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15 April 1999 Edition

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Fianna Fáil: The reneging party

by Seán Marlow

The NATO Party? The cover-up Party? The unionist party? It's hard to know which is the most accurate, but they all could be applied to today's Fianna Fáil.

Regardless of the massive suffering and death caused to innocent civilians in Serbia and Kosovo by NATO's bombing war, Fianna Fáil still plans to renege on its election manifesto pledge and join the NATO front, the so-called Partnership For Peace. Imagine the reaction there would be from Fianna Fáil if the IRA killed ten civilians in a no-warning attack on a civilian train. Yet the FF/PD coalition plans to formally join these war-mongers.

In fairness to Fianna Fáil, it is not the only party to pretend to oppose violence. It is also not the only party to engage in covering up gross acts of violence on a scale to rival the whitewashing record of the RUC.

Before the last election, Bertie Ahern met some of the relatives of the 33 people killed in the Dublin/Monaghan bombings and promised to make the results of the Garda inquiry into the massacre available to them. As soon as he got into government, he reneged again and told the relatives that there was nothing of significance in the files. All the more reason to let the relatives see it, I would have thought, and let them decide whether the failure to find the truth was due to Garda incompetence and/or cover-up.

I saw PD government minister, Liz O'Donnell, on TV this week harping on about what Sinn Féin must do for their day of reconciliation. If the Dublin government is genuine about reconciliation, it could take a major step in easing the pain of the families who have suffered for so long by setting up a public inquiry into the worst atrocity of the troubles.

While it is in the mood for reconciliation, the government could also make up for the years of lies told to the family of Dundalk man, Seamus Ludlow. Seamus was picked up in May 1976 by two UDR Officers and a suspected British agent, who shot him dead. Both the RUC and Gardai have known the identity of the killers since at least 1987, when a fourth man, Paul Hosking, confessed. But the Gardai have continued to add to the family's distress by falsely accusing Seamus of informing and blaming the IRA for his death. In South Africa, it was realised that truth was necessary before reconciliation could take place. The publication of the Garda reports into the Dublin/Monaghan and Dundalk killings would be a start.

Another agreement on which Fianna Fáil is trying to renege is the one signed on Good Friday a year ago and ratified by over 80% of voters in Ireland. Not only has Ahern supported David Trimble's attempts to re-write the Agreement by inserting spurious conditions, but he is repeating the unionist guff about the Good Friday Agreement being a one-way street, with Sinn Féin getting all the goodies. Let us examine these so-called `concessions to republicans':

Release of POWs: The release of republican and loyalist prisoners lags a long way behind that of British soldiers convicted of murder, who were all released within four years of their convictions. Each ONE of the Balcome Street prisoners has served longer than ALL the members of the British Forces (including Brian Nelson), who have directly killed nearly 400 (mostly unarmed) Irish people and indirectly killed hundreds more through collusion with loyalist death squads. So the release of republican prisoners, far from being a concession, does not even begin to equate with the favourable treatment of those perpetrators of violence, openly supported by the UUP and British government (and Dublin government!).
Reform of policing: OK, a commission has been set up and has held meetings (exactly as for decommissioning!). But the RUC is still carrying and using its weapons on the streets where the relatives of its victims live. They are still `accidentally' batoning nationalist councillors like Breandan MacCionnaith, Joe Duffy and Martin Morgan and are still setting human rights solicitors up for murder.
Human Rights: Again, a commission has been established, but the legal framework has actually deteriorated. Far from ending emergency legislation as called for in the Agreement, `draconian' laws were introduced north and south, against the advice of human rights groups and Sinn Féin, in the wake of the Omagh bomb. (No new laws were even considered after the Dublin/Monaghan bombs). On the jobs front, investment is still being denied to deprived areas and nationalists still suffer more than twice the unemployment rate of unionists.
Far from the Good Friday Agreement being a republican one-way street, it is fast becoming a unionist cul-de-sac, and now Fianna Fáil is assisting the unionists to build a barricade at the other end!

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