Top Issue 1-2024

18 November 2004 Edition

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The 5th Column

Still the secret police

PEELERS who hold dual membership of the Orange Order, Freemasons or even the Ku Klux Klan can now breathe a sigh of relief after PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde agreed last week that the force's 9,000 members can keep any membership of secret societies secret — a clear betrayal of a key Patten recommendation on policing reform.

When PSNI Masons roll up their trouser legs, don their little aprons and swear blood-curdling oaths of fidelity to each other and foul retribution against traitors and non-believers, the Peelers can now keep it under their hats, even when they're wearing their PSNI hats.

Under Patten, cops were supposed to declare their membership of organisations such as the Orange Order, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Apprentice Boys of Derry, Knights of St Columbanus, the Freemasons and any other groups which could be perceived to be in conflict with an officer's duty to perform his duties fairly.

The PSNI's u-turn came after two separate challenges in the Belfast High Court by a pair of PSNI officers and the Grand Lodge of Freemasons.

The PSNI Police Federation welcomed the move, as did the Men in Aprons, the Freemasons. The Masons' straight-laced Grand Master, Eric Waller, said, at his high-powered court bid to keep PSNI Peelers' membership secret: "Freemasons have nothing to hide."

Another mystery in the secret world of Masons.

Private members

SAMMY WILSON, a DUP Policing Board member whose trouser legs are firmly rolled down (when he actually has them on and he's not buck naked, frolicking in the woods with young ladies), has stuck up for the right of Peelers to keep their Orange sashes undercover.

In July, Sammy complained: "We have always maintained that the scheme was politically motivated. It would in no way improve policing. It was a very selective intrusion aimed at unionist members of the police force. The organisations listed were mostly unionist."

That's because Peelers and the secret organisations they're trying to hide ARE mostly unionist, Sammy.

A Man Called Ó hEára

THE Sinn Féin Mayor of Derry, Gearóid Ó hEára, has no problem in letting people know the new society into which he has been inducted. We've always thought highly of Gearóid, and particularly now that he has been granted official warrior status by the Creek Indian nation.

A delegation of 20 Native Americans from Tennessee, Oklahoma and Georgia, honoured the mayor and the city with a blessing during a visit to Derry last week.

Gearóid said he was honoured at being conferred with warrior status by the Creek Indian peace chief, Negel Big Pond.

Chief Big Pond said: "We have presented him with the sign of the most honourable bird, the eagle. For Native American Indians, that is like being presented with a gold medal in the Olympics.

"I gave it to him because he is a warrior, and a warrior in our world is one who goes to look for peace and I believe that is what the mayor is doing now."

Luckily for an emotional Gearóid, the ceremony was nothing like the excruciatingly painful warrior initiation rite endured by Richard Harris's character in the 1970 movie, A Man Called Horse, when the Limerick lad was hoisted in the air by hooks pierced through his nipples. Now that would have brought even more tears to the Derryman's eyes.

Leader opinion

ONE SECRET that stunned everyone last week was the revelation by Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern that he's really a red under Mary Harney's bed — he thinks he's a socialist.

Bertie told the Irish Times: "I'm one of the few socialists left in Irish politics."

And David Beckham is the new head of MENSA.

The Sunday Life of Brian

A PRESBYTERIAN PASTOR trying to sell his Country Antrim house probably hasn't got a prayer thanks to a revelation in the Sunday Life.

The paper ran a story last Sunday, prominently featuring the bungalow property's complete address in Templepatrick alongside a photo and the full name of its owner (his first name is Brian), who bought it so he could "make a few bob".

Estate agents are looking for bids of over £140,000 for the rather desirable looking property, which went on the market last week. But before anyone could cry, "I want that house", the Sunday Life revealed that it was being used only last year by West Belfast UDA Brigadier 'Mo' Courtney (now in jail) to raise cash for the racketeer and loyalist death squads. The house of the man of God was being used by the UDA as a brothel.

Unfit for duty

OUR STORY last week that the Youth Justice Board is offering teenagers involved in crime military training with a view to getting them to join the British Army has been underlined by a Ministry of Defence exposé of the sorry state of the Brits.

Brigadier Mungo Melvin has reported that unfit soldiers with a reading age of eleven are being used as frontline troops because of a shortage of personnel.

Raw recruits are failing basic training tests but instructors are under pressure to pass as many as possible and "quality is often sacrificed to quantity", according to the British Army brigadier.

Brigadier Melvin said that seven out of ten of the 2003 intake at Catterick Garrison and Training Camp had a reading age of eleven. There were, the brigadier added, problems with heavy drinking among recruits.


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