8 May 1997 Edition
Back issue: Action in South Atlantic provides ammunition to counter anti-republican propaganda
Glaring examples of hypocrisy from church and political leaders and newspapers over British violence in the South Atlantic continue to provide valuable ammunition in defence of the IRA's use of force in the North which republicans should be exploiting to the full.
In the last week the IRA have carried out a number of attacks on crown forces in the occupied six counties which left one British soldier and an RUC man dead and an RUC woman seriously injured. The RUC casualties were inflicted in Derry last Tuesday, and it was there at the weekend that a group of Catholic priests - in response to an earlier successful IRA operation which left a UDR lieutenant dead - issued a statement condemning the operation as ``murder ... a vicious act''.
This is what is supposed to be called `leadership' and `moral direction'. It is, of course, all one-sided and totally pro-British.
In last weekend's editions of the Universe and Catholic Herald Cardinal Basil Hume, Catholic primate of England, had no such qualms about the use of violence by Britain, just as last year he sided with Thatcher whilst she murdered the hunger-strikers. In an interview Hume claimed that Britain had a moral right to use military force to regain `the Falklands'. Sinn Féin in a statement called upon Cardinal O Fiaich to dissociate himself from Hume's violent comments ``or else explain to the perplexed nationalist community in the North why it is morally right for Britain to use force against `invaders' but not for Irish republicans.''
In the last week the IRA have carried out a number of attacks on crown forces in the occupied six counties which left one British soldier and an RUC man dead and an RUC woman seriously injured. The RUC casualties were inflicted in Derry last Tuesday, and it was there at the weekend that a group of Catholic priests - in response to an earlier successful IRA operation which left a UDR lieutenant dead - issued a statement condemning the operation as ``murder ... a vicious act''.
This is what is supposed to be called `leadership' and `moral direction'. It is, of course, all one-sided and totally pro-British.
In last weekend's editions of the Universe and Catholic Herald Cardinal Basil Hume, Catholic primate of England, had no such qualms about the use of violence by Britain, just as last year he sided with Thatcher whilst she murdered the hunger-strikers. In an interview Hume claimed that Britain had a moral right to use military force to regain `the Falklands'. Sinn Féin in a statement called upon Cardinal O Fiaich to dissociate himself from Hume's violent comments ``or else explain to the perplexed nationalist community in the North why it is morally right for Britain to use force against `invaders' but not for Irish republicans.''