Conflict – Page 18 – Slugger O'Toole

“The desire to hate and kill comes first, and then grubs around in the shit for its excuse”

Mick Fealty on March 10, 2009, 7:49 pm

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Politicians really do depend upon the dynamic nature of news cycles to give the readers the slip at times of great political peril. In this respect the Sinn Fein we are being offered today (ie, Tuesday) is very different to the one on view last Saturday. Gerry Adams has since tried (unsuccessfully so far) to suggest the onset of this campaign was to do with the unaccountable nature of the SRR. David Aaronovich gets it in one: Rubbish. Really, absolute …

“Political leadership will lead us away from this..”

Mick Fealty on March 10, 2009, 6:58 pm

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John O’Dowd is making a better fist on Stormont Live than he did this morning with the hostile John Humphries; he came off second best with his protest that ‘he didn’t read English newspapers’. This afternoon, he’s backing the police searches. ‘These people will be captured’. And later, “You do not conduct a military agenda against people who are militarists. Political leadership will lead us away from this. And those who talk about a militarist solution rather than a political …

Who’s spinning whom?

Mick Fealty on March 9, 2009, 1:03 am

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Eamon McCann’s article from today’s Derry Journal (written and submitted before last night’s killings) reminds us of three important details. 1 just how much energy Sinn Fein and ‘mainstream Republicans’ were putting into trying to dismiss dissident Republicans as mere Criminals. 2 That the party’s argument that an ‘Irish’ Justice minister would keep British troops out of Northern Ireland. And 3, Hugh Orde neglected to tell the Policing Board on Thursday of his deployment of Special Reconnaissance Regiment at it …

The Irish people, North and South have voted overwhelmingly for peace…

Mick Fealty on March 9, 2009, 12:04 am

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Chris Gaskin has a way of getting to the nub of the matter when it comes to Sinn Fein and it’s politics. It’s hardly rocket science, and to be fair it is precisely what Mark Durkan led with on the BBC whilst Sinn Fein was working that 14 hour stint to figure precisely which form of words it was going to use in the wake of the Massereene killings. In essence, whatever his own feelings, he believes his party has …

Two worries for Sinn Fein from Massereene…

Mick Fealty on March 8, 2009, 2:34 pm

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Over at Brassneck, I pick on Gonzo’s theme of the strategic mess this implies for Sinn Fein’s vacillating half full/half empty approach to Republican dissidents.… I quote from my own article: This moment finds the party curiously unmanned. However criminal the act, according the Sinn Fein orthodoxy of 15 or 20 years ago, these men would have been consigned as ‘legitimate targets’ by Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams. Now, they are permanently based Northern Ireland as part of a deal …

Better safe than sorry?

Andrew Charles on March 7, 2009, 5:45 pm

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I wanted to add some comment up about the deployment of Special Forces in NI. Much debate has focused on the issue over how this story became a story after a day of Hugh Orde being ‘held to account’, then the story broke. Putting this debate to one side and focusing on the issue at hand, the deployment of Special Forces in NI is not one that can be welcomed with open arms, but necessary and acceptable if the Chief …

Maskey’s filibustering keeps deployment off Hearts and Minds debate…

Mick Fealty on March 6, 2009, 4:10 am

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A former boxer (according to Wikipedia he only lost 4 out of 75 fights) and a Malachi’s boy to boot, Alex Maskey argues, no doubt, like he used to box: goads his man, makes him drop his defences with a series of short jabs, and finishes it all off with a nice wee ‘cheerio’ slap at the end. If Alex Attwood was feeling pleased with himself after his handling of Daithi McKay a few weeks, he got the proverbial cold …

Derry still riven with sectarian attacks…

Mick Fealty on March 5, 2009, 6:42 pm

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According to the Derry Journal: …police statistics reveal that a total of 282 incidents were recorded at the city’s interface areas – Bishop Street/Fountain, Irish Street/Gobnascale and Tullyally/Curryneirin – in the single year period between April 2006 and April 2007. A total of 120 – more than two incidents per week – were reported to police at the flashpoint Bishop Street interface alone. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet …

“I could see it in his face”

Pete Baker on March 4, 2009, 6:42 pm

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The Consultative Group on the Past has received backing from the President of East Timor Timor-Leste, José Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former prime minister. He insisted that own country’s truth and reconciliation process excluded prosecutions and their absence has been criticised by the United Nations who remain in the country. He is also reportedly reluctant to pursue prosecutions in more recent cases. Here’s a lengthy report on the current situation. And as Kevin Cullen reports in the …

“The position in the common law world..”

Pete Baker on February 25, 2009, 5:51 pm

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The Northern Ireland Secretary of State has his opinion of what he would, or would not, consider taking forward from the Consultative Group on the Past’s report but other concerns about the recommendations remain. For example, what happens to the rights of anyone accused of criminal activity during the “fixed five-year mandate” of the Legacy Commission? Or are those rights to be suspended in pursuit of “forgiveness and reconciliation”? In today’s Irish Times, Frank Millar reports the views of Peter …

“If I do write something, Whatever it is, I’ll be writing for myself.”

Pete Baker on February 16, 2009, 4:10 am

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In today’s Observer Henry McDonald notes a recent post by Danny Morrison on his blog where he takes issue with an account by Seamus Heaney of a chance meeting between the two on a train – a meeting which informed part of a poem in his 1996 collection The Spirit Level. The account appears in the recently published collection of interviews with Heaney by Denis O’Driscoll, Stepping Stones. From the Observer article. In the recently published book of interviews with …

These communities were never completely of the same mind as to what was done [in their name]?

Mick Fealty on February 13, 2009, 6:02 pm

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The report talks about the effects of paramilitary domination of the most vulnerable communities. They note the disappearance of normal forms of law and order in favour of the kinds of summary justice that persist to this day: The Group heard how they had to endure over many years the presence in their midst of their ‘own paramilitaries’ and at the same time absorb the concentration of heavy military and police presence. Those presences over the years became more and …

“All the evidence is here.”

Pete Baker on February 13, 2009, 4:06 am

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On Hearts and Minds tonight, Malachi O’Doherty on the real lessons from The Process™ here – “You don’t need to be sane and reasonable to make peace. You don’t even have to be a good politician.” Of course, it also helps to have well-placed friends.. and to keep moving, however slowly, towards the agreed objective. Even if you we end up with an incomplete, or partial, version of that objective. Pete Baker

Eames-Bradley: Ulsterising the blame for collusion…

Mick Fealty on February 12, 2009, 7:40 pm

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The section of the Eames-Bradley report dealing with collusion begins with a faint echo of British government policy from the seventies and eighties when the decision was made to take Army personnel out of the firing line and put locally recruited police and UDR in. In this case, they refer to what is allegedly and inversion of that policy, but one in which Army and MI5 are protected from further investigation, whilst their local counterparts (uniquely amongst all ‘former combatants’) …

Eames-Bradley: on the hierarchy of victims

Mick Fealty on February 11, 2009, 7:41 pm

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Chapter 3 of the Eames-Bradley report begins by going into considerable detail of who died and where. It’s clear that Belfast took the brunt of the often indiscriminate violence. According to their figures: East Belfast 128; North Belfast 576; West Belfast 623. The next largest figure is Derry City with 227 fatalities. It also contains those familiar figures of who, by organisation, were responsible. The vast majority of the victims were civilians or security forces. Whilst the vast majority of …

Citybeat Slugger politics spot…

Mick Fealty on February 4, 2009, 8:12 pm

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As promised last night, the Slugger politics slot on Citybeat last night. To be a regular feature once a month. This month: Education reforms and the Consultative Group on the Past report… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Car bomb discovered in Castlewellan

Pete Baker on January 31, 2009, 10:13 pm

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The BBC are reporting that an army bomb disposal team has discovered 300lb of homemade explosives in the boot of a car in Castlewellan, County Down. The security alert began on Tuesday after a telephoned warning of a bomb in the village. Despite the reference to a warning “to a newsroom” none of the reports have identified any organisation as claiming responsibility. Adds via NCM in the comments, some more details here The callers claimed the bomb was originally intended …

Eames-Bradley: Preserving the partial sanctity of the past…

Mick Fealty on January 30, 2009, 10:35 pm

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Wednesday’s release of the Eames Bradley report on how do deal with Nothern Ireland’s troubled past was, as Lord Robin Eames himself noted on BBC NI’s Hearts and Minds programme last night, a poisoned chalice from the outset. Both men were determined to come out of that process with something real, rather than a bland or abstract measure that could reach an easy consensus but then be pushed into the long grass and be neglected. Their recommendation that a blanket …

“Reconciliation cannot be built on lies or half-truths..”

Pete Baker on January 29, 2009, 7:47 pm

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Interesting to note that the Legacy Commission proposed by the Consultative Group on the Past is time-limited to only 5 years [and then? – Ed] – as the BBC’s Vincent Kearney says, “The idea is that this would be a final, comprehensive review and that when its remit ends, the door would finally be closed on the past.” That’s despite Denis Bradley commenting previously on the amnesty such a ‘line in the sand’ implied. In his response to the proposals …

Inquiry would bear heaviest on those responsible for a small share deaths

Mick Fealty on January 28, 2009, 7:04 pm

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No one who saw Eames-Bradleys’ initial brief, never mind their specific terms of reference, could do much other than shake their head slowly in sympathy for two decent men charged with an impossible task. Whatever came out of the machine, was always likely to fall under the category of ‘political football’. Paul Bew’s on the Today Programme contribution from Paul Bew this morning tricks out first the context for the critical reaction, and then what may prove its most fatal …