Belfast Gonzo

2003-11-17T05:19:00.000-08:00

JUST IN CASE...

...you think I've disappeared, I'm blogging at Slugger O'Toole for the duration of the election campaign. I thought I'd have time to do both, but things are busy at the moment.

2003-11-04T14:06:00.000-08:00

TRIMBLE'S DILEMMA...

David Trimble is a voter in Lagan Valley. Which leaves me wondering who he will vote for - his loyal Chief Whip Ivan Davis or the rebel who has refused the party whip, Jeffrey Donaldson?

Alliance's Seamus Close has already suggested a tongue-in-cheek answer - that Mr Trimble could vote for him!

2003-10-30T12:23:00.000-08:00

HELP WANTED...

DOES anyone know if there's a way to get a counter on my sidebar for no cost and very little technical ability?

2003-10-30T11:31:00.000-08:00

A HANDSHAKE BUT NO DEAL… TRIMBLE POCKETS MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR...

BRIAN Feeney can do my head in with his tired republican rhetoric, but he does make the occasional good point. I think he managed one the other day when he pointed out that the UUP and SF may not have been too badly damaged by their failure to make a deal.

A pre-election deal was always going to be tricky. I didn’t think it would happen, although it would have been nice to have been proved wrong.

So what are the potential electoral consequences for the two problem parties? Was their ‘nearly deal’ a good move or not?

From a UUP perspective, it was a gamble. Some prospective candidates have jumped ship; surprisingly some of the more moderate pro-Trimble types, like Bob Stoker and Ivor Whitten. Yet, by talking to Sinn Fein just before an election – rather than taking the usual unionist route of retreating to the tribal corner – Trimble was appealing to a more moderate unionist. Unionists are perhaps more prepared these days to forgive those who try and fail, than those who never try at all. Watching the contrast between the DUP’s party election broadcast in May and yesterday’s is incredible; moderation could be making a comeback.

If a deal had been agreed with ‘the enemy’, the DUP wouldn’t have had any use for their own election slogan. ‘Lundy’ would have sufficed. News of the long-awaited handshake was downplayed so much, it barely registered on the unionist consciousness. The fact that Trimble and Adams were on the phone hours after the process broke down was a good indication that they will just pick up the pieces and try, try and try again. Everyone knows we can’t go back to square one, even the DUP.

But Trimble has, in some ways, beaten republicans at their own game. He has pocketed the IRA’s ‘war is over’ statement and a substantial act of decommissioning – his arch-critic David Burnside’s description - without giving anything away.

Trimble has been castigated as a poor negotiator, but have the begrudgers got it wrong? More to the point, is the UUP too scared to shout about it? They seem to have a problem recognising when they are ahead of the game.

On the other side of the fence, Sinn Fein has got the election it wanted so badly.

And… that’s it. But as Trimble himself might say: “An election to what?” Certainly not an Assembly, so Sinn Fein haven’t much to show for their weeks of negotiating.

Whether the IRA bottled it, or Trimble didn’t understand what he had agreed to, some say republicans are having ‘trouble with their constituency’. The resignation of John Kelly from the party was a footnote in the press here, but was it indicative of a much greater concern within republicanism about Sinn Fein’s strategy?

I am beginning to suspect this may be the case. Feedback welcome.

2003-10-27T17:01:00.000-08:00

'ELLO, 'ELLO, 'ELLO...

I mentioned this the other day, and UUP negotiator Michael McGimpsey noticed as well in the Belfast Tele on Saturday ('cos he was on BBC Hearts & Minds on Thursday):

“Senior UUP negotiator Michael McGimpsey said the DUP had performed a 'flip followed by a somersault' over the issue of Sinn Fein involvement on the Policing Board.

He said Sammy Wilson's comments that the party would not leave the Policing Board in the event of Sinn Fein taking their seats "flew in the face of stated DUP policy" which declared that the party would not remain on the Board if Sinn Fein took its positions.

Mr McGimpsey said: "Sammy let the mask slip. Only a few days ago, the DUP said it would have nothing to do with republicans, yet here we had a flip followed by a somersault contradicting the stated position.

"It was astonishing that he indicated that his party that changed its mind on policing with Sinn Fein without decommissioning, without closure, without 'acts of completion'.

"Sammy's comments have exposed the DUP's real position regarding Sinn Fein's participation on the policing board. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his frank honesty.”

So the DUP will NOT deny that it will sit on the Policing Board with Sinn Fein, as anyone who watched Sammy Wilson’s performance on Hearts & Minds will (hopefully) have noticed. Something worth remembering for all those borderline UUP voters who think the DUPes would never ‘sell out’.

Pah!

Having said that, and not to diminish the boul' Sammy's attempts at reconciliation with nationalism on the Policing Board, the DUP are giving more than a wink and a nudge to observers that they ain't the party of no talking that they used to be. Prepared to deal with republicans?

Of course they are. And don't you dare not believe it.

2003-10-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

WHAT'S IN A NAME...

"Earlier this month tax-evasion charges were filed against Vastly Sharkhnovsky, who is responsible for the auditing of operations."

Well named or wha'?!

:O)

2003-10-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

THROUGH A GLASS, BUT DARKLY...

BLAIR wants greater transparency over IRA weapons, yet there is none in his own statements.

This contrasts starkly with General de Chastelain. In fact, the differences between the two men are clear and many. Blair is a triumph of style over substance; de Chastelain is a plain speaking man, who avoids putting a gloss on his words.

Even the way they dress speaks volumes. The General turned up at his now infamous press conference looking slightly dishevelled. ‘Throughother’, as they say in north Antrim. But then he hadn’t had a chance to even change after visiting the IRA arms dump, so it’s entirely plausible he had been dragged through a hedge backwards. IICD member Andrew Sens told the DUP: “We had very little time between the act and the press conference.”

Blair appeared, as usual, in an immaculate suit. But that couldn’t disguise his discomfort.

The DUP have put a transcript of the meeting they had with de Chastelain on their website.

I found this question by Peter Robinson interesting:

“There are various assessments of the size of the IRA arsenal by Jane's Intelligence Review, Magill, The Guardian and the Mirror. Are all these in the ballpark?

“De Chastelain – Yes.”

So at least we're all talking, roughly, about the same size of arsenal.

Downing Street’s attempts to play Blair’s ‘sexed up’ weapons statement down as a ‘guesstimate’ is not convincing, as Blair had already told the Commons:

“He [de Chastelain] gives certain information—not the full information, but certain information—to us, as the two Governments. Although we are not at liberty to disclose that information without his permission, we are working hard to try to find a way in which we can do so, because I believe, on the basis of what we know, that people would be satisfied if they knew the full details.”

You’d think after the debacle over the Iraq weapons report, Blair would’ve wised up.

It seems not. Enough of the smoke and mirrors from the PM, thank you.

...

On Hearts & Minds the other night, Sammy Wilson claimed that the DUP would not walk away from the Police Board if Sinn Fein joined. I'm nearly sure that they said they would in the past. Does anyone know if this was a new shift?

2003-10-23T10:39:00.000-07:00

ARMS AND THE MEN...

SOMEONE is telling fibs, it seems.

Either Tony Blair was told further details on what the IRA put beyond use by de Chastelain or he wasn't. General de Chastelain said he would resign if he was forced to reveal the scale of decommissioning.

Small wonder he is thinking about quitting.

Blair's suggestion that if only the public knew what he did, we would be satisfied, is either complete bluff or he was told by the IICD, which it denies.

Downing Street's suggestion that Blair could not say more without breaching confidentiality with the IICD raises the stakes. Clearly, the implication is that what Blair claims to know didn't come from the security services (who would have a good idea of the locations of arms dumps), but de Chastelain.

At the moment, this is a battle between the credibility of Blair and de Chastelain.

The General is winning. Blair hasn't had much credibility amongst unionists and nationalists for a long time. If there is some bigger plan going on here, it is lost in the haze of spin that surrounds Downing Street these days.

2003-10-22T04:13:00.000-07:00

DE CHASTELAIN TO GET INVOLVED IN TALKS…

DAVID McKitterick wrote in the Independent today:
“If a Paisley-Donaldson alliance in the new Assembly outnumbers the Trimble forces, the Assembly will face deadlock and crisis, since there is no chance of dominant Paisleyites agreeing to form a new power-sharing administration.

The scale of republican moves surprised many observers, who expected more, since Mr Trimble had personally worked out details of the deal with Mr Adams. It was also approved by the British and Irish governments. Instead of a triumphant Mr Trimble claiming credit for drawing the IRA's fangs, what emerged were reports of disappointment in his party at what had been negotiated.”

It seems to me that perhaps the main problem in this process has been a lack of understanding. In negotiations, without realising it, the UUP and Sinn Fein were talking different languages. What Trimble wanted was something QUANTITATIVE, while republicans only permitted de Chastelain to give QUALITATIVE information. Trimble initially appeared to blame the IICD chief, but later on BBC Spotlight he was clearly blaming the IRA for not permitting the Canadian general to say more.

If I was to buy the UUP and Sinn Fein negotiating teams a dictionary, I would have the bookmark at the page with ‘transparency’ defined. Clearly, there was a difference in the understanding of what could be done. On the BBC recently, Martin McGuinness hinted that the IRA could go further. But it looks now as though nothing was ever spelt out, even after Trimble warned Sinn Fein negotiators that another statement would be unacceptable. Blair is said to know what has been decommissioned, and Trimble desparately called on him to make it known last night.

I remember saying during the summer that I didn’t think there would be a deal before an election, as it would be treated as a sign of Trimble’s weakness by the DUP hardliners. Now he is being held up as the unionist who was suckered by the Shinners, who trusted them and was let down. It will take some time to rebuild the trust.

Once again in this process, we learn the difference between the letter and the spirit of an agreement. The ‘agreed scheme’ means the IRA can ask for no publicity; but it was to be carried out in a manner that maximised public confidence.

The Government's last card is now the Comprehensive Review following election, as an Executive is unlikely to be formed in any circumstances now.

As an aside, I understand that the Government wants to re-initiate discussions between the parties. However, it wants the IICD to be involved, as the Commons will hear later today.

2003-10-22T03:51:00.000-07:00

FREE ADVERTISING... SLUGGER THE BLOGGER...

Keep up to date with current Northern Ireland debates with Slugger O'Toole. It's a very useful site if you are curious about how both the punters and politicos from all sides view the situations.

There's also a lot of hot air and interesting links... like the recent UUP talks with Sinn Fein. Arf.

2003-10-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

NO DEAL BETWEEN THE BOWLER HATS AND BALACLAVAS...

And so, despite all the hype, the deal has fallen apart. I’m watching the UTV news with a mixture of a lack of surprise and wondering when Tony and Bertie are going to come out for their belated presser.

It’s not the press conference they were expecting to hold, that’s for sure. No glory today for the two premiers, the UUP or Sinn Fein.

Trimble was on Radio Ulster just now, pointing the finger – almost incredibly – at General de Chastelain for the lack of transparency in his latest decommissioning report. It was the most detailed report so far, but the UUP leader clearly seemed to have been expecting more.

Nothing that couldn’t have been guessed at was stated. The public would have expected “light, medium and heavy ordinance and associated munitions… automatic weapons, ammunition, explosives and explosive material” to be put beyond use. What else could have? Likewise "the material put beyond use this morning could have caused death or destruction on a huge scale had it been put to use" is stating the obvious.

Trimble didn’t seem to think the lack of clarity was necessarily the IRA’s fault, although no-one had been talking about anything other than the ‘agreed scheme’, including the IRA. The UUP is constantly on the decommissioning hook these days, a result of investing so much political capital in the issue earlier in the process. It was a strategic error that has more symbolic than actual value.

So there are more questions than answers today.

Another lies in Adams’s confidence-building statement: "Implementation by the two governments and the parties of their commitments under the Agreement provides the context in which Irish republicans and unionists will as equals pursue their objectives peacefully, thus providing full and final closure of the conflict."

This is very positive, but it doesn’t actually go any further than Adams’ statement in May, when he basically said ‘the war is over’ in other words. It's not about the 'war' any more though. Those who accepted it was already over, however, will be disappointed that the UUP, SF and the two governments have rowed back from Paragraph 13 of the Joint Declaration. So kneecapping licenses won’t be torn up yet, political disappearances can continue without political sanction and exiles won’t be allowed home. No change there then.

Even if today had been a success, this deal could never have been a total solution. But the exclusion of the other parties didn’t help matters. Durkan, Ervine, McWilliams and Ford have been giving off about the lack of inclusivity recently, and the SDLP leader has taken to calling the UUP and Sinn Fein the ‘problem parties’. The smaller parties are sometimes the most capable of original thinking and imaginative solutions, so ignoring them is not always wise.

Trimble has hinted that there is about a week to save the deal, when there is a UUP special council. It would appear to hinge on the IRA permitting de Chastelain to say more on what arms he has dealt with. I would say that any plans to get the IRA to allow the IICD to go further immediately are pretty fanciful. First there were the rumours of visible decommissioning. In the end there wasn’t even an inventory.

We were going to have an election with or without a deal. It’s now without one, but that doesn’t mean things are totally dead in the water. A deal before an election was always going to be problematic, as the DUP would have Trimble over a barrel by unpicking it during the campaign. The parties always retreat to their tribal corners before elections anyway. If I was a conspiracist, I might start wondering if there was honestly ever any chance of a pre-election deal and asking whose interests today’s failure is in.

Since I started writing, Tony and Bertie have done a short presser with no questions being taken. They looked a bit non-plussed, and Blair must have been kicking himself for getting out of his hospital bed.

This was a day that had been hyped beyond all expectations by Downing Street. Today’s failures will be looked upon with a degree of frustration, expectation and many sighs. It will simply add to the apathy already out there, lower electoral turnout and force us to endure yet another poll based on how loud the ‘superprods’ and ‘supertaigs’ can shout and scare each other.

How utterly boring. How sickeningly repetitive. How frustratingly safe.

Still, at least my election date prediction was only a day out...

2003-10-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

ON THE BUSES...

CRITICISING Translink is, if you read the letters pages in our daily papers, one of our national pastimes.

The bus drivers are striking today, but Belfast seems to be coping remarkably well.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that people drove to work earlier or later, or participated in car pools. Others will have stayed at home, while the schools won't be noting absences - a day off for many.

Northern Ireland is addicted to the car - partly because our public transport services are underfunded, unreliable and old - but the strike seems to have encouraged people to think about how we travel to work. I wonder how many commuters and employers had a travel to work plan ready for the eventuality. Minister John Spellar recently launched an initiative about how children travel to school and commuters get to work, which contained some basic, commonsense guidelines.

It doesn't paper over the fact that public transport here is still crap, and I would be reluctant to ever give up my trusty hatchback for the permanently freezing carriages of an NIR train on ever-decreasing rail lines or the painful unreliability of an Ulsterbus.

Bus drivers are not particularly well paid, but after listening to the horror stories from members of the public on today's BBC Talkback, it's hard to see public support developing for them. Once the novelty of coping for a day wears off, the dependence some have on buses will give vent to frustration.

Anyone who has stood in the rain at a Citybus stop must wonder why Ulsterbus drivers are opposed to having to stop for them. To me, they are one and the same. Perhaps this issue is being highlighted by the management for PR purposes or gain sympathy for Translink, which runs both Ulsterbus and Citybus.

2003-10-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

*Ahem*...

Think I might live to regret my election date prediction... it's 5.45pm and there's nothing on the news yet.

*blush*

2003-10-14T11:09:00.000-07:00

GREEN POLITICS...

The Green Party gets its first elected representative in Norn Irn; Councillor Raymond Bailey. His election agent for the Assembly election is Aidan Carlin, the former key Sinn Fein activist and councillor.

The 'greening of the east' might take a slightly different form from the greening of the west at the 2001 Westminster election!

2003-10-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

ELECTION DELAYED...

The election is happening. Not on November 13, as speculated, but the 27th.

No doubt the announcement will be made tomorrow, Wednesday.

2003-10-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

WHILE bumbling about Blog Irish (July 26, 2003) I noticed Bran's remarks in passing that "John Major stopped taking Bill Clinton's calls because of his interference in Northern Ireland".

I'm sure that Sunday Times columnist 'Sue Denhem' would agree:

President Bill Clinton’s role in the Northern Ireland peace process was “hugely exaggerated”, a British cabinet minister claims in a new book about the special relationship between Britain and the United States.

Hug Them Close, by Peter Riddell of The Times, suggests that Clinton’s involvement was “more symbolic and presentational, than about substance” and that he failed to follow through once the Good Friday agreement was signed. The minister, quoted anonymously, reckons the former US president “never really put the boat out” despite claiming much of the credit for the peace process.

Sir Christopher Meyer, British ambassador in Washington at the time, agrees: “He (Clinton) never quite gave the bite on Sinn Fein/IRA at crucial moments. I think we would have liked more pressure on decommissioning. I never thought we got the return we deserved.”

Riddell said the view that Clinton could have done more for the peace process was “unanimous” among British officials.

There is praise for Clinton’s involvement in the frenetic negotiations that led to the signing of the agreement in April 1998. Even so, this was regarded as Clinton’s way of expressing gratitude for Tony Blair’s public support during the Monica Lewinsky scandal that broke earlier that year.

...

However, the story about Major not taking Clinton's calls may be an exaggeration. There was a story in Paul Dixon's book last year (name escapes me) saying that Major's anger over the granting of a Visa to Gerry Adams was, like Clinton's involvement, for appearances' sake. Major had to be seen to be angry, to keep the unionists 'onside'.

More pointless trivia later...

2003-10-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

DOUBLE TROUBLE AND THE REBEL MPs...

BERTIE and Tony have been getting together and it looks as though things are about to step up a gear over the next few days.

So why is Secretary of State Paul Murphy planning to be in Canada next week? Could it possibly be because he is largely sidelined by Blair, a 'controlocrat' whose hand must be on the tiller of every NI initiative? Is Jonathan Powell the de facto Secretary of State?

Blair will be anxious to shift the news agenda away from all the negativity of Hutton, Iraq and the disastrous Brent East by-election, so he'll want to get something positive out of Northern Ireland very soon... but it's a shame that the capable and affable Murphy is being left on the sidelines. Bertie is very upbeat about election prospects next month, although perhaps he's a little demob happy now that he's announced he'll be retiring at 60.

Meanwhile, the UUP have rejected the Joint Declaration, apparently. The spin meisters are saying the position is more 'nuanced' than that, but it will allow the rebel MPs back into the fold.

The Government are obviously not perturbed, with a spokesman saying: "We will study the outcome of the executive meeting closely. However, the two Governments are firmly committed to the joint declaration, which they believe provides the basis for political progress." The Government has never been too bothered what local parties think of joint governmental initiatives, so why should it start now?

Sinn Fein are downplaying expectations. Observers of the peace process might take see this in a different light; the emphasis on a republican hardline is another negotiating tactic. When Sinn Fein get uppity and the IRA start shooting people in so-called 'punishment attacks' just before intensive talks with the Government, it's usually a good sign that they are about to shift. Nevertheless, the Shinners are jumpy, as it remains difficult to see how the institutions will be revived even if there is an election.

2003-10-03T05:12:00.000-07:00

TERRORISTS CONSULTED OVER RELEASE OF 'DIFFICULT' HOSPITAL PATIENTS...

THE power that paramilitaries hold over the communities here is well documented, but I discovered something recently that illustrated just how far their influence stretches, and how willing society is to accommodate them.

It transpires that young people who might be considered as 'difficult' may not be released from care because the paramilitaries will not guarantee their safety. While I know the name of the health trust and the institution involved, it is perhaps not as important as the news that seeking the permission of paramilitaries seems to have been initiated by the trust itself.

It appears that, in order to protect the vulnerable from possible so-called 'punishment' attacks for anti-social behaviour, the trust has decided to ask the political representatives of parties with terrorist associations if patients will be safe if allowed out of a specialist care unit.

Understandably, the trust is probably placing the health and safety of its patients at top of its priority list. But what does it say about our society, when hospital patients have to get permission from terrorists to leave hospital?

I've heard of bed blocking, but this fascist behaviour takes it to a new level.

Society here was prepared to tolerate the release of terrorists from prison for the greater good. The least they could is return the favour for disturbed kids in care.

Let's face it - we all know who poses the bigger threat to all of us.

2003-10-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

SEGREGATION...

Someone told me the other day that demands for segregation are continuing in the Republic's gaols... the ordinary decent criminals are calling for a separate wing for Dail representatives.

Ahem.

2003-10-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

UPDATE...

AFTER predicting (on September 19) that stories about 'observed' decommissioning would appear last weekend, Trimble came out with it on Saturday on the BBC's Inside Politics.

Such a development is not without concerns, as Bairbre de Brun says today. The problem is that, by stating his expectations, Trimble risks jeopardising potential IRA moves.

Some suspect that this is to put pressure on the IRA, which seems to betray the positive mood music provided by the recent spate of Trimble-Adams meetings. Others say that if what the IRA offers as its bottom line isn't good enough for Trimble, he is preparing for the 'blame game' now. I was told that meetings between the UUP and SDLP haven't been quite so productive, but that could be spin.

Perhaps this is because some unionists suspect that Blair is moving farther and farther away from 'acts of completion' as a pretext for an election.

The next ten days will be crucial, as republicans are saying, and pressure is growing all round. There's a good wrap of today's events here.

2003-09-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

NORTHERN Ireland is a land of contradictions. Here are today’s, from the Irish News.

From the letters page:

Sinn Fein Sligo Councillor, Arthur Gibbons, wants “every Irish citizen… an equal vote in PR elections [to the Seanad]. The current system allows a small number to vote hinting that the rest of us haven’t the wit to elect the ‘right’ people. Every vote should be equal. The days of some people being ‘more equal than others’ should be consigned to the dustbin of history.”

- My question then is: why does Sinn Fein defend a voting system in the northern Assembly that ensures that the votes of ‘others’ are of lesser value than ‘nationalist’ or even ‘unionist’ votes?

…

From the news:

The British armed forces minister Adam Ingram was last night accused of snubbing SDLP leader Mark Durkan after a planned meeting between the pair, to discuss the Peter McBride case, was cancelled at the eleventh hour.

Mr Durkan said that his party had only been notified on Sunday night that the meeting with Mr Ingram, due to take place at Castle Buildings yesterday (Monday) morning, had been cancelled without reason.

“I am angered at the last-minute decision by Adam Ingram to pull out of the meeting to discuss the McBride case,” the SDLP leader said.

“I am even more angry that the injustice done to the McBride family remains 11 years after Peter McBride’s murder.

- Ummm… this is the same SDLP that just announced a boycott of British Minister John Spellar because of his role in the McBride case? Indeed it is.

Nothing like crying after a taste of your own medicine.

…

Finally, from the business section:

The north’s main political parties have been branded “fiscally irresponsible” by the DUP.

And it claims that giving the assembly tax-raising powers would be “catastrophic... leading to a stifling of entrepreneurial spirit”.

The party’s deputy leader Peter Robinson, right, was responding to calls by Sinn Fein that any future locally-elected government should be given economic sovereignty, with the power to offer tax incentives to bolster the economy and tackle deprivation.
…
Mr Robinson said that giving the assembly power to raise taxes would be catastrophic and claimed the pro-agreement parties had failed to control spending and curb political bureaucracy.

“Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the UUP have all been fiscally irresponsible and given the temptation of tax-raising powers they will inevitably revert to their tax-and-spend instincts.”

- Peter Robinson has a cheek. He’s been running Castlereagh Borough Council like a personal fiefdom for years, and while he’s happy to crow about its low rates, the residents are none too happy about the sale of Council assets for this privilege. Rather than ‘tax and spend’, Robinson is guilty of ‘sell and don’t spend’. Oh, and then there’s that £6 million loan the Council are going for. So much for Prudent Peter.

2003-09-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

HELP!

I was looking for an article in my own archive (on the left-hand sidebar), but when I clicked, I was looking at an error screen.

Does everyone else get the same? Is this common? Can Blogger retrieve archives? I certainly did nothing to remove them.

You can leave messages by hitting 'Comment'.

Damn. Hope I haven't lost everything.

2003-09-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

GUNS AND GOVERNMENT…

I’VE just finished reading Brian Rowan’s latest book ‘The Armed Peace: Life and Death after the Ceasefire’ and I’m a little disappointed.

Not that it’s a bad book – it will provide a handy historical reference – but it just doesn’t go far enough. Rowan is good on what he does write, but it’s what he left out that left me wondering if I hadn’t skipped some chapters. I was left scratching my head at the lack of further information, or even much speculation, on the Colombia, Castlereagh and ‘Stormontgate’ affairs.

Rowan’s potential insight into these events was my prime reason for buying the book, and I felt I got less than I bargained for when they were only mentioned in passing. While there may have legal considerations, there is much that has been said elsewhere without consequence.

Indeed, it is consequences ‘The Armed Peace’ is largely concerned with; political consequences of paramilitary actions. Rowan is chiefly concerned with the interaction between politics and paramilitaries at the highest levels; the meetings, the bargaining, the wheeling and the dealing.

A book on paramilitary and security matters is largely dependent on the quality of the author’s sources, and there is no doubt that Rowan’s are excellent. From P O’Neill to the former head of Special Branch, he has unrivalled access to them all. To retain that privileged position, Rowan has adopted from necessity a largely neutral voice in relation to paramilitary activity. And that is fair enough. There are fine lines to be negotiated here, and if Rowan is convinced that republicans have torn themselves up to keep the movement united and on board, I am prepared to give way here. But not too much.

While I have my own theories about Castlereagh, Rowan clearly believes that the IRA carried out the Castlereagh robbery and hints that the IRA’s director of intelligence masterminded it. So while we learn the names of Rowan’s favourite BBC colleagues, Bobby Storey’s name is not mentioned, even though it is now public knowledge. Does Rowan's position as the BBC’s security editor and his need to retain contacts mean there is a degree of deference, as well as respect?

The book is chiefly concerned with the IRA’s journey from war to peace, and one can almost detect a muted reverence for Adams, Gibney et al, while on the loyalist side Ervine and Hutchinson are regarded in a similar light.

But Rowan doesn’t operate in a total moral vacuum, and comes down hard on the Johnny Adair faction of the UDA. Not that that would be particularly difficult; like his preferred victims, Adair is a soft target. But loyalists – while they have been much more visible and prolific in their killing – do not get anywhere near the same coverage in the book, prompting Jim Gibney to write: “In many ways ,republicans and particularly the IRA are the story of the peace process. But they are not the only story. The book shows that the British government and the unionists are fixated on the IRA.”

In a sense, Gibney is right. But the IRA is key to the political process and the UDA has no politics beyond self-aggrandisement. A group of criminal gangs requires a security solution, not a political one, and it is the latter Rowan is understandably most interested in. Loyalism was never going to be the main focus for this book, although republicans will be disappointed at the lack of a chapter on State demilitarisation or collusion, or the absent analysis of important events such as the Holy Cross protest.

Instead, much of the book is taken up with background on the loyalist and republican ceasefires, and it is here that the book is strongest. Rowan is good at brutal honesty. If a ceasefire has been broken, it is broken. And he gives us the different definitions of ‘ceasefire’, just to be certain we know how that was judged. If the standards are ambiguous, Rowan says so in deadpan tones. Contradictions in the process and in the positions taken by organisations are noted, the stupid macho pride that pervades paramilitarism is presented, although maybe not recognised as such, and you make your own mind up.

Much of what is said has already been on the public record, and what is new, you may have read in extracts in the local press. Revelations are few, and some are unsurprising, such as the threat from Adair to Billy Hutchinson’s life. Others are more mundane; such as P O’Neill asking Rowan to open an envelope containing an IRA statement, just in case the messenger’s fingerprints were on it.

I was, however, unaware that US envoy Richard Haass persuaded Gerry Adams to lay himself prostrate in Stormont in his final bid to persuade the British that the IRA had ended its campaign. I remember Rowan on BBC Newsline telling us the news of the IRA’s final statement, delivered on its behalf by Gerry Adams. He had his trademark furrowed eyebrows on, and he seemed to be struggling to restrain himself; 'this was as good as it gets', was what I took from it. He almost seemed to be appealing to unionists to grasp the opportunity, not to pass it up. But while it was good enough for Rowan, it wasn’t for the British, and Trimble wasn’t forced to be the ‘rejectionist’ for once – although I have little doubt it wouldn’t have done for him either.

Nevertheless, if that is how Rowan regarded the IRA statement, his professionalism appears to have restrained the emotion he must have felt. Gerry Adams gets the last word – a predictable word of advice to the Irish Government and unionists not to throw the chance provided by the IRA away – and it reminded me how Rowan must have felt that night. Thankfully, he is too professional to let personal feelings come to the fore and I did not feel he had a sneaking regard for any organisation.

That dispassionate stance is a strength, but perhaps its weakness is that it doesn’t allow him to dig too deep below the surface, to second-guess or speculate. And that is something I wanted.

Stylistically, Rowan is matter of fact, although I did wonder why he occasionally inserts himself into the story. I am prepared to forgive constant references to “MY sources…” – said in a tone that implies everyone else’s are inferior – in his broadcasts, but I found other references in the book to his family unnecessary. This was a book about hard men; I didn’t need to be convinced of Rowan’s humanity and found that aspect a little embarrassing in the context. On the other hand, there was enough balance, thought, detail and pace to keep me engrossed enough to finish it in two sittings.

‘The Armed Peace’ is a fairly inoffensive, elite-driven book that will neither excite nor disturb too many people, armed or otherwise. While it will give each of the ‘sides’ in the conflict a valuable insight into the thinking of the other, I have no doubt that it will add to the historical record adequately. But there is much, much more to this unfinished story.

Mind you, I would’ve loved to have been at the launch, if only to see the look on Ronnie Flanagan's face as he walked into a room filled with former terrorists...

2003-09-24T03:16:00.000-07:00

SUSPECT PACKAGE...

ONE part of the “package” being hammered out between Sinn Fein and the British at Hillsborough is now becoming apparent – the Shinners want Brice Dickson’s head on a plate.

The first indication was from Alex Maskey in Tuesday’s News Letter:

“A Sinn Fein delegation left a Hillsborough meeting with Secretary of State Paul Murphy yesterday (Monday) morning with Mr Adams leaving media comment to colleague Alex Maskey.

The former Belfast Lord Mayor again played down ''unhelpful speculation'' about any imminent deal.

"We are not talking about trying to pull together some package. We are trying to resolve a long number of outstanding matters,'' he said.

He specified the Human Rights Commission, giving added weight to concerns expressed by the Alliance Party that the NIHRC was very much in the republicans' firing line.

Alliance human rights spokesman Stephen Farry said Sinn Fein was trying to manufacture a crisis on the issue.

"There is no crisis of confidence in the NIHRC other than that which nationalist politicians in Sinn Fein and the SDLP are attempting to engineer.

"Sinn Fein cannot really argue for the independence of the Commission if they expect it to dance solely to their tune,'' he said.”

Gerry Adams was reported in the News Letter and Irish News today as having cited the state of the NI Human Rights Commission and Equality Commission as particular areas of concern for republicans. Once upon a time Sinn Fein used to have a fit when the British interfered in independent bodies.

Now they demand interference. How times have changed.

I think that the Human Rights Commissioners were due to be appointed (or re-appointed) this month. It will be interesting to see whether the Government buckles and appoints a new chief more in tune with the 'group rights' approach to a Bill of Rights that republicans want.

2003-09-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

UPDATE...

There's a heated debate on Slugger O'Toole about events at Carnmoney Cemetery.

In an earlier post, I mentioned how I believed the protest came to an end. However, Slugger contributor 'Howard' made some further observations about the situation, which are well worth reading:

"In the case of Harryville, it is good that these protests did not continue. In my observation of this, the praise for this should go to two people among others.

"The (then) UUP mayor James Curry made clear by physical presence his opposition to the picketing of the Harryville Chapel. But praise is also due to the local Catholic priest who (if I recall corectly) opted not to hold services there for two months of summer (instead holding them in the main Ballymena church not far away), which allowed room for the dispute to cool off, after which I think the pickets were pretty much gone.

"I may have misread the situation in what I write above, but the lesson I drew from this was that wise people in positions of leadership have the power to take steps which benefit of the people of the town, setting a good example of neighourliness and good citizenship."

...

The above is quite correct, as far as I remember, and I am sure that Father Mullan's efforts to create a space helped avoid trouble that particular summer. Other parishioners might easily have, with justification, said: "Why should we move our church service anywhere?" I am sure it wasn't an easy decision to take, but it was a brave and sensible one.

I also remember Mayor Currie's opposition and the Orange Order Grand Master, Robert Salters, taking a stand against the protest at the gates to the Church of Our Lady. It was one of the occasions when an Orangeman could justifiably carry a banner that read: "Civil and religious liberty for all."

What Currie and Salters did was right, and I clearly remember Currie taking a lot of flak during the protest when he tried to reason with the protesters. He wasn't as close to the protection of the police lines as you might think, and was very vulnerable in a heated situation.

But after previously criticising the lack of leadership within political unionism, I now run the risk of contradicting myself when I point out that their genuine efforts sadly had little effect in dissuading loyalists like Billy Wright from stopping the protest.

2003-09-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

ADAIR YOU TO PHONE HIM AGAIN... HUTCHINSON 'ROGERED'...

Is it just me, or are the Sunday Life reports of Johnny Adair's weekly phone call to Stephen Breen getting bloody tedious or wha'?

Next week: Johnny Adair complains about having a hard bed.

*yawn*

A much more interesting story was about Assembly members' travelling expenses.

Lay preacher Roger Hutchinson's defence of his astronomical £13,908 travel expenses for someone who lives in the closest town to Stormont was a joke. He said:

"Don't forget I live in Dundonald and my area is East Antrim.

"I have an office in Larne and an office in Monkstown.

"You want to look at the clock on my car!" he added.

Frankly, such a claim - involving 32,774 miles - is difficult to believe.

Not included in the former DUP man's travel expenses were his £40,313 MLA salary and £36,000 office expenses, presumably at least partly to pay his lovely, married assistant, Louise, who has often been seen in his company. Hopefully, she wasn't too disappointed about the allegation against Roger of indecent assault filed with the PSNI in May by a female member of staff at Newtownabbey Borough Council.

Mr Hutchinson also recently attended a meeting with the Larne PSNI commander recently alongside representatives from the UPRG/UDA. Having previously been a member of the DUP, UKUP and NIUP you would be forgiven for thinking that he might have taken a principled stand about sitting down with the political representatives of terrorists...

But principles and Roger don't always mix, do they?

2003-09-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT...

A COLLEAGUE made an interesting observation today while listening to BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback show.

Eamon Mallie was pushing Alex Maskey on whether convicted paramilitaries should be allowed to join the District Policing Partnerships. Maskey’s response – and correct me if I’m wrong for paraphrasing – was that the British were also guilty of such glaring inconsistencies, in that they allowed the convicted murderers of Peter McBride, Guardsmen Fisher and Wright, to remain in the Army.

This is a good point from a smart politician. What the Army did was clearly wrong, particularly when soldiers are chucked out of the Army for cheating on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ and smoking dope (not necessarily at the same time), but not for murder.

Maskey seems to be arguing that although it is wrong for convicted murderers to remain in the Army, they are still there, so there cannot be a good reason for refusing to allow convicted republican murderers to serve on the DPPs.

The logic of this is that convicted IRA murderers should be allowed to serve on the DPPs, not because it is right – because Maskey has already conceded that murder is wrong – but because ‘themmuns’ are inconsistent too. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, right?. If parity of esteem means anything, it means the right to demand that two wrongs make a right. Right?

By allowing Fisher and Wright to remain in the Army in the face of such a clear-cut case of wrong-doing, the British establishment has handed Sinn Fein the political cover it needs to equate paramilitary terrorism and state violence.

This is something the Army has tried to avoid at all costs in recent times regarding the ongoing debate on a possible Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Indeed, pressure from the Amry may well have been the reason why Blair couldn’t fulfil his promises to Sinn Fein on paramilitaries ‘on the run’ after the Weston Park talks.

From a republican perspective, there is a possible flaw in Maskey’s argument. He is equating the cold-blooded murder of Peter McBride with what the IRA would define as ‘military operations’ in which innocent bystanders died. Therefore, Maskey’s comments could be read as suggesting that at least some IRA killings were not political acts of war, but murder comparable to that of McBride's.

[Republican readers who wish to provide a logical loophole for Alex can do so in the ‘Comments’ box, but the fact remains that with the McBride case the British have started digging a hole they will find it hard to get out of.]

Readers interested in seeing how these arguments will play out should watch BBC Northern Ireland’s ‘Let’s Talk’ on Thursday evening, which I understand will be about truth and reconciliation, inquiries, justice and so on.

2003-09-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

RUMOURS ON DECOMMISSIONING...

Rumours are circulating about a story about to break this weekend (possibly), involving IRA decommissioning under (cross-community?) observation.

This would please many people, including General de Chastelain, who told David Trimble in October 2001:

"We have made it clear to O'Neill (codename used for the IRA) that a lack of transparency makes things difficult but we want to get other events and don't want to create difficulties there."

It might also get the DUP off Trimble's back for a while.

2003-09-19T03:16:00.000-07:00

PRESSURE MOUNTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION... PUBLIC SHRUGS...

AS part of the ongoing anti-human rights campaign being waged by Sinn Fein, Bairbre de Brun has claimed the Human Rights Commission is ineffective and lacks public confidence.

The same description could easily be applied to her term in office as Health Minister, which will be remembered primarily for such fine achievements as forming the longest waiting list in Europe, indecision over where hospitals should be built and endless consultation over anything controversial.

While it is rich for Sinn Fein to lecture anyone on human rights, the additional irony of a republican party asking the British Government to interfere with the running of an independent body will not be lost on observers of the anti-human rights campaign.

...

Equally unwelcome was the intervention by two men who hold the purse strings in New York. In the great tradition of Irish blogs, I am tempted to start 'Fisking' a few articles, so let's start with what the Irish News reported:

"MAJOR US investment in Northern Ireland’s economy could be jeopardised if the crisis over the Human Rights Commission is not resolved, it has emerged."

- If I had a dollar for every time the word 'could' could be legitimately replaced by 'won't', I'd be a very rich man.

"In a dramatic intervention, the financial controllers of New York have called for the resignation of Chief Commissioner Brice Dickson and branded his crisis-hit organisation a “failed entity” that needs “complete reorganisation”."

- Posting a letter is hardly dramatic, particularly when it is done by a couple of glorified accountants no-one here has heard of.

"The Irish News has obtained a copy of a strongly worded letter sent to the British and Irish governments by City of New York Comptroller William Thompson and State of New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi."

- The thing is, the letter is NOT strongly worded. It hedges around, and this is practically admitted two paragraphs later.

"The elected officials control investment funds worth more than $180 billion and their joint letter states that more than $15 billion of this is invested in corporations doing business in Northern Ireland."

- Bear in mind; the money is not invested in Northern Ireland. It is invested in corporations "doing business" in Northern Ireland.

"The comptrollers do not threaten a withdrawal of investment but signal that it could be jeopardised by claims that the commission is undermining fair employment protections."

- By now, readers should be collectively shrugging their shoulders. If they are not going to withdraw investment, why the hell are they bothering with the letter at all?

"They point out that their offices “operate under statutory guidelines that mandate the promotion of fair employment practices” in Northern Ireland."

- Yet the Fair Employment Monitoring practices - that demand northerners tick a 'Prod' or 'Taig' box in job applications - they are being bounced into supporting would probably be illegal in New York! Imagine a Chinese person in New York being presented with a job application form and told they had to tick the 'Black' or 'White' box.

"They also tell the governments that after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement they encouraged US companies to invest in Northern Ireland “with the understanding that progress would continue to be made toward equality and fairness for all”."

- Here's the typical story of US investment in Northern Ireland: get a huge grant from the Government, open a plant, discover that it's cheaper to employ people in some low-wage Far East or eastern European country. Leave without repaying grant. Cheers.

"“It is for that reason that we have been dismayed to learn that the Northern Ire-land Human Rights Commission, one of the main institutions set up by the Good Friday Agreement to help achieve that goal, is now being used to undermine key provisions of current fair employment legislation,” the letter reads."

- How?

"The commission is drafting a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland but is accused of trying to force a shift away from the Catholic and Protestant categorisations central to existing equality safeguards.

Critics say this ignores the history of discrimination against Catholics and undermines fair employment laws that monitor religious balance in the workplace."

One gets the impression that some gullible Americans think that the levels of discrimination haven't changed in the last hundred years. It exists, but at nowhere near the same scale that used to exist.

- Let's look at the Equality Commission's Fair Employment Monitoring Record for 2001 (containing the latest figures available).

It states: "The Roman Catholic share of the full-time workforce increased from 39.4 percent in 1990 to 39.5 percent in 2001. Roman Catholics are estimated to comprise about 43 percent of those available for work."

I would suggest the comptrollers read the Equality Commission's conclusions in the report, which states, among other things: "The Catholic proportion of the part-time workforce represents their community representation within the economically active population." The assessment for full-time employment is hardly discouraging either.

So if discrimination exists, it is hardly the systemic problem that existed in the past. Indeed, while there are isolated incidents and problems, no doubt, with a few employers, it is largely a problem that seems to have been resolved.

If the comptrollers suggestion that investment could be withdrawn came about, it would actually add to the unemployment figures.

"While the commission rejects these criticisms, three of its members have re-signed over the issue and two more have withdrawn from its day-to-day work."

- And one of these former commissioners has been touring America asking gullible Irish Americans to put their names to letters undermining our draft Bill of Rights.

"The comptrollers also describe Chief Commissioner Brice Dickson as having been “hopelessly compromised” over his handling of a case linked to the 2001 loyalist protest at Holy Cross Girls School in north Belfast.

After the commission agreed to fund a parent’s legal challenge of the policing of the protest, Mr Dickson wrote to the then chief constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, saying he did not believe the case had merit.

This episode and Mr Dickson’s subsequent proposal that the Commission drop the case have been described as a breach of trust."

- While Brice was unwise to write the letter - particularly as it is now to be used as evidence by the police - the Commission was forced into the decision to back the case by a sub-committee... consisting in part of the commissioners who resigned, unsurprisingly. Committees have now been restructured in the Commission, according to Dickson, and such a situation could not arise again.

While unionists would no doubt agree with much of what has been said here, they are sitting out of this debate (they think human rights are something Catholics get to undermine unionism), leaving any defence to Alliance. Unfortunately, it could end up that the party is backing a loser.

The US is entitled to use economic threats and bribery if it wants to, as Turkey discovered just before the war against Iraq, but to take action based on incomplete evidence, without any discussion beforehand with the Commission, is unforgiveable.

To back an agenda that would result in un-American, anti-democratic and possibly illegal policies in their own state, but expect others abroad to jump at the same proposals, is ludicrous.

...

Remember I mentioned the 'anti-loyalist' media? After Davy Tweed lambasting UTV for showing too much Gaelic and not enough rugby, his fellow Ballymena DUP councillor, nutbag Robin Stirling, now has a go at the BBC.

"Whenever nationalists or Catholics are victims of violence, or Catholic graves are desecrated, it is overplayed, yet these terrible things have been happening to both sides for decades," he said.

Nothing to do with the criticism being justified then.

2003-09-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Has anyone else noticed that the SDLP website has been hacked?

It's probably fixed by now... :o(

Ma Bear responds to my analysis of Carnmoney. She has a slightly different emphasis, but I think we're pretty much agreed that this is a shameful display of unforgiveable bigotry.

There is usually some kind of context to sectarian protests, even if it is petty in the extreme. Perhaps 'Eye of Newt' picked up on it better in the Irish News today (although it's not on the website). Newton Emerson argues:

"[W]hat caused an Ulster Unionist councillor, supposedly a representative of the better instincts of the unionist tradition, to make such a revolting statement about the Carnmoney scandal?

The answer may lie, sadly and quite predictably, in the 2001 Newtownabbey council election results in which one Ivan Hunter scraped home on the 10th count with just 607 votes, behind Arthur Templeton of the DUP who was elected on the eighth count with 640 votes.

Although this is a large enough support base to launch a leadership challenge against David Trimble, it probably leaves Councillor Hunter feeling a bit vulnerable on his extreme-right flank."

Unionism desperately needs better leadership at all levels...

2003-09-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

WAKING THE DEAD... TOLERANCE BURIED AT CARNMONEY...

INTERNAL feuds mean loyalists are well used to shooting each other in the knees. But you'd think after the outrage generated by protests at Holy Cross school and Harryville's Church of Our Lady they would've learned to stop shooting themselves in the foot.

Sadly, no. And the disgraceful events and threats that marred the weekend remembrance ceremony at Carnmoney Cemetery are testament to that fact.

The real reasons for this protest are difficult to fathom. Some said it was about Drumcree, that if Protestants were stopped from exercising their civil and religious liberties in Portadown, then those uppity fenians would just have to accept something similar where they are in a minority. So, two wrongs do make a right in some eyes.

Others said it was something to do with the Catholic Church - St Mary's on the Hill - buying property in Newtownabbey and reserving it for Catholics. Yet the church in the area is believed to be about half a million pounds in debt, thanks partly to the ongoing loyalist arson attacks that razed St Bernard's to the ground.

Other baying teenage loyalists argued that 'Cemetery Sunday' events prevented Protestants from using Carnmoney, that the blessing of the ground by a priest somehow desecrates it and that the noise of the loudspeakers was too loud.

A bit like the klaxons and horns these spides were blaring at the protest then.

Once upon a time, republicans committed an atrocity that shook both Prods and armed republicanism to the core; the horror of the Enniskillen massacre should never be forgotten.

But it would be hard to imagine republicans turning up at a Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday and committing such an atrocity these days. Leading republicans like Alex Maskey are more likely to lay a wreath than provide cause for another one.

After it had ripped a Co Fermanagh community apart, some good came out of the Enniskillen bomb. It became a catalyst for change. Gordon Wilson's heartrending words of forgiveness of those who killed his daughter affected nationalists as deeply as unionists. The SDLP stopped supporting Sinn Fein for council posts, and that in itself helped improve community relations. The IRA lost massive support at home and abroad, and began a process of questioning that led eventually down a political path.

Republicanism has gone on a journey that loyalism has yet to really start. I'm not naive enough to think that Alex Maskey had motives other than showing respect for fallen British and Irish soldiers, but compared to what went before, it was pretty far reaching.

...

The logic in Harryville, Holy Cross, Carnmoney and other protests has been simple; find something 'Catholic' in a 'mainly loyalist' area, start a protest and claim that if Catholics can't put up with Prods inconveniencing them for an hour on the Garvaghy Road, they will do the same.

But loyalists are like Millwall FC supporters, whose symphony for the siege mentality is: "No-one likes us, we don't care!" They are trying to carry the conflict forward in a new, 'cultural' form - as republicans did at Drumcree - but cannot articulate their grievances, real or imagined. They just cannot compete with the well-greased republican propaganda machine of expert MOPEs*.

They cannot pick a winner either. No-one is going to back a hate campaign against schoolgirls or the bereaved, and this is reflected in the 'anti-loyalist' media they constantly rail against.

Cemetery Sunday used to be a non-event, from what I can gather. Use of the graveyard for the quiet service used to be rubberstamped by Newtownabbey Borough Council officials up until a few years ago, when an Ulster Unionist decided that the Council, rather than the staff, should give the ceremony the go-ahead.

So, with Council approval suddenly required, Cemetery Sunday became an issue. It was one that UUP Councillor Ivan Hunter, who was fully behind the change in Council policy, took to heart. So much for the 'moderates' in the UUP, who have been too quiet on this issue.

Most true Protestant moderates would run a mile from defending the Carnmoney mob, which seemed to consist largely of housewives and their spidey teenage offspring.

Nevertheless, Mr Hunter was quoted in today's Irish News saying the following:

"Father [Dan] Whyte has an agenda that we don't seem to be getting to the bottom of. It is quite evident, not just since Fr Whyte came on the scene - long before - that they [the Catholic Church in Carnmoney] made a determined effort to segregate and sectarianise Carnmoney. He is not doing his best to reduce these tensions. The very fact that he didn't remove the graffiti shows that he has an agenda."

So Whyte's refusal to remove the 'KAT' (Kill All Taigs) from the church door means, like the rape victim wearing a miniskirt, that they were 'asking for it'? Unsurprisingly, the law would disagree, as would anyone else with experience of the 21st century.

The UDA's offer to remove the graffiti was viewed with suspicion and rejected. Again, loyalism seems to be repeating an old republican tactic. At Drumcree, the offer was 'talk and walk' - a forced humiliation in the Orangemen's eyes. Whyte's snub could therefore hardly have been unexpected.

This protest represents the kind of bigotry that has fed the fears of Rathcoole loyalists over the years. They suspect those Taigs are up to something; they're just not quite sure what. They know that they won't win the sympathy vote, but maybe they can force a 'win' through the threat of force, "like the IRA".

This is zero-sum politics at its worst. The leadership being offered to protesting loyalists in the shape of Ivan Hunter - who would resign if he had any common decency - is pathetic. Even Tommy Kirkham of that bastion of academic prowess, the Ulster Political Research Group (the political wing of the UDA) appeared more moderate than the UUP man. And that is saying a lot.

But Kirkham's appearance is not unexpected either. As with Harryville and Holy Cross, it is inevitable that a ''community representative" sniffing for votes should pop his head up sooner, rather than later. The UPRG is desperate to try to prove to the Government that it is really a political party with something positive to offer, although there are doubts that it will get more than just a handful of votes come the election.

Kirkham himself has a credibility problem, and is difficult to believe or trust. He was arrested after the horrific and unjustifiable murder of Glengormley republican Danny McColgan, and suspicions linger long. But he could, with his UDA comrades, end the protest quickly. I don't imagine he will though. It's easier to keep the pot boiling, and the attacks on headstones, burning cars, arson attacks on churches and protests are likely to continue sporadically, I would guess.

So how do these things come to an end? There tend to be a couple of scenarios in these circumstances.

One is bribery. It is clear that when things get ugly, the British will buy off loyalist troublemakers, as they did in Glenbryn and Donegall Pass. The protagonists and a couple of 'community representatives' will be whisked off to a quiet meeting with a Government minister, a price will be named and a 'community regeneration package' or 'increased security measures' cynically announced the following week.

Rathcoole - which, according to local legend, used to be the biggest housing estate in western Europe - could actually do with some regenerating. A community centre might not be a bad idea. Hell, I'd even put up with a few ex-UDA prisoners who can't find employment elsewhere being paid to do something productive. That doesn't mean selling drugs.

It would be easier to fill in a form for some of that EU peace money that's floating around, than riot and hope for a 'peace package' when you stop. Everyone else is fed up with the 'me too!' child-like tantrums and rioting that precede funding allocations.

Part of this may be down to how funding is sought. Working class Protestants in Rathcoole have long complained about the lack of facilities available there. They see no economic benefits from the peace process. They are told republican areas are getting new facilities. Their funding applications are often turned down. This doesn't go down well in a place where parity of esteem means 'getting the same as themmuns'.

Could part of a solution lie in increasing the loyalist community's confidence? Educational achievement in Protestant working class areas is unbelievably low, as even former Education Minister Martin McGuinness acknowledged:

"The poorest results in the 11+ are seen in controlled schools with high levels of free school meals serving working class Protestant areas. In some working class Protestant areas a grammar school place is beyond the reach of almost all pupils - in the Shankill for example, less than 2% of pupils achieved a grammar school place."

A little education can go a long way, and, if there are justifiable grievances - like the lack of a decent community centre, rather than having to share a cemetery with Catholics - and tangible outcomes, perhaps things would be different.

Unionist and loyalist leaders have a responsibility to show that politics, rather than violence, pays dividends. They need to help genuine community groups get adequate funding. They need to persuade the paramilitaries to stop dipping into the community chest. But at the moment, brutality still pays, and he who cries the loudest gets a Government sweetie to shut him up when a clip round the lugs doesn't work.

...

The other possibility at Carnmoney is for the PSNI to hold the line, uphold the law and protect Catholic parishioners.

In Harryville, this is what the RUC tried to do, with some success and at considerable expense. It didn't stop the relentless picket though. In these circumstances, it only seems to end with a symbolic event where no-one is seen to lose face.

At the Church of Our Lady, where the police were seen by the loyalists as on the 'Catholic side' (presumably because they didn't step aside to allow the mob through), this involved patronising the protesters, as they participated in a wreath laying ceremony, involving the local RUC superintendent, in memory of those officers killed in the Troubles. The Catholics themselves, who had borne the brunt of the protest for 18 months, were not asked to kiss and make up with the loyalists. But hey, anything for a quiet life.

Where the Carnmoney protest will lead is hard to say at this stage. The protest is likely to harden attitudes, and nationalists will be left believing that loyalist sectarianism is as bad as ever, making community segregation seem the least worst option.

Sadly, the only real leadership being given from the Protestant side is from church leaders. I say sadly, because I doubt if they hold much sway with the protesters gathering at the cemetery gates while Sunday services were taking place.

Belfast City cemetery has an underground wall, separating the Catholic and Protestant dead. Carnmoney could yet be the first to have an overground one to divide the living.

*Most Oppressed People Ever

2003-09-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

NORTHERN IRELAND 101…

Q1. When the Independent Monitoring Commission tells the British Government that a paramilitary organisation has broken its ceasefire, will the NIO ‘sex down’ the report?

Q2. A group of children cannot enrol in an integrated school because it is over-subscribed. If they protest outside by holding signs reading ‘Integration not segregation’ for long enough, will the Governors ask for a review to be conducted by the prisoners at HMP Maghaberry?

Q3. If the British Government can secure compensation from Libya for the relatives of the Lockerbie disaster victims, what are the chances of the relatives of the Enniskillen bombing suing Colonel Gaddafi for supplying the IRA with Semtex?

Please remember to take the treatment of the Omagh victims into account when considering the extent of possible Government assistance.

Q4. If the Northern Ireland football team fail to score for a further 12 games, how much will the IFA offer manager Sammy McIlroy for another two-year contract?

2003-09-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

COLD WAR HEATS UP... LACK OF INTELLIGENCE LEADS TO CONSPIRACY THEORY...

NEWS that the Chilcott report– the one we haven’t seen, as opposed to the sanitised public version – into the Castlereagh burglary recommends that MI5 take over intelligence gathering in Norn Irn is not completely unexpected.

The SDLP are already raising concerns over the matter, although this move has been mooted since before the Agreement was signed. There has always been competition between the various security agencies here, with little co-operation a lot of the time.

Indeed, there were recent reports of some security agencies trying to poach agents and informers from other agencies. Others have pointed out that the Castlereagh burglary may have been another part of this battle for supremacy in the intelligence community. The IRA and an Irish-American stooge (Larry ‘the chef’ Zaitchek) could easily have been handy patsies to take the blame for the actions of a British ‘covert methods of entry’ team similar to the one that torched John Stevens office in Carrickfergus. Paul Murphy's denial can be ignored, as he wouldn't be in the loop on such matters. Earlier reports that implicated both the IRA and police can probably be discounted.

So what could have prompted Sir John Chilcott’s – a former NIO insider – recommendation, apart from the fact that it was possibly planned well in advance? Obviously, a unified approach would centralise intelligence with one agency, which would mean that different security agencies – the PSNI and Army – couldn’t be accused of competing or not sharing information with each other. But will MI5 really share the information with anyone, as it supposed to do? My guess is that ‘need to know’ will become the stock phrase.

But I think the real reason for the proposal lies in Annex 2 of the recent Joint Declaration. Security is still a reserved matter – but not forever. The Joint Dec states that the “British Government has accepted, under the Agreement, the desirability of devolving policing and justice within the lifetime of the next Assembly, on a basis that is robust and workable and broadly supported by the parties”.

In other words, once Sinn Fein finally decide to sign up to policing – and it’s not impossible that this could take place in a few short years – the ‘securocrats’ are going to make damn sure they don’t get their mits on certain information. As Liam Clarke noted on Sunday: “MI5 is outside the control of the Northern Ireland Police Board or the policing ombudsman. Its work will also fall outside the remit of any restored assembly in Stormont. If the assembly is reinstated, the government is committed to giving it control of the police service, a key demand of Sinn Fein.”

Reading between the lines, I would probably agree with Clarke’s interpretation of where we are headed, security-wise.

Certainly Trimble will have voiced concerns to Blair about the readiness of a restored Assembly and maturity of politicians to be left in charge of sensitive information. Like lists of informers.

The Chilcott recommendation, if we ever get to see it, could turn out to be a pre-emptive strike by the security services to gain control of intelligence in the event of full devolution of policing and justice, by defining operations in Northern Ireland as ‘national security’.

And by that time, Special Branch, for good or for ill, will be long gone. No wonder old school SB chief Bill Lowry was so angry at being forced out of the Branch after his ‘Stormontgate’ raid. He didn’t strike me as someone who was prepared to let republican spying – which had been under surveillance for months – go uninvestigated. What initially sounded like ‘sour grapes’ is starting to look more like a conspiracy, although Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan disagrees in her high profile report into a complaint by Lowry.

Perhaps BBC security correspondent Barney Rowan’s new book, The Armed Peace: Life and Death after the Ceasefires, might help fit the pieces of the intelligence jigsaw together.

In Norn Irn, if you want to get a handle on things, just think of the most improbable conspiracy you can and multiply by two. You might get closer to the truth that way.

2003-09-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

FORMER HEALTH MINISTER FEELING 'A BIT OFF'...

POOR old Barbara de Bruin must be sick as a parrot.

As Health Minister in the short-lived Assembly, she was constantly subjected to harsh criticism from all sides because of the length of our hospital waiting lists – the highest in Europe.

But over the last year, the numbers have dropped by 7 percent. No doubt at least some of this was due to initiatives by de Bruin. Sadly for the former teacher, who was known to her pupils as Mrs Brown, it is the enthusiastic direct rule minister Angela Smith who will get the plaudits.

With public disenchantment at Norn Irn politics at an all time high, and direct rule ministers shoving NI legislation through the Commons at a rate that would embarrass the former MLAs, apathy could yet give way to a grudging acceptance of our busy out-of-town visitors.

2003-09-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

THE LORD TO SIT IN JUDGMENT...

SO Lord Alderdice is the nominee to represent Norn Irn on the International Monitoring Body, according to the BBC’s Political Editor, Mark Devenport.

As the Speaker, the former Alliance Party leader was pretty much the perfect choice (though Seamus Close may beg to differ!). His haughty air and a degree of ‘above-it-all’ arrogance was a necessary prerequisite for the job on Stormont's 'throne', as well as offering authority, fairness and an anorakian knowledge of Standing Orders.

Whether you think the IMB is a good idea or not - and it originated with Alliance - Alderdice himself will probably not be opposed by unionists or nationalists. He will, I imagine, be a better nominee than the BBC’s previous suspect for the job, Sir Oliver Napier, another former Alliance leader. Either way, the British are expected to publish the legislation before Friday, to boost Trimble’s chances with the Ulster Unionist Council on Saturday, if nothing else.

I wonder if there will be another brown envelope containing assurances from the Prime Minister this time, confirming that the Irish nominee will have no say in internal NI affairs? Trimble, or Lord Taylor perhaps? The problem is, that even though anti-Agreement unionists have focused their opposition on the possibility of Irish involvement in Strand One matters, Burnside and Donaldson are already shifting the goalposts back onto other aspects of the Joint Declaration they oppose, such as a de facto amnesty for IRA suspects on the run. Anti-GFA unionists in the DUP and UUP, and Sinn Fein are united in their opposition to the body, for different reasons. SF fear being sanctioned for IRA activity, while the unionists are scared of being chucked out for political misbehaviour. Funny how the peace process throws up such awkward bedfellows.

The Irish nominee is Joe Brosnan; a retired police officer is reckoned to be the British choice, and the Americans are - as previously reported here - saying nothing at all. I wonder if that’s Irish American republicans at their lobbying again... no doubt Sinn Fein put their views on nominees to Richard Haass during his short flying visit over the summer.

The work of the IMB seems to comprise three areas - ‘political policing’ (making sure parties abide by the rules of the Assembly); monitoring paramilitary activity and monitoring security normalisation/demilitarisation by the British. How it will carry out work on the first two in the absence of an Assembly is anyone’s guess. If the IMB can only comment on British disengagement, that could deepen unionist concerns, and they would certainly put pressure on Sinn Fein for IRA reciprocation.

Nevertheless, the Beeb is reporting that it is hoped that the Commission will ‘lay the groundwork’ to restore the Assembly. This sounds to me like they’ve been fed a Government line, as the IMB was expected to adjudicate on matters after the Assembly was restored. If the Government is serious about elections before the end of October, as some seem to believe, then time is incredibly short, as talks would need to be concluded by the middle of this month.

And that is simply not going to happen, as no-one has even mentioned a date for them to start yet.

One final point for pundits to consider: when Alderdice, sometimes called 'The Lord', steps down as Speaker, as he had already decided to do early this year, it may be difficult to find someone willing and able to fill his shoes (assuming things get up and running again). If no agreement is made, the position goes to the Father of the House by default.

His name?

Ian Paisley.

UUP PUNCH AND JEFFREY SIDESHOW CONTINUES...

I SUSPECT that the reason for delaying talks is because the British want to see how the UUP sideshow ends.

According to Frank Millar in the Irish Times, Trimble is prepared to lay his leadership on the line, a lá John Major when he took on John Redwood for control of the Tories a few years back. This brings the possibility of a leadership challenge closer. A risky strategy, but frustration has built to such a point that a blood letting might actually be better than continuing the spectacle of death by a thousand UUC votes (860 for the pedants).

The public is certainly fed up with the UUP implosion apparently delaying negotiations and the UUC veto over the entire process. However, Millar fails to mention Major’s ultimate fate and that of the Conservatives after Redwood’s leadership challenge - a lame duck in charge of a spent force.

2003-08-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

NANNY STATE MOVES ON FROM FEGS TO FATTIES…

After the fiasco of banning smoking, the Irish government are now taking on fatties!

Imagine a united Ireland where one can’t get an Ulster fry… Will overweight smokers up north be joining the Orange Order, just for a feed and a feg out the back of the hall? Oh wait… ;o)

So is this another way to tax the poor, or a genuine attempt to make us healthier? Maybe food producers will take note of this threat, and reduce some sugar and salt in certain foods. But if so, why not target food producers, rather than the public. It’s not as if groceries in the Republic are cheap, like.

FROM BELFAST TO BASRA AND OTHER CLICHES…

The Belfast Telegraph reports today (although it’s not on their website) that PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Stephen White is facing difficulties in Iraq, where he is developing “a functioning police force”.

Sounds much like his role before he left Norn Irn. As do the difficulties he faces: “There is a job to be done. What we do need is (sic) the resources… we need more police expertise here.”

Whether in Norn Irn or Basra, you can always depend on the British Government not to give the police the tools they need to do the job… I promise this will be the last time I compare Basra and Belfast. Probably.

TODAY’S PUBLIC INQUIRY…

Another story missing from the Tele website but in the hard copy is what would have been ‘Today’s Public Inquiry’.

Limavady Council are to debate a motion calling for a public inquiry into the Claudy bombing tomorrow night. While sympathetic to anyone who hasn’t seen justice due to state or paramilitary terrorism, I doubt if this one has much chance of success, particularly when you consider that the PSNI has re-opened the file on it and everyone knows the man behind it - the infamous Fr Chesney - is dead…

A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE…

Another BBC report dropped into my mailbox today: Iraqi Media Audit – Eight City Report. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but the following caught my eye while scanning through it. It concerns Umm Qasr, the port that was 'easily' captured and successfully recaptured several times during ‘major hostilities’ (kinda like the dead-now-resurrected Chemical Ali).

“The port town of Umm Qasr had a major TV and radio relay station and some studio facilities during the previous regime. It was not possible to undertake an assessment of the facilities as they are now being used as a Prisoner of War facility by the US military.”

It seems the BBC have found a captive audience that cannot escape, even if it wanted to watch Sky. Only slightly kidding; according to the report, “Iraqis who can afford to are buying satellite dishes”. Probably to watch those former BBC World Service types in Al Jazeera though.

The rest of the report may form the basis for another post, as it explores the infrastructural challenge to rebuilding a media that was a primary target for coalition forces, and the “tense” relationship between that coalition and the emerging broadcasters, such as the Iraqi Media Network.

2003-08-23T08:14:00.000-07:00

MEDIA UPDATES...

This article by Jude Collins is worth a read, as it touches on a couple of the themes I've been exploring here.

Liam Clarke of the Sunday Times highlights Sinn Fein's Orwellian attitudes and historical revisionism on the matter of erasing IRA criminal records. The Sunday Life reckons this might be the thin end of the wedge, with war pensions for IRA combatants now on the agenda. Allegedly.

Finally, Sunday Life's Lynda Gilby has strong feelings about Sinn Fein's vision for the Maze prison site.

2003-08-22T10:19:00.000-07:00

UP OUR OWN ARSES...

NORTHERN Ireland’s conflict is often compared to other situations – South Africa, Bosnia, the struggle for civil rights in America, Israel-Palestine and the Basque country to name a few.

But Paul Butler’s comparison of the Maze Prison with Auschwitz is hyperbolic nonsense. He argues that the HMP Maze/Long Kesh is of historical interest and should be made into a museum, instantly guaranteeing it greater protection than most listed buildings here.

OK, you might say. It was where the Hunger Strikes took place, where the light bulb finally flickered on over IRA prisoners’ heads about the pointlessness of violence and where LVF leader Billy ‘King Rat’ Wright was murdered.

All memories worth preserving, I am sure, but I wonder if Councillor Butler has heard of Godwin’s Law..? I guess not.

The Sinn Fein member gushed: "Long Kesh is on a standing with Robben Island, Auschwitz and the Berlin Wall and we cannot afford to lose that history.”

Unfortunately, this is typical of how politicians view the ‘Troubles’. Yes, it was bad, but it was never THAT bad. No really. I was there. But we must maintain the neceesary fiction that we are still MOPEs – the Most Oppressed People Ever.

When Plastic Paddy terror tourists visit Belfast, they are often disappointed that there isn’t more devastation. One blogger from outside NI recently noted - almost disappointedly: "Walking around central Belfast today, I was struck at how few signs of conflict I saw (some of the gutted buildings may have been bombed but you see similar architectural wrecks in the States). In fact the whole dispute seems to have receded to a remarkable degree."

(His last comment also amused me - "I asked one West Belfast cabbie if he thought the peace would last. He said resignedly: "Yeah, people are gettin' too used to it."")

Internet Commentator laments Northern Ireland here in his entry for August 15, as well as making other valuable points. He argues:

"I wonder whether Northern Ireland loomed in the imagination of Americans as a kind of ruined province riven by civil war, equivalent to, say, the Lebanon. One particularly tenacious fallacy was that violence could not be prevented in the absence of a "political solution". This assumed a greater level of support for terrorism among the general public than existed. Would US governments have been so interested in Northern Ireland if there had been a better understanding of the nature of the conflict? This was more of a menacing, slow-burning conflict carried out by small groups of agent provocateurs than a civil war and though disastrous for those affected and for the NI economy couldn't compare with, say, trouble spots in Africa."

Just because something shouldn't be compared, doesn't mean we won't blunder on regardless. When Alasdair McDonnell of the SDLP compared the Short Strand with the Warsaw ghettoes, his comments were ridiculed. When Brendan McAllister of Mediation Network compared NI to Bosnia just before the conflict, it risked making a bad Drumcree worse. Many people alerady have a distorted view of the conflict, so let’s keep a sense of perspective folks.

Butler’s inaccurate analogy is sadly not isolated to republicans (as David Vance’s exaggerations prove), and verges on the offensive to some. It also devalues argument. Around 3,600 people died in the 30-years of violence here. While high in percentage terms of the population, other wars around the world have seen more people die in a day.

With typically black Ulster humour, older and wiser people used to tell me that the reason the violence took so long to end was "because we hadn't suffered enough"... a damning indictment of how thran and stubborn Northern Ireland people can be.

Today’s Belfast Telegraph also quoted Professor Adrian Guelke, a South Africa-born historian who has written extensively on Northern Ireland. He said the comparisons were "over the top".

"Auschwitz was the most appalling crime and there is complete consensus among the German people and its government as to what it represents," he said.

"There is no such consensus in Northern Ireland about the past and no consensus on what the Maze represents.

"It is not a symbol which will unite people in agreement for the future like Auschwitz and Robben Island have done. Using a comparison like this which simply doesn't stand up is over the top."

...

In political terms, elevating Northern Ireland’s problems to international status was seen as a useful way of getting our politicians to behave and act like democrats when the global spotlight was on them. Everyone else wanted our leader to shake hands, to make a deal, to be statesmen on a world stage. Globalising the problem is almost the opposite of the British containment policy of ‘Ulsterisation’ in the 1970s.

Yet our leaders are still politically parochial and intellectually insular. They are full of their own false sense of self-importance. They are, to put it bluntly, up their own arses.

You could see the ploy to put international pressure on our politicians in full effect during the ‘war and peace’ summit between Blair and Bush at Hillsborough in April. They tried to hold Northern Ireland up as an example to the world – particularly Israel, Palestine and Iraq – of how the most intractable problems could be resolved. Only this time, the premiers were left with egg on their faces, as our local politicians stubbornly ignored the international pressure.

Blair even said: "To those who can sometimes say the process in the Middle East is hopeless, I say we can look at Northern Ireland and take some hope from that.”

Once you pick yourself up of the floor, you can see how our little local difficulty should possibly be the last example of how to end a conflict. Sensibly, the Iraqis have taken the right approach to learning lessons from Northern Ireland – doing the opposite. In April, Iraqi representatives issued a joint statement of governing principles. The second point was: ‘The future government of Iraq should not be based on communal identity’.

A smart move, as politics in Norn Irn is almost completely based on communal identity, and has resulted in the reinforcement of division. Maybe it’s us who should be learning from the Iraqis. After all, knowing what to avoid is as important as knowing what to do…

2003-08-22T03:34:00.000-07:00

SMOKED OUT...

I'm incensed... Political correctness gone mad... Not content with banning smoking in pubs, now the Irish health minister wants to ban incense during Mass. He says it's a threat to altar boys. I won't make the obvious joke.

2003-08-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

FIRST GONZO EXCLUSIVE... MONITORING THE MONITORS...

WORD reaches Gonzo that the Government is hoping to secure a swift passage for the Northern Ireland (Monitoring Commission) Bill in September.

The Monitoring Commission was supposed to have been named by now, but (I think) the Americans are having problems picking their nominee.

But more interestingly, and I'm pretty sure this is new, the Commission will be "constituted by means of an international agreement with the Irish Government" - permitting it to survey paramilitary activity in the Irish Republic as well as the UK.

This is interesting. Are we moving beyond a Strand One body? What legislation will be required in the South?

Either way, it's maybe not a bad thing, with so much of the Real IRA's campaign originating in the Republic.

Another question yet to be explored is how this will affect the Commission's other role - ensuring parties to the Agreement abide by the rules of office set out in the Agreement. If the Republic is to be included in the paramilitary monitoring aspect of things, surely logic dictates that it can be watched to ensure it's keeping it's end of the deal up politically?

In a strange reversal, could the Commission end up as a tool for unionists to highlight the Irish government's failure to comply with its obligations? For example, the Irish Human Rights Commission hasn't made much progress. The Commission could highlight this and - could this really happen? - maybe even embarrass the Irish. Lord Laird could maybe even use it whinge about the lack of support for Ulster Scots in the Republic.

I think I may be going a speculation too far - but the ability of the Commission to investigate terrorism in the Republic seems certain. Maybe the power should be extended to the US as well, given that so many weapons in Ireland originate there...

But back to reality. The British Secretary of State has high hopes that the Commission will break the political deadlock and lead us to an election, but public apathy - as noted by the Tele today - is at an all time high.

While a paranoid Sinn Fein is dead set against the Monitoring Commission, seeing it as a mechanism to throw them out of government, perhaps it is knee jerking too soon. The Commission will have a range of sanctions available to it, which means we won't face the 'nuclear option' each time the IRA decides to go on a jaunt to Columbia or import guns. That's good for Sinn Fein, if I'm not mistaken.

Likewise, one of the complaints of the Shinners was that the PUP were not capable of being sanctioned for UVF activity, as they had no ministers to exclude. Now that will change too, as the options for punishment will be much greater.

2003-08-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

SILLY SEASON IS OPEN SEASON...

THE silly season is almost over, but not quite yet. The SDLP’s rather unedifying attempt to ‘out-green’ Sinn Fein was sent up in fine tabloid form by the South Belfast News last Friday, when it featured a dinosaur pointing a finger at the Hulk.

Not literally. Rather, Rev Martin Smyth MP (formerly of Orange Grand Wizard fame) was accusing ex-South Belfast Assembly member Alasdair McDonnell of being ‘greener than the Incredible Hulk’. A topical insult for someone who spends most of his time in the past, and even though McDonnell’s a big man, it was only the beginning of the salvo - Smyth went on to suggest that there were “rumoured rivalries over who is going to be the top dog for the SDLP in South Belfast” in the next election. Assuming there is one, of course.

McDonnell’s unfunny comeback was to accuse Smyth of being one of the ‘three incredible sulkers’ a reference to Smyth, David Burnside and Jeffrey Donaldson’s refusal to accept the UUP whip at Westminster in protest at their party’s policy on the Joint Declaration. He then faithfully trotted out the line about anti-Agreement unionists being unable to accept the verdict of the people on the GFA.

No wonder Smyth is speculating on the big bluffer’s future. Ex-Lord Mayor Alex Maskey (SF) must be champing at the bit to stand in South Belfast. But Maskey’s smarter - instead of shifting to a harder republican line, he’s going in the opposite direction and taking a more, errrrmm, SDLP soft-nat line, in the hope of sweeping up the Malone Road vote.

A yarn with absolutely no substance whatsoever. Bit like the politics then...

...

You can spot the SDLP’s jealousy of SF cropping up elsewhere, here, for example, when John Dallat pathetically suggests that Gerry Adams should hand over fees from lecture tours to charity. Hardly what you might call a heavyweight political blow, especially when SF can easily refute it so easily. It’s almost as embarrassing as Alex Attwood claiming every legislative change on policing was down to him.

Pfft!

Wise up SDLP!

The party seems to be panicking at the growth of Sinn Fein. As votes leak from the centre to the extremes, the SDLP, UUP and Alliance face an uphill struggle for the next elections. As Democratic Dialogue's Robin Wilson has warned, public apathy could be the killer for the centre ground...

You know things are bad when Sinn Fein's protests against the postponement of the election brought "not only incomprehension from seasoned observers but a wider yawn", according to Wilson.

2003-08-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

QUICKIE UPDATES... SHAMELESS SELF-ADVERTISING...

Just spotted this little gem while surfing...

It seems to confirm that the army's unwillingness to countenance anything that may equate State violence and paramilitarism extends to the grass roots.

...

And this description from Samizdata of Guardian readers made me smirk, albeit in a haughty way.

"Guardianistas are trouble-makers first and only socialist centralists second and because this makes trouble for smug establishmentarians."

...

And according to the Shamrockshire Eagle, this is one of those blogs that "aren't shit". Thanks. Yours isn't shit either. ;o)

Slugger O'Toole - now back from his holidays - thought Gonzo's analysis was worth a mention. Judging from the lack of response, other posters on the site thought otherwise!

Such resounding praise prompted me to advertise Gonzo on iloggers alongside the other Irish blogs. It should appear there 'in a few days'...

...

This is a great story. A Portrush councillor stood in front of Seymour Sweeney's diggers to protect the gardens of residents. Seems Christine Alexander has more balls than the men on the council!

2003-08-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE #231... WANDERING NOTES ON THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF TRUTH & JUSTICE...

WHEN I saw Jim Cusack reporting that "SINN Fein is asking the Government to erase the prison records of almost 4,000 prisoners who served time in the Republic's jails for IRA offences, including murder, over the past three decades" the twitchers went.

They often go when I read Jim's stories, but do the Shinners actually imagine the Government could give in to this? (I say 'could', because Blair certainly 'would', if everyone else didn't rein him in when he's in full 'appeasement' mode.) I imagine republican bottom line will be more realistic.

The first inevitability is that loyalists will demand the same. You have to maintain the sectarian 'balance' somehow, after all. But that still doesn't mean the demand, even if it was 'cross-community', would succeed. Law-loving unionists would never support it. Right?

The republican demand is a pardon in all but name. No criminal record, no crime. I get the feeling that there could be further, similar demands in the future, particularly if the idea of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission continues to hang around.

Calls from immunity from prosecution in such a context will be natural. But how, for example, would victims see justice sacrificed for the sake of political expediency yet again? And while we can expect loyalists to take advantage of immunity (assuming they would participate in a T&RC), would the British establishment do the same for soldiers?

...

Sinn Fein's failure to secure safe passage home for 'On the Runs' answers that. Although Blair convinced republicans at Weston Park he could deliver their fugitives, he ran into trouble back home. The Conservatives and LibDems wouldn't allow it through the Lords, but the oft-mentioned 'securocrats' immediately spotted the thin end of the wedge.

If compelled to give evidence in a T&RC, the Army could not allow the actions of terrorists to be equated with illegal State actions. Bad enough that collusion comes out, but that those who were complicit in breaking the law should have it excused? Pshaw!

As well as exposing State terrorism, having it equated to paramilitary terrorism would only add to the perceived legitimacy of armed struggle.

A new formula has now been drawn up for getting the IRA's fugitives home, and it heavily involves a quasi-judicial process. Perhaps a compromise has been fudged. The idea is still live but frozen until there's full decommissioning. Whatever that means.

For some in the British establishment, I would guess they want Sinn Fein to be able to keep republicanism's worst secrets quiet, so they don't have to reveal theirs. After all, they are the two groups with most to gain from the past remaining buried.

2003-08-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

Seymour Sweeney is at it again.

Not content with destroying Portballantrae and making it impossible for locals to buy their own homes there, he’s now destroying my old stomping ground, Portrush’s West Strand.

Has this man no heart or respect for the environment? He fought to take Runkerry House out of public use (read about it here) and turned it into some of the most expensive real estate in Norn Irn. When a group of University of Ulster students protested at the sale, he went down with a camera to take photos of them. What a lovely man.

He’s the man behind Seaport Investments, which wanted to turn a world heritage site known as the Giant’s Causeway into some kind of theme pub.

For some reason, the DUP always seem to row in behind him when he seeks planning approval from various councils. Perhaps the party should let us know if he is a financial donor too…

Sweeney is a money-grabbing rodent, who will stop at nothing in his quest to kill off the natural beauty of north Antrim in order to line his own pockets. Pah!

2003-08-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

Chris Thornton happened upon a couple of interesting points made in the Tele in the ongoing battle within unionism.

According to Dermott Nesbitt (UUP), “Mr Robinson has said he would negotiate through the Prime Minister or a third party”. The UUP also constantly have a go at the DUP about playing ‘catch-up’ with regards to things like sharing a TV studio with Sinn Fein.

The problem for Nesbitt and the UUP is that while the DUP appears as though it is gearing up to do a deal, admittedly some way off yet, the UUP looks as though it couldn't deliver the morning papers. Equally worrying for the UUP is that while they look more and more disunited, the DUP are making noises that the Government and some in nationalism might be wanting to hear.

The DUP has always said it won’t ‘negotiate’ with SF, but in the past they have ‘confronted’ them face to face, as Gregory Campbell did at the West Belfast Festival last week. If they can conflate a ‘review’ with ‘renegotiation’, the DUP’s hot air might just turn out to be semantic huffing and puffing.

Dodds’s latest letter to Sean Farren (SDLP) is revealing: “Is it his view that everything is on the table at the ‘review’ he speaks of subject to the ability of the parties to agree? If so, is the distinction between a review and new negotiations simply a matter of description given that a majority of unionists can ‘veto’ the status quo and a majority of nationalists can ‘veto’ particular changes?”

Certainly there appear to be subtle shifts, and different emphases between what Paisley says and the Robbos and Dodds of the party hint at…

2003-08-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

I'm having DUP coincidences now. Got a strange link there to a message board on National Review Online. Here's a post that I spotted by a namesake of the DUP Leader. I mean Deputy:

"STOP PRESS: AMERICAN BISHOP STICKS UP FOR THE POPE [Peter Robinson]
Since I'm incessantly wailing about the pusillanimity of America's Catholic bishops, when a bishop actually demonstrates real courage I feel the need to point it out--and in his homily last Sunday, Francis Cardinal George, archbishop of Chicago, uncorked a zinger. Attacking the Chicago Sun-Times for its headline, "Pope Launches Global Campaign Against Gays," Cardinal George asserted that far from launching a campaign of any kind the Pope was merely restating the constant teaching of the Church."

Ha!

2003-08-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

UPS AND DOWNS FOR TOURISM...

Northern Ireland's tourist industry has been in a slump for a few years. Drumcree and, more recently, the global downturn following in the wake of 9/11 has seen visitor number slump.

But on the same day that the bad news about the past two years came, there was also some good news for the tourism industry.

So who knows what the real story is? Are we nearing pre-Drumcree figures again this year? Has Belfast got its buzz back?

Maybe, maybe not. But you definitely notice more visitors than usual when you're dandering about the city.

Hope no-one goes home too disappointed at our lack of attractions. Particularly if you were in Donegall Pass at the weekend... nice to see there's always a 'friendly' welcome here.

And, if you're from 'the Continent', I hope you don't mind that last orders are a bit earlier than you might be used to.

So tell me... why were some people surprised when we didn't get the 'European City of Culture Award'? Pfft!

Methinks we depend on international sympathy rather than having much to actually offer, in Norn Irn...

2003-08-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

DUP PREPARING TO DEAL..? HOPEFUL SIGNS HIDDEN IN THE HARDLINERS...

Peter Robinson and Sinn Fein are united on one thing – they want an election and they want it now.

Today in the Irish News, Robbo said: “It is time for the government to face up to realities and move ahead on a basis that can deliver progress. Negotiations before an Assembly election designed to save the Belfast agreement and the UUP will ultimately end in failure and will only delay progress in Northern Ireland.”

It’s a powerful argument. After all, what has changed since the election was postponed? Nothing. When we do have an election, and we still can't form an Executive, the only choice will be to use the electoral performance of parties' to decide on their strength of representation in new talks.

His colleague Nigel Dodds's argument is also a good un, and it's a relief to actually see some crucial issues for the DUP being debated at last.

With subtle differences emerging between what Ian Paisley says (“Disband Sinn Fein before we negotiate”) and teh coyness which Robinson and others exhibit when asked what they think of this, perhaps The Doc is finally losing his grip on policy. His grip on reality was always less tenuous.

Now that we finally know what the DUP would 're-negotiate' (a fair whack of which could be accommodated by the can of worms that is a Paragraph 8 comprehensive review), maybe the party will put forward more position-type think pieces.

Much preparation will be needed if others wish to refute a lot of what Dodds says, in his legalistic prose. In a reply to another former Assembly minister‘s letter, Dodds’s dry, unrelenting and utterly serious argument calmly demolishes Sean Farren’s earlier mocking piece.

There's a lot of Dodds’s ideas about the power of Assembly ministers that resonates with the public and other parties.

When you consider that a minister could be sanctioned, brought to book, or forced to resign after a vote of no confidence, it does start to raise questions about the quality of the checks and balances in the Assembly. They seem to have ended up in the wrong places, with only the Public Accounts Committee capturing the public imagination while doing a decent job.

The Agreement was never a perfect document. But are nationalists too scared to change it, in case 'themmuns' regained some ground.

…

Everyone is getting tired of 'conflict management', the kind of cold war and low-level paramilitary activity that reminds us of how they haven’t gone away. We know. We just can’t be arsed with the tedious pettiness of it all now that the toe has been dipped in the devolutionary water and found it tepidly bearable. The GFA demonstrated its worth at keeping the body count down, but it simultaneously fuelled sectarian competition. Were there many debates where votes didn't break down along sectarian lines while the Assembly was still breathing? No.

Competition between the two traditions is as great as ever, simply redirected. These are the spaces for inter-community conflict: sites for new hospitals; which is the more important - the right to parade or to protest; Ulster Scots and Gaelic struggling for cultural supremacy; what type of exams children should do.

All split along traditional lines.

Even Sean Farren sometimes steps outside the usual SDLP thinking about the GFA being set in stone. In his initial letter to Dodds (on the Slugger O’Toole site) he said that: “The DUP goes on to argue that any agreement must be final and not a process. Applying that argument is a recipe for no change whatever the circumstances. Times and circumstances do change, and political institutions as well as constitutions must change or atrophy. The possibility of change is an inherent feature of all vibrant democratic institutions. Otherwise how could we have the Westminster, Dublin or Washington institutions of today?”

So Sean can accept change, even if the GFA is still the only show in town. Nationalists should remember that the SDLP’s constitutional demand for a United Ireland means that the Agreement cannot be set in stone. If there is the possibility of changing it to facilitate a more united Ireland, the SDLP may well take it. Would it not be, therefore, logical to expect them to accept changes that were more integrationist, if that’s the direction people chose? After all, in its insistence on a ‘two communities’ approach to everything, the SDLP is entrenching adversarial politics in Northern Ireland and encouraging zero-sum games.

Someone wins, someone loses. It’s the way it has to be, or seen to be. Peace is on ‘our’ terms. Creating win-win situations is still a distant memory from a ‘Justice in Times of Transition’ conference.

Not everything Dodds, who is clearly pro-devolution, wants is unreasonable, and others will eventually have to confront that fact. Who will argue that they don’t want greater local responsibility? Canny taxpayers mourned the Public Accounts Committee. People liked the knowledge that stagnant government was being given a kick up the accountability ass.

Some of Dodds’s suggestions have the potential to change the Agreement for the better. Maybe we’ll spread a little of that creative ambiguity to the next round of talks, with the pro-GFA camp claiming it’s a ‘review’ while the antis get to call it a ‘renegotiation’. If Sinn Fein can accept partition and call it victory, then there’s no reason why the DUP shouldn’t accept developing north-south links and say they’ve safeguarded the union this time round.

All this creates a space for public debate, one which has been sadly stifled while the media’s eye is on Trimble’s woes. The crunch will always come with who has the final say on what. Witness the current paranoia over the International Monitoring Body. Sinn Fein says it’s a whip to beat them with and anti-Agreement unionists worry about Dublin’s involvement on it. Again, the signs are there that the extremes will have to be placated. But what happens if the DUP keeps putting forward the capable Dodds and he continues to tease out the arguments?

Is the DUP being any more unreasonable for saying it won’t allow an Executive to be formed, than Alliance, whose position is not to redesignate again, even if it spelled the end of the Agreement? God help us all the day that the DUP sounded reasonable, but the GFA didn't end the conflict. It just changed the nature of it.

The ultimate irony could be that the DUP ends up making it more democratic.

…

Right. That’s enough DUPe-defending for now. Think I need a shower... ;o)

2003-08-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

THE attempted abduction of the PUP’s Billy Hutchinson was one of those strange summer stories that pops up and makes you blink rapidly for a few seconds. What the hell was that all about? Billy blames republicans from Ardoyne, but this has provoked incredulity amongst some.

Others will remember how, during the UDA/UVF feud, Jackie Mahood blamed republicans for at attempt on his life. Later, it was revealed that it was, in fact, other loyalists.

Now why on earth would anyone want to have the finger pointed at the UDA for an abduction the day before they called on the British Government to recognise their ceasefire? Who indeed.

Speaking of calling on the Brits, has anyone else spotted the sweet irony of republicans and nationalists calling on the Government to intervene in the affairs of an independent body set up under the auspices of the Agreement? Brice Dickson seems to have created a unity amongst opponents rarely seen in Northern Irish politics...

...

In other news, the conviction of Michael McKevitt today for directing terrorism has been widely welcomed, and star witness David Rupert has been paid a glowing tribute in the Tele.

But, there are some with doubts about the safety of his conviction and the quality of the witness. McKevitt is appealing, of course, and while it will be a long process, the fact that there may be even the slightest chance for success is concerning.

...

Finally, could this be the first sighting of Anthony McIntyre defending someone from the Andytown News group?

2003-08-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

And today's public inquiry is...

Welcome to a new feature called 'Today's Public Inquiry'.

Call me cynical, but I reckon there must be calls for a public inquiry into something in Norn Irn about every other day. Some are justified, some aren't.

A lot of the time, it's just another point-scoring exercise for a politician. And I always wondered why republican politicians were so keen on them when they don't trust the NI justice system. More cynicism? You can make your own mind up.

The first TPI includes over 200 murders of RUC officers. Read about it here

With any luck, once the PSNI has cleared these murders up, they'll be able to start busting drug dealers and catching burglars sometime around 2165. Until then, when you dial 999 you will be on hold for the rest of your lifetime.

2003-08-05T03:48:00.000-07:00

NORTHERN Ireland isn’t just the most sectarian place in the UK, it now has the dubious honour of being the most homophobic and racist.

The media dutifully reported last week about how the gay community in NI is on the receiving end of more harassment here than elsewhere in the UK.

Last week was Gay Pride week in Belfast, and one of the issues raised by activists was hate crimes legislation, which is expected to be passed for NI in the next Parliamentary session. So time is precious short.

But cast your mind back to Paragraph 12 of the annex of the statement released by the British and Irish governments after their July tête-à-tête under the auspices of the BIIGC - you remember, the one about the bits of the Joint Declaration they were going ahead with, even if the IRA didn’t want to play ball?

In that statement, the British committed themselves to responding to consultation on hate crimes in September. Gay rights groups have asked the government to include what may be bluntly called gay bashing in the legislation - but it wasn’t mentioned in the joint statement of intent.

The Minister is said to be seriously considering including homophobic harassment or assault in the legislation, but the fact that only crimes motivated by racism or sectarianism were mentioned must surely be a concern for some of those who were parading through Belfast on Saturday.

If the government is serious about dealing with sectarianism and racism, then why can it not be equally serious and vocal about homophobic attacks and murder in Northern Ireland? Does John Spellar think he can take gays for a ride?

2003-07-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

More updates:

One theme I will touch on later is the DUP's challenge to nationalism. The party, oft-criticised for not having any alternative, is finally putting forward more solid ideas of what it wants. It says it wants greater democracy and can change in 'Towards a New Agreement'. The DUP doesn't want north-southery, but there are some policies on accountability that will find broader appeal. And while the message on their glossy new document will keep the party faithful happy, I imagine it will also appeal to a younger generation.

2003-07-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

UPDATE...

Malachi O'Doherty on Brice Dickson and the human rights debate. The first defence of Dickson's actions in the Holy Cross case. Worth reading.

McCaughey still uppity about Irish tricolours in Ballymena...

More trouble in Antrim (requires subscription)...

2003-07-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

2003-07-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

RADAR DETECTS HINT OF ACTIVITY... NATIONALISTS URGED TO JOIN 'SAVE DAVE' CAMPAIGN... HAASS IN NEW HALF-IN, HALF-OUT ROLE... BLAIR HAS CONCERNS ELSEWHERE... UPDATES

WHILE some republicans have been calling for everyone to call off the 'Save Dave' campaign, others have embarked on one of their own - 'Save Tony'.

Senior republicans have voiced concerns that President Blair could go as a result of the Iraq weapons dossier fiasco. They and nationalists in turn are being asked to re-evaluate their ambivalence about Trimble's survival. Just who would they rather deal with?

Not only worries about Blair, the 'least worst option' for republicans, but his able right-hand man, Jonathan Powell, who moves behind the scenes in Northern Ireland with the PM's authority. Powell is usually just a couple of feet from Blair in round-table talks, he has been involved in trying to resolve Drumcree, and he slipped quietly into Belfast last week for a chin-wag with Gerry Adams.

Republicans have a habit over declaring who should stay and who should go, in the same way that unionists inevitably call for Secretaries of State to resign. Recently, they persuaded George Bush's point man, the able Richard Haass (two 'o's, two 's's, for the pedants) to stay involved, even if he was taking on other duties. Unexpected perhaps, considering some of their previous encounters, in which Haass laid down the law to Sinn Fein. Niall O'Dowd lauded Haass's decision to stay, at least in the short term, in a honeyed editorial that also fawned liberally over Brian Cowen.

Even the DUP must have a sly smile about the way the US policy has become more robust about Sinn Fein's links to armed groups since the Clinton days, and especially since 9/11 and the Colombian nature expedition. They seemed extremely miffed that Bush wouldn't meet them at his Hillsborough war summit with Blair, who refused to invite them. Sky's Adam Boulton asked Bush why he was prepared to meet former terrorists, but not a constitutional party (relatively speaking) that is opposed to terrorism. Bush mumbled some unconvincing pre-written patter about only meeting parties that had signed up to the Agreement.

It was a mistake for Blair to prevent this meeting happening. Bush may not even realise it, but his right wing policies have earned him a degree of respect within the DUP, and as such, he could have influence there that Blair is preventing. Would it be a good thing though? When the DUP see what Bush is prepared to support in Israel, it must get them wondering if they will ever get the opportunity to try and push that door.

For its part, Sinn Fein knows that things happen with Blair and Powell. There are even some similarities in how they operate - experts in ambiguity and spin, media savvy, presentation and policy shifting.

So Brian Feeney is nibbling his fingernails over how Blair's commitment to the peace process. Nationalist concerns are somewhat legitimate. Political junkies will know that nothing happens in Northern Ireland these days without Blair's hand being on the rudder. His presidential style has been noted widely, and this even extends to Belfast, making the Secretary of State look almost like a titular position. That is a shame, since Murphy is reasonably well-liked by all sides, and his experience here and in Wales could be put to greater use. I wouldn't say Blair has necessarily undermined the SoS, but Murphy doesn't seem to operate with the latitude one suspects he might like.

Powell's surprise appearance in Belfast was the first time since postponing the Assembly elections anyone noticed Number 10 taking an interest in Northern Ireland. Perhaps it was just to reassure Gerry, who also spoke with Trimble at length on Thursday, that Blair hadn't forgotten about him.

Maybe they were discussing the International Monitoring Body. It was rumoured that draft legislation was to have been published before Westminster went into recess, but it never appeared. Nevertheless, it seems the Government will press ahead with forming a commission in shadow form, much to the consternation, no doubt, of Gerry Adams and Lord Kilclooney, whose letter to the Times provoked reaction from old friends, Alliance and Bob McCartney.

There were also fears that the British were just going to sit on their hands until the Ulster Unionists stopped imploding. No-one is quite sure if they will be dealing with that master of escapology, David Trimble, when talks do start again proper. This deeply concerns big thinkers and members of the 'Save Dave Brigade', like Martin Mansergh, who has seen a few unionist leaders in his time. Even if Trimble survives, he could be a lame duck. Names being touted around for his successor range from elder statesman, Sir Reg Empey, to the thorn in his side known as Jeffrey Donaldson, the sock puppet of another possible contender, the slithery David Burnside. Hell, even Jim Nicholson MEP has been mentioned in passing as a long shot.

Most likely though, nationalists have been using the Powell visit to press for an autumn Assembly election. Despite support in America for such a move, I don't believe they'll get it, based on no more than a hunch about how events have conspired in the past to bog down progress. If I were a betting man, I would be inclined to go with to political futurologist, Ian Paisley, whose nose for elections is a finely-tuned instrument. He reckons there will be no voting until the European elections next year. For as long as the British continue to be persuaded that there is no hope of a 'positive outcome' at the polls to allow an Executive to be formed, the less likely there is to be an election this year, despite the hassle of having to doctor legislation again. We had a dual election last time round, for Westminster and local councils, and a recently-postponed one, so the Election Office should be well prepared.

Aside from that there is little meaningful political progress at the moment. Things drift regularly each summer, with everyone's focus now on Trimble and Donaldson's internal squabble. Everyone else is on holiday.

There is always the nagging reminder at the back of your mind that vacuum has a nasty habit of being filled by violence, although the relatively peaceful marching season to date is one small reason to be hopeful. Even anti-Agreement unionists have been vocal and emphatic about supporting devolution.

Just not the Agreement, which is in major need of an overhaul. The Government may find itself playing its trump card, the Comprehensive Review. Our politicians could end up spending a depressing autumn in Castle Buildings, with the occasional jaunt to Hillsborough. If it happens, a Paragraph 8 review will represent the last gasp attempt to resuscitate the ailing GFA.

At the end of the day, there is too much to do that has been left too late. With Trimble's position and Blair's dossier blues to sort out before the serious talks that would have to precede an election, there is little real chance for that long-awaited Assembly poll happening soon.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've tried to make the links on Belfast Gonzo let you know as much possible about the background to articles. I mentioned Steven McCaffery's grilling of Human Rights Commissioner Brice Dickson in an earlier post, and it's online now, thanks to the Newshound.

Other updates: Henry McDonald also takes a concerned view over the implications the human rights controversy has for a workable Bill of Rights.

Quick thanks to Slugger O'Toole for the link in his blog list.

2003-07-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

GOING OFF ON TANGENTS ABOUT THE PUP... MEANDERING THOUGHTS ON LOYALISM...

ANY notion that the UVF is a 'cuddly' terrorist group was shot to pieces in an east Belfast house and a Derry brothel recently.

The PUP/UVF relationship is a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, there are the reasonable public faces of David Ervine and Billy Hutchison. On the other hand, the paramilitaries they provide 'political analysis' to are soaked in blood, organised crime and a gun culture that would leave Michael Moore thinking the NRA is just a old boys club for the security conscious.

The PUP's top two work quite well as a double act. 'Dictionary Dave' is the face of 'new loyalism' with fine, if sometimes sanctimonious, words that make him a media darling. 'Hutchie' is the PUP's McGuinness to Ervine's Adams; the hard man with connections, struggling to prove to his paramilitary friends that politics represents a better way forward. Sounds like a pitch for a B-movie. But the convicted killer's frank admission that he is sectarian and a bigot was a rare confession from a politician, one of quite a few who choose to send their children to integrated schools.

The Sinn Fein analogy is a good one, although I'll be strung up for comparing the two. Both claim to be disciplined armies, with proud histories. Both build memorials to dead terrorists without planning permission. There is even a certain grudging respect between the two groups, who shared TV studios with Sinn Fein before the DUP dinosaurs plucked up the courage to do so. When republicans from Rathenraw stuck an Irish tricolour on a phone mast in Antrim a few years ago, the UVF arrived en masse to witness this outrage. But instead of violence erupting, the local UVF commander, Ken Wilkinson, got on the phone with local Shinner rep, Martin Meehan. The PUP wouldn't have called this 'negotiating' with republicans so much as 'confrontation by proxy', but the flag was removed without incident thanks to the mobile phone initiative.

One notable difference with Sinn Fein is the PUP's acknowledgment that it is inextricably linked to the UVF. Shinners only talk about their distance from the IRA, a necessary fiction to aid negotiation. I think people have more respect for the PUP's admission, in the same way they drew hope from Gusty Spence's apology for past misdeeds at the announcement of the loyalist ceasefire in 1994. Sadly, that hope was misplaced.

Back to Rathenraw where life is much more fraught right now, although I haven't been in Antrim much lately at the minute, and can't say much more. Not a pleasant town, it has to be said.

Not far down the A26, former RUC officer and UVF commander Billy McCaughey is beavering away in the Bible belt of Ballymena, following his misadventure with the loyalist Harryville protest. God, what a PR disaster that was for the city of seven towers and seventy roundabouts.

The level of bigotry displayed on TVs across the world outside the Church of Our Lady was later comfortably superseded by the indefensible Holy Cross protest. Grass roots loyalists are notoriously blunt, in contrast to the persuasive language of republican activists on the ground.

Both McCaughey - notorious for the sectarian murder of an Ahoghill chemist and kidnapping a priest in the 1970s - and Wilkinson have been complete failures at the polls, possibly a result of their paramilitary connections. Both came last in their wards in 2001. But that hasn't stopped them trying to wrest some powers away from their respective borough councils. There are constant calls for 'community forums' to be set up, which mainstream parties instinctively balk at, to resolve 'local disputes'. The PUP has become adept at disrupting council meetings from the public gallery, and accusing unionist politicians of failure to represent their constituents.

These days, there is a single-minded hatred of the DUP and armchair generals who got 'the boys' to do their dirty work for them, then condemned them. They have seen through dinosaurs like Paisley, the 'Grand Old Duke of York', who marched them up to the top of the hill in February 1981 with their gun licenses and then deserted them to stew in H-Blocks. Neither is there much respect for the Ulster Unionist fur coat brigade of North Down and elsewhere, whose middle class sensibilities are unlikely to be popular in loyalist estates.

McCaughey is also a prodigious letter writer to the Ballymena Guardian, explaining diligently why it is OK to fly Union flags all year round ('it's the national flag, stupid'), but never the right time to fly an Irish flag in Fisherwick ('too provocative, stupid'), Catholic estates at the top of the town where some republicans are established. The PUP is paranoid about encroaching republicanism in unionist towns where Protestant dominance has never been challenged. It's the siege mentality, stupid.

While doubts are harboured about the men in charge in rural North Antrim, you get the feeling that the Belfast leadership is more earnest. Ervine even condemns some UVF actions these days, despite the fact that he has avoided 'the politics of condemnation' in the past. Other PUP members I've met can come across, as the party's name suggests, as progressive. Dougie Jameson, a working class Rathcoole man, is undeniably likeable. Stewart McCartney, Shankill community worker and flat-cap wearer, wears his heart on his sleeve.

It's always hard to gauge the level of influence politicians have over the terror groups they are linked to. This year, it's fair to say, there are fewer UVF flags on the lampposts, although they haven't completely gone away you know. When Billy McCaughey removed a few 'unauthorised' UVF flags from Moorfields outside Ballymena, he was vilified in the letters pages he loves so much. The PUP have always insisted the flags referred to the 'old' UVF - the 36th Ulster Division formed in 1912 and massacred at the Somme - although no-one ever believed them.

As a brief aside, McCaughey and his PUP followers have been involved in removing racist stickers from lampposts in the town, where WNP (White Nationalist Party) flags were erected this week outside the 'brew' or unemployment benefit offices.

Racism seems to be growing in the UDA's youth wing, Ulster's Young Militants, which was supposed to disband after the recent internal feud with former National Front member Johnny Adair's 'C' Company. There is some ugly graffiti in South Belfast, with 'Whites Only' painted beside the back gate of Fane Street primary school.

Maybe these junior hoods still feel the need to belong to something militant. Since they aren't attacking fenians any more, they are 'doing a Bush' and finding enemies where they can.

They are defining themselves against others, a negative identity of what they are not - Catholic, Irish, black, Chinese, Muslim, nationalist, republican. But we are used to retreating into our own communities here, safe from confronting the reality that there are more than two communities in Northern Ireland.

After the demise of the Ulster Democratic Party, the BNP reared its ugly head here, hoping to exploit the gap and stir up fears about immigrants. Their optimism appears misplaced, with one senior activist recently kicked out of his family home by his mum. My heart bleeds...

These angry young men are defining themselves against a new 'other' - the immigrant. The curious distinction with the UVF, is that the old 36th Ulster Division was slaughtered while trying to bring down fascism. It is difficult to see most of the time, but the PUP defines itself as pluralist.

This redefinition of Britishness as a pluralist society is a more progressive identity recognising the reality lived by most UK citizens today. Rather than appeal to primordial notions of British identity, this nod to tolerance is a subtle difference that can go unnoticed if you tend to lump all loyalist groups together.

The PUP/UVF have observed how republicans have changed the nature of the conflict. We have replaced the 'Troubles' with 'culture wars', of which Drumcree is the most obvious example. It is symbolised in territorial flags that hang until they are tattered rags. The dogs in the street have more respect for lampposts. The spectacle of the UVF parade last year was another cultural marker, and despite fears, passed off peacefully.

Many were amused when PUP deputy leader David Rose recently tried to claim historical authority from the United Irishmen, and while it would have been laughed out of a GCSE history class, it demonstrated... well, something. It kept Irish News letter writers busy for months, scratching their heads and wondering what the hell loyalist paramilitaries were doing paying tribute to their heroes.

I guess some progress is better than none. Maybe that's why the UVF was left off from the FBI's list of terrorist organisations this year. More likely it was clerical error though...

There certainly appears to be more cohesion than the looser coalitions of loose cannons that rule the vomit-inducing, utterly sectarian and hopelessly disorganised UDA.

That's not to say the UVF is not sectarian. It plainly is, and no-one can ever forget the atrocities carried out by the Shankill Butchers, for example.

UVF bomb finds and the near-slaughter of hundreds at the Auld Lammas Fair in Ballycastle leave people wary. Likewise, there was suspicion about the motives behind the 'Me too!' rioting in Donegall Pass last summer, as the Government bribed communities to behave themselves with generous economic packages - sweeties for the we'uns.

There have been frustrations in the UVF this year, particularly at the start. Like Sinn Fein, contact was broken off with the de Chastelain Decommissioning Commission, where Hutchie is the UVF link-man. Ervine's political aggravation was at least partly understandable - it was blatantly obvious that in the Hillsborough talks, the British were doing deals with Sinn Fein behind the backs of everyone else. Honesty, integrity and openness are qualities Tony Blair has rarely displayed in Northern Ireland, and his critics will take delight if he drowns in the whirlpool of his own spin over Iraq.

Killings at home of late have tended to be intra-loyalist. It's a simple fact that since the first post-Agreement loyalist feud, that Prods are more likely to be shot dead by one of 'their own', rather than one of 'themmuns'.

That's what happened just this week, supposedly as the result of the victim allegedly hitting a woman and holding a knife to her throat. There is still a lot of stupid male pride out there, and resolution is found through violence. Maybe our resident political feminist, Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition, should hold clinics for macho UVF men in east Belfast. The two parties often used to co-operate and support each other in the Assembly. Maybe they could use their empty offices to hold anger management classes for bad-tempered loyalists and in-your-face spides.

Mind you, Monica won't be happy at all about this prostitution ring the UVF is supposed to be running in the north west. We all knew the UDA had been running brothels, but now the UVF has also been tarnished. The media hasn't actually connected the group or its members to the brothel yet.

One thing is certain. The PUP has not been able to capitalise electorally on their ceasefire in the same way Sinn Fein has. Despite the UVF's fundraising abilities, the loyalist politicians have neither the resources, staff nor public support to become a major force at the next election, and there is no guarantee that the two former Assembly members will get re-elected. The Shankill hasn't seen a peace dividend, making it harder to persuade hardline loyalists to keep the faith with politics.

While few outside loyalism will sympathise, the prospect of a purposeless PUP and a politically rudderless UVF should not fill anyone with confidence. Just look at the downward spiral the UDA got caught in once the Ulster Democratic Party dissolved. Not even a crazy man wants to go through more of that depressing and destabilising shit again...

2003-07-23T17:49:00.000-07:00

BANG TO RIGHTS... COMMISSIONER'S HEAD COULD ROLL

The wolves are circling Human Rights Commissioner Brice Dickson. After a raft of resignations from the Commission and a sustained campaign against him in the Irish News, Brice must surely be feeling the heat.

The controversy seemed to start with the publication of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights. It wasn't an entirely positive report. Since it was formed, the NIHRC has been under constant fire, but this time things are a little more serious.

There are two strands to the criticism being levelled at the Commission. First, is Dickson's handling of the Holy Cross legal action. The Commission was supposed to be backing the case of a child against the police, for not protecting her properly from some knuckle-dragging, blast bomb-throwing loyalist mugwumps. Dickson later wrote to the Chief Constable and indicated he didn't back the case. Today, he was forced into an embarrassing admission that he made errors'.

That is a gross understatement. This was a cock-up of Clinton-like proportions. It doesn't take a genius to see how this totally undermines the confidence the public is meant to have in the Commission. Imagine your lawyer wrote to the judge and said: ‘I'm representing this guy, but to be honest, I don't think he has a case at all, m'Lud.'

Breaching trust isn't going to win friends and influence people, especially when no-one likes you to start with. Unionists were always suspicious of the Commission's role, thinking that it was run by nationalists to promote nationalist rights. But the SDLP has the knives out for Dickson too and won't be happy until a scalp has been claimed.

It's not an easy one for Dickson to respond to, but at least he seems to realise what he's done and held his hands up. Having said that, Dickson's unconvincing defence of his actions in Tuesday's Irish News made him look guilty and smacked of defeatism. The interview was too little, too late, even if Dickson did rush home from his holiday to handle the crisis.

The second problem is an entirely different kettle of fish, and much more fundamental.

It's about the type of Bill of Rights we get in Northern Ireland. Nationalists want one that protects minorities, although it takes a closet unionist to explain this in Fortnight. Liberals want one that protects individuals. Dickson is a liberal.

If I was a cynic, which I am, I might suspect that nationalist criticism of Dickson's handling of the Holy Cross case was being used to undermine him, force his resignation and hijack the Bill of Rights. Since Dickson screwed up so badly with his letter to the PSNI, liberals have every reason to be worried. Unionists aren't going to leap to Dickson's defence, leaving Alliance's Stephen Farry the sole voice in the wilderness. That ain't the level of support you need to survive a crisis like this.

I had a discussion with a nationalist the other day about this 'minorities vs communities' debate around the Bill of Rights. The SDLP's argument boils down to this: Catholics have been discriminated against forever in Northern Ireland, therefore Catholics require special protection as a minority.

You can see how this played out in other areas. PSNI recruitment is 50 percent Catholic, 50 percent everyone else. Clearly it's discriminating against Protestants, but since Catholics and nationalists were discriminated against in the past and the IRA tended to shoot Catholic police, they never formed more than about eight percent of the RUC, so you can see the logic. It's about making the police acceptable to all.

On the other hand, the merit principle goes out the window. A small number of Prods who make the grade have been told that, even though they are good enough to join, they can't because of the quota system. And if a Catholic drops out at the first stage of recruitment, a Protestant is shown the door too. All in the name of progress, of course.

The 'two tribes' mentality has also been institutionalised in the Agreement, largely at the behest of the SDLP. If Assembly members don't designate as either 'nationalist' or 'unionist' their votes don't count for as much.

In other words, in order to get a leg up to make up for past injustices, nationalists are now creating a new class of citizen to discriminate against - 'others' - and they are dragging everyone along with them. To be a non-unionist, non-nationalist citizen in Northern Ireland today, is to be the new second-class citizen. Try ticking the 'No religion' box on your census form, and chances are you'll be counted as a Protestant or a Catholic by the statisticians anyway. You are either a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist, like it or not.

Who cares how you think? It's how you're perceived that counts. In Northern Ireland you can't even define yourself these days.

So while all men are created equal, it would seem that nationalism wants a little more equality than others. It seems that they don't actually want to emerge from a dualist society into a liberal democracy, as long as everyone is equal but separate - a benign Apartheid, if you will.

The implications for a Bill of Rights that institutionalises divisions are serious and a cause for concern (for Eamonn McCann as well as myself) and much debate. It will, as others have argued, lead to competition and conflict. Whose group rights should be upheld on the Twelfth; Orangemen wanting to march down a public road, or the residents who live close to it? What right takes precedence; the right to freedom of movement, or the right to protest?

Instead of moving away from adversarial systems, we are entrenching them. Everything must be a zero-sum game, with a victory for one side meaning a defeat for the other side. If you belong to neither, well, you never counted anyway.

Chances are this will lead to an 'I want, therefore I should get' culture (page 25) . Expect many long and expensive legal cases. Lawyers will get fat on your rights before you ever get to exercise them.

2003-07-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

FAT IS IN THE FIRE FOR UUP CHIEF...

You may remember him as the man who declared Bobby Sands MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone in 1981. I remember former Electoral Office deputy returning officer Alastair Patterson as the chainsmoking, hard drinking yet amiable unionist who once locked his wife in the garage for the night.

Not intentionally, it should be said, for that would be the work of a Dungannon man driven to the limits of his tolerance. It would be a bitter man, maybe worn down by years of severe bitching, that would do such a heinous thing deliberately.

Patterson is far too laid back and genial. He could even charm a Shinner with well-known connections if the whiskey was good and the company in the mood for vicious stories told between men who wouldn't normally nod to each other.

But it did involve a hard night's drinking, and a long time unconscious afterwards. There was plenty of howling from the garage that night, but not as much as you hear from the men in grey suits in the Ulster Unionist Party these days.

Patterson's folly is that he seems not to have learned the lesson Sinn Fein knows so well when it comes to winning elections - if you're going to bend things to your advantage, don't get caught.

It isn't the first time questions have been raised about the increasingly desperate UUP either. Or the second. This is terrible news for unionists, who had assumed that it was only Irish republicans who were prepared to indulge in such low skulduggery. The Shinners may have forced the doors open beyond closing time in the Fermanagh polling stations in the past - but maybe the unionists thought they had the seat in the bag already. That was a court battle the UUP lost, although they are getting used to that these days...

Surely it can only be coincidence that Patterson was a member of the disciplinary committee that lost a case just last week to the anti-Agreement faction of the party?

These are dangerous times to be a Trimblist...