[Dryerase] The Alarm!--The Troubles are back

[The Alarm!Newswire]

The Troubles are back

By Conn Hallinan
The Alarm! Newspaper Contributor

The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland are back, courtesy of an unholy 
Trinity of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Protestant loyalists who 
refuse to share power with Ulster’s Catholics, and the Bush 
Administration.

The current crisis, which has seen the British suspend the 1998 Good 
Friday Agreement and reassert direct control over the province, was 
sparked by a recent raid on Sinn Fein headquarters. Sinn Fein 
represents Catholics, and is associated with the Irish Republican Army 
(IRA). The police foray allegedly uncovered information that the 
republican organization was spying on the British military and the 
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

In the raid’s aftermath, Blair accused the IRA of threatening 
“violence,” and a “senior Bush Administration official” (according to 
The New York Times) joined Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid in 
blaming Sinn Fein for not reining in the IRA.

What is this all about? What did the police find that was so terrible 
it required derailing the peace process? Police say they discovered 
that Sinn Fein had names and addresses of police and military officials 
in Northern Ireland. So what? Has Sinn Fein or the IRA targeted such 
people or engaged in any terrorism for the past eight years? No. Has 
the Independent Commission verified that the IRA put stores of guns, 
rocket launchers and explosives “beyond use”? Yes.

Have Protestant paramilitaries done the same? No. Indeed, the Ulster 
Defense Association (UDA), the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the 
Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) ended their cease-fire last October. Do 
Protestant organizations keep the same files? Yes. Do they engage in 
terrorism and target the people on those lists? They sure do. 	


When Loyalist leader John Pilling was arrested in September with 
information on Sinn Fein National Chair Michael McLaughlin, along with 
the names, addresses and car registrations of seven other Republican 
leaders, there were no threats from London. Pilling is a member of the 
Ulster Political Research group, an arm of the UDA, and its hit squad, 
the Red Hand Defenders.

When Northern Ireland police warned Sinn Fein Member of Parliament 
Michelle Gildernew that the Loyalists had taken out a contract on her 
life, did Blair accuse Protestants of fomenting “violence”?  When the 
Red Hand Defenders gunned down journalist Marty O’Hagan last year, did 
the Bush Administration denounce the Loyalists for not controlling 
their paramilitaries? No to both.

Where were the threats to toss the loyalists out of the government when 
the UFF and LVF were throwing pipe bombs at four-year-old girls on 
their way to attend Holy Cross School, while crowds chanted, “No school 
today, ya wee whores”?

Maybe Sinn Fein has reason to mistrust the intentions of the Protestant 
police and the British authorities. It was these same authorities who 
could never seem to find out who gunned down republican solicitor Pat 
Finucane in 1989 in front of his wife and three children. Maybe they 
couldn’t find the murderers because the police arranged it. At least 
that is what UFF gunman, Ken Barrett (now living in England under 
police protection) told the BBC in June. Barret claims the RUC told him 
Finucane was an IRA member (he wasn’t) and had to be eliminated. Then 
he said a British Army undercover agent gave him a photo of Finucane 
and his address.

Barret says he wouldn’t have killed Finucane without pressure from the 
police. “Solicitors were kind of taboo, you know what I mean?” he told 
the BBC. “We used a lot of Roman Catholic solicitors ourselves.”

The one person finally charged with Finucane’s murder, William Stobie, 
was acquitted, only to be assassinated by the Defenders last December. 
Needless to say, no one has been arrested.

The fiction here is that while Sinn Fein is held responsible for the 
IRA, Protestant parties like Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party 
and David Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party get a pass on the violence of 
the loyalist paramilitaries.

The whole raid business is damned suspicious. As Roy Greenslade of the 
British Guardian points out, how did Protestant politicians know the 
content of the seized documents just minutes after the raid? The answer 
is that the police gave them the information, just like they have been 
doing for years. Suspending the Northern Ireland government also gives 
convenient cover for the Protestants to withdraw from the peace process.

The only parties celebrating this recent move are the madmen on both 
sides who would plunge Northern Ireland back into civil war. And this 
time around they have an ally in the White House.

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