Libya and HMG

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster has begun to take evidence about the failure of HMG to secure compensation for victims of Libyan Semtex and arms.

At the same time, many people on social media hold extreme views about the admission of refugees into the UK. They see things in ‘them and us’ terms. They appear to be confident as to who is our friend and who is our enemy. Consequently they argue that we should not admit the majority of refugees, because ‘what are the arab states doing?’ This presupposes that  all arabs are  friends, which is incorrect and that all arabs are our enemies.

I am no expert on the Middle East but it might be useful to examine the UK relationship with Libya, as a case in point.

Libya was an artificial creation by the Italians. They merged three countries and governed them as a colony.

After independence from Italy, who you might remember was our enemy then our  ally in WW1 , then our enemy, then our ally in WW2; it was ruled by a monarchy.

In 1969 a military coup overthrew the king. Gadafy emerged as the strong man of the plotters and became head of state. Interestingly his manual for oppression was a “green book”, where have I heard of that before?

Gadafy used increasing oil income to be the thorn in the flesh of the West and a friend of the Soviet Union. He began to sponsor terrorism.

So he was not our friend.

So much so that on 5th  April 1986 he bombed the La Belle Disco in West Berlin.

On 15th April 1986  the USA bombed Libya, using some aircraft which had taken off from British bases. This was not actually required for the mission but Thatcher wanted to show solidarity with Reagan against the dastardly Gadafy.

The bombing annoyed Gadafy. His adopted daughter was killed.

In March 1987 he told the Observer newspaper that he had increased arms supplies to PIRA, in response to the bombing.

PIRA were now the beneficiaries of new arms, lots of money and for the first time, Semtex, a deadly explosive which Gadafy had purchased from the the Czechs.

PIRA were required to demonstrate gratitude to their sponsors. What better target than two Remembrance celebrations? PIRA put these up and Gadafy was well pleased.

McGuinness was instrumental in the organisation of these operations and the committee heard today from Mr Donaldson about that. One bomb exploded, in Enniskilen,  killing 12 people. The other bomb failed to explode.

That was Gadfly’s revenge for the USA bombing. Pan Am followed in December 1998 and UTA in September 1989.

So what to do about a nasty person?  Kill him!

In 1993 Al Qaeda carried out the first attack on the world Trade Center. Al Qaeda were a bad lot.

Then in 1996 they were paid by HMG to assassinate Gadafy. They failed.

So, I hope you are following, Al Qaeda good, Gadafy bad…..repeat!

Twin Towers , November 2001, carried out by …..?

In 2003 the West cosied up to Gadfy. In March 2004 he became our new faithful friend. Blair went to Libya and snogged Gadafy in a tent. [Blair’s career has not looked back, surely the most useful kiss in Christendom?]

British firms flocked to Libya and were well rewarded. Gadafy told the Brits exactly what he had given PIRA…that wasn’t nice was it? So De Chastelain knew what had not been decommissioned and so did all the parties.

The victims of Libyan sponsored terrorism filed a claim in the USA in 2006.

In 2008 Blair and HMG ensured that we did not get paid.

The UK ambassador was promoting the City of London as a place for Libya to lodge $9 billion of its funds. In 1996 the City had been bombed, using Libyan Semtex.

More lucrative contracts followed for British firms. Our new friend was the nicest chap.

Then came the Arab Spring, it arrived in Libya in 2011 and HMG changed sides and bombed their friend’s army. Gadafy was murdered.

Oh well, some friends you lose!

Now, HMG are doing lots of business with Libya while the foreign secretary tells the House of Commons that there is nobody to talk to about compensation.

So, my questions to the hard men of the refugee crisis.

  1. Who are our friends?
  2. If you were Johnny Foreigner, would you trust Her Britannic Majesty’s Government?
  3. Who do you trust?

The Victims’ spokesmen were articulate today. If you cannot trust the State to protect you, who can you trust? This may now be a naive attitude but twenty five years ago the scales had not fallen from the eyes of the people.

The Bar Council and reality

At a time when access to legal aid is more restrictive since the 1960s and when criminal legal aid access threatens to lead to many miscarriages of justice, it is reassuring to see that the Bar Council is in touch with the common man.

On its website it quotes Aristotle. Not a premier league footballer nor a eurovsion singer but a person who was born in 384 BC.

He taught Alexander the Great , whose forces raped and conquered the entire world. A sort of old fashioned IS. When Alexander had found no new worlds  to conquer, according to Plutarch, ‘he wept”. As one would. As Hitler would have done, or Pol Pot, given a break.

So there, the Bar Council wants you to know about Aristotle. So when your child is taken from you, or sexually abused or worse, don’t worry be Aristotle…

What planet does Gerry McAlinden and his Council inhabit? Of course , being chairman of the Bar Council often leads to the High Court bench, how silly of me….

Link Appleyard

Those familiar with “The man who shot Liberty Valance” will remember Link Appleyard.

He was the overweight, vacillating town marshall in Shinbone. When Liberty and his gang rode into town , Link was keen to let them work away and very not keen to enforce the law.

Over the last year , there is something about Link that reminds me of another law enforcement officer. I can’t quite put my finger on him at present but perhaps if I follow an evidential trail I will find him.

Anyway, the important point of this piece is that until recently our own Link Appleyard considered thousand of terrorist murders as “legacy issues”. Link would have had sympathy with that, if Ransom Stoddard had been killed.

Happily, Tom Doniphon intervened.

I have difficulty with Pompey. Does he have an equivalent here?

The Peaceniks, have they gone away?

Apart from the Rev Good, I have not heard one supporter of the “Peace Process” speak out about recent events.

Where are those crowds who cheered the GFA?

Where are the people who lectured me on cynicism and espoused the GFA as a legacy for our children?

Where are all those dull academics whose support propelled them to greatness?

Where are those barristers who strode from the Bar Library to the City Hall to be seen? Judges now…

Where are the hundreds of place persons who are coining it with multiple posts in Quangos?

Have they no opinion on PIRA, which maintains a structure, an army council, guns and £400 million?

Or are they just hoping it will all blow over by the time they return from their exotic holidays?

Backing the wrong side in a revolution has always been a bloody business.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the fence

Humpty Dumpty told Alice that if he ever fell off the wall, the King would send all his horses and all his men to pick him up.

Our own policing Humpty Dumpty can look forward to the Queen sending him a knighthood, providing he stays on the fence.

Last night Sharon O’Neill asked him a very obvious question; “Who is the leader of PIRA?”

His answer was that membership is a criminal offence and he wasn’t going to do or say anything or speculate on anything which could undermine any future court proceedings.

So there you are Dear Reader, the Chief Con is on the case “following the evidence”. Can’t you see him with his magnifying glass and cape , accompanied by Joe 90, examining the footpaths of West Belfast?

Of course he could have arrested a sizeable proportion of PIRA high command the other week when he met them in a hall in West Belfast, a hall being guarded by a PIRA run security company. He shook hands with a man who has murdered many innocent people. The butchers boy from the Bogside.

To imagine for a moment. George causes a file to be sent to Barra-Boy. It contains evidence against senior members of PIRA, it being a proscribed organisation. Barra, because of his past would have to pass it to the team which bought you such block busters as Cahill and McCartney.

This is just a little fantasy for two reasons.

  1. A number of the northern command and the Belfast brigade PIRA are state agents. Therefore George and MI5 know exactly what is going on in PIRA and keep the Secretary of State informed.
  2. I have been asking since 1990 why no senior member of PIRA was questioned about the murders of my parents.

No senior member of PIRA has ever been convicted.

As Northern Ireland descends into chaos and farce with this , Nama, Red Sky and other imbecilic acts, will the unionist parties have the courage to act?

Don’t hold your breath. As they often say in Ahoghill; “Deus ex machina”.

Libya, Semtex , PIRA and the duplicitous British Government

The regular readers of my blog will know that I have a personal interest in the craven behaviour of the British Government in relation to compensation for the PIRA use of Semtex.

There will be more of this in the coming weeks because the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has promised to conduct an investigation into why every other nationality received compensation except holders of a United Kingdom passport.

It might interest readers, in the meantime, to ponder this statement.

On 11th September 2008, Gordon Brown [surely the worst prime minister since Spencer Perceval] said, in a letter to my lawyers; “Libya has answered questions about its involvement with the IRA to the satisfaction of the UK government”.

So there you have it. Libya supplied tons of arms, ammunition and explosives to the IRA. Hundreds of people were killed but the UK Government is satisfied.

Of course, at this point Blair had done his deals and UK firms were flocking to Libya. So much for the Paddies…..

The dog that didn’t bark

In the Sherlock Holmes story, the Adventure of Silver Blaze, the following exchange takes place.

Gregory [Scotland Yard detective]: “is there any other point to which you wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes: “to the curious incident of the dog in the night”

Gregory: ” the dog did nothing in the night.” [Gregory was trained  at Garnerville]

Holmes: “That was the curious incident”

Patrick Fitzpatrick had his house raided and he was found in possession of a Glock pistol. It would appear that the firearm had no connection to either shooting. Is this the best the state can do?

Obviously an informer was involved in the arrest of Fitzpatrick, or perhaps they ‘were following the evidence’?

Was he a sop?

If the state, Special Branch and MI5 do not know who killed Davison and McGuigan, we are living in a dangerous world.

They penetrated the IRA thirty years ago.

The curious incident is the lack of evidence against any significant player.

The present play acting at Knock is disgraceful.

The Humpty Dumpty world of the Chief Constable

“When I use a word” , Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone,”it means just what I chose it to mean, neither more nor less”. [Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and through the Looking -Glass]

For a masterly summary of the position, see Ed Moloney in today’s Irish Times.

And so to George Hamilton’s finessing of Supt Geddes’ last statement. Goodness know how many lawyer hours went into it. How many drafts the SOS rejected. What Box had to say about it.

George says that PIRA is a paramilitary organisation, devoted to peaceful means, just like the Salvation Army.

Here are my questions for George:

  1. Has this organisation access to arms and explosives?
  2. Has it killed anyone in the last twenty years?
  3. Who shot Martin McGartland?
  4. If PIRA is committed to politics, who are its politicians?

I’ll bet that I won’t get a reply.

Hamilton says that they will go where the evidence leads. It’s a statement like Hercule Poirot saying ” I suspect everyone and I suspect no-one” [you do the Belgian accent].

In the twenty five years since the murder of my parents, the police have declined to follow the evidence, to the Belfast brigade of the IRA and onwards to McGuinness. What hope is there that anything has changed?

So, when George uses a word, it means precisely what his political masters, who appointed him and who control him, want it to mean.

The Good Old days, when Barra was a pup.

Roy Junkin, sometime deputy director of the DPP, used to remind his staff and police the “we are in the ‘E’ business”. E stood for evidence. A case would not be prosecuted unless and until the evidence supported a reasonable prospect of success of conviction. That was the test.

Barra was just a pup then.

Now the PPS , under Barra’s command, are all over the place.

[Although it should be said that he did apply  for another job]

Consider the Ivor Bell case. As I understand it , the case against him is that he has given interviews to the Boston College project and therein he has incriminated himself in the murder of Jean McConville. Thus he has been charged with membership of the IRA and aiding and abetting her murder.

You might think, Dear Reader that before the police arrested him they had some evidence to support the contention that his voice could be heard on a tape.

The law requires that a police officer must ‘reasonably suspect’ that a crime has been committed before he arrests.

So Bell was arrested in March 2014 and he was charged a few days later. Undoubtedly the PPS would have been involved in the decision to charge.

So that’s it. Police have evidence that he spoke words on tape…..

Well, not exactly, because in May 2015 the PPS had not made up their minds and had involved senior counsel. Not so cut and dried?

The PPS prosecutor needed further time. Further time was afforded by the court and eventually the PPS indicated that the case would proceed. So the prosecutorial test had been passed. “A reasonable prospect of success”. Hurrah!

On 30 July the case was listed for a preliminary enquiry on 22 October 2015 over eighteen months after Bell was arrested.

In the meantime a lawyer in the PPS will be putting the papers in order. Statements of evidence, which already support the contention that Bell is guilty as charged. Just a clerical exercise…..

But, just a minute!

The PSNI wrote  to Ed Moloney, in August 2015 asking if he would cooperate as a witness in the case.

I am tempted to ask “What is Barra-Boy up to?”  Then I remember. In the words of Jim Allister, Barra was Sinn Fein’s lawyer of choice before he took the Queen’s shilling. Many of his clients were senior members of the provisional IRA. He has played no part, I think, in the Bell case.

So the team who are bringing you the Ivor Bell prosecution brought you the Mairia Cahill debacle.

My more constant adherents may wonder why, coming from my background, I find the Bell case so worrying. Five points.

  1. If the State can fit up Bell, so stand we all in peril.
  2. The PPS and particularly its Director are not fit for purpose.
  3. The handling of the case, given its fame, is awful. Cart before the horse. What chance does the ordinary citizen have?
  4. It’s another in a long line of flawed prosecutions.
  5. My father, killed at the hands of the Provisional IRA , taught me to respect the rule of law. It is conspicuously absent here.

Ballymurphy Massacre Spotlights Outrageous British Double Standards On Historical Cases

The important lesson for the “PUL” community in this is that the British have done and will do the same to them when it suits

The Broken Elbow's avatarThe Broken Elbow

The British Army is renowned for its exhausting bureaucracy, every form filled out in tripilicate and filed away in offices bunged full of filing cabinets. What a surprise then to discover that the Ministry of Defence has ‘lost’ the personnel records identifying the soldiers involved in the Ballymurphy massacre of August 1971, when British paratroopers gunned down eleven civilians.

In this important article in the current edition of An Phoblacht, the SF paper’s editor John Hedges discloses that not only have these vital records gone AWOL but a member of the inquest staff has been re-assigned to another post, meaning that his learned knowledge has gone with him. Meanwhile the coroner’s office has been told by the PSNI that the resources available for historical inquiries are ‘finite’, a veiled warning that money may be cut off to the Ballymurphy investigation.

All this is in sharp contrast to the resources…

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