Ronnie Flanagan has emerged as the new supergrass. Here is a man who is
incapable of explaining how his officers could sit by and watch as Robert
Hamill was kicked to death. He is incapable of answering allegations that
one of those officers was personally friendly with a number of those
involved in Robert Hamill's murder. He is incapable of explaining how his
officers allowed valuable forensic evidence relating to the murder to be
lost. Yet when it comes to the most recent killings he suddenly has all of
the facts at his fingertips.
John Gormley of the Cearta campaign speaking at a Saoirse rally in Maghera
last week.
Forty two years ago, a British prime minister ordered Britain's armed
forces into the Middle East without enough thought about effect or
political consequence. As a result, he fell, having scarred the nation.
Suez should have taught us that lives are too precious to risk for the sake
of fuzzy symbolism or posture. We need to be crystal clear just what air
strikes, cruise missiles, or ground forces are going to accomplish.
Editorial in the English Independent comparing Britain's gung-ho attitude
to the Gulf crisis with the Suez affair of 1956. Thursday 12 February.
There is no prospect whatsoever, not the chance of a snowball in hell, of
finding a democratic solution if our party is not part of finding that
solution.
Sinn Féin's Mitchel McLaughlin. Friday 13 February.
The British government has abdicated in favour of the chief constable. It
is now Ronnie Flanagan who decides who can walk down the Ormeau or Garvaghy
Roads or who can sit around the talks table. It appears he can exclude the
third largest political party inthe North from the talks and have its
130,000 voters disenfranchised.
Republican source in the Irish News. Saturday 14 February.
But there is clearly a difference, both in scale and in kind, between the
shootings of two men, apparently under well-found suspicion of drug dealing
and acts of violence, and the indiscriminate slaughter of dozens of
innocent Catholics for no other reason than the fact of their religion and
that they provided soft targets.
Tim Pat Coogan on recent killings. Ireland On Sunday, 15 February.
So in the post-Cold War era are we now to be expected to face a future
where the conduct of international affairs is characterised by a First
World nation bombing a Third World nation into submission?
Tom McGurk on the threat of war on Iraq. Sunday Business Post, 15 February.
All political developments so far have been weighted towards nationalists
and Dublin. If the sell-out continues, we will be forced to abandon the
ceasefire.
UVF Brigade Officer interviewed in the Cork Examiner. Monday 16 February.
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