Impetus for Rosemary Nelson Campaign
The launch of the Rosemary Nelson Campaign on Monday, 19 April, has
given fresh impetus to the efforts of the assassinated solicitor's
family and friends to force the British government to order an
independent, international judicial inquiry into her death.
The group now intends to ask UN investigator Param Cumaraswamy to
oversee the inquiry, and An Phoblacht has been told that Dr.
Cumaraswamy has indicated privately to those involved with the
campaign that he would be prepared to assist any independent inquiry.
Now, with the passing of a motion by the United States House of
Representatives calling for an independent inquiry into the killing
and human rights hearings in the House due to get underway today, the
pressure on the British government to remove the RUC from the case is
mounting. The campaign took out a full page advertisement in the
Irish Times of Wednesday, 21 April, calling on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern
to back the call for a full and independent inquiry.
The same day, Congressman Chris Smith's Resolution 128, calling for
an independent inquiry, was adopted by the full House of
Representatives.
At Monday's launch of the Nelson Campaign in Belfast, spokesperson
Dr. Robbie McVeigh said that ``human rights lawyers are in the front
line of the defence of human rights around the world.
``In this context the murder of Rosemary Nelson was a direct and
profound attack on the human rights of everybody in the North of
Ireland. The campaign is about ``securing the truth''.
London-based lawyer Gareth Peirce, who spoke at the launch, said that
to have a ``failed or misleading campaign would be worse than no
investigation at all''.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin's Dara O'Hagan has criticised the British
government's response to the recent UN report on the intimidation of
lawyers in the North. ``The response is arrogant and dismissive and is
indicative of the whole attitude of the British government towards
policing and human rights'', she said. ``On the issue of the murder of
Rosemary Nelson, the fact is that the RUC, at the very least, created
a climate in which it was possible to murder her.''
Dr. Param Cumaraswamy's report slammed the RUC and the British
government. He accused the RUC of negligence in the way it dealt with
threats made against Rosemary Nelson, accused Ronnie Flanagan of
allowing the ``situation to deteriorate'', reiterated his request for a
fully independent inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane, and called
for the publication of John Stevens' reports.
Cumaraswamy also added that ``prime facie'' RUC evidence of collusion
existed.
The British response to the UN document has sparked widespread
outrage. It states that ``it should not be taken to suggest that the
RUC had any involvement, directly or indirectly, in her murder''. It
goes on to argue that Ronnie Flanagan has approached the Law Society
and has discussed the issue of confidence in the RUC complaints
mechanism. Given that it was the executive of the Law Society that
blocked attempts for their own subcommittee to consider the
British-Irish Watch document containing new evidence on the Pat
Finucane murder, this can hardly been seen as a positive measure.
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