficulties, as the DUP have in recent weeks, the faceless opponents of Irish republicanism who are still in prominent positions will seek to come to their rescue with operations like we have witnessed today.”
Contrast that statement, with his more recent contradictory outburst just a few months later, after traditional republican, resistance, exploded a car bomb outside Newry courthouse central to British rule in his constituency.
"The fact that we're in the process of devolving policing and justice powers and there's an attack on a courthouse will not be lost on people. These people are trying to drag us backwards and ensure we have the British army back on the streets."
John Bullscutter's Process
Traditional republicans have had a bellyfull of gombeen politicians down through the years talking John Bullscutter to the Irish people. MI5 who have all of the British police force in occupied Ireland staffed at senior level with their agents, as they have editor agents embedded in practically all of the Irish media and most facets of Irish life including their agent politicians. Local politicians don't oversee the police, rather MI5 oversee the politicians and with the wink of an eye and an innocent leak can make or break politicians like Adams, Robinson, McGuinness or Murphy, etc., etc., SEE LINK FOR DETAILS.
by RichardHead
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