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An Phoblacht welcomes readers’ letters. Write in Irish or English, 200 words maximum. Letters may be edited for brevity. Send your letters to [email protected]. No attachments please

The record of Special Forces

TWENTY-ONE years ago, on 6 March 1988, IRA Volunteers Dan McCann, Mairéad Farrell and Seán Savage were murdered on the streets of Gibraltar by British Special Forces.
Now PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde, without consulting anyone, tells us that these same Special Forces are to be brought back onto Irish streets.
What arrogance from a man who, as a key member of the Stevens investigations team, has first-hand knowledge about the Force Research Unit.
This British Special Forces unit used its agent, Brian Nelson, to smuggle hundreds of South African weapons into Ireland which were then used to murder over 200 Catholics, nationalists and republicans.
So who are these nameless, faceless individuals who will carry out future ‘shoot-to-kill’ operations?
How many took part in previous crown forces murders or colluded with unionist death squads?
Until the truth about British state murder and collusion is made public, these Special Forces will never be accepted by the people they terrorised for so long.
In my opinion, this can only be achieved by an International Independent Truth Commission.
ROBERT McCLENAGHAN,
An Fhirinne

Norway cleans up with Irish oil

REFERRING to our Atlantic deposits of oil and gas, Martin Ferris in the Dáil on 3 February put the argument very clearly for radical renegotiation when he showed how, during the first nine months of 2008, the Norwegian Government earned $18bn in royalties from their oil and gas while Ireland “would only fully benefit if the taxation and royalty regime is changed to redress the terrible deal made, for whatever dubious reasons, in 1992”.
This deal smells even worse now that we know ever more and more of the economic treason of the banks.  But the road to economic recovery and justice lies off our shores.
It is time that this 1992 can of worms was opened so that a new system of royalties and taxes may be put in place.
The centenary of the 1916 Rising will be on us in less than seven years, and a single-minded campaign to recover our natural resources from the hands of the multinationals in a surge of creative energy could give hope, jobs and prosperity, together with at least a partial fulfilment of the Proclamation’s promise of “the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland”.
Welcoming Gerry Adams’s call to voluntary citizens’ organisations (“We need to listen to them and support them”), we write on behalf of:–
•    Galway Shell to Sea,
•    St Bridget’s Senior Citizens (affiliated to the Senior Citizens’ Parliament),
•    Women in Media & Entertainment (affiliated to the National Women’s Council of Ireland).
JOHN ARDEN,
ANGELA GAY BYRNE,
MARCUS Ó CINNÉIDE,
MARGARETTA
D’ARCY,
10 St Bridget’s Place Lower,
Galway

Broadside at Labour backside

IT IS NOT often that the Green Party make sense but the delegate who described Labour and Fine Gael as two cheeks of the one backside hit the nail on the head. That, coupled with the dismissive retort of former Workers’ Party/DL and now Labour hack Tony Heffernan, ought to give pause to any rush to form an alliance with one cheek of the said posterior.
Eoin Ó Broin, a prominent advocate of that alliance, has written a book which, it might be argued, justifies such a development, particularly given what some might regard as his ‘revisionist’ view of the 1969 split and the ‘Sticky’ faction which is now in effect in control of Labour.
Let’s be clear about it: the so-called ‘left’ in 1969 was in the process of dismantling the Republican Movement in place of a nebulous ‘National Liberation Front’ that would have consigned republicanism to the political fringe. It was also caught completely unawares by the Northern crisis when its totally mistaken and naïve analysis and running-down of the IRA left the nationalist minority at the mercy of the unionist state.
When that crisis broke it was the ‘reactionary green nationalist’ element which provided the leadership and many people put off by years of pseudo-revolutionary sloganising risked their lives at that time and subsequently. There is a radical republican tradition but, shorn of ideological wishful thinking, it is as much a part of the Fianna Fáil tradition as it is of Labour. More so indeed as anyone familiar with the history of Fianna Fáil prior to its degeneration will know.
Finally, the dangers of any relationship with Labour were illustrated in the spin which they attempted to place on their breaking the CPSU picket line and on the Sinn Féin TDs proper honouring of that picket by refusing to pass it  – another illustration that at the end of the day Labour are another Establishment party with an appaling record on the national question and an equally poor one on the issues facing the people they purport to represent.
Why any republican would wish to cosy up to them is a mystery.
COLM O LOINSIGH,
Corcaigh