FAIT worse than death
By Sean Marlow
The latest contretemps between Sam Cushnahan and Glyn Roberts
comes as no great shock to anyone who has followed the ongoing
shenanigans among the leadership of FAIT (Families Against
Intimidation and Terrorism).
Since its inception, this bogus ``peace group'', and others like
it, has been motivated by a combination of anti-republican
hatred, selfish greed and over-inflated egos.
FAIT was once fronted by Nancy Gracey, whose son was one of the
most notorious thugs in Downpatrick. Gracey was later ousted
after allegations about the doctoring of expenses for foreign
trips. The media's favourites then appointed as patron the
revolting Lady Olga Maitland, a rabidly right-wing Tory who
visciously attacked the genuine peace campaigners of Greenham
Common. For a good measure of hypocrisy the bould Maitland also
supported the release of British Army killer Lee Clegg while
opposing the release of the innocent Birmingham Six.
Since its inception FAIT took up a one-sided anti-republican
stance, while occasionally mentioning loyalist violence to give a
pretence of ``balance''.
Among the Intimidation and Terrorism Against Families that FAIT
refused to campaign against, or even mention, were:
- killing of children and mothers by plastic bullets;
- shoot to kill operations by British Forces;
- RUC and British Intelligence collusion with loyalist death
squads;
- beatings and threats by the RUC in interrogation centres.
When challenged about its failure to take up the issue of human
rights abuses by British Forces, FAIT weakly claims that it is
opposed to ``terrorism''. Most objective commentators would agree
that terrorism is the deliberate use of violence against unarmed
non-combatants with the aim of terrorising the civilian
population. When one considers that the IRA has directed most of
its actions against members of the British war machine, while the
vast majority of the victims of the RUC and British Army have
been unarmed civilians, it is obvious who the real terrorists
are. It is also fairly clear why FAIT gets so much funding and
support from the British Government and the likes of super
intelligent Bob McCartney.
At least FAIT is consistent in its hypocrisy - it is opposing the
current releases of political prisoners who have served long
sentences, but failed to express the slightest reservation about
the much earlier release of convicted British Army killers.
FAIT is far from being the only pseudo victims/peace outfit that
has tried to exploit Irish people's genuine sympathy for ALL the
victims of the conflict here and for the cause of a just and
lasting peace. The latest is FAIR (Families Acting for Innocent
Relatives - think of the acronym first, then try to get the words
to fit), who at least are open about their bigotry. So, although
they say they are opposed to prisoner releases, they support the
release of loyalists convicted of the murder of republicans.
(Strangely enough, I have yet to hear the media challenging them
on this brilliant piece of logic.)
The forerunners of FAIT and FAIR, New Consensus and Peace Train
(remember them?), were a little bit more clever. These
organisations were ostensibly set up by a strange mixture of
political hacks from WP/DL/FG/PD/UUP (looks like a CV for Eoghan
Harris) backgrounds whose common cause was a hatred of
republicans (it is a CV for Eoghan Harris!). They tried to
disguise this, through their influential media contacts, as an
opposition to violence. Republicans were not sure how to respond
at first as they were certainly not opposed to peace. However, as
their real agenda became apparent after numerous pickets on Sinn
Fein and not even a mention of British violence against innocent
civilians, republicans began to get more confident in challenging
their anti-republican political line.
d, because the media followed them around everywhere, it was a
glorious opportunity for Sinn Fein to get its message across on
the censored RTE, BBC and UTV. A classic example of this was one
December day when New Consensus and Peace Train staged one of
their regular pickets on the Sinn Fein Office in Parnell Square
in Dublin. Waiting for them was a large contingent of Dublin Sinn
Fein members - the mobilisation of previously dormant activists
was another unforeseen bonus of these bogus peace groups. The
SFers pointed out that it was the anniversary of the
assassination by the SAS of unarmed republicans Brian Campbell
and Colm McGirr and that New Consensus sponsor Ken Magennis had
reacted to the killings by saying, ``Two swallows don't make a
summer''.
While some of the more naïve picketers had the grace to look
sheepish, others, after making sure they were out of microphone
range, readily agreed with Magennis's bloodthirsty call for more
such killings. But, of course they were still ``opposed to
violence'' in front of the TV cameras.
Sinn Fein's successful exposure of the hypocrisy of the pseudo
peace groups shows how we can be similarly assertive today in
exposing the hypocrisy of self publicity vehicles like FAIT and
FAIR.
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