Conference tallis::celt

  re. .0
  Oh God, here go those "Greener brothers", independent
  Human Rights organization Amnesty International.

  Well, then again they do only visit northern Ireland
  regularly to investigate human rights abuses, so
  they obviously must have a "blinkered" view of
  what's really going on.

  Worse than that, have you heard some of the things
  Father Des Wilson (Human rights worker just awarded
  for his work by Helsinki Watch) has to say about what
  the British are up to in north east Ireland.  Being
  a human rights activist, he probably also has a
  "blinkered" view.

  Heaven save us Americans from the reports of Human
  Rights organizations, and human rights activists.
  We might get confused and think that the British forces
  are in active collusion with their loyalist death
  squads.  

  Please, George could we only have clear, informed
  west-brit postings in here, so we can be just as
  ignorant as some of our green brothers (those who are
  as green as the green hills of Ireland) in the
  Republic.

                       Mark
  

 

At least Amnesty criticised the IRA.  That's more than you've ever done 
Mark.  

And before you start - yes, it is very bad indeed if there has been 
collusion : yes, it's very bad if justice isn't applied even-handedly. But 
it still doesn't alter the fact that the IRA and their supporters are the 
biggest obstacle to peace in NI.  


Mark R.

    Nice to see AI  picking up the shopping centre bombings (accidents
    according to Mark H)
    
    Regards
    
    Bruce

 In light of the report of high level collusion 
 between the British government and the loyalist
 death squads, how can one seriously believe the
 British government claims of "neutrality", of
 no vested interest in holding on to their colony,
 of being an honest broker for peace?

 It's becoming more and more obvious to the world,
 the British are not really interested in letting
 go of this colony.

 The truth is coming out, and Britain can no longer
 lie to the people of the world.  A government truly
 interested in keeping the peace, would not be
 colluding with the loyalist death squads.

                               Mark

    
    Mark
    
    This wouldn't be the AI report that you are reffering to would it ??
    
    Or perhaps the report that refers to the IRA's continued campaign of
    attacking military seaside resorts, railway embankments,  Libraries, 
    high street shops etc.
    
    Just curious to know which papers you read on Planet Holohan.  When are
    you due over for another holiday Mark ??
    
    Regards
    
    Bruce

 re. .5

 Try reading note .0 and you'll understand the
 report I am talking about.

                 Mark

"Mad Dog" McGlinchey was shot dead in Eire yesterday.  He used to be the 
leader of the INLA (remember the ones who were at war with the IRA in the 
mid 80's).  

Police suspect that the killers were ex-collegues seeking to settle old 
scores.

Nothing to do with collusion - but I thought I'd let you all know anyway.

Mark

Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London WC1X 8DJ
United Kingdom

10 February 1994

UNITED KINGDOM: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CALLS ON UK GOVERNMENT TO ADDRESS ISSUES
          RAISED IN REPORT ON POLITICAL KILLINGS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Amnesty International is calling on the UK government to stop dodging the
crucial issues raised in its report on political killings in Northern Ireland.

     "What we've heard so far are critics who say we've said too much or too
little, too soon or too late, in the report. When will we hear serious answers
to the allegations of cover-ups of killings and collusion that are in the
report?", Amnesty International said. The government has not responded to the
critical recommendation of the report: to hold wide-ranging, independent
inquiries into the issues of security force killings and collusion between
government forces and Loyalist paramilitaries.

     "If the government has nothing to hide, why is it afraid to ask
questions," Amnesty International said. "And why is the Chief Constable of the
Royal Uster Constabulary pre-empting the findings and constricting the scope
of the current Stevens inquiry by stating that Stevens will not go to Northern
Ireland and that no arrests and prosecutions are anticipated."

     The only response so far on the critical allegations of collusion between
security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries is statistics on charges laid
against Loyalist and Republican forces. Those statistics do not clarify how
many of the charges against Loyalist paramilitaries were for purely criminal
offences and how many were for attacks on Republican suspects targeted by the
security forces. "It also doesn't tell us why inside information about
Loyalist groups responsible for dozens of killings was not used to prosecute
Loyalists," Amnesty International said. "It doesn't explain why lawyer Patrick
Finucane was not warned that he was being targeted for murder."

      The response on security force killings as well does not answer the
serious allegations of cover-ups of past killings. The refusal by the Chief
Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Hugh Annesley, to hand over
information about past disputed killings to an inquest simply reinforces
suspicions that there has been a cover up of murders by the security forces.

	BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) -- Pro-British ``loyalist'' gunmen
on Friday shot and wounded three workers repairing the headquarters
of the Sinn Fein party, which supports the IRA.
	Last week, the loyalists fired a rocket at the headquarters in
Catholic west Belfast. The shootings, including another overnight,
have increased tension in Belfast. The capital had suffered
relatively little political-sectarian violence since the December
peace declaration for Northern Ireland.
	The loyalist Ulster Defense Association, the republic's largest
Protestant paramilitary group, claimed responsibility for Friday's
attack that left three workers wounded in the stomach and legs. The
outlawed UDA targets Catholics in general and Sinn Fein activists
in particular in its campaign to keep Northern Ireland under
British rule.
	Witnesses said the gunmen escaped on foot through a Catholic
neighborhood and headed toward a Protestant district on the other
side of Belfast's main freeway.
	Overnight, a grandfather babysitting his daughter's four
children was shot and seriously wounded in a north Belfast home,
police said. No group claimed responsibility.
	Sinn Fein accused Northern Ireland's security forces of
colluding with the Protestant gunmen in their attacks on the party
headquarters, a claim police dismiss as propaganda.
	Besides the gun and rocket attacks, the UDA also left a grenade
attached to a trip wire outside the office Feb. 7. British army
experts defused the explosive after a Sinn Fein worker spotted it.
	On Thursday the Irish Republican Army committed its first
killing of the year, blasting an armored police van as it drove
into a Catholic neighborhood of south-central Belfast. Killed
behind the wheel was 30-year-old Constable Johnston Beacom, a
father of three small children.
	British Prime Minister John Major and Irish leader Albert
Reynolds, who are to meet Saturday in London to discuss their peace
declaration, have offered Sinn Fein a place in peace talks if the
IRA first ends its violent campaign against British rule.

    
    You're impossible Holohan. How can you expect any credibility at all
    when you say "British attacks" of the attacks by the paramils? Still,
    you long ago lost any claim to credibility so I suppose it doesn't
    matter. 
    

  "British", "Pro-British", "People who consider 
  themselves British", take your pick Eastland.
           

    
    Nevertheless, fact remains you erroneously report this as if the
    British govt ordered it. You have no evidence of that at all.
    

 re. .12
   I didn't say the political wing of the British
 Occupation Army in north east Ireland, ordered it!

 Now that you mention it though, they probably did,
 given the evidence of collusion between the British
 government and the loyalist death squads.
 Amnesty International believes there is enough evidence
 of this high level collusion.

                    Mark

    
    "British attacks on three Irish workers" speaks for itself.
    

    
    If you want a chance to play GRAB A GRAND on next weeks House Party
    just call 0891 100 100 and leave your guess.
    
    This weeks question...
    
    	How many times will Mark Holohan use the words COLLUDE or COLLUSION
        in the next week ???
    
    
    Cheers,
    		Noel Edmunds... 

    
    I dunno, but if we upset him he'll send mail demanding deletion, so one
    cannot really ask.
    

 re. .15

 Make light of a serious situation as much as you wish.
 The accusations of collusion come not just from
 nationalists organizations, but also from a highly
 respected human rights organization,
 (Amnesty International).

 The real question GMCKEE, is, how long will the British
 continue to collude with their loyalist death 
 squads?

 Answer: Probably until they're all forcibly removed.

               Have a nice day,
                  Mark

    
    So AI say the Sinn Fein HQ attacks were inspired by the British do
    they?  
    

 >>Probably until they're all forcibly removed.

    
     I've got to ask,Who is going to "Forcibly remove" them ??
    
    
    SCott

    
    Maybe the 'activist' who lives in Rochester, New York.
    

    
    Mark,
    
    	I was not making light of this situation, I was however taking
    a dig at the predictability and total single-mindedness of your
    replies. 
    
    	Do you have a program set up that pulls in all your favorite
    phrases ie the collusion ones, the North East Ireland one, (on a map that
     would be from Dublin to the border), the AI ones....?
    
    	It's virtually guaranteed that every time you reply (and I don't
    mean copy something from the 'net) at least one of your favourite
    statements (are they yours?) will be included.
    
    Cheers,
    
    	Gordon...

    
    I think we should charge him for all the catharsis we're providing.
    

>   I didn't say the political wing of the British
>   Occupation Army in north east Ireland, ordered it!

If it's an occupying army, NI does not belong to Britain but presumably
to Ireland.

That makes the loyalists Irish also....

Dave

 re. .21

 No Gordon,
   The topic title is Evidence of collusion, hence the
 references to the collusion between the British and
 their loyalist death squads.
                       Mark

    Reading the tripe Holohead posts, is singularly depressing. It's proof,
    if ever proof were needed, that the NI "problem" is totally insoluble.
    Worse, it's proof that it will remain so as long as the participants
    only remove their heads from their bums long enough to plunge them into
    the sand, and to insert their fingers into the recently vacated
    orifice.
    
    Laurie.

>     <<< Note 1328.23 by NEWOA::GIDDINGS_D "The third world starts here" >>>

>That makes the loyalists Irish also....
    
    I think this is true - the loyalists *are* Irish, i.e. they were born
    in Ireland. They may deny this if asked but this is just another
    problem caused with the creation of the statelet of NI.
    
    They carry British passports and call themselves 'British' but Britain
    is comprised of England, Scotland and Wales so they can't be British.
    They may be British citizens, not resident in Britain. 
    
    Maybe they are UKish or UKers.
    
    Tony.

    When they win at football they're Irish,
    and when they lose they're British...  ;v)

    
    Well whoever they are, they've been occupying the place they live for
    longer than either of you, ancestrally speaking, so why the funning
    o'er what they call themselves. 
    

>    They carry British passports and call themselves 'British' but Britain
>    is comprised of England, Scotland and Wales so they can't be British.
>    They may be British citizens, not resident in Britain. 
    
My passport must be different from yours. If my memory serves me right, it
mentions something about 'British Citizen: Citizen of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.

Then again, I'm also entitled to an Irish passport. Since Ireland has never
formally recognised that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, it follows that 
they regard anyone born in NI as Irish.

Just as a matter of interest, this is why a lot of reporters with Belfast 
accents started appearing on the news some years ago. During the Falklands war,
Argentina wasn't exactly happy about having British reporters on its soil.
Staff from BBC Northern Ireland suddenly acquired Irish passports...

Dave  

  I've just finished reading the full AI report 
  published in January 1994.  Anyone who thinks
  that British government collusion with loyalist
  death squads consists of isolated incidents, or
  only incidents in the distant past, should read
  the report.

  The British security force collusion with the loyalist
  death squads is ongoing and wide spread.

                    Mark

    
     Well post it and let us all read it.
    
    
    
    
    SCott
    
    
    

  I don't have the time to type in the 40 some odd
  pages, but I'd be willing to make a photocopy for
  anyone who would like to type it in.

                     Mark

    
    Nah, we can trust your unbiased opinion, I'm sure...
    

 re. .33

 Here's a quote from the intro section of the
 AI report.  A multitude of specific cases of collusion
 are presented in the report.

"In killings by security personnel in which the circumstances, but not
responsibility, are disputed, the withholding or distortion of
information may server to conceal extrajudicial executions for which
governments should be held accountable.  Extrajudicial executions may
also be concealed when deliberate killings are carried out by civilian
paramilitary forces for which governments accept no responsibility,
whenever such killings occur with the acquiescence, collusion or
complicity of the security forces."

"Amnesty International has been investigating killings in disputed
circumstances by members of the security forces in Northern Ireland for
over a decade.  Between 1969 and November 1993, about 350 people were
acknowledged to have been killed by members of the security forces.
About half of the 350 were unarmed.  Most of those killed came from the
Catholic community.  The organization has focussed in particular on
those cases where it has been alleged that security force personnel
deliberately killed people as an alternative to arresting them.  Amnesty
International remains unconvinced by government statements that such a
policy does or did not exist because such statements are not
substantiated by evidence of an official will to investigate fully and
impartially each incident, to make the facts publicly known, to bring
the perpetrators to justice or to bring relevant legislation into line
with international standards."

Ed. note:
 Examples of this collusion by the government security
 forces and loyalist death squads are presented in this
 document.

 Amnesty Internationl
 United Kingdom
 Political Killings in Northern
 February 1994
 AI Index: EUR 45/01/94
 
 Amnesty International
 322 Eigth Ave. 
 New York, N.Y  10001

    
    The first paragraph says "may also be concealed.. " etc. The second
    seems to have nothing to say about collusion with loyalist
    paramilitaries, dealing instead with an alleged shoot-to-kill policy. 
    And this is your evidence?
    

    
    Didn't work for you, did it?

From AP/RN Thursday, 12 May 1994.


RUC IDENTIFY WITNESSES TO SUSPECTED KILLER.


Key witnesses to a recent murder carried out by a loyalist death squad
are living in fear of their lives after the RUC revealed their identities
to the suspected killer.
In the aftermath of the killing a number of weeks ago, four people gave
statements to the RUC in which they said they could recognise the killer.
Consequently , the four were asked to go to the Donegall Pass RUC barracks
to an identity parade in which the alleged killer was taking part.
Before going to the RUC barracks, the wittnesses sought assurances form the
RUC that their identities would be kept secret and that they would view
the identity line-out from behind a screen. These assurances were given
by a senior RUC officer.
The four witnesses were kept in a room at Donegall Pass barracks before
being called out, one at a time. But instead of being brought to view
the parade in an enclosed room, they were brought to view the parade in
an enclosed room on which the suspected killer, his solicitor, and nine
other men were sitting..
Two of the witnesses who spoke to AP/RN said that the statements they
had previously given the RUC allong with their names and addresses
were then read out. One of the wittnesses said that everyone in the room
clearly heard what the RUC inspector read out. For obvious reasons,
the witnesses do not wish to be publicly identitfied.
The RUC, by their their action, have put the lives of theese four people
under the most extreme threat. There can bo no doubt that what happened
in Donegall Pass RUC station was deliberate. According to legal sources,
Donegall Pass barracks is the only one in Belfast with a facility for
carrying out secret identity parades, yet theese witnesses were brought
to an open room.
Commenting on the affair, Sinn Fein's Tom Hartley described the RUC
action as 'another form of collusion". "By identitfying, to loyalist
suspects, the names and addresses of nationalists who might be prepared
to give evidence against them they are setting them up for murder"

                                ***************


                    Lost' British Files Detail 200 People

    THE DISCOVERY OF British army files containing the personal details of up
to 200 nationalists from all over Belfast was largely ignored by most sections
of the media with the exception of one Belfast weekly newspaper.

    The list was apparently lost by a British soldier and handed in to the West
Belfast weekly, Andersonstown News. At least six of those named on these lists
have been targeted in loyalist attacks in the last three months. Loyalist
bombs have exploded at the homes of two men mentioned, while another man was
named by the UDA as the intended target of an attack in which a North Belfast
man was shot dead.

    A number of Belfast Sinn Fein councillors are also included on the lists
which provide detailed descriptions of some of those named. Another indication
of this detail is that vehicle registration numbers, make of vehicle, colour
and distinguishing features, such as 'grill damaged'; 'dent on passenger door';
are all written into the crown forces sheets. Some people who had changed car
since that list was found had this fact noted on the crown forces' document.
AP/RN made comparisons with another set of files found in a loyalist area of
East Belfast shortly before Christmas 1993 and discovered that the information
on the recently-found files was accurately updated.

    Clearly, such British army and RUC information is being used by loyalist
death squads who are continuing to expose the inadequacies of the whitewash
inquiry of the Stevens Report, purportedly set up to ''investigate'' collusion
between the crown forces and loyalist death squads.

    That collusion exists has now been recognised, even by anti-republican
critics such as Cardinal Cahal Daly. As more and more evidence of British
double-dealing comes to light, the ranks of the sceptics look set to grow
while nationalists who viewed this week's RUC search and arrest operation
against loyalists with suspicion will have their suspicions vindicated.

                            ---------------------



                Two Catholic Workers Shot Dead In Tiger's Bay

    IN A DOUBLE KILLING carried out in the loyalist Tiger's Bay area of North
Belfast on Tuesday, 17 May, two Catholic workers lost their lives at the hands
of UVF assassins. A third man, a brother-in-law of one of the victims received
facial injuries during the shooting.

    Eyewitnesses reported seeing the UVF killer stand in a children's
playground and open fire with a machine gun. The men were hit as they began
their lunch break. One man died instantly, the other a short time later. The
killer ran off up Parkmount Street after the killings.

    Summing up the the feelings of Six-County nationalists North Belfast Sinn
Fein Councillor Joe Austin spoke movingly minutes after the killings. ''The
killing fields of North Belfast have again witnessed a terrible slaughter. The
purpose behind this attack, as with so many others, is to strike terror into
the nationalist community and force it to concede to the demands of unionism.''

    The dead men were later named as father of six, 44-year-old Eamon Fox and
Gary Convie (24) both from Maghery in County Armagh. Both were GAA members. The
men were subcontractors carrying out electrical work on a building site in
North Queen Street beside the loyalist Tiger's Bay area. Both men received the
last rites from Father Sean Emerson from the nearby Holy Family chapel. The two
men will be buried today, Thursday, 19 May after Requiem Mass at Maghery.

    The building site is situated less than 500 yards from both York Road and
North Queen Street RUC Barracks. This showed the killers confidence that their
deed would go unopposed by state forces.

    Another nationalist worker who has since left the site where over 50 men
work and who will not be returning, said that the murdered men had been stopped
at a British army checkpoint several times over the past number of weeks as
they drove to and from the job.

    In the aftermath of the double killing the RUC press office went into
overdrive to show that their officers had captured men and ''rifles''.
The ''weapons'' turned out to be replica guns, quite obviously incapable of
being fired, yet the RUC continued with their news management up to 12 hours
later. Anyone with a basic knowledge of firearms, particularly the
heavily-armed and highly-trained RUC, would have known within minutes that the
replicas were not the murder weapons.

    That the RUC allowed this misinformation to circulate for up to 12 hours
after these ''weapons'' were found is an indication of their strategy of media
manipulation and a further attempt to inflate their minimal efforts to contain
loyalist violence.

    RUC Assistant Chief Constable for the greater Belfast area, Ronnie
Flanagan, who arrived swiftly on the scene described the murders as ''purely
sectarian''.

    Responding to this comment by RUC supremo Flanagan, Craigavon Sinn Fein
Councillor Brendan Curran who has himself survived several UVF attempts on his
life called on the RUC to reveal results of forensic tests on guns used in
recent loyalist murders and tell the public if they were part of the
consignment brought in by Brian Nelson when he was working as British agent.

                                 *************


                'GET BACK IN THERE YOU FENIAN BITCH' - killer
                     Nationalist gunned down in Ardoyne

    ''GET BACK IN THERE YOU FENIAN BITCH'' was what a UDA death squad member
shouted at 12-year-old Jolene McAllister seconds after shooting dead her
uncle, 23-year-old Martin Bradley in Ardoyne, North Belfast last Thursday, 12
May. He also kicked her in the chest as he made his getaway.

    Martin Bradley died shortly after 5.30pm after being shot several times by
the hooded assassins in his aunt's Crumlin Road home. The UDA assailant had
walked in through the open front door and opened fire as Bradley cradled his
baby nephew, James.

    An uncle of Bradley told reporters how he had found his nephew's body lying
on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. The baby was also found lying on the
floor covered in his uncle's blood.

    The distraught relative described Martin Bradley as ''an innocent big
fella''. ''I was in my own house when we got the phone call from my sister. He
was  nursing a one-year-old child at the time, and the loyalist just kept
shooting into him, even as he fell to the ground with the child still in his
arms.'' An eyewitness to the shooting described how the assassin walked calmly
from the house to the getaway car ''as cool as anything''. Another relative
said  that two weeks ago the crown forces had threatened Martin Bradley's life
in  Oldpark RUC Barracks after he had gone to sort out a driving matter.
Shortly after Thursday's shooting a crowd of residents shouted at an
identified member of the crown forces whom they maintained had threatened
Bradley's life.

    Twenty-four hours after the shooting around 120 neighbours of Bradley
joined North Belfast Sinn Fein Councillors Bobby Lavery, Paddy Mc Manus and Joe
Austin at Oldpark RUC Barracks to protest at collusion between the RUC and
loyalist death squads.

    Less than half-a-mile from Thursday's killing, another loyalist gun attack
was carried out, this time on a Catholic delivery man from the Antrim Road area
of North Belfast. The man targeted was making a regular weekly delivery to a
shop in Disraeli Street at 11am on Monday, 16 May, when the death squad struck.
Five loyalists had taken over a house in the street the previous night and
held a couple and a nine-year-old boy hostage. A shop assistant at Disraeli
Street told reporters that she had heard a single shot seconds after the
Catholic man had left her shop. It appears from reports from the scene that
the would-be killers struck as he went to the back of the van. After shooting
the man in the upper thigh the the gang fled the scene in a hi-jacked van.

    The victim's condition was later described as ''serious'' by a hospital
spokesperson. Ironically an ambulance going to the scene passed mourners
leaving the funeral mass for Martin Bradley.

    Later on Monday loyalists in Armagh shot two nationalists as they stood
talking outside a house in Drumbreda Park in the Loughall Road area after
11pm. The pair were blasted with shotgun pellets fired by a loyalist
travelling past them in a stolen car. Both were taken to a local hospital
where they were treated for their wounds.

    A Derryman, the target of a loyalist bomb attack, has told how his life was
threatened by the RUC three weeks ago. During an RUC raid on his home an
identified RUC member told Tommy McGlinchey that ''there were a lot of angry
people in the Waterside who would want to get rid of people like him''.
Tommy McGlinchey was speaking only hours after loyalists had blown off the
front door of his Chapel Road home in the Waterside. It is believed a pipe
bomb, which had been planted in the early hours of Monday morning, was used.
Windows and cars belonging to neighbours were also damaged in the blast.
McGlinchey, who had been a member of both the Irish Independence Party and
Sinn Fein, lost both legs in a 1975 loyalist no-warning car bomb. He vowed
that he and his family would not be forced out of their home despite a number
of loyalist attacks.

    Following that first loyalist car bombing McGlinchey and his family's
personal details were found among documents hidden in a loyalist dump and this
fact was noted during the Stevens Inquiry into allegations of collusion between
loyalist death squads and the crown forces.

    In 1986 loyalists made a further attempt on McGlinchey's life. They tried
to shoot him as he drove down Fountain Hill, near his home. Mass cards have
also been sent to his home. Sinn Fein EU election candidate Dodie McGuinness
speaking to AP/RN shortly after the bomb attack said that she had issued a
statement three weeks ago highlighting the threat made to the family by the
RUC member. ''This RUC officer is part of an RUC squad that has been targeting
nationalists in the city,'' said McGuinness.

                               ****************
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    Mark,
    
    Excuse me for going off the subject for a second, but what job do you
    actually do at Digital ?
    It can't be much, coz you seem to spend all your working day writing
    entries over 300 lines long into this notesfile ! 
    
    How do to manage ?
    
    Intrigued of SQF 
    

    Give the man credit, Mark doesn't actually write all these notes, just
    copy them from USENET news and other electronic sources. I am sure his
    _job_ in Digital doesn't suffer.

 "Amnesty International continues to receive regular reports that certain
Catholics have been informed by the RUC that their names are on Loyalist
"hit-lists".  These people are not informed of any specific details
which the Loyalists might have in addition to their names.  Nor has it
always been disclosed whether their names originated from security
documents. Members of the Catholic community continue to be killed by
Loyalist gunmen in random attacks in Catholic areas, as well as in more
selective killings of targeted individuals.
"
  
"Sinn Fein member Alan Lundy was shot dead by UDA gunmen in May 1993 as
he carried out repair work at the home of elected Sinn Fein Belfast city
councillor Alex Maskey.  The UDA later said it had intended to kill Alex
Maskey.  West Belfast Member of Parliament Dr. Joe Hendron (SDLP)
accused the security forces of collusion, which was denied by the RUC.
He said "that loyalist gangsters can enter the heart of Andersonstown [
a nationalist area in Belfast] on a busy Saturday evening firing shots
with soldiers and police normally saturating the area, it does raise the
question of collusion.  I do believe this has happened and I do point the
finger at the security forces" (Irish News, 3 May 1993).  Sinn Fein
spokespersons claimed there had been considerable security force activity
- including regular identity checking, harassment and taking photographs
of people working - around the home while the repair work was being
carried out.  It was claimed that on the day of the killing large
armoured vehicles remained parked in the street for a number of hours,
and then suddenly left."

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams' wife and son were in their home when
the UDA threw a grenade at it in June 1993.  They were not injured.
West Belfast SDLP councillor Alex Attwood said the attack raised serious
questions about policing and the safety of nationalist in West Belfast.
"Three times in recent months Loyalist have been able to strike with
ease deep into West Belfast and attack the homes of Sinn Fein
politicians and make their escape with equal ease.  I am unable to move
from my home off the Falls Road only yards from the scene of last
night's attack without encountering or being stopped by the RUC or army.
The very real perception among growing numbers of people is that there
is collusion between the RUC and Loyalist paramilitaries, a perception
that is fuelled by this latest attack and which is increasingly
difficult to deny" (Irish News, 10 June 1993).

After an armed UDA gang opened fire in a betting shop in a Catholic are
in April 1993, wounding five men, they drove away jeering and one them
shouted "You are all Fenian bastards".  As they drove away the gunmen
sprayed the area with more gunfire, injuring another man.  Local people
querried how such an attack could occur just 100 yards from an RUC
station in Belfast.  They also said that security force patrol had just
moved out of the area when the gunmen's car pulled up.

Further it is alleged that the security forces provide detailed layouts
of suspects' homes to Loyalist gunmen.  For example in the case of the
killing of Patrick Diarmuid Shields in January 1993 it was reported that
several months before the shooting, the RUC had removed a legally held
shotgun without giving satisfactory reasons for this decision and had
mapped out a layout of the family home.  The gunmen shot two sons
downstairs in their home, killing one and wounding the another, before
reportedly going straight to the bedroom where they shot the sleeping
father.  The family had a shop which had been the subject of an
intimidation campaign by Loyalist groups for several years, including a
hoax bomb, sectarian slogan-painting on the walls and smashed windows.

Eugene Martin was killed in February 1993 by two UVF gunmen who fired
several times shooting him in the head at close range.  A hunting rifle,
legally held by Eugene Martin, had reportedly been removed by the RUC
from his home prior to the attack.



Footnote:
Newspaper reports show that security documents were found in June 1990
in a Loyalist area in Londonderry;  that the RUC reported the loss of a
photomontage with details on 38 suspects in the Tyrone area in December
1990;  military intelligence files containing dozens of photographs went
missing in South Armagh in July 1991; 15 people in Belfast were told in
May 1992 that Loyalist paramilitaries held security information
regarding them;  British Army documents containing photographs and
details of alleged IRA and Sinn Fein members in Co. Tyrone were found in
a house in Belfast on 3 November 1993.  In September 1992 the local
newspaper, Antrim Guardian, was sent a copy of an intelligence document
containing details on 20 people.  One of them was Danny Cassidy, who had
been killed in April 1992.

 (Eds: Updates throughout)
     By Crispin Rodwell
     OMAGH, Northern Ireland, Aug 7 (Reuter) - An outlawed Protestant
guerrilla group claimed responsiblity on Sunday for the killing of a pregnant
Roman Catholic mother of five in her bedroom overnight.
     In a coded telephone message to a local radio station the Ulster
Volunteer Force admitted murdering Kathleen O'Hagan, 38.
     Hagan, who was six months pregnant, was killed when gunmen broke into her
house in a rural area known for its hardline support of unification with
Ireland.
     "She evidently heard them force their way through the back door and had
got out of bed," said a police spokesman in Omagh, where the attack took
place. "They shot her a number of times in the bedroom."
     Her children, all under the age of eight, were in the house but were
unhurt. A 17-month-old boy was in a cot by her bed.
     Police said O'Hagan's husband Patrick came home a few hours after the
attack to find her dead and their children distraught.
     Security sources said he had once been imprisoned for possessing arms and
may have been the intended target of the UVF which wants Northern Ireland to
remain British.
     O'Hagan's death brings to 52 the number of people killed in political and
sectarian violence this year. On Friday, the UVF killed a man it said was an
IRA informer. The IRA denied this.
     The murder of the woman was typical of recent attacks by so-called
loyalist groups on "soft" Catholic targets as part of their resistance to
Anglo-Irish peace initiatives and against the Irish Republican Army, which is
fighting British rule.
     Earlier the same evening, police in Belfast said a soldier and a police
officer were hurt when suspected IRA guerrillas fired a grenade at a
checkpoint near the centre of town.
     Security sources say they are worried that each side of the sectarian
divide in Northern Ireland is stepping up violence to provoke a backlash from
the other in cynical efforts to gain sympathy for their respective causes.
     This week marks the 25th anniversary of British troops deploying on
Northern Ireland's streets to try to settle "The Troubles." There has been
widespread talk of an IRA ceasefire timed to match the anniversary.
  REUTER

                        selections from 'The Irish People'
                                  August 2, 1994
                                   *************


                               CONCERN OVER SPY GEAR

    A leadng Irish politician revealed yesterday that the discovery of powerful
surveillance equipment near a house where an elderly Catholic woman was
murdered by  Loyalists had been raised at the Anglo-Irish Conference and an
American news agency has offered 25,000 for spy cameras discovered near the
bungalow where a Tyrone pensioner was murdered by the U.V.F..

Louth Flanna Fail TD Dermot Ahern, co-chairman of the British-Irish
Inter-Parliamentary Body, said he was concerned at the find.

The equipment is thought to belong to the British Crown Forces and includes
a camera with a powerful telephoto lens, a camera with wide-angle lens and a
transmitter which could have served to relay pictures to a monitoring station.

It was found by a nearby resident about 400 yards from the house near
Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, where Miss Rose Ann Mallon (76) was shot dead on May 8.
Miss Mallon was watching TV at her sister-in-law's home when gunmen fired
through the window.  She was hit several times in the back.

Her family have claimed the equipment possibly took pictures of the killers.
After the shooting, three men were arrested at a nearby R.U.C. checkpoint
and questioned for several days before being released. They included a man
reputed to be an U.V.F. commander.

Mr. Ahern said the circumstances surrounding the killing of Miss Mallon had,
"from day one, raised some very serious questions".

"This latest revelation is one, I think, which has to be taken very seriously
indeed."

He said the matter had been raised through the Anglo-Irish secretariat:  "It
is yet another one of these very unfortunate incidents which raise very
serious questions.

"There are quite a number of questions as to where, in fact, the equipment
is now and there seems to be some suggestion that, perhaps, it was taken out
before anyone could have a look at it or whatever. "There are some very serious
questions and these will be followed up."

According to Mr. Ahern, questions about who put the equipment where it was
found, who had been using it and for what purpose must be answered. And he was
concerned about the delay in revealing the equipment find:  "It was definitely n
   ot
one of these random killings.  This was somebody who was going out to
shoot a particular person.

"Unfortunately for Rose Ann Mallon, a 76-year-old woman who obviously wasn't
involved in anything, they appear to have gotten the wrong target.

"For some reason, there appears to be a targeting of a particular person
and this equipment, if it was there, would strengthen that suggestion."

Ulster Unionist MP for Fermanagh and Tyrone Ken Maginnis defended the role
of the crown forces and questioned why the discovery of the equipment had only b
   een
made public now.

"If the equipment had been in place at the time of the Rose Ann Mallon murder
at the beginning of May and was still there two months later, what does
that suggest in terms of its purpose and the reason for its use?

"It will be fairly obvious that the deployment of sophisticated surveillance
equipment is authorized at a very senior level and would not be continued
without justification.  It will also be clear that any information obtained
through the use of such devices will have been carefully monitored."

Following the discovery of video surveillance equipment in a field behind
the house where Rose Ann Mallon (76) was shot dead two months ago, her
nephew confirms that he was considering the offer he claimed had been made
by a media source.

Christopher Mallon said the two cameras, which may have recorded the attack
on his home, had been taken to a safe location in another area.

"I can't see why I should give them back to the system which will put them
on my house or anyone else's .  Maybe another murder will take place.

"If there's somebody offering this money and they are genuine people, we will
have to consider it," he said.

Standing at the spot where the cameras were found concealed beneath a hedge
on a hill behind the house, Mr. Mallon pointed out the holes where the
equipment had been installed.

He said one was two to three foot round, black with a camouflage cover over
the lens like a bird's nest.

The other had a type of net camouflage over it and was found with three boxes
containing an aerial and batteries.

A British Army spokesman refused to confirm reports that the army had
admitted the cameras belonged to crown forces, saying only that the R.U.C.
was investigating the incident.

Mr. Mallon said that crown forces had not asked the family about the cameras
until the find was publicized on Wednesday evening.  He said his lawyer had
approached detectives about the camera a week ago.

But he also said he believed that R.U.C. officers investigating the murder
of his aunt had not been informed of the existence of the cameras by the army.
"There's a good chance this is on video.  To hold vital evidence like that
from detectives in the case, it's pathetic to think these things go on," he
said.


                                   *************


                         Catholic bar owner slain by UDA

    LAUNCHING another series of indiscriminate gun attacks on the nationalist
community in Belfast the UDA shot and killed a Catholic bar owner, narrowly
missed killing two other men and almost succeeded in killing a mother and her
three daughters as they sat watching television in their North Belfast home.

All the gun and bomb attacks in Belfast were either carried out within
loyalist death squad strongholds or on their fringes where the death squads
act with impunity.

The fatal shooting of 44-year-old Bobby Monaghan in Camross Park in the
loyalist Rathcoole housing estate in North Belfast took place in the early
hours of Friday morning, 22 July, around 3am. He had just returned home after
locking up his dockside bar with his Protestant girlfriend June.

Early last month the bar was hit by a rocket propelled grenade fired by UDA
members. No one was injured. The bar had just re-opened following the blast.
Last week's killing carried out by a UDA death squad operating from the
Rathcoole estate began when the gang smashed their way into Monaghan's home.
The killers ran upstairs and shot their victim as he lay in bed. Despite
desperate pleas from his girlfriend the loyalists shot him several times.

Neighbours reported hearing the distraught woman's screams for mercy before
three shots rang out. Witnesses also reported seeing two men emerge from the
scene and walk away in different directions. It is believed that they are part o
   f
the same death squad that shot dead two Protestant workers close to this latest
shoot ing last month believing them to be Catholics.

Neighbours of Booby Monaghan expressed their disgust at the killing and
described him and his girlfriend as a quiet friendly couple.

An elderly neighbour, who said that the couple had been kind neighbours to
her for several years said she would never forget the cries of the young woman n
   or
the groans of Bobby Monaghan as he died.

Still visibly upset she said: ''I heard the gunmen breaking in and at first
thought they were coming in here. I heard them go upstairs  and then I heard
June screaming 'Please don't. Please no. Please don't shoot.'

''Then I heard June crying and calling 'Don't die Bobby, the ambulance is
coming. Don't die Bobby'.''

Sinn Fein North Belfast Councillor Joe Austin said that loyalist death squads
are ''increasing their efforts to kill Catholics''. He added that the murder
of Bobby Monaghan follows a recent pattern of attacks in which loyalists are
clearly seeking to force Catholics from areas of total loyalist control.


                                     ********

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    RE .44
    
    All very nasty and very sad. Offers no aid to peace. But what has ot
    got to do with alledged collusions.

                                     *****************


                                     The Irish Times
                                     August  17, 1994

                     SF calls for inquiry over missing security files
                                     By SUZANNE BREEN


   Sinn Fein yesterday repeated allegations of systematic collusion between the
RUC the British army and loyalist paramilitiaries and called for an independent

inquiry to be held.

   A party councillor, Mr Alex Maskey, said that the RUC had informed several
people in the New Lodge area of north Belfast that their files were in the
hands of loyalists.

   In just over two weeks, over 200 nationalists have been told the same," Mr
Maskey said. "Since the Stevens inquiry ended a few years ago, several thousand

nationalists have been told that loyalists have their personal details, yet
Stevens claimed there was no evidence of systematic collusion.

   "The evidence is now overwhelmingly to the contrary. We have a right to know

why files continue to go missing; why no efforts are made to stop it; why the
culprits have not been discovered; and when will the government commission an
independent inquiry into collusion.

   Meanwhile, an SDLP councillor in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, Mr Patsy McGlone, has

forwarded a report to the Anglo-Irish Secretariat detailing alleged incidents
of harassment by the British army in the Loughshore areas of Ballinderry and
Moortown.

   "The increase in harassment is directly related to the arrival of a Scottish

regiment in the area, Mr McGlone said. "It involves juvenile conduct such as
name calling and passing insulting remarks about members of the public and, in
an episode I witnessed, very aggressive behaviour by these soldiers. On the
latter occasion, the aggression was allowed to continue by an RUC patrol
despite numerous requests to the RUC sergeant to intervene."

   Mr McGlone said that when talking of demilitarisation, the RUC thief
Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, had ignored the reality that elements of his
police force, by their behaviour, seem totally unable to leave the baggage of
prejudice behind them".

   He advised people not to react to the "provocative behaviour" of the security

forces, who seemed intent on "creating and sustaining trouble", but to forward
details of such alleged behaviour to a priest, solicitor or local councillor.

    
    Gee, Sinn Fein, that well known bunch of august, upright citizens, from
    whence no lie has ever originated don't even include COLLUSION AT THE
    HIGHEST LEVELS OF THE BRITISH GOVT! Mark, are you sure they know
    about the AI report? You better let both them and us know where it
    talks about it.
    
    Does Sinn Fein still deny they have anything to do with the IRA btw?
    

                South African arms for Britain's death squads
                 from An Phoblacht/Republican News (Sinn Finn)
                                Sept. 15, 1994


THE CLOSE LINK between the official and unofficial arms of the
British war effort in Ireland has always meant loyalist killers have had
relatively easy access to crown forces' weaponry.


When the UVF killed four men in Cappagh, County Tyrone, on the 3 March 1991,
for instance, the muzzle for one of the guns used was found at the scene and
identified as one which could only have come from a British army weapon. The
discovery was made all the more significant when the RUC admitted the guns
used in the attack were used in seven other killings in the Lurgan and
Mid-Ulster area by the UVF.

But if loyalists have ever been in need of extra weaponry, British
Intelligence has provided it. In 1974, leading loyalist William McGrath
imported arms from Holland with the collusion of British Intelligence.
McGrath, who had been instrumental in the moves to set up the UDA, headed a
loyalist 'doomsday' planning group called Tara, but was best known as
a rapist in the Kincora Boys Home case. The Dutch arms import took place
at the time of the UDA-managed Ulster Workers' Council strike against the
Sunningdale Power-Sharing Executive. The arms shipment was never
recovered.

William McGrath had links through British Military Intelligence with the
Apartheid regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa and was later described by a
former associate, Clifford Smyth, as ''a gunrunner''.

In 1985, British Intelligence again helped loyalists acquire weaponry, this
time using Brian Nelson as their gunrunner.

The South African-loyalist link was further aided by a 48-year-old ex-merchant
seaman originally from Portadown, who had gone to live in South Africa.

Dick Wright's Ulster connections made him a useful intermediary - he was the
uncle of Alan Wright, leader of the Ulster Clubs and co-founder of a loyalist
paramilitary organisation set up with the support of the DUP, Ulster
Resistance. He was also an agent for Armscor, the South-African state-owned
company which, in defiance of the 1977 United Nations arms embargo, set about
making South Africa self-sufficient in military hardware.

Within a decade, Armscor had made the country one of the world's top ten arms
exporters. It was particularly anxious to acquire a sophisticated modern
missile system for use in Angola and Namibia. Israel (which had given South
Africa its start in the arms business, supplying designs for ships, missiles
and small arms) was equally keen to get details of the most advanced missile
available - the Starstreak being developed by Shorts in Belfast.

In 1985, Dick Wright visited the home in East Belfast of a senior UDA leader.
His offer was to supply guns to the order of at least a quarter of a million
pounds, but missile parts or plans would be an acceptable alternative to cash.


The offer was taken seriously by the UDA. Leader John McMichael
sent UDA intelligence chief and British army intelligence agent Brian Nelson
to South Africa to investigate the possibility of a deal. In February 1992,
Private Eye reported that Nelson's visit was cleared not only by the Ministry
of Defence dirty war directors, but also by an unnamed British government
minister.

The crowds travelling from Belfast to London over the weekend of 7/8 June 1985
for the McGuigan/Pedroza boxing match provided cover for the first part of
Nelson's journey.

During his two weeks in South Africa, Nelson was shown warehouses full of
weapons by Dick Wright, representing the South African state. Other reports
have claimed that Nelson also met Charles Simpson, a South African Defence
Forces (SADF) member who was also an MI5 agent. Charles Simpson had left
William McGrath's Tara group in the early 1970s, went to Rhodesia to fight for

Ian Smith's regime and joined the SADF in the early 1980s. Nelson is alleged
to have inspected a consignment of arms in Durban with Simpson, arms later
shipped to the Six Counties. One account states that this shipment landed in
the Six Counties in December 1989.

Whoever the contact or contacts, Nelson made a deal. The loyalists were to
supply South African agents with missile secrets or parts - if possible a
complete Shorts-missile system - in return for a substantial shipment of arms.

Some reports stated the South Africans also promised finance of up to 1
million.

In June 1987, the robbing of the Northern Bank in Portadown provided the
loyalists with money for the deal to go ahead - 150,000 of the 325,000 taken
in the raid was spent on South African arms. This bought more weaponry than
the UDA could handle, so the UVF and Ulster Resistance were made 'partners' in
the enterprise. A top secret unit responsible for developing channels of
communication on behalf of several loyalist paramilitary groups was set up.

Roy Metcalfe, a member of the unit, represented Ulster Resistance in the
negotiations. When he was executed by the IRA in October 1989, Ulster
Resistance claimed he had been 'set up' by British Intelligence.
The deal was completed and final arrangements were made in December 1987.
Military Intelligence had been informed by Brian Nelson of developments at
every stage of the proceedings; he passed on all the details including the
method to be used to smuggle in the weapons. No action was taken.

At the end of December 1987, Joseph Fawzi, a Lebanese intermediary employed by
a US arms dealer working for the South Africans, dispatched a huge consignment
of arms which landed without difficulty in January 1988 somewhere along the
County Down coast. Two hundred AK47 automatic rifles, 90 Browning pistols,
around 500 fragmentation grenades, 30,000 rounds of ammunition and a dozen
RPG7 rocket launchers disappeared without trace, the haul having apparently
been divided into three parts shortly after its arrival.

If discovered, the arms would not have revealed their true origin; many were
Czech-made weapons initially used by the PLO in Lebanon where they had been
captured by the Israelis and sold to Armscor.

The shipment had not been let in through negligence, mistake or oversight. The
decision to allow it to go ahead had been taken (presumably at the highest
levels) months before. Brian Nelson states in a prison journal:
''In 1987 I was discussing with my handler Ronnie the South African operation
when he told me that because of the deep suspicion the seizure would have
aroused, to protect me it had been decided to let the first shipment into the
country untouched.''

Nelson's involvement in setting up the UDA's transport system meant he, and
therefore British Intelligence, knew the location of the farmhouse where the
weapons would be stored initially after landing. Yet, at the time of Nelson's
trial, British Intelligence was telling the BBC's Inside Ulster that their
surveillance of the shipment had ''broken down''. Later they claimed they had
"lost track" of the shipment, but never disclosed at what point this is
supposed to have happened.

On 8 January 1988, Davy Payne, an ex-British paratrooper and a UDA Brigadier,
was arrested outside Portadown as he transported 60 assault rifles, rockets
and handguns - the portion of the shipment assigned to the UDA. At the time,
the arrest was attributed to good luck and 'keen observation'. The UDA did not
appear overly concerned with the seizure and in fact, later disowned Payne. On
the 14 March 1988, it held a press conference announcing ''a resumption'' of
its military campaign and stating that despite the interception of its portion
of the South African shipment, it was "better equipped than ever before".

Davy Payne's arrest in the Portadown seizure also drew attention to Ulster
Resistance. A telephone number written on Payne's hand turned out to be that
of Noel Lyttle, a civil servant, former member of the UDR and close associate
of Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson. Lyttle had stood for the DUP as a candidate
in local government elections and was a member of the coordinating committee
which set up Ulster Resistance. In November 1988, an Ulster Resistance dump
was uncovered in Richhill, County Armagh. Along with Ulster Resistance berets
were Shorts missile parts, army fatigues and detailed maps of the Monaghan
area, just south of the border.

In 1989, Lyttle was warned on two or three occasions that he was under
surveillance by the crown forces. Even his questioning and release without
charge did not interrupt Ulster Resistance attempts to renegotiate with the
South Africans for further weapons.

The Starstreak, being developed under a 225 million Ministry of Defence
contract at Shorts, was what the South Africans wanted. A fully operational
unit had been on display until a few hours before a raid in 1987 in which
Ulster Resistance had stolen a Javelin aiming unit. The extraordinary
coincidence did not raise any suspicions. The discovery of the Ulster
Resistance hide, Lyttle's questioning and the warnings were ignored and three
Ulster Resistance members travelled to Paris to negotiate with the South
Africans, who had already made a down payment of 50,000.

They were offering not only the missile parts they had acquired (which though
not operational could be used for research purposes) but expertise in firing
the weapons. One of the three, Samuel Quinn, was a senior NCO in the Ulster
Air Defence Regiment of the Territorial Army. Quinn trained recruits in the
use of the Blowpipe missile. One of the weapons offered to the South Africans
was a dummy Blowpipe, stolen from Newtownards Barracks, where Quinn served.

In April 1989, the three - Noel Lyttle, Samuel Quinn and James King, were
arrested in Paris along with arms dealer Douglas Bernhardt and a South
African diplomat, Daniel Storm.

Storm claimed diplomatic immunity and was expelled from France. A diplomatic
row blew up - but there was more noise than genuine surprise on the part of
the British authorities, who were well aware of Bernhardt's activities. A
naturalised American citizen, born in South Africa and married to an
Englishwoman, he had operated a gun dealership, Field Arms, in Mayfair,
London, for three years. His business had received material assistance from
the British Department of Employment.

The security services knew of Bernhardt's loyalist connections; they knew he
was the US dealer involved in the January 1988 shipment. They would also have
been aware that Armscor agent Dick Wright had been employed as a marketing
executive by Field Arms. Noel Lyttle later admitted that he had known Dick
Wright as an Armscor agent who had represented the South African state for
''quite a few years''.

No request for the extradition of the three was made. No request was made for
an investigation into Bernhardt or his company, the Geneva-based Agencia
Utica, although the Swiss authorities did hold one of their own.

The Ulster Resistance members were released on bail. Following the
'revelations' of contacts between the South African government and the Paris
trio, the British government expelled three South African embassy personnel.
They were Staff Sergeant Mark Brunwer, who did not appear on the diplomatic
list and was described in the press as ''a technical officer''; the First
Secretary of the embassy, Jan Castelyn; and Etienne Fourie. Although the
Foreign Office emphasised that they had been chosen at random, it must have
been just another coincidence that Etienne Fourie was considered the 'eyes
and ears' of the London embassy and had worked as a journalist in the North
in the 1970s.

Whatever the true story behind the arrest of the Paris Three, loyalist arms
dumps were in no urgent need of fresh supplies. Two thirds of the vast
shipment arranged by Nelson has never been uncovered, and there are
indications that the January 1988 shipment might not have been the only one
arising out of his South African contacts.

If further evidence was needed that British Intelligence was involved in the
arming of loyalist death squads aside from the Nelson case, it was provided
in the court reports of the trial of Robert Henry, charged in connection with
the killing of Sinn Fein Councillor John Davey. Henry was the son of a
businessman killed by the IRA in 1987 for continuing, despite several
warnings, to do construction work for British military bases in Ireland.

At a pretrial hearing, the defence counsel alleged that a British soldier
working for Military Intelligence had given Robert Henry photos of people he
claimed killed his father and had helped him contact a London arms dealer with
a view to smuggling 1 million worth of weapons to the UVF.

An example of the loyalist attacks in which weaponry traceable to the South
African consignment was used occurred within two days of the end of Nelson's
trial. Five people were killed in a UDA massacre at Sean Graham bookmakers on
the Ormeau Road, Belfast. On 22 October 1993, a member of the Ulster Young
Militants (the still legal youth section of the UDA) was charged with
supplying one of the East European assault rifles from the British
Intelligence arranged shipment to the Ormeau Road killers.

Raymond Smallwood, the leader of the UDA brigade which carried out the Ormeau
Road massacre, visited South Africa later in 1993. Smallwood, a prominent
member of the UDA Inner Council and UDA representative on the Combined
Loyalist Military Command, went with Ken Kerr and several other leading
loyalists and met representatives of the Inkatha Movement in the Fredericksen
building in Johannesburg in March 1993.

The purpose of the meeting was never disclosed, but Inkatha and the loyalists
had more in common than the positions they occupied in the political landscape
of their respective countries. It was later revealed by the South African
Goldstone Commission that one of the South African Apartheid regime's death
squad organisers, Colonel Eugene de Kock, was the original source of
gunrunning to both Inkatha and to loyalist death squads during the 1980s.

At the time of the Ormeau massacre and an attack by an RUC officer on Sinn
Fein offices on the Falls Road on 4 February 1994 in which three people were
killed, Direct Ruler Peter Brooke made the following ironic statement in the
British House of Commons:

''The overwhelming majority of the people of Northern Ireland deeply abhor and
want no part of, the wanton destruction perpetrated by that tiny minority who,
without democratic, moral or spiritual authority, have taken upon themselves
the right to decide who should live or die... We will take whatever action is
necessary to bring terrorism to an end. But we will not abandon the underlying
principle of our security policy, which is determination to deal with
terrorism under the rule of law.''

For its part, in its statement the IRA called for no sectarian retaliation
for the killings and said:

''The attacks over the last week seek to spread fear and terror in our
country. The aim is to demoralise nationalists and to deflect attention away
from Britain's central role in this war by drawing people into futile
sectarian conflict.''

The British strategy the IRA was pointing to was similar to an equally deadly
one being pursued around the same time by members of the Apartheid regime in
South Africa. The strategy was aimed at thwarting the moves towards democracy
by increasing so-called 'Black-on-Black' violence through train massacres and
township violence. In the dying days of the regime, the Goldstone Commission,
led by Sir Richard Goldstone found that a group called Third Force, run by
three of South Africa's most senior police, was involved in organising
political murders, the manufacture, purchase and smuggling of weapons and
their supply to the Inkatha Freedom Party, along with full-combat training.

Goldstone named a key figure in Third Force as Colonel Eugene de Kock, who
headed a notorious police death squad in the '80s that operated from a farm
near Pretoria called Vlakplaas. De Kock's familiarity with Ireland went
beyond his gun-running links with loyalists. As dirty tricks chief of South
African Intelligence he had been involved in a joint British/South African
Intelligence bid to jointly discredit the ANC and the IRA. The bid, dubbed
'Project Echoes' was later revealed in South African Supreme Court records.

De Kock's role in anti-ANC warfare was exposed by a former South African
policeman turned whistle blower, Dirk Coetzee. Coetzee fled to Zambia in 1989
and ended up living in London in 1991. In November 1992, a secret South
African investigation prompted by British media speculation found that
British Intelligence agent Charles Simpson and members of the RUC had been
involved in a plot to kill Coetzee which De Kock had sanctioned.

The investigation revealed that RUC officers provided surveillance and
intelligence on Coetzee and also offered to 'take him out'. Two South African
Defence Force agents negotiated with Simpson and RUC officers on a trip to
London and Ireland in April 1991.

The two were Pamela du Randt, a captain in the South African Intelligence
service and secretary to the head of South Africa Military Intelligence,
Christoffel van der Westhuizen; and Leon Flores, an ex-policeman on the South
African Intelligence payroll.

Flores paid 2,000 to Charles Simpson ''for services rendered by his RUC
friends'' in monitoring the activities of Dirk Coetzee. When Flores and du
Randt came to London, Charles Simpson took them to meet what British
Intelligence claimed were three loyalist assassins at the Three Kings pub in
Kensington. The South African Intelligence inquiry stated the two of the three
were RUC officers.

Following the Three Kings meeting, du Randt and Flores travelled with Simpson
via Dun Laoghaire port to a second meeting in Hillsborough, County Down.
There, further payment by means of the supply of Semtex explosives, weapons,
night vision equipment and electronic eavesdropping devices was discussed for
the continued monitoring of Coetzee.

These claims made in the internal South African investigation were later
confirmed in the South African Supreme Court when Flores and du Randt were
subpoenaed to appear at the inquest into the murder of Bheki Mlangeni, a
lawyer who had earlier been killed in South Africa in a parcel bomb intended
for Dirk Coetzee.

The Dublin-based Phoenix magazine has reported the agreement to monitor and
kill Coetzee was an attempt to sting South African Military Intelligence by
British Intelligence, giving the latter leverage in persuading the South
Africans to keep quiet about British involvement in the arming of loyalist
killer gangs.

The full details of role of Eugene de Kock in servicing British-backed death
squads in the Six Counties may yet emerge, to the embarrassment of his
British contacts and the RUC. He survived the changes in South Africa and
had even been awarded a 250,000 golden handshake in the final days of De
Klerk's regime. In April '94 he attempted to travel to Hillsborough through
Dublin to meet a man he had known through 'Project Echoes'.

But de Kock never got a chance to barter his political asylum with British
Intelligence. Nor did Dublin gardai get to question him on his involvement in
the supply of arms which have killed dozens of Irish citizens since 1988.

Acting under the advice of British Intelligence via the RUC, on 20 April
1994, Irish Justice Minister Maire Geoghegan Quinn, signed an order
prohibiting de Kock from entering Ireland. But on his return to Pretoria, de
Kock was arrested on 5 May 1994 and is now in prison awaiting trial under
four murder charges.


 _____________________________________________________________________________

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                                The Irish Times
                                September  19, 1994

RUC ignored warning of breaches security fence before Belfast killing,
inquiry is told A public inquiry into the murder of a Catholic man on Belfast's
peaceline has heard allegations that the RUC and the Northern Ireland Office
ignored warnings hours earlier that a loyalist attack was imminent, Suzanne
Breen reports

                                 By SUZANNE BREEN


    "The worst thing about it all", Brenda Murphy told the public inquiry at
the weekend into the murder of Paul "Topper" Thompson (25), "is that he didn't h
   ave
to die. If the RUC and the  Northern Ireland  Office had listened to our
warnings, "Topper" would be alive today.  Their indifference cost, a young
Catholic man his life.

   Paul "Topper" Thompson had a horrible death. He was in the passenger seat of

a taxi which was turning at the top of Springfield Park, a cul de sac in west
Belfast, on April 27th. It was 11.30 p.m. Suddenly, UDA gunmen appeared and
raked the vehicle with automatic fire.

   The driver, Paddy Elley, was hit in the leg. Paul Thompson was shot in the
chest. Brenda Murphy, who lived a few doors away, ran from her house. The
gunmen fired at her as they ran off.

  Mr Thompson was lying in the car, she said. "He was in an awful state. He was
soaking in blood. I felt the hole under his jacket, where the bullet had
entered. And there was a massive big hole in his back, where it had gone out.
An awful gurgling noise was coming from his chest."

  "I kept talking to him, telling him that he was a big, strapping fellow, that
he'd be okay. He kept calling me 'ma'. He must have thought that I was his
mother. I whispered an act of contrition in his ear. I don't know exactly when
he died."

   A peaceline, walls, gates and metal fencing, separates the loyalist
Springmartin Estate from the nationalist Springfield Park.  Ms Murphy said that

she knew an attack was imminent on her street when she saw the security gates
lying open about 12 hours before the shooting. I knew that allowed loyalists
from Springmartin to come across and tamper with the fencing. Once the gates
were open only the fencing separated us from them."

   Ms Murphy phoned the  Northern Ireland  Office, which is responsible for
securing the peaceline, "and left a message telling them what was happening".
Later that afternoon she saw two men sawing through the fencing. "I was really,

really worried now. I spoke to the RUC community relations officer at Grosvenor

Road station, on the telephone. I told him that we needed police in the street
to protect us. There have been 10 attacks in Springfield Park over the past two

years and the fencing is nearly always tampered with before the attacks."

   Ms Murphy alleged that the RUC and the NIO both failed to act. She then
distributed leaflets to local residents, warning them that they were in
immediate danger. But it was outsiders who were to be the victims. That night,
Paddy Elley, a taxi driver for Grab a Cab, on the Springfield Road, received a
bogus call to Springfield Park.


   His friend, Paul Thompson, decided to accompany him on the journey. The UDA
gunmen climbed through the hole in the fencing, shot the men as they reversed
their car, then climbed back again into the Springmartin Estate.

   The two day public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the murder,
closed yesterday in Conway Mill on the Falls Road.

   It was chaired jointly by the London solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, and Mr
Andrew Somers, a retired judge from Wisconsin. Also on the panel were Mr Daniel

Coburn, a former judge of the Superior Court in Morris County; Richard O Meara,

a lawyer from Washington; and Dr Raymond Murphy, a law lecturer at University
College, Galway.

   The inquiry examined RUC procedures and compared them with standard
international practice. Among those giving evidence were residents of
Springfield Park; members of Mr Thompson's family. Mr Paddy Elley, who survived

the shooting; a local priest, who wished to remain anonymous; Mr Mike Ritchie,
of the Committee on the Administration of Justice; SDLP councillor Alex Attwood

and Sinn Fein councillor Marie Moore.

   The RUC and the NIO were invited, one of the organisers of the inquiry, Ms
Catriona Ruane, expressed disappointment that representatives from both bodies
had failed to attend.

   "They should have come here and explained their actions", she said. "It
would have been a good opportunity for them to build up trust with local
people. There is an IRA ceasefire, so they would have been totally safe."

  An RUC spokesman said that complaints about the force's behaviour relating to
the Thompson murder were being investigated by the Independent Commission for
Police Complaints.

  Residents of Springfield Park also alleged that RUC, officers at the scene of
the shooting did not attempt to save Mr Thompson's life question witnesses or
chase the killers.

   The preliminary findings of the public inquiry in Conway Mill will be
published later today.

Received via fax from the Irish American Information Service:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 October 5, 1994


                MORE COLLUSION ALLEGED

DUBLIN - Fresh allegations of collusion in Northern Ireland between the
 security forces and loyalist paramilitaries were leveled at the RUC (Royal
 Ulster Constabulary).

The allegations came as it emerged that 20 families in Andersonstown,
 Belfast, had been warned that their security files were in the hands of
 loyalist paramilitaries.

One man, who did not want to be named, said he was very worried about the
 threat and was taking it seriously.

'The police called the house last Monday week at night and asked for me by
 name. They said they had reason to believe my personal details were in the
 hands of loyalist paramilitaries and that I should review my personal
 security."

He added that a woman who lived nearby had also been similarly warned.

He went on: "What's very worrying is that the house was raided in March and
 they logged all the bedroom details. I have four children aged between two
 and 13 so I'm looking for a house transfer.'

The RUC confirmed Tuesday the reports, saying officers had called a number
of
 houses on September 26 to warn about personal security.

The latest development coincided with the launch of a new pressure group
 devoted to forcing the British government to establish an independent public
 inquiry into all claims of collusion.

The Committee for Truth on Collusion, made up of relatives of murder victims
 and community activists, said there was too much evidence for the matter to
 be disregarded.

Funded by money raised in the community, the four-member committee plans to
 target the Dublin government and the Irish-American lobby in the USA.

Spokesperson Ciaran Quinn said: "Evidence exists on the many forms of
 collusion, from the handing of security files and photo-montages to loyalist
 paramilitaries and the involvement of members of the security forces in the
 commissioning and enactment of sectarian murders."

"Collusion has also been alleged in the many cases in which death threats
 by the RUC and RIR have been followed by attacks."

'We call for a full and independent inquiry into these allegations as we
 believe that the weight of the evidence merits such an inquiry."

The committee issued an invitation to anyone who believed they were victims
 of collusion to join it and said if the British failed to act it would
 organize its own investigation.

Gerard Slane was murdered by the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters) in September,
 1988 and yesterday his widow Teresa claimed the RUC knew he had been on a
 loyalist death list.

She claimed British army agent Brian Nelson had told the police 10 days
 before the killing that her husband was to be shot. Nelson was later
 charged with the murder but the charges were eventually dropped.

Also sitting on the panel was human rights activists Catriona Ruane, who
 works at the Center for Research and Documentation, and the uncle of Martin
 Bradley, who was murdered by loyalists in June this year. He said his nephew
 had been threatened by the RUC just days before he was shot.

                   *****************************

Irish American Information Service

Offices:

Dublin:       4 Dame Court
              Dublin 2 Ireland
              Tel. 011-353-1-774072
              Fax: 011-353-1-6793198

Washington:   National Press Building
              529 14th St., NW Suite 837
              Washington, DC 20045 USA
              Tel. 202-662-8830
              Fax: 202-662-8831

Michigan:     35941 Six Mile Rd.
              Livonia, MI 48152 USA
              Tel. 313-464-4119
              Fax: 313-464-4240

An Phoblacht/Republican News
Oct.26, 1995




           Marine jailed for collusion with loyalists

     SENTENCING British Marine Derek Adgey to four years on a
total of 22 charges of passing on information to loyalists,
Diplock Judge Campbell practically exonerated the British soldier
saying he understood the "frustration" members of the "security
forces" felt in "dealing with terrorists".

     Campbell also glossed over the actions of UDA go-between
Jacqueline Newell, Adgey's accomplice, saying she acted out of a
sense of misguided "loyalty" and been "used" by others. She was
given a suspended sentence.

     Embarrassingly for the British government it emerged in
court that Adgey who was born in Belfast had been selected for
what was described in court as "special duties", soon after he
joined the marines. However, due to the British Officials
Secrets Act these special duties were not disclosed in court.

     What did emerge was that Adgey supplied information to
loyalist death squads between January and April last year when
they were conducting an intense murder campaign against
nationalists.

     Adgey had targeted a number of nationalists, including the
brother of murdered Belfast human rights lawyer, Pat Finucane and
a taxi depot in West Belfast. Up to 20 shots were fired at the
depot in Turf Lodge by gunmen in a car whose escape route took
them past a British army base.

     Adgey supplied his information during meetings with a
loyalist called William, whom he met in a bar on the Shankill
Road and by telephone calls and letters to Newell when stationed
in England.

    Mark,
    
    Just as a matter of interest, have you any description of this case
    from any other journal, such as one which tries to take a neutral
    viewpoint?
    
    Balanca is always a good thing...
    
    regards,
    //alan

    Mark,
    
    The theory that there has been collusion between elements of the
    British security forces and loyalist terrorists is nothing new. Indeed
    my recollection is tha the then Irish Taoiseach, Jack Lynch caused a
    diplomatic uproar when he stated publicly over twenty years ago that it
    was a widely held view in thre Republic that this was happening.
    Another former Taoiseach, Garrett Fitzgerald, again according to my
    recollection, publicly condemned the NI judge who congratulated a
    member of the security forces on his aim before aquitting him in a
    shoot-to-kill trial. And certainly since Downing Street kept the lid on
    the investigations of that decent and in Ireland very popular
    Englishman John Stalker, I think it is at least reasonable to say that
    the British Government has failed in its duty to expose and stop such 
    crimes.
    
    Would you please therefore consider whether it would not be better to
    consider how a majority can be achieved to have loyalist
    terrorists  politically isolated, disarmed, neutralised and defeated ?
    
    Do you not see that it would be far easier to win English people for
    that if they were not subjected to civilian terror by the IRA and if
    Republicans recognised that their campaign of civilian terror was
    wrong, and if Republicans showed regret and remorse for what happened?
    
    Do you not see that it would also be easier to win your English
    colleagues at Digital for such a policy if you also adopted such an
    attitude?      
    
    Kevin

  > Would you please therefore consider whether it would not be better to
  > consider how a majority can be achieved to have loyalist
  > terrorists  politically isolated, disarmed, neutralised and defeated ?

  This man was a British soldier.  What's the point in talking about majority's
  in an artificial political state, when the state is behind the violence and
  the collusion.  The British forces are the problem.

  >  Do you not see that it would be far easier to win English people for
  >  that if they were not subjected to civilian terror by the IRA and if
  >  Republicans recognised that their campaign of civilian terror was
  >  wrong, and if Republicans showed regret and remorse for what happened?

  The IRA has held a ceasefire for over 15 months now, and the British still
  refuse to let all democratically elected representatives of the people of
  northern Ireland sit down at the peace table.  Now you're saying that the
  IRA has to say "sorry" "pretty please", to be able to "win" the English
  people?  Is this in addition to surrender?  I guess I missed the part where
  the English people apologized for the years of abuse and human rights 
  violations they have reaped upon the Nationalist community.

  > Do you not see that it would also be easier to win your English
  > colleagues at Digital for such a policy if you also adopted such an
  > attitude? 

  Kevin, if you think apologizing for the response by the Irish Republican
  Army, to the British forces will "win your English" colleagues, be my
  guest, continue.   Don't expect me to join you.  I won't bother to tell
  you what I think of someone who apologizes for other peoples actions, in the
  hopes of "winning their English colleagues".  

                     Mark Holohan

  �This man was a British soldier.  What's the point in talking about majority's
  �in an artificial political state, when the state is behind the violence and
  �the collusion.
    
    If i'm not mistaken it was the British Soldier who colluded....so what
    is this 'state' that is behind the violence and collusion. Unless of
    course you consider that actions of one man, soldier or not, is
    representative to the populus and government of an entire state. Having
    already criticised a noter for thinking he based his views on scotland
    because he was attacked by a scot at an early age then i'd say you are
    indeed being a tad hypocritical.
    
  �The British forces are the problem.
    
    Well we wont bother to comment on that sweeping statement will we.
    
  �The IRA has held a ceasefire for over 15 months now, and the British still
  �refuse to let all democratically elected representatives of the people of
  �northern Ireland sit down at the peace table.
    
    Would you plese list those 'democratically elected representatives'
    which the British Govenment is refusing to let sit at the peace table.
    Or at least apologise for lying.
    
  �Is this in addition to surrender?  I guess I missed the part where
  �the English people apologized for the years of abuse and human rights 
  �violations they have reaped upon the Nationalist community.
    
    There can only be surrender when there is a war...as there is no war
    between Ireland and Britain then there is no need for surrender.
    Perhapps we should use the phrase 'decomisioning of weapons' which all
    terrorist organisations of the equation should do.
    
  �Kevin, if you think apologizing for the response by the Irish Republican
  �Army, to the British forces will "win your English" colleagues, be my
  �guest, continue.   Don't expect me to join you.  I won't bother to tell
  �you what I think of someone who apologizes for other peoples actions, in the
  �hopes of "winning their English colleagues".  
    
    Somehow Mark, I don't think anyone in this conference would be
    interested in your oppinion. The only reason why I constantly feel the
    need to comment on what I can only call the views of a very bitter and
    confused person is because I cannot abide the negative propogander that
    you propogate in this conference. I would be quite happy to let you
    winge along in the corner because your views and stance will make
    absolutely no difference to what happens in Northern Ireland...however,
    I also accept that there are people in this conference who might read
    you naive views and perhapps believe them, it is thus in the interests
    of honest journalism that I try and correct you.
    
    As I have said before you give 'Republicanism' a bad name, a view that
    is equally shared amongst those of republican sentiment with whom I often
    discuss your monologues.
    
    Perhapps I have been too critical, it is healthy to debate and it is
    necessary that isolationist views are brought into the open so they may
    be aired but please try to adopt a more intellectual and informed
    approach....that is if you want to be heard.
    
    Shaun. 
    

> If i'm not mistaken it was the British Soldier who colluded....so what
> is this 'state' that is behind the violence and collusion. Unless of
> course you consider that actions of one man, soldier or not, is
> representative to the populus and government of an entire state. 

  Ah, but it's not just the actions of one man, is it.  It's endemic in
  the British forces, as attested by the reports from Amnesty International.
  Need I also remind you of the Stalker affair?

> Would you plese list those 'democratically elected representatives'
> which the British Govenment is refusing to let sit at the peace table.
> Or at least apologise for lying.

  The representatives from Sinn Fein.  Sinn Fein being a democratic party,
  with a democratic mandate.  These are the facts.  Are facts that certain 
  English people don't like, referred to as lies?  Please explain.

> There can only be surrender when there is a war...as there is no war
> between Ireland and Britain then there is no need for surrender.
> Perhapps we should use the phrase 'decomisioning of weapons' which all
> terrorist organisations of the equation should do.

  Perhaps we should use the phrase "lying British government, with a
  forever changing set of requirements intended to stall the peace process,
  and ensure the status quo"

> I also accept that there are people in this conference who might read
> you naive views and perhapps believe them.

  Don't read my views.  Read the views of Amnesty International, or Helsink
  Watch.  Come to your own conclusions.

> it is thus in the interests
> of honest journalism that I try and correct you.

  That's a good one.  Shaun, I don't think I'd use the word honest, next
  to your name for fear of corrupting the word.


                           Mark

re .56

Mark,

  >What's the point in talking about majority's
  >in an artificial political state, when the state is behind the violence and
  >the collusion.  The British forces are the problem.

An excellent question! The fact is that the UDA and UVF are armed and parading
in NI. Only recently they did a turnout for the socalled progrssive unionists. 
These people are mass murderers, frankly. The fact that the political situation
is such that these people can parade and organise politically is disgusting.
The fact that the British state has not been forced to close them down and that 
elements of the British security forces collude with them is equally
disgusting. It is a tragedy that people go out and vote for MPs who allow it
to continue, and pay taxes and go to work in a state which has done sweet fa to
stop it. There can be no real peace until such elements are defeated
politically. The question is, how can it be done? I put it to you that the IRA
campaigns of violence have completely failed to achieve this, and the loyalist
terror groups have gone from strength to strength. 

Yet the British state is not an
unstoppable monolith. The best modern example of an imperialist power being 
stopped in it's tracks by magnificent internal resistance to it's barbaric war
policies, Mark, is the USA in Vietnam. I see no reason why a similar campaign 
could not stop the collusion with loyalist terror.  

>  The IRA has held a ceasefire for over 15 months now, and the British still
>  refuse to let all democratically elected representatives of the people of
>  northern Ireland sit down at the peace table.

Talks should start at once. But talks won't stop the loyalist terrorists.

>  Now you're saying that the
>  IRA has to say "sorry" "pretty please", to be able to "win" the English
>  people?

I am saying the Republican movement should abandon its physical force tradition
once and for all. And yes, the IRA should apologise unreservedly to all victims
of its terror campaign against civilians.

>  Is this in addition to surrender?  I guess I missed the part where
>  the English people apologized for the years of abuse and human rights 
>  violations they have reaped upon the Nationalist community.

You sure did Mark. Do you not see that the most honourable way to apologise for
it is to campaign for it to be stopped once and for all and to recognise the
right of the Irish people to self determination ?

>  I won't bother to tell you what I think of someone who apologizes for other 
>  peoples actions, in the hopes of "winning their English colleagues".  

I find this sentence intriguing Mark. It smacks of contempt and abuse, an
attitude you have shown frequently in this conference. It is what you are
reduced to when you run out of logical arguments. Please correct me if I am
wrong, but it seems to me that you are prone to feelings of hatred towards your
English colleagues and you sometimes allow such feelings to take control. 
You lose your temper. I don't find it acceptable that the relations between
English and Irish employees at Digital should be poisoned by such an attitude,
which is why I shall continue to argue with you.

Kevin 

    Re .54
    
    I take it, Mark, that your silence is an admission that you only have
    one journal's description of the trial, and that you blindly believe
    everything in it?
    
    //alan

  �Ah, but it's not just the actions of one man, is it.  It's endemic in
  �the British forces, as attested by the reports from Amnesty International.
  �Need I also remind you of the Stalker affair?
    
    To say it is endemic in the British forces is unjust. I accept that
    collusion has been executed by some 'confused' individuals and even
    exhibited by certain elements in the security forces. Unfortunately,
    the British populus have no real power over such elements and are often
    indeed ignorant of them - hence the need for people like John Stalker to
    bring such incidents before the eyes of the British Populus. I can
    asure you that it is not the wish of the British people to allow
    collusion by any representative of the british state.
    
  �The representatives from Sinn Fein.  Sinn Fein being a democratic party,
  �with a democratic mandate.  These are the facts.  Are facts that certain 
  �English people don't like, referred to as lies?  Please explain.
    
    It is evident, even to the most ignorant, that Sinn Fein have close
    links with the IRA terrorist movement. How can such a party be
    considered 'democratic' if it advocates terrorism which is inherently
    anti-democratic. If Sinn Fein were to sever all terrorist links then
    they would have their 'peace-seat', likewise if they were to convince
    their terrorist collegues to decommision their weapons.
    
  �Perhaps we should use the phrase "lying British government, with a
  �forever changing set of requirements intended to stall the peace process,
  �and ensure the status quo"
    
    It has hardly been 'forever changing' Mark, the British Govenment have
    insisted right from the start that all terrorist organisations in the NI
    equation would have to clearly show that they were commited to peace
    and would in no way return to violence - if the IRA were willing to
    accept this pre-condition then they would have no need to keep their
    arms....as would the UVF, UFF etc. The old excuse of 'we need the guns
    for defence' is a complete load of crap as we both know.
    
    Secondly, do you really think that the British Government want to stall
    the peace process ? Do you think that if the IRA believed this they
    would still continue their peacefull negotiations ? Come on! The
    british government wants peace quite badly, as does the IRA which has
    already accepted it will never win militarily. The UVF and UFF are just
    a couple of bully boy bigot gangs fattened by the 'Protestant Paranoia'
    which has always riddled their 'Loyalist State' - a state which even
    they now accept has been confined to the anals of history. Sinn Fein,
    the IRA and fellow republicans have their best chance to actualy define
    the course of history, to have an active role in the future of NI. A NI
    without the unfair housing of the sixties, without sectarian
    employment, without the catholic slums, without all against which NIRCA
    and the likes so strongly protested in 67-69. So throw down your arms
    and cease this chance.
    
  �That's a good one.  Shaun, I don't think I'd use the word honest, next
  �to your name for fear of corrupting the word.
    
    Sad that you should end your note in such an irrelevent way.
    
    Shaun. 
     

    'cease' == sieze

>Yet the British state is not an
>unstoppable monolith. The best modern example of an imperialist power being 
>stopped in it's tracks by magnificent internal resistance to it's barbaric war
>policies, Mark, is the USA in Vietnam. I see no reason why a similar campaign 
>could not stop the collusion with loyalist terror. 

 Kevin,
   It wasn't just "internal resistance" that brought an end to the Vietnam
 war.  I'd have to say that the fight waged by the North Vietnamese had
 a major part in it.  We were getting tired of seeing our young men come 
 home in body bags, to support a corrupt regime.   The photos on the TV of
 Vietnamese children being killed by our B-52's may have also had something
 to do with a sickening feeling about the war. 

   Tell me Kevin, why was the Vietnamese effort one of "magnificent internal
 resistance", and yet the effort by Irish Republicans against another imperial
 power is something that should be apologized?  Is it only "magnificent" when
 it's directed against the U.S.?   
   
>I find this sentence intriguing Mark. It smacks of contempt and abuse, an
>attitude you have shown frequently in this conference.

 "Winning their English colleagues" was your statement, not mine.  I don't
 see any abuse in my statement.  I do have contempt for yours however.

>It is what you are
>reduced to when you run out of logical arguments.

 Nope, it's how I feel when someone "tries to win their English collegues".



                           Mark

 
    

  Shaun,

>  It is evident, even to the most ignorant, that Sinn Fein have close
>  links with the IRA terrorist movement. How can such a party be
>  considered 'democratic' if it advocates terrorism which is inherently
>  anti-democratic. If Sinn Fein were to sever all terrorist links then
>  they would have their 'peace-seat', likewise if they were to convince
>  their terrorist collegues to decommision their weapons.

  I've yet to see anything that points to Sinn Fein controlling the actions
  of the Irish Republican Army.  I have however seen plenty of evidence that
  the British government does control the state sponsored terrorism that
  goes on in north east Ireland.  I ask you, do you consider the British
  government "anti-democratic" because of their support for state sponsored
  terror?  And as such, should the British government, the political wing
  of the British forces, and state sponsored terrorism, be allowed to sit
  down at the peace table, until they have surrendered their weapons to an
  international third party?

  You see, I believe that even the likes of the British government should
  be allowed to sit down at the peace table. 

>    It has hardly been 'forever changing' Mark, the British Govenment have
>   insisted right from the start that all terrorist organisations in the NI
>    equation would have to clearly show that they were commited to peace
>    and would in no way return to violence - if the IRA were willing to
>    accept this pre-condition then they would have no need to keep their
>    arms....

  I guess I disagree with you here. I mean, the British government were
  sitting down with Sinn Fein, holding secret talks, before the cease-fire
  ever took place.  Then the British lied and denied the talks took place.
  Then they admitted they lied and agreed that the talks had taken place.
  Then the they said anyone who shows they are committed to a permanent
  cesation of violence can sit down at the peace table.  Then they refused
  to sit down with Sinn Fein at the peace table.  Then they argued over what
  a cessation meant, then they said, oh yeah, and by the way, surrender your
  weapons.  Now here we are, 15 months later, and the British still refuse
  to sit down at the peace table with all parties involved. 

  It's pretty simple.  There should be no preconditions to sitting down 
  at the peace table, and trying to find a peaceful solution. 

>    Secondly, do you really think that the British Government want to stall
>   the peace process ? 

  Gee, why would I think that.

> Do you think that if the IRA believed this they
> would still continue their peacefull negotiations ?

  I think the Irish Republican Army have been patient for too long.  But at
  least it demonstrates to the world, that the British don't want peace.

> The
> british government wants peace quite badly, as does the IRA which has
> already accepted it will never win militarily.

  From where I sit, it looks like the British have successfully employed
  a military strategy, to uphold the status quo.  The Irish Republican Army
  has employed a successful military strategy, of making this British 
  policy of status quo, an expensive one.

> so throw down your arms and cease this chance.

  Not a chance, only an idiot would turn over his/or her weapons, before
  a peaceful settlement has been reached.
    
                            Mark

Mark: re .63
  
>   Tell me Kevin, why was the Vietnamese effort one of "magnificent internal
> resistance", and yet the effort by Irish Republicans against another imperial
> power is something that should be apologized?  Is it only "magnificent" when
> it's directed against the U.S.?

You haven't understood this sentence, and I don't think you want to. The point
is that it is internal resistance: US Americans stopping US imperialism. It is
easy to swim with the stream, but to stand out against your own community takes
a special courage. During the Gulf war one British soldier was sent to prison
for resisting the war. Back in the 80's another British soldier, called Berry,
was put on trial for blowing the whistle on NI. That is resistance which could
break British imperialism, not leaving bombs at Victoria railway station. It is
the method of resistance I find magnificent: mass action, essentially
non-violent, sacrifice and courage by large numbers of war resistors. Soldiers
abandoning their armies and fraternising with their former enemies to overthrow
their warmaking rulers, that is the way to defeat imperialism. 

In case your dishonest question be misunderstood by other US-American readers: 
any careful reader of my contributions here will find the same praise about
internal resistance to British imperialism.   
   

> "Winning their English colleagues" was your statement, not mine.  I don't
> see any abuse in my statement.  I do have contempt for yours however.

By your own admission Mark, you are motivated by feelings of hatred towards
your English colleagues. It fits that hatred that you have contempt for my wish
to debate the conflict with them and to express my abhorrence for the civilian
terror some of them have been subjected to. I would be concerned you
did not have contempt for it.

Your attitude to your English colleagues is a subject worthy of discussion in
itself. It seems I have made assumptions about your acceptance of certain
values which were incorrect. Recently I read note 1299, in which Engish
colleagues reported on bombs left near their offices. The attitude revealed
in 1299.16 and continued down to the present shows essentially that you regard
some of your fellow Digital employees as enemies on the wrong side in an 
unfinished war. Hatred is a necessary emotional condition for this.

Another contributor to this conference has called on the moderators to act on
this recently. It is a subject worthy of discussion. 

Kevin                                                
   

>Another contributor to this conference has called on the moderators to act on
>this recently. It is a subject worthy of discussion. 
    
    This has come up again and again. While I'm not going to censor anyone
    from this conference, I will ask *again* that noters not make personal,
    libelous, and/or racist attacks, and please refrain from foul language.
    If there are any notes in question I will set them hidden.
          
    George

 In truth Kevin, I have a hard time following your train of logic.  It swings
 from a misunderstanding of Marxist doctrine one minute, to a misunderstanding
 of the Vietnamese war.  I've sat here confused as you attempted to paint a
 struggle against an outside imperial force as a class  war. The Communist
 Manifesto is interesting reading, but it doesn not have to be your dogma.

 You and I both know that it's hypocritical for you to consider a struggle
 against U.S. imperialism as magnificent, and yet condemn the men
 and women in your own country who fight against British imperialism. 
 I'm not sure if your attempts to label Sinn Fein supporters as "Bourgeois",
 was confusion on your own part, or a deliberate attempt to slander this
 party.  Other noter's have taken you to task on this one, so I won't go
 further.

 I've read your notes describing how you'd like to "win the support of
 your English collegues".  Support that's pandered, is not the kind of
 support that will last, nor help the peace process.

>Another contributor to this conference has called on the moderators to act on
>this recently. It is a subject worthy of discussion.

 Censorship doesn't win an argument, it only ends discussion. 

                            Mark

 

    Mark, re .67
    
    
    I am satisfied that you are not reading what I am saying, and accept
    fully your statement that you are confused and have trouble following
    my train of thought. The quotations you make of my arguments are
    incorrect, and I don't think you are interested in understanding my
    arguments. 
    
    I have not called for censorship as yet. I think there is a need for a
    discussion of the aims you are following in this conference. You have
    entered some 1000 notes here on a matter which is of concern to Digital
    employees of differing origin. Many of the notes you have entered have
    caused great offence to some of those employees. That does not bother
    you in the least, nor are you concerned to clarify the issues through
    debate rooted in the solidarity which should exist between the workers
    in the company. The question for me is whether you are stirring up
    hatred towards some employees on this issue deliberately. That is not a
    question to be put lightly or answered without debate or careful
    consideration. However, if the answer to the question is yes, then
    there will be a need for the moderators to enter the discussion and
    explain their position.
    
    Kevin
      

    Mark,
    
      �I've yet to see anything that points to Sinn Fein controlling the
      �action of the Irish Republican Army.
    
    Oh Mark get real! So the fact that Martin McGuiness replaced Gery Adams
    as 'Chief of Staff' when he was arrested after the 'Le Mon' bombing was
    just a coincidence was it ?
    
      �I have however seen plenty of evidence that
      �the British government does control the state sponsored terrorism
      �that goes on in north east Ireland.
    
    Although I detest collusion of any form, as I have already said, I
    think you would be hard pushed to dismiss loyalist terrorism as state
    sponsored terrorism...in fact I think you'd find it impossible.
    
      �And as such, should the British government, the political wing
      �of the British forces, and state sponsored terrorism, be allowed to
      �sit down at the peace table, until they have surrendered their weapons
      �to an international third party?
    
    This statement should be published, it finaly proves that you really
    have no idea about government, politics, democracy etc. The british
    government is the democratically elected government of the UK. It therefore
    controls the British Army...to equate this to a group of radicals with no
    democratic mandate taking up arms cos they disagree with the majority is
    just bloody silly....i'm quite ashamed to be discussing this with you.
    
    
      �I guess I disagree with you here. I mean, the British government
      �were sitting down with Sinn Fein, holding secret talks, before the
      �cease-fire ever took place.
    
    I agree.
    
      �Then the British lied and denied the talks took place.
    
    Yes they did, yet I wonder whether the political climate was right for
    them to admit they had taken place. My main fear has always been that the
    loyalists will eventually feel too alienated and thus take up arms to defend
    their heavily biggoted 'loyalist state'. Sometimes, decorum and tact are the
    call of the day.
    
      �Then they admitted they lied and agreed that the talks had taken
      �place.
    
    Good on them.
    
      �Now here we are, 15 months later, and the British still refuse
      �to sit down at the peace table with all parties involved.
    
    And the IRA still haven't given up their guns.
    
      �I think the Irish Republican Army have been patient for too long. 
      �But at least it demonstrates to the world, that the British don't want
      �peace.
    
    So the IRA have been patient for too long, should I conclude that you
    would be happy if they were to return to a campaign of violence....obviously
    even your definition to 'permanent cessation of violence' is somewhat crap!
    Seriously Mark, you really don't have much of an idea do you. You are
    effectively saying that because the British Government wont sit down to
    the peace table without the IRA giving up their arms then you are quite
    happy for an innocent person to be blown up because they are English..
    now we begin to see your true colours.
    
      �Not a chance, only an idiot would turn over his/or her weapons,
      �before a peaceful settlement has been reached.
    
    What then is a peaceful settlement ?
    
    Shaun.

    >consideration. However, if the answer to the question is yes, then
    >there will be a need for the moderators to enter the discussion and
    >explain their position.
    
    Kevin, there is but one moderator. It's me - George Darcy.
    
    I've explained my position. Short of making this conference a
    members-only conference (which in my mind totally goes against
    the idea of a conference in the first place) I have no control
    over who posts what. I can, however, set notes hidden that go
    against Digital's P&P, or that other noters find objectionable
    to the reasons I previously stated in my other note, including
    racism, be it ethnic or national. I've done this many times in
    the past and will continue to do so, if asked or required.
    
    Personally, I don't endorse anyone but myself. I don't endorse
    Mark Holohan, nor you, nor anyone else.
    
    We all have real work in turning the company back to
    profitability, which is much more important, and especially
    since we are using company resources at the allowance
    of Digital.
    
    Finally, I do wish people wouldn't repeat themselves so much,
    especially about the NI issues. If people make their point - fine.
    Make it and move on. Let's be gentlemen and gentlewomen - and agree
    to disagree.
               
    George

    Re last:
    
    
    >So the fact that Martin McGuiness replaced Gery Adams
    >as 'Chief of Staff' when he was arrested after the 'Le Mon' bombing
    >waS  just a coincidence was it ?
    
    Are you for real ?.....What sort of a fact is that?...
    ..Le Mon wasn't even an IRA bomb...check before entering facts.
    
    Loyalist collusion...There is enough army folk in jail to give some
    evidence of this..THATS a fact.
    
    Re people talking/giving offence...Its all in the way its expressed...
    some of the way things are expressed here are direct..more of it
    subtle..
    
    Also Like it or Not like Mark expresses a view which is is
    common and relevant to the whole process at the moment. Its a
    Nationalist Republican viewpoint.....its more important its heard
    here than censored...
    
    I heard the same arguments expressed in the same way last weekend in a 
    Nationalist area in the North...The peace process is perceived to be 
    stalled by the British over the arms issue......and yes the IRA will go 
    back to fighting unless this issue is sorted in next couple of months
    
    sad but true....
    
    
    rgs,
    
    Mick
    
     
    

    And finally to address your title "should a hate campaign be
    allowed?" Certainly not. I don't want this conference to be
    used as a venue of a hate campaign. Though there are elements
    on both sides that, at times, seem to be heading in that area.
    
    People should feel free to openly discuss the topics of the
    day relating to Celt culture, including political ones. But
    yes, let's keep the hatred out of the notesfile. And instead
    concentrate on dialogue, factual information, and understanding.
    
    George

George, re .66
    
>    This has come up again and again. While I'm not going to censor anyone
>    from this conference, I will ask *again* that noters not make personal,
>    libelous, and/or racist attacks, and please refrain from foul language.
>    If there are any notes in question I will set them hidden.

This position is honourable, and would normally be adequate to deal with any
problems. However, given that there has been a war going on on these islands
for some time, which is at present in a ceasefire,but which it is not
unreasonable to assume could break out again, there are grounds for special
care. I am saying there is a need for discussion because Mark Holohan has
entered notes in this conference which while they are not racist, show a
serious lack of respect for others which goes beyond what is acceptable within
the limits of free speech. 

For some time I have been debating with Mark on why he argues with certain
English participants here in the way he does. That is important to me because
I believe, as I have said already, that some of the ideas expressed in this
conference contribute to a climate conducive to the sectarian murders we have
seen enough of.   As I was not getting anywhere, and as others told me I was 
wasting my time, I browsed around some other arguments that had broken out 
and came on 1299.16, among other examples. May I ask you to consider the 
implications of that note? 

A Digital employee reports an act of criminal terror next to his office and
complains that this crime is bad for company business. He and others complain
bitterly that innocent civilians have been killed in this terror campaign and
he expresses his utter disgust. In 1299.16 this employee is mocked and teased. 
The note obviously takes pleasure in the economic damage being caused by the
terror campaign and suggests that it would be a logical and necessary decision
to close the Digital office. Now I am not concerned here about the wrongs and
     rights of the case, whether the IRA were entitled to wage economic war,
     whether 
the IRA campaign is or is not a justified reaction to British terror etc. I am
concerned with the nature and quality of 1299.16. It is essentially war
propaganda.  The purpose is to wear down the resistance of the Digital
employees in London and to increase the effectiveness of the 'economic war'.  
It is not journalism, it is not reporting human rights abuses. It is puposeful
considered war propaganda using psychological methods to grind down opponents.
It scates carefully round the boundaries you set out but suceeds in its aim,
which is to enrage and humiliate his correspondent. No I don't think it should
be set hidden. It should be left there for all to see. It should be cross
posted and discussed more widely.  

There are limits to "free speech" in any context. A friend of mine who worked
at Short's in Belfast told me that around the time of the 12th the factory
became very unpleasant to work in as certain loyalist elements would stir up
trouble and disrupt any efforts to create peace and harmony between the
different groupings. In recent times Protestant and Catholic trade unionists
have got together and forced the management to take action against such
elements.
            
George, you say, understandably, that you are against all
censorship. My feeling is that there can be no free speech for those who aim to
create hatred and division. If this conference were in Germany and one
contributor entered over 1000 notes going on about the Jews and the Israelis
in the way Mark goes on about the Brits, the conference would have been closed
down long ago. Similarly, if a terrorist group left a bomb outside Digital
offices in Maynard or Galway and someone expressed sarcastic pleasure at the 
economic damage done to the company, I think we would have a very different
reaction.

To sum up George, I think you need to consider an extension of the
rules you give in .66 to deal with what is happening in this conference. I
would suggest the following guidelines for discussion:

- There should be a basis of respect and friendly conduct towards all
participants.

- There should be a honest effort towards objective debate with a view to
reaching a reasonable and clear exchange of views.

- There should be caution exercised to avoid inflammatory contributions which
could cause serious offence to the sensibilities of other participants.
    
    Re: Mick's contribution. 
    
    I am not calling for censorship of the Republican viewpoint, I am
    objecting to the way it is being presented here. If anything I have
    written causes offence, please say so and I will withdraw and apologise 
    if necessary. Nor do I think that the peace process can be used as an
    excuse for how Mark debates here. The bottom line is that the UDA are
    threatening a terror campaign if there is any movement from the status
    quo and the implication of your report is that the IRA will go back to 
    fighting if the Brits don't move. The only way out of this is to cross 
    the sectarian divide and that means respecting those who reject the
    Irish nationalist agenda and debating with them on that basis.
    
    
Kevin  (whose job involves a lot of sitting around with nothing to do at 
        the moment)

    �Are you for real ?.....What sort of a fact is that?...
    �..Le Mon wasn't even an IRA bomb...check before entering facts.
    
    
    I'm sorry you find facts hard to digest so here are the refrences:
    
    Ref 1:
    
    "twelve diners burned to death by an IRA fire-bomb in La Mon restaurant
    in 1977"....... 'Rebel Hearts', Kevin Toolis.
    
    Ref 2:
    
    Following this event, Gerry Adams was arrested and imprisoned under the
    Provention of terrorism act for seven months. Martin McGuiness replaced
    Gerry Adams as Chief of Staff during this time.....'The Troubles 1967 -
    1992' (i'll find out the authors name tonight if you wish).
    
    helpfully, Shaun.

    RE: .73
    
    George, Kevin has said very eloquently what I feel. Many notes entered
    in here by Mark Holohan, in my opinion, contravene the spirit and the
    letter of PP&P 6.54. Kevin's analogies wrt Germany and Jews and a bomb
    in Maynard are spot-on. In no way am I suggesting that anything be
    "censored" as in stifling a sincerely held and therefore valid point of
    view, but as a moderator of several conferences myself, I know what a
    fine line there is between moderator's prudence, and censorship.
    
    The bottom line is that this conference is the property of Digital, and
    is here at all under management sufferance. Consequently, there is no
    such thing as free speech in *any* Digital conference. "Censorship" by
    the moderators is part and parcel of the whole thing. Actually,
    "sanction" is a better word.
    
    Mark Holohan seems to enter two types of notes: firstly, he
    regurgitates reams of text from various sources ranging from AI to IRA
    propaganda news-letters; secondly he enters sneering, caustic,
    nationalistic, aggressive, insulting and abusive notes of his own
    writing. A quick trawl through this conference will find many examples
    that demonstrate this assertion clearly.
    
    Now, I believe that some of these should stand as a testament to the
    man who wrote them. However, you're the moderator, and you must make
    (indeed, you have made) the judgement as to whether or not some, none,
    or all of these contravene PP&P 6.54. My opinion, which I accept you
    haven't asked for, is that many of them do, and that your allowing them
    to stand is indicative of either a) a tacit sympathy and agreement with
    them, or b) a complacency about them and their relation to PP&P 6.54.
    Accepting this assertion (which is, IMO, a truism more than an
    assertion) means that readers of this conference are making a judgement
    on you George, and if the judgement they're coming to is a), I
    shouldn't be very happy about that if I were you.
    
    Statistically speaking, there is as likely to be a senior manager out
    there who holds diametrically opposing views and beliefs to Mark
    Holohan, as there is likely to be one who supports and protects him.
    Gambling that such a person will never access this conference is not
    terribly prudent.
    
    However, it's your playground, George.
    
    Regards, Laurie.
    
    PS. Am I imagining things, or have rather a lot of notes been set
        hidden recently?

    
    Shaun.
          
    I'm not going to argue about this as it wouldn't get us anywhere..There
    are countless books out there which one can quote from ..many of them with
    their own version of different events...All I will say is quoting from 
    specific singular accounts isn't neccesarily factual...and everybody
    who has followed the troubles closley knows that its was the INLA that
    carried out that terrible attack..they were caught also and charged
    with INLA membership...not the IRA..
    
    Anyway I think the general point is around IRA/Sinn Fein being "close"
    No question about it they ARE close...But I doubt that they would share
    the same command structure..Check out any of Tim Pat Coogans books on
    the troubles (...ok singular reference -) -)_....but it examines the
    logistical structure of the republican organisations...and make up your
    own mind about what is Fact..fiction..or media speculation
    
    rgs,
    
    mick
    
    
     

    Mick,
    
    Your comments are fair, I shall checkup on 'Le Mon' bombing in other
    sources tonight. Of all sources I've found 'The Troubles 1967 - 1992'
    very academic with a fairly un-biased political analysis. I believe I
    also have one of Coogans books.
    
    With regards to the comand structure of the IRA and Sinn Fein, it has
    always been a hazy issue. I believe that they both have a substantial
    common factor, such that it would be impossible to sit and talk to Sinn
    Fein without effectively talking to the IRA. It is this reality that
    makes it diffulcult for the British Government to enter peace talks
    with Sinn Fein without the IRA first decommisioning their weapons, for
    fear of fueling loyalist fears which could result in disatsterous
    consequences.
    
    Shaun.

    re .75
    
    May I point out some differences I have with .75 ? It is not my aim
    that some senior manager should read this conference and pull the plug
    in horror. I would hope that we can regulate this problem ourselves.
    Nor am I interested in putting pressure on George Darcy, by holding him
    responsible for what others write.
    
    And before there are any misunderstandings, I am not saying Mark is
    comparable with a nazi. The point about that analogy is that there are
    differing sensibilities in different locations and that I feel more
    care needs to be exercised with regard to the sensibilities of those
    who work in areas which have been targeted by the civilian terror
    campaign of the IRA. If I were working for Digital in Basingstoke or
    Warrington and I had read 1299.16 I think I might have taken a harder
    line however. It would also be intersting to know how those working in
    Belfast feel about it. 
    
    In any case I feel there should be a fundamental solidarity between all
    Digital employees, wherever they work. In the nine years I have known
    the company I have never known anything like what you can find in this
    conference and I don't think it should be allowed to continue as it
    has done.  
    
    Kevin

    Actually Laurie,
    
    Mark's postings are in no way indicative of a tacit sympathy by
    me or agreement with them. If you read my non-moderator postings
    I have quite a different and personal opinion on Northern Ireland.
    And I repeat if there are specific postings which go against the
    rules I've stated or against PP&P 6.54 then please let me know and
    I'll address each note appropriately.
    
    In all fairness I don't have time to read every word of every note that
    Mark or you post. I'm trying desperately to bring DEC back to profitability.
    I'm currently working on FX32 - the Windows NT Intel Emulator that
    allows all Intel Win32 executables to run transparently on Alpha. This will
    hopefully make Alpha a commodity chip - and knock the pants off of Intel.
    There is more great news to come on this front. We need Beta sites for
    FX32, so if you have extra time and have access to an Alpha NT system
    send me mail.
    
    So if there are notes which contravene the spirit of the conference,
    help me out, send me mail, call me dtn 227-4109, and we'll make
    accomodations in some form or another.
    
    Regards,
    George

    Mick,
    
    In 'The Provisional IRA', by Patrick Bishop & Eamonn Maillie, the
    reference to La Mon bombing reads.....
    
    "On the night of 17 Febuary three Provisionals from Ballymurphy, all
    experienced operators, fixed an incendiary to a window at the La Mon
    House hotel, in the heart of unionist North Down.....The volunteers
    primed the bomb, drove away from the hotel and stopped at a call-box to
    telephone a warning. The phone had been vandalised. They drove on and
    were stopped by a UDR patrol....by the time they reached another phone
    and rang the RUC, there were only nine minutes to spare. The bomb went
    off, flinging a sheet of blazing petrol across a crowded roo...Twelve
    people were burned to death...The scale of the attrocity shocked even
    the IRA leadership. There was an intense internal debate....The Army
    Council met and agreed that there could be no repetition of such a
    happening...The La Mon attack was more than just a setback for Adams'
    political plans. Shortly afterwards he was one of those picked up in a
    wave of arrests that followed the killings and charged with membership
    of the IRA...Martin McGuiness took over as chief-of-staff." - pg
    336-337
    
    In 'The Irish Troubles, a generation of violence', by J. Bower Bell, it
    says......
    
    "...the Provos had as target the La Mon House....The IRA had chosen
    Friday night, when the main room was filled with over three hundred
    people...Twelve people were killed...twenty three were maimed and very
    badly burned....Even the IRA statement issued by the Republican
    Publicity Bureau indicated that a dreadful mistake had been made:"There
    is nothing we can offer in mitigation bar that our enquiries have
    established that a nine minute warning was given to the RUC......All
    killing stems from British interference and from their denial of Irish
    sovereignty" (IRA statements are released through the Irish Republican
    Publicity Bureau, an invisiable conduit between the secret army and the
    Sinn Fein office in Belfast or Dublin)
    
    And in 'Northern Ireland since 1968', by Paul Arthur & Keith Jeffery -
    Institute of Contemporary British History, the reference, albeit brief,
    is....
    
    "....public reaction was so strong that the Provisionals were obliged
    to call of their firebomb campaign."
    
    I don't quote these passages in order to drag up the past, as horrific
    as it may be, but I try to be as accurate as I can. The biggest problem
    when discussing such emotive topics is that hard facts become clouded
    by personal oppinion. Your strong assertation that the La Mon bombing
    was by the INLA made me recheck my resource.....as it stands I can find
    no indication that the INLA were at all involved.
    
    Shaun.

  Kevin and Laurie,
    I'd like to ask that you Laurie (a Digital Contractor, who has 
  previously stated how he's ashamed of his Irish 50% ..."), and you
  Kevin (a Digital employee "whose job involves a lot of sitting around with
  nothing to do at the moment") move your notes requesting censorship to
  another thread, so we can continue to discuss collusion in this topic.
  I'd also like to ask that you both refrain from any more of your rhetoric
  that tries to malign me as "a hater of my English collegues", a
  "terrorist supporter", an "apologist for terrorism", or a "propogandist
  for terrorism".

                       Thankyou,
                          Mark Holohan

  

    RE: .79
    
    George, I'm sorry, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to
    do your moderating for you. WRT your statement that you don't read
    everything; I wonder what the management response to that reply will be
    when they ask you why you let <something they don't like> stand in the
    conference. As a moderator, notwithstanding that noters retain
    ownership of their notes, you, as a moderator, have a responsibility to
    ensure compliance with PP&P, especially 6.54. This very week, I have
    been reminded of that in a very forceful manner.
    
    RE: .81
    
    Holohan, I'll break my vow to refrain from banging my head against your
    particular brickwall just this once. I stated that "I'm ashamed of my
    Irish 50%" as a direct result of yet another disgusting and senseless
    slaughter by the IRA; to whit, the bomb in Warrington. A bombing which
    I recall you refused to condemn. I stand by that remark, and believe
    that any true human being would be ashamed of such appalling behaviour
    against another human being. My "shame" springs from the fact that
    Irish people planned, plotted and executed an appalling and inhuman
    crime against innocent women and children. What am I supposed to feel?
    Pride? I'll say it again, just to show I meant it, and that your
    pathetic attempt to taunt me with it, and parade it as a flaw, is just
    that, pathetic. When the IRA kill and maim innocent people for
    political ends, I feel ashamed that I can share common blood with these
    animals. Clear enough? Far from being ashamed of that statement, I'm
    proud of it. And yes, before you ask, when English people are shown to
    have done such things, I feel shame for the English 50% of me too.
    Anyway, this is pointless diversion, and we have argued about this
    before. My arguments, which you ignored then, remain the same, and of
    course, will remain ignored. In order to remind yourself, may I suggest
    you read note 1252, and especially 1252.38 in which I spell out my
    position in no uncertain terms. No point in reading all the topic
    though, as most of it is extracted text in contravention of PP&P 6.54,
    posted by you.
    
    Next, let's take your recurrent theme of censorship. I realise that
    your filters are uncommonly efficient, but let me remind you that time
    and again I have stated that censorship is not what I'm interested in.
    I object to this conference being used as a vehicle to parade biased,
    terrorist propaganda. Quite rightly, I wouldn't be allowed to post the
    "Brit" equivalent in here or anywhere else, and I don't see why you
    should. What do you think would happen if I were to start pulling
    National Front or the British Nazi League (or whatever these groups are
    called) propaganda off the WEB and started posting them in the GB
    conference?
    
    Lastly, let's deal with my "rhetoric" which "tries to malign" you. In
    the first place, as I have been at pains to say each time I have made
    assertions about your views, examples of it abound right here in this
    conference. I don't need to say it, anyone with half a brain can see
    it. Time and time again you continue to show your true feelings, and
    time and time again you have been asked to tone it down, to stop
    insulting and offending so many people, including me. I am not trying
    to malign you, evidence is posted of it, right here, by you yourself.
    
    However, please allow me to point something out to you. I'll stretch
    reality for a bit, assume that your "request" isn't a thinly-veiled
    threat, and take a rhetorical stance. Let's assume I refuse to stop.
    What will you do? Go to management? Ask George to moderate me? Hmmm,
    sounds a lot like "censorship" to me. Or will you do nothing? I doubt
    that. Can you spell "hypocrite"? Of course you can.
    
    However, fear not, I'll retreat once more into the background, and I'll
    once again let you continue to pollute this conference with your
    second-hand propaganda. I'll no longer "malign" you, I'll even
    apologise for any hurt, insult or offence I may have caused you for my
    writing of a sincerely held view (the censorship of which you have just
    acheived). Of course, I shan't hold my breath waiting for an apology
    from you for exactly the same offences. My only worry, is that some
    people reading this conference might actually take in your stuff and
    actually believe it to be something other than distorted terrorist
    propaganda. That's very sad, and surely only acheives the prolongation
    of the whole problem.
    
    Away you go Mark, I'll trouble you no more. Oh, and I don't expect an
    answer to any questions I may have asked in here; you may consider them
    rhetorical.
    
    Laurie.

    re .81
    
    Yes Mark, my job involves a lot of sitting around at the moment. I
    should add that I am doing an important job which has to be done well.
    I have complained to my manager that I don't have enough to do, but he
    has told me he is very pleased with the quality of the work I am doing
    and as there will soon be plenty more. He is concerned that the
    service level will fall if I start doing something else as well, so we
    are in a don't worry be happy mode until more work comes in and the
    European reorganisation of technical support continues. 
    
    For my part I would be only too happy to drop any suggestions that you
    are pursuing a hate campaign if you would agree with me that we need a
    code of conduct such as I have outlined in this thread, and would keep
    to it. 
    
    The discussion of why you are posting these notes in the way you do is
    quite appropriate here as the point is that you are not discussing with
    others on the basis of mutual respect and honest exchange of views with
    a platonic interest in finding the truth. You aim to annoy, harass, and
    browbeat your correspondents. The childish sidesweeps at Laurie and
    myself in .81 are yet another example. 
    
    Kevin