US Envoy's Nauseating view of the North

by Right, left click Wed Jun 14, 2006 13:16

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by rooster Wed Jun 14, 2006 21:07

further its own interests, thats the way its always been.

by Donnchadh Thu Jun 15, 2006 03:41

Even if the PSNI clean up their act enough for the provisionals to promise to try to sell them to the nationalist people, they will still be a British colonial police force.

by Brian Feeney Sun Jun 18, 2006 00:04

Irish News June 14 2006

Briefing - The Wednesday Column - Envoy's nauseating view of the north

Brian Feeney

The US special envoy has popped his head up again after a period of welcome silence. The Irish Times asked him if the US still has a meaningful role in the peace process. Of course, he said yes. What else would he say? After all, it is his role at issue.

What is his role? To provide "good offices", act as a cheerleader and a source of ideas, he said.

Yes, well, except that the only sound coming from the special envoy is the noise of him telling Sinn Fein to support the PSNI and join the Policing Board.

Some months ago Gerry Adams told The Irish Times about the envoy, "Do not heed what he says. He will not be sorting out these matters." And the envoy agrees with Adams that he has no authority here.

What he does not see is that, like his government, he no longer has any moral authority here either. People are pleasant and civil and agree to meet him but his standing has sunk alongside that of his government's authority in the world. The special envoy fails to appreciate the irony of him urging Sinn Fein to support the police and give "law-abiding people" in their community the type of society they deserve.

This coming from the envoy of a state which flouts any international law it doesn't like and refuses to sign up to any international convention which might treat US citizens the same as people from anywhere else in the world.

This coming from the representative of perhaps the most disgusting government ever to stain America's reputation, a government whose president also ignores domestic United States laws he doesn't like.

Even in his first five years, Bush had signed statements on more than 750 occasions 'voiding' legislative provisions he did not like.

So it continues. In 2005 when Congress finally got around to banning torture as an instrument of US policy, Bush's response was that he would obey Congress's injunction when it suited him.

As a representative of the US government, the special envoy no doubt also supports the evil of Guantanamo, a standing affront to human rights, a place where men never tried, never convicted, kill themselves as they enter the slough of despond.

The US response? An "act of asymmetrical war", a "good PR stunt".

Does he also support the kidnapping of individuals from the streets of European cities so that they can be flown to countries that will torture them to America's specifications?

When you hear the envoy of such a government talking about "law-abiding people" you need to keep a suitable receptacle close beside you.

Not having any authority here, let alone any moral authority, the envoy still has the temerity to exert pressure, having failed to win the argument by persuasion. It is the American way it seems, or at least the way of his rotten government.

Despite talking about "good offices" and a source of ideas, the special envoy has used his influence to prevent Sinn Fein from raising funds in the US.

Not because they have done anything wrong but because they won't do what he tells them when he tells them.

Now there are many reasons people could argue to prevent SF raising funds in the US but refusing to toe the line drawn by the special envoy is not one. That is particularly true when SF has clearly made a deal with the British government about what reforms are needed to policing arrangements here before they will join and the timing of those reforms is tied up with the restoration of a Stormont executive. Regardless of this deal, the special envoy told The Irish Times, in an ugly phrase, "how we decide to use and leverage our influence, that defines the role we play in the peace process". So much for good offices and ideas. It never seems to occur to the special envoy that Sinn Fein have stood for election in 2001, 2003 and 2005 with their position on policing in their manifesto. On each occasion their vote rose. He may disagree with their position but their voters voted for it.

Now would it be too much to ask what penalty he has in mind for the DUP who haven't moved on anything?

by Brian Feeney Sun Jun 18, 2006 00:09

Irish News June 7 2006

The Wednesday Column - Paying the price for jumping too soon

One of the daftest projects ever conceived here, and that's saying something, is the HET - the Historical Enquiries Team - which is supposed to be investigating the 3,200-odd killings in the north between 1968 and the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

If somebody was killed in London or Germany or Donegal, hard luck. Somebody else can investigate that.

What a waste of time and money - £32 million at the latest estimate; 89 police and office staff and it's expected to take, can you believe it, 25 years.

As you can see, it's not a serious runner. It will be quietly dropped in a couple of years' time, another exercise in cynicism and political expediency.

It can't work, can it? How is the HET going to be any more successful than, say, the three Stevens inquiries or the Stalker/Sampson inquiry or any of the others stymied by British governments, Conservative and Labour?

Besides, there's the inherent hypocrisy in establishing a unit to investigate killings when the job would be made a helluva lot easier and quicker if the British administration here opened the books and revealed which of its agents did which killings.

It's common knowledge now that the British security forces organised the killing of many of its own citizens, nationalist and unionist, by agents provocateurs in loyalist ranks, sometimes to protect informers.

Sometimes they allowed their agents to kill for purely sectarian motives.

It's always assumed collusion was mainly between security forces and loyalists.

What there have been no inquiries into, or even a demand for inquiries into, is how many soldiers and police were sacrificed to protect informants in republican ranks?

The HET will be investigating a long time before they come up with any answers to that question.

Needless to say they won't find any, despite strong suspicion in the British army especially that the IRA were allowed to kill some of their men to shield important informers.

What isn't appreciated among the English civil servants who run this place is the impact on middle-class nationalists of all these emerging tales of skulduggery among the police and securocrats.

Yes, nationalists knew there was collusion and corruption but they assumed it was piecemeal and patchy. Now, to discover that it was widespread and organised from the top, that carpet-bagger ministers knew about it and, what's worse, that serving officers in the PSNI are still protecting some of the worst killers, is having a serious effect on those nationalists' attitude to the police and the legitimacy of the state. Just like old times really.

They knew Stormont was rotten. They had no idea how rotten the British administration from 1972 was and remains. They do now.

They watch in dismay as the Policing Board fails to call any of these officers to account, asks powder-puff questions, fails to use its powers to hold an inquiry into the current and present use of agents. They watch in dismay as the so-called new prosecution service delays for years any action against those suspected or charged with offences, fails to prosecute known offenders, sits on reports and behaves just as badly as the old, discredited DPP.

They watch in dismay as the Police Ombudsman's Office takes donkey's ages to complete a report and then it goes to, you've guessed it, the prosecution service, from which it never emerges.

Why are the nationalist representatives so ineffective? Answer - because they're political pygmies.

Even so, the bottom line is they jumped too soon. The Policing Board they joined had been ruined by Peter Mandelson. Now for them to criticise the board and its accountability and tackle the root of the problem would be to admit that they made a mistake, that they did jump too soon.

All these reasons are why policing and justice are the key to any resurrection of devolved government.

It isn't just policing, it's political control of justice that's crucial.

Until there are locally elected people in charge there's no hope of justice, fairness and accountability.

So far there's no sign the British will allow local people control because, disgracefully, that weak-kneed pudding of a politician, Paul Murphy, let MI5 spread its tentacles over the north.

You thought Special Branch was bad?