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http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1013/northpolitics.html
Northern Ireland's First and Deputy First Ministers have held more talks with the British Prime Minister on the proposals for transferring policing and justice powers from Westminster to Stormont.
Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness met Gordon Brown at Downing Street this evening.
Mr Robinson said after the meeting he had raised a number of issues with Mr Brown about the funding deal that required clarification.
Advertisement'We have provided a list of issues to the prime minister for clarification and we are working through those issues,' he told reporters.
Mr Robinson said some were easy and some more difficult, but added: 'All of them I believe are capable of resolution.'
He also said he was looking at publishing the letter so the issues were out in the open.
The letter would be 'better in the public arena', he said, adding: 'There needs to be some transparency about what we are doing.'
It is thought the overall package is worth in the region of £800m.
Sinn Féin accepted Mr Brown's financial offer following a meeting of party officers in Dublin this afternoon.
Mr McGuinness said: 'The issue of funding has now been conclusively dealt with in my view and I think it's now a matter of urgency that we move on and with all speed to ensure that the transfer of power of policing and justice takes place.
'What has to happen is all the participants to this process have to now deal with the logistical arrangements of how we carry that out.
'We intend to have discussions, Peter Robinson and I, with other party leaders back home about the funding arrangements.'
He said agreement on the funding package was a 'tremendous achievement' and a 'momentous' negotiation with Mr Brown.
'I think the challenge now is to press on, to make this happen as soon as possible,' Mr McGuinness said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8304858.stm
North Belfast man Raymond McCord is to testify to a congressional committee in Washington next week regarding his son's murder and alleged collusion.
His son, Raymond Jnr, was murdered by the UVF in November 1997.
A report by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan said there was police collusion with the gang responsible for the murder and several others.
It is understood Mrs O'Loan and members of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane's family will also testify.
The hearing is being held by the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organisations, Human Rights and Oversight.
It is chaired by Congressman Bill Delahunt.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/13/britain.brighton.bomb.statement/
LONDON, England (CNN) -- The IRA bomber who tried to kill Margaret Thatcher in 1984 expressed "regret" Tuesday, but refused to tell the families of most of the victims that he was sorry -- even when directly challenged to do so.
Jo Berry, left, sits next to Patrick Magee at a Forgiveness talk in Parliament on Tuesday in London.
Former Irish Republican Army activist Patrick Magee was making an unprecedented appearance in Parliament itself, sitting alongside the daughter of a man who died in the explosion.
Magee said he was sorry for killing Jo Berry's father, but would not broaden his apology.
He said many victims in Northern Ireland "have never had an expression of sorrow" from the British government, and an apology "has to cover all dimensions of the conflict."
Magee, who served 14 years in prison for the bombing, portrayed himself partly as a victim of circumstance.
"I'm sorry that I killed Jo's father," Magee said. "I wish there had been another way. ... If there were other options open, I would have jumped at them."
Pressed by lawmakers on whether he had repented, Magee said, "I don't understand repentance. I think it has a religious meaning. I can regret."
"I did what I did in full consciousness," he said. "I did what I felt needed to be done. Why do I need to ask forgiveness for that? But I can feel regret."
Magee was speaking during a public discussion with Berry, whose father, British lawmaker Sir Anthony Berry, was killed in the the Brighton bombing 25 years ago Monday.
A stocky, compact, bearded man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, Magee had an air of intensity about him even as he spoke in soft, thoughtful tones.
"You can't just walk away from it -- you've done harm," he said, explaining why he felt "obliged" to speak about what he had done. "There's a political obligation ... to try and undo harm."
"I know for many people, Pat doesn't say enough about repentance," Berry said. "And yet, he comes again and again and again [to joint appearances with her]."
She appeared with Magee at conflict-resolution forums around the world, but said Tuesday's was the "most scary."
"This is where I came when I was little with my beloved Dad," she said, remembering eating with him in parliament's dining hall and seeing friends of his who still serve in the chamber.
Magee denied responsibility when he was tried for the blast, which happened on the eve of Thatcher's speech to the Conservative Party conference. She was in the hotel when the bomb went off, but was not hurt. Five people including Sir Anthony Berry were killed.
Jo Berry has been meeting Magee regularly, and appearing in public with him, since he was freed from prison under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 1999. By his count, the two have met 50 to 60 times.
"It's an unusual friendship," she told CNN on Tuesday before the appearance. "We don't really have the words in the English language for it. He's someone who I actually admire for his ability to engage with me even when it's difficult, and [for] his commitment to working for peace now. And yet I don't forget that he did kill my father, so it's a mixture."
Magee was scheduled to speak to CNN on Tuesday but canceled at the last minute.
Their discussion, which took place on Thatcher's 84th birthday, was organized by The Forgiveness Project, a British charity dedicated to conflict resolution. Magee and Berry appeared under the auspices of the all-party parliamentary group on conflict issues.
The director of The Forgiveness Project said she understood the event would draw a mixed response.
"I am not surprised that some have branded this a provocative stunt that will serve only to draw attention to a former IRA activist who received eight life sentences for the bombing and who has shown little remorse," Marina Cantacuzino wrote in the Times of London on Monday.
"Of all those who reside in the two chambers [of Parliament], it is Lord [Norman] Tebbit, whose wife was paralyzed in the attack, and Lord [John] Wakeham, whose wife was killed, who are likely to be the most affronted, particularly as Lord Tebbit has confessed to feeling 'some personal ill towards Mr. Magee and all of his murderous friends and employers.' "
Both Tebbit and Wakeham were members of Thatcher's Cabinet. Tebbit was trapped under rubble for several hours before firefighters were able to free him.
He told Cantacuzino that Berry's project "excuses, rewards and encourages murder," she told lawmakers on Tuesday.
She rejected his accusation, saying the group "humanizes violence" and "seeks to explain but never to justify."
The IRA waged an often-violent campaign against British rule of Northern Ireland for decades before the Good Friday Agreement. About 3,600 people died in "the troubles," as the violence is known in the province.
Berry shied away from saying she had forgiven the man who killed her father.
"Forgiveness is a word I find very difficult to use. I prefer to use the word understanding," she said.
"I have understood his life and his choices and everything that's happened to him," she said. "I know that if I'd lived his life, I don't know whether I'd make those same choices or not. And in that moment there is nothing to forgive, there is understanding and there is empathy."
But she still remembers the shock of seeing him walk free.
"When I first saw him come out of prison, I had an initial response. ... I wasn't expecting to turn on the telly and see Pat coming out of prison, and there was an initial response of: 'Ah, he's out. My father can never come back.' "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/13/hillary-clinton-northern-ireland-stormont
It was indicative of the relative importance of Hillary Clinton's address to the Northern Ireland assembly yesterday that much of the Clinton-related traffic on Twitter was concerned with Iran, Russia and Afghanistan, not the affairs of the most minor devolved region of the United Kingdom.
Inside the chamber beforehand, there was some gamesmanship going on. Gerry Adams strolled across the chamber to engage Ian Paisley Sr in a five-minute long conversation, leaving Iris Robinson, the MP and current first minister's wife, unsure of what to do. Eventually she chose to turn her back.
Adams is adept at the passive-aggressive technique. His very presence at the launch of the Eames/Bradley report on dealing with the past was enough to cause uproar.
The Democratic Unionists (DUP) were certainly edgy before this big event. They are being treated to a lot of governmental and big media pressure to sign up to an agreement to devolve policing and justice powers, in accordance with a promise Sinn Féin made to its own members prior to signing off the St Andrews agreement.
Any attempt to upstage them by the US secretary of state would have been too much to live with. In the event, Clinton kept clear of all current controversies and chose instead to remind the massed ranks of Northern Ireland's political classes that they were elected to help build a viable future, not just reliving the past over and over:
At this time, we can recognise you have travelled a great distance. But you do not need me to tell you that your journey is not yet over. The promise of the Good Friday agreement and the St Andrews agreement is not yet fully realised. And Northern Ireland is now facing a new challenge with the global economic downturn, which threatens some of the gains that you have made in the past decade.
It was a moment when she might have launched into the controversial area of policing and justice. Instead she went on to enumerate the advantages that US investment had brought since the ceasefire year of 1994, including 20,000 new jobs. But this was no call for single actions. Rather it was a deliberate attempt to administer a shot in the arm for a political class that after nearly three years of legislative indolence must be wondering what on earth it is for.
She borrowed a sentiment from St Augustine:
The value of peace is not only the absence of violence. It is also the presence of new opportunities for investment and jobs, for education and healthcare, and political participation. So it is critical, in this moment of economic turmoil, to protect the progress you have already achieved, and to build upon it, to ensure that your people continue to enjoy the rewards of peace, and to embrace it for the long term.
Finally:
Changing hearts is the hardest work of all. It is hard for an individual, harder still for a community, where every loss or injustice, pain or resentment is magnified. But leaders like all of you are elected to offer a choice between allegiance to a past that cannot be changed, and commitment to a different future that you shape.
All true enough. But any hopes that Clinton's presence here would create momentum in and of itself were forgotten this afternoon when a DUP spokesman suggested that the party would need to talk to the leader of the opposition, David Cameron – among others – for guarantees that would stand behind the commitments made by Gordon Brown in a confidential letter to both Sinn Féin and the DUP.
The timing of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) statement yesterday that its armed struggle is over, however welcome, was a statement from an organisation that most people had forgotten. It may have been good for the optics but they are not part of the new anti-state organisations now running amok in some of Sinn Féin's most famous heartlands.
Clinton tried to remind people of the shadow of the future, at a time when the shadow of our bloody past is everywhere. Because the current incumbents of Stormont Castle, Sinn Féin and DUP, cannot agree on policing and justice, the former has determined they will agree on nothing.
As one DUP source told Slugger O'Toole this afternoon, "they [Sinn Féin] want us to share policing and justice with them, at a time when they are telling their people that they cannot share a road with us". This is a reference to the signal lack of any solution to the long-term stand-off over Orange marching routes across Northern Ireland.
Both these parties came to power on the promise (vaguely underwritten by the British and Irish governments) that peace would flow if both "extremes'" were brought inside the tent. No one with a memory long enough to remember the days of the Troubles can doubt they have largely done so.
But if Clinton (and Augustine) is right and peace is something more than the absence of war, both parties stand indicted of squandering the peace.
Despite Sinn Féin's understandable impatience (they promised their activists delivery on this by last May), the issue of policing and justice will continue to run and run. Or rather walk, walk and walk; for just as long as one part of the joint ministerial office at the top continues not to talk cold political turkey to the other …
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/Smiles-from-Robinson-and-McGuinness.5727018.jp
ALTHOUGH Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness put on a public show of unity for the visit of Hillary Clinton, there were hints of problems between the pair, writes SAM McBRIDE.
AS the sun rose behind the trees which surround Stormont Castle early yesterday morning, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness wandered around the lawn, chatting easily to a couple of advisors.
About half an hour later a smiling Peter Robinson was dispatched at the front door of the building from a gleaming black Jaguar.
But when the two men appeared together a short time later the strains between them were more apparent.
Emerging from inside the OFMDFM headquarters, they spoke a little while descending the steps.
Then they chatted slightly awkwardly as the television cameras focused on their smiling features.
The pair didn't have long to maintain their show of public harmony as wailing police sirens soon announced the arrival of Mrs Clinton's motorcade.
Flanked by the waiting welcomers and followed by a herd of advisors, security guards, the US Ambassador to the UK, US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland Declan Kelly and other diplomats, Mrs Clinton ascended the steps with her waiting welcomers.
Once inside the building, where she held both separate and joint meetings with Messrs McGuinness and Robinson, the discussions stretched on considerably longer than had been scheduled.
A group of DUP ministers - Edwin Poots, Arlene Foster and Nelson McCausland – left the building separately from a Sinn Fein delegation comprising Gerry Adams, Caitriona Ruane, Michelle Gildernew and Martina Anderson.
The two parties' junior ministers, Robin Newton and Gerry Kelly, also emerged separately.
Eventually Mrs Clinton emerged at the door with Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness at her side. The laughing trio made their way to three podiums, where each read from a prepared statement.
Mrs Clinton spoke of "productive meetings" with the two ministers and described Northern Ireland as a "model for conflict resolution and reconciliation around the world".
When Mr Robinson spoke there were undertones of the tension between Sinn Fein and the DUP.
The First Minister said: "Of course there are difficulties but I believe that we are committed to making it work; we are committed to the long haul; we are committed to overcoming the problems that we will face and we are very grateful for the assistance that we have had from the US."
The DUP leader spoke for less than two minutes but his Sinn Fein ministerial colleague, who last week angrily rejected DUP MLA Simon Hamilton's description of him as "the deputy", spoke for more than double that time.
Opening and closing his remarks to Mrs Clinton with some words of Irish, Mr McGuinness at points hinted at the fundamental difficulties between the two lead parties in the Executive.
"We do face, as Peter has said, huge challenges ahead," he said.
"I believe that our process is working; I believe that it can work much better if we work in a spirit of equality and partnership and press on to face and overcome the challenges which are clearly before us."
Making Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness smile and joke in public is an accomplishment few other politicians could manage, but it appeared to have little lasting impact on Sinn Fein-DUP relations.
As Mrs Clinton was leaving the Province, the Assembly debated a motion from Sinn Fein members who attacked DUP Culture Minister Nelson McCausland for his refusal to attend any ministerial event that would include a visit to a Roman Catholic church because of his personal opposition to the religion
http://www.belfastmedia.com/news_article.php?ID=3710
Roisin McManus
A new plaque depicting one of Irish history's most influential figures is set to be unveiled in Andersonstown.
A plaque with an image of James Connolly will be unveiled by West Belfast MP Gerry Adams on Friday.
The new plaque will be formally unveiled at the front of Sinn Féin's Andersonstown constituency office – Connolly House – on October 9 at 3pm.
Over the past two years the Connolly House advice centre has been refurbished and now opens from 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday.
The building is also the headquarters of Sinn Féin's West Belfast Comhairle Ceantair.
Councillor Caoimhín Mac Giolla Mhín, Andersonstown's new Sinn Féin councillor, will chair the unveiling at which Gerry Adams will speak about the legacy of James Connolly and the important role Connolly House has played throughout the years up to the present day in providing a service to the people of the Andersonstown area and beyond.
“I am very proud to be associated with this event to remember James Connolly and to connect the work of Connolly in Belfast 90 years ago to the role of this office in working for the community today,” said Councillor Mac Giolla Mhín.
“An invite is extended to local people to attend the unveiling in honour of James Connolly, a great Irish patriot and former Falls Road resident,” he added.
http://www.belfastmedia.com/editorial_article.php?ID=535
EDITORIAL-Belfast Telegraph
Arson that damages any building is always a deplorable act, but arson at a historical building is somehow even more reprehensible.
Sadly, St Comgall’s Primary School on the Falls Road is one such historical site in West Belfast which is now all too familiar with the smell of smoke, as fires are a threat to its continuing legacy.
St Comgall's was built in the 1800s and was a Protestant boys’ school. In the 1920s, the school was burned down by republicans because the British Army were occupying it during the pogroms. The school fell into disrepair and was rebuilt in the 1930s as a Catholic boys’ school and was also used as a community centre.
The beautiful builiding – which recently had its intricate railings painstakingly repaired – was last used as a school in the late 1980s and was then used as a training and employment agency up until the mid-1990s.
Now owned by the Falls Community Council, which is spearheading the St Comgall’s Regeneration Project, the building deserves to be respected and admired, not used as a boozing den for thugs who would rather burn it to the ground than see it regenerated. In recent weeks thugs have broken into the building, climbed on to its roof, burned bins nearby and, earlier this year, stolen tools and threatened workers who were carrying out repairs at the old Falls Road school.
It’s about time these thugs realised that St Comgall’s was an important focus of West Belfast long before they were here, and will still be standing proud – with the support of this community – long after they have last cast an ominous shadow on the Falls Road.
http://www.derryjournal.com/journal/Hunger-strikers-mother-fully-behind.5727317.jp
The mother of a Derry man who died on hunger strike says she fully supports the INLA's move away from violence.
Peggy O'Hara, whose son Patsy, an INLA volunteer, died on hunger strike in Long Kesh in 1981, says she is happy with the move which was announced at the weekend
Peggy O'Hara
"I am happy with the announcement and happy that the political stance of the movement has not changed," she told the 'Journal' last night.
"The main thing for me is that they still remain implacably opposed to the Good Friday Agreement and the notion of a British police force in Ireland.
"I understand that it is only the tactics that have changed and that the political objectives remain the same as they were in 1981.
"I give my full support to the republican socialist movement," she added.
Mrs O'Hara has a long connection with the republican socialist movement and stood as an independent republican candidate in the Assembly elections in 2007 on an anti-PSNI ticket.
She received more than 1,700 first preference votes but was not elected.
Meanwhile, IRSP ard comhairle member Martin McMonagle says the families of INLA members who died during the Troubles were consulted before Sunday's announcement.
"A series of talks have been going on for the last few years," he said. "Families were happy in 1998 when the ceasefire was announced and that has not changed," he added.
Mr McMonagle insists the move is supported by the "vast majority" of republican socialists and ruled out any possibility of a split in the ranks of the INLA.
"If people were unhappy, this initiative would not have happened," he said. "It was important for us to keep the movement intact."
http://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/17568
Speaking after the arrest yesterday, in a stolen vehicle, of a person who was released last month after being convicted for his role in the murder of respected West Belfast man Harry Holland, West Belfast Sinn Fein MLA Paul Maskey said:
''The release of this person in September deeply angered the West Belfast community and highlighted once again the shameful manner in which the Public Prosecution Service dealt with those responsible for the murder of Harry Holland.
''At the time, along with the Holland family and the community, Sinn Fein expressed its outrage at the deal done to reduce the charges in the case of this person and the girl and the leniency of the subsequent sentences.
''In the case of Harry Holland's murder, it was clear that the PSNI made a considerable effort to build a strong case.
''Unfortunately, the PPS and the judiciary acted in a shameful manner and now we hear that one of those involved in Harry's murder has been arrested by the PSNI Auto Crime Team and charged with a very serious crime.
''Many families in West Belfast have lost loved ones at the hands of death drivers.
''How must all those families and the Holland family feel today, knowing that the PPS allowed this to happen because of a secret deal?
''Sinn Fein raised this deal with the British Attorney General at the time and we are awaiting a meeting with the British Attorney General about the Harry Holland case.
''Gerry Adams is still awaiting a response from the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alisdair Fraser, in relation to correspondence relating to the conduct of the PPS in the Holland case.
''The PPS needs to change. There needs to be a root and branch examination of how prosecution cases are conducted. We must ensure that we attain a prosecution service which is truly independent, accountable and which has the confidence of all sections of the community.
''The transfer of policing and justice powers represents a unique opportunity to begin this process and to construct a public prosecution service that is representative of and accountable to the community and free from partisan political control.
''The administration of justice must serve the people and be seen to serve the people.''
http://www.irishnews.com/articles/540/5860/2009/10/12/629860_396723618601Loyalismm.html
Suzanne McGonagle
12/10/09
THE Progressive Unionist Party conference has heard calls for loyalism to “move to the next stage in the evolution of the peace process”.
Party leader Dawn Purvis told delegates at the conference in east Belfast that, if Northern Ireland failed to not deal with the past, the region risked reliving the conflict.
Ms Purvis also said that Sinn Fein was trying to avoid dealing with the past by setting unrealistic demands on how to tackle the legacy of the Troubles.
“Our future is inextricably linked with our past,” she said.
“In order to build a peaceful and stable future we must deal with the issue of our conflicted past and so loyalism must move to the next stage in the evolution of the
peace process.
“The tendency at the minute is to hang all the ills of this society on the people who had the masks and the guns.
“It’s this notion that ‘Northern Ireland would have been a lovely place if only all the bad people had gone away’.”
Updated: 11/5/2009
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