Uncle Tom OBE

SDLP spin doctor Tom Kelly had his usual pop at republicans in commenting in his Irish News column on Monday on the O’Loan report into RUC/UVF collaboration.

Kelly highlighted the role of British agents inside republican ranks as if to, bizarrely, suggest that republicans were to blame for or benefiting from RUC and MI5 agents in the IRA!

While talking about British agents, though, Tom was keeping secret from readers his real identity. Tom is still an SDLP leader while happily basking in the glory of title of “Officer of the British Empire”, something he got in the New Year Honours List from the British queen.

The motto of “The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” is: “For God and the Empire.”

You can see why Tom Kelly doesn’t put that under his name in the Irish News.

 

Soldier Tom

While republicans in Dublin were gearing up on Friday for Sunday’s Special Sinn Féin Ard Fheis on Policing, UDR veterans were attending a commemorative service in Belfast to mark the end of active service for the RIR/UDR.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and the grand old Duke of York, as the colonel in chief of the RIR/UDR, were at the sombre ceremony at the Balmoral Showground.

Fermanagh/South Tyrone Ulster Unionist Party MLA Tom Elliott, a member of the UDR until the disgraced militia had a human rights makeover and merged with the Royal Irish Rangers to make the Royal Irish Regiment, was one of the down-hearted at the ceremony.

The legacy of the UDR, according to Soldier Tom, was one of sacrifice and helping to build peace in the Six Counties. The part-time UDR man didn’t mention his colleagues who were aiding and abetting the UDA and UVF if they weren’t actually members of unionist death squads while in the UDR.

 

Special about the Special Branch

Unlike Tom Kelly OBE/SDLP and Tom Elliott UUP/UDR, last week’s Kildare Nationalist editorial recognises how much republicans are contributing to the peace process.

Under the headline “What’s so special about the Special Branch?” the Kildare Nationalist editorial says of the O’Loan report into police collusion:

“In the ordinary course of events, this would cause a political storm of extreme proportions. Perversely, among the main players in the Troubles, only the British Government appears to be taken aback by Ms O’Loan’s findings. Nationalists and republicans throughout the conflict have known that the RUC was not some class of honest broker caught between two warring tribes but was in fact a player in the problem.

“The RUC was set up in 1922 as a nakedly sectarian police force to enforce ‘a Protestant state for a protestantpeople’ in the Six Counties. Generations of nationalists have felt the iron fist and wooden truncheon of this unloved organisation, and its ‘B’ Special Constabulary, while unionists were able to sleep soundly knowing that policing and security was in safe hands. And while many good men have no doubt served in the force over the years, institutionally it has served to prop up an unjust political and economic regime that discriminated against a large minority of its citizens.

“Taken against this background, it is refreshing to learn that Sinn Féin will not be using the O’Loan report as a stick to beat its political opponents in unionism or as an excuse to question the merits of the peace process. Rather, in an act of political maturity, the party is accentuating the positive, arguing that by embracing the policing issue republicans can ensure that such a hateful scenario will never arise again.”

 

Moral maze

On RTÉ’s Questions & Answers on Monday night, Sinn Féin General Secretary Mitchel McLaughlin was pressed about Sinn Féin continuing to campaign for the release of the Castlerea prisoners.

Mitchel pointed out that (a) the prisoners are “qualifying prisoners” under the Good Friday Agreement; (b) the Supreme Court has upheld this view; but (c) Justice Minister Michael McDowell has vetoed the men’s release despite all this.

Wilting in the face of the facts, Mitchel’s questioner resorted to asking him about “the morality” of the Castlerea men being qualifying IRA prisoners (never mind what the legal position is).

Why does no one on RTÉ ever ask members of the British royal family (like regular visitor Princess Anne) about the morality of their proudly being actual colonels in chief of British Army units guilty of collusion with loyalist death squads?

Answers on a postcard to:

RTÉ Head of News and Current Affairs, Ed Mulhall, RTÉ, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.

 

No flight of fancy

One of the more memorable quotes from delegates speaking at Sunday’s Special Sinn Féin Ard Fheis on Policing came from an elected representative in South County Dublin renowned for his plain speaking.

To tremendous applause, Our Man on the Tallaght Omnibus roared that the Establishment parties in the 26 Counties had “their heads in the sand, their arses in the air and we’re coming for them”.

Politically, of course.