Top Issue 1-2024

18 January 2007 Edition

Resize: A A A Print

Fifth Column

Shock news — RUC men may break law

Retired RUC officers facing possible prosecution for collusion with unionist death squads in the 1990s are insisting that they get advance sight of a report due to be published by Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan in the coming days.

Some 20 Peelers are worried about being implicated in the investigation don’t get to see the Operation Ballast report, the Retired Police Officers’ Association said. And in a letter to Peter Hain last September, the RPOA threatened that they’ll break the Official Secrets Act “in order to defend themselves”.

The RUC reps said:

“Few, if any, RUC officers were ever convicted for breaching the Official Secrets Act but we fear that many are being compelled to consider proceeding in that direction, if only to counter the relentless tide of leaks and media speculation.”

RUC men would, of course, be appalled at “media speculation” being fuelled by someone in a police authority to smear individuals or groups.

Notwithstanding that, this is the same Official Secrets Act that was quite happily ignored by the RUC and UDR whose members were shipping shed-loads of classified security files on nationalists to the sectarian assassins of the UDA and the UVF. And let’s remind ourselves, as the RUC old comrades’ association freely admits:

“Few, if any, RUC officers were ever convicted for breaching the Official Secrets Act.”

I wonder why.

 

War news

At least 37 British mercenaries – including former UDR and RUC personnel – have been killed in Iraq since 2003.

They account for almost 10 per cent of the 377 known Western civilian deaths over the past four years since soldiers of fortune (or private military contractors as they are officially known) were brought in as hired guns to ride shotgun on convoys and act as bodyguards for government officials.

The 21,000 British mercenaries operating in Iraq outnumber official British service personnel by almost three to one and account for almost half of the 48,000 international soldiers of fortune working for private British, American and South African companies.

Meanwhile, 150 soldiers from 1 RIR have gone AWOL (Absent Without Leave) since 2003, when the regiment was posted to Iraq.  Last month, 26 were still reported as deserters.

Police have arrested 20 RIR soldiers who were AWOL and 12 have been court-martialled.

 

First strike

Scottish Labour has plumbed new depths with an attack by First Minister Jack McConnell on left-wing MSPs and activists arrested for blocking the entrance to the Faslane Royal Navy base in protest at the rearming of the Trident nuclear arsenal.

The leading Labourite _ dubbed ‘Union Jack’ McConnell because of his fierce opposition to Scottish independence _ accused the protestors of “wasting police time”.

Which is probably what the ruling classes said about the militant protests by the Tolpuddle Martyrs organising a trade union, the suffragettes demanding votes for women, anti-fascists opposing Mosley’s Blackshirts and the miners’ strike to save their communities.

 

A massage from the President

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democrats, must have breathed a sigh of relief when she visited the White House the other week and George W. Bush promised “no back rubs”.

The woman nicknamed ‘The Iron Lady’ (in the image of Margaret Thatcher) was taken aback at the G8 Summit in St Petersburg last July when Dubya snuck up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them.

The rub by Dubya was passed off as “a gesture of friendliness”. If Bill Clinton had done it, it would have been called something else.

 

Cheeky boy

The Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson on the Six Counties, Lembit Opik, has been having his leg pulled mercilessly by fellow MPs who are taken by his new-found paramour, one of the Cheeky Girls, who replaced former BBC weather woman, the glamourous Sián Lloyd. Ms Lloyd is 48. Mr Opik is 41. Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia is 24.

Cheeky Gabriela shot to fame and Number 2 in the charts with her twin sister Monica singing the classic number The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum).

When Lembit rose to speak on Irish affairs in the House of Commons last week, he was greeted by howls and cat calls of “Who’s a cheeky boy, then?”

Unruffled, the Lembit love machine shot back:

“I think honourable members should leave any cheeky business completely to me.”

 

Cheeky snow man

Austrian World Cup skier Rainer Schoenfelder turned all his cheeks when he went on a naked ski run alongside Switzerland’s famed Lauberhorn course, the London Independent reported last week.

According to the Indie, the 29-year-old double Olympic bronze medalist was snapped skiing down a practice site “wearing only his skis, boots and an orange helmet”.

 

 

 


An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland