30 August 2001 Edition

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Colombia spook set-up

Concern expressed for Bogota three



BY ART Mac EOIN

It is now clear that the recent high profile arrests of three Irishmen in Bogota is a result of the machinations of shadowy forces within secret intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic with an interest in scuppering the direction of the peace processes in both Colombia and Ireland.

     
  Efforts to make Sinn Féin accountable for these three Irish men are totally unjustified and serve no good purpose. My own view is that they should be released, and the Irish government should be doing its best to secure their freedom as soon as possible.  
Gerry Adams

The subsequent political and media reaction has served to further the sinister agenda of these spies and spooks with cynical and unjustified political attacks and allegations against Sinn Féin and a virtual trial by media of three Irish citizens.

No evidence of any description against the men has been presented to link them to anything other than passport violations.

Despite the outrageous and politically-inspired media hype, the mere presence of three Irishmen in Colombia's demilitarised zone is not legitimately a cause for any suspicion.

Colombia is a country that has witnessed deep political conflict throughout its history. The roots of the most recent armed conflict go back to the mid-1960s.

That conflict has witnessed a number of guerilla groups opposing the government in Bogota. The government, which receives support and assistance from the US administration, has been accused of organising right-wing death squads to carry out the murder of many civilians.

As a result of political negotiations within a tentative peace process, a demilitarised zone about the size of Switzerland has been ceded to the control of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest guerilla group fighting the Bogota government.

The area controlled by FARC has been regularly visited by countless international groups, observers, journalists and diplomats.

Weekly conferences have been held in the Zone, attended by government ministers, trade union leaders, schoolteachers, and anyone interested in being involved in the future of Colombia. FARC leader Manuel Marulanda has said the organisation is open to talk to anyone.

McCauley, Monaghan and Connolly were just three among many international visitors to the Zone, public transport to which is paid for by the Colombian government.

Reactionary elements in the Colombian military and US intelligence services with whom they operate, are totally opposed to the manner in which President Pastrana has handled the peace process and in particular want to rescind the demilitarised status of the FARC-controlled area.

Next October, the demilitarised status of the Zone is up for review, and it is a real probability that peace talks will be discontinued.

There is a vested interest among CIA elements in sensationalising visits to the Zone by foreigners with political affiliations. This is particularly true if information on those visitors, such as imprisonment for revolutionary political or military activity, is available.

In the case of two of the three Irish men, Jim Monaghan and Martin McCauley, such information was readily available from British Intelligence.

British securocrats opposed to the Irish peace process are more than willing to assist in black propaganda operations which further their own interests. Hence the Bogota arrests and the unprecedented media hype of the past week.

As soon as the men were arrested, British Intelligence sources contacted Peter Robinson of the DUP to facilitate a media and information spin on the arrests with the aim of inflicting the maximum possible damage on the Irish peace process.

Robinson succeeded in creating a bandwagon effect over the past week in which unionists and all sorts of opponents of Sinn Féin queued up to attack the party, despite the fact that none of the arrested men are party members, and to link Irish republicans to every conceivable activity from drug-dealing to manufacturing nuclear bombs.

Plots worthy of the cheapest pulp fiction were churned out in the Irish and British media with anti-Good Friday Agreement unionists and British securocrats manipulating the situation to portay the IRA and not themselves as posing a threat to the Irish peace process. This against the backdrop of a loyalist paramilitary campaign of bomb attacks against nationalist homes, GAA grounds and property.

Nationalists across the Six Counties in recent months have been driven from their homes and have had their communities placed under loyalist siege, while the UDA, responsible for the murder of hundreds of nationalist civilians both directly and in collusion with British state forces, parades thousands of men openly and in paramilitary uniform on Belfast's Shankill Road.

Gerry Adams has said that Sinn Féin had no case to answer following the Bogota arrests. The Sinn Féin President said the treatment of Monaghan, Connolly and McCauley was reminiscent of the trials by media of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four.

Adams said: ``The first I learned of this business was when the three Irish people were arrested. I can say with certainty they were not there representing Sinn Féin. I would have had to authorise such a project and I did not do so. Neither was I or anyone else asked to.

``Efforts to make Sinn Féin accountable for these three Irish men are totally unjustified and serve no good purpose. My own view is that they should be released, and the Irish government should be doing its best to secure their freedom as soon as possible.

``So whatever the hype, the lies and the propaganda, and no doubt there will continue to be a lot of all this... arising from this Sinn Féin has no case to answer.''

Sinn Féin has also supported calls from the men's families for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs to intervene. Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD said it is important that the men's human rights are protected while they are in custody and that they are brought back to Ireland as soon as possible.

Ó Caoláin said that he was deeply concerned at reports emenating from Colombia that the lives of the three could be in danger from right-wing paramilitaries.

``The Irish government has a responsibility to ensure that the rights of Irish nationals being detained abroad are upheld and I am calling on them to intervene immediately to ensure that these men are protected from any danger.

``Furthermore as the unsubstantiated reports, on which this case seems to be based, have shown to be false I am calling on the government to do all in its power to have these men released and returned to their families,'' Ó Caoláin said.

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