18 September 1997 Edition
Editor's desk
Here's a gem for all you film buffs. You may have seen the legendary The Battle of Algiers, directed by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo. One of the best political films ever, it is about the Algerian revolution which ended French colonialism in the North African country. It was playing in the Irish Film Centre in Dublin at the end of last month. In the programme notes, Thaddeus O'Sullivan, director of Nothing Personal, a less than sparkling and vastly untrue to life depiction of a loyalist death squad in Belfast in the 1970s, pens a little tribute to That Battle of Algiers. ``As a study in terrorism, it has no match,'' he tells us. Well, yes, one man's terrorism...
Even more nauseating, O'Sullivan dedicated Nothing Personal to Pontecorvo.
Last Saturday 70 loyalist bands paraded on the Shankill Road in memory of UVF gunman Brian Robinson who was shot dead by the British army in September 1989.
According to the Irish Times `security' correspondent Jim Cusack on Monday's Robinson was a ``revered figure within the [UVF] organisation'' who was killed as he was ``on his way to shoot a republican figure in Ardoyne''.
The truth is rather more in keeping with the fine traditions of the loyalist death squads. Robinson was killed by covert British soldiers immediately as he fled after shooting dead Ardoyne nationalist, 43 year old Paddy McKenna, at shops on the Crumlin Road. McKenna, who had no political associations, was killed for the simple reason that he was an ordinary Catholic on a notorious interface.
At the time that Robinson was killed, the specualtion was that it was in retaliation for loyalists having leaked details of British Intelligence files on republicans. There is no doubt that the Crown Forces had prior knowledge of many sectarian killings but did not resort to shoot-to-kill except on this one occasion when their friends in the death squads had embarrassed them in the eyes of the world.
As the world moves on, some people and some venerable institutions will inevitably get left behind. Take, for instance the Daily Telegraph, the once great Tory newspaper, which had the following in its editorial on Friday:
``Assorted Trotskyites, many of whom are fellow travellers of Sinn Féin, are purged ruthlessly [from the British Labour Party] for the merest infraction of Blairite orthodoxy; whereas Trotskyite republican terrorists simply get the Nelsonian eye.''
Doesn't language like that take you back?
Even more nauseating, O'Sullivan dedicated Nothing Personal to Pontecorvo.
Last Saturday 70 loyalist bands paraded on the Shankill Road in memory of UVF gunman Brian Robinson who was shot dead by the British army in September 1989.
According to the Irish Times `security' correspondent Jim Cusack on Monday's Robinson was a ``revered figure within the [UVF] organisation'' who was killed as he was ``on his way to shoot a republican figure in Ardoyne''.
The truth is rather more in keeping with the fine traditions of the loyalist death squads. Robinson was killed by covert British soldiers immediately as he fled after shooting dead Ardoyne nationalist, 43 year old Paddy McKenna, at shops on the Crumlin Road. McKenna, who had no political associations, was killed for the simple reason that he was an ordinary Catholic on a notorious interface.
At the time that Robinson was killed, the specualtion was that it was in retaliation for loyalists having leaked details of British Intelligence files on republicans. There is no doubt that the Crown Forces had prior knowledge of many sectarian killings but did not resort to shoot-to-kill except on this one occasion when their friends in the death squads had embarrassed them in the eyes of the world.
As the world moves on, some people and some venerable institutions will inevitably get left behind. Take, for instance the Daily Telegraph, the once great Tory newspaper, which had the following in its editorial on Friday:
``Assorted Trotskyites, many of whom are fellow travellers of Sinn Féin, are purged ruthlessly [from the British Labour Party] for the merest infraction of Blairite orthodoxy; whereas Trotskyite republican terrorists simply get the Nelsonian eye.''
Doesn't language like that take you back?