Belfast Telegraph

The duplicitous Foreign Office

On 16th September 2015, Tobias Ellwood , on behalf of the Foreign Office, gave this evidence to the Northern Ireland affairs Committee.

Q133 “if there is some assistance that I can provide for when there is a Libyan government to deal with”

Q134 “until there is a government in Libya for us to work with , we cannot pursue any of those aspects”

This same canard, that there is nobody at the helm in Libya is repeated ad nauseam by Cameron and other Tory ministers.

Unfortunately at least one member of the Committee believes this to be the state of affairs in Libya. This all in response to the question as to why compensation for terrorism has not been paid by Libya.

Let’s see what the FCO has been telling other Commons Committees.

“The UK’s [sic] provides significant political , security and economic support to a nascent democratic Libya on a cross- Whitehall basis, driven by the National Security Council (NSC) Strategy for Libya.”

“Total UK humanitarian support to the Libya Crisis was £17.2 million”

This does not take account of the £212 million spent by the UK on Operation Ellamay, the bombing of our former friend Gadafy.

Readers may recall that Libyan troops were being trained at Bassingbourn. A number committed crimes on the local populace and the contract was cancelled. Here is what the FCO said about the lost costs.

“Through the Libyan  Embassy in London we continue with efforts to secure reimbursement from the Libyan Government.”

WHAT! There is a Libyan Government after all?

It gets worse Dear Reader.

“UK ministers continue to speak to and meet their Libyan counterparts  and HMG is recognised by Libyan political , military and militia leadership as a trusted interlocutor.”  [Let’s just leave aside the chronology of the number of times HMG has changed sides in Libya recently]

“Since 2011 there has continued to be sustained and high level Ministerial engagement on Libya. The Foreign Secretary most recently met with the Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Dairi on 21 August 2015.”

Then , interestingly, this passage.

“We also want to see a just solution for all the victims of Qadhafi-sponsored terrorism. HMG considers compensation claims by the victims to be private matters, best pursued directly with the Libyan Government.”

Now somewhat contradicted , you might think by Ellwood’s undertakings to the committee.

The bottom line is this. There is a Libyan Government, HMG and the FCO talk to it regularly. There is a Libyan Embassy in London. All that is missing is a willingness by HMG to act.

They acted for WPC Fletcher and the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. They are chasing up a debt with the Libyan Embassy.

Why do the victims of Libyan Semtex, supplied  to  PIRA not count? Has it something to do with  PIRA?

Nine point four billion pounds

This is the value of frozen assets held in the UK and related to Gadafy, his family, his government officials and various Libyan institutions.

It does not reflect the additional  amount of money Gadafy gave Sinn Fein/IRA or the value of the arms, ammunition and Semtex he gave them.

Hundreds of people were killed as a result of this terrorism. No-one in Libya  and none of the SF/IRA leaders ,such as Martin McGuinness have been prosecuted for this.

Not one of the UK victims has been compensated , while citizens of USA, France and Germany have been paid long ago.

The lesson that Britain sends is that terrorism pays. In fact Blair kissed Gadafy in a tent and the FCO forgave Libya.

Relatives of the Tunisian atrocity should take note. Your government will not help you and that’s official.

Emma Pengelly Part II

Readers will know that for many years I have been involved in the campaign to have the killers of my parents prosecuted and for hundreds of people to be compensated for the use of Semtex  by Martin McGuinness and his fellow terrorists, who are in government with the DUP.

I blogged about Emma Pengelly and she emailed me today to say that she finds my blog “both unfair and upsetting”. Leaving aside the DUP inactivity on either of my campaigns, I’m sure there are many politicians who share her emotions about my blogging about them.

She says that she is not a “blow in” having lived in South Belfast for about a decade. Given the size and geographic spread of the constituency, that could be said by anyone in Sandy Row, the Malone Road or Carryduff. But ask Ruth Patterson for a more intimate view.

Secondly she says that she did not support a cap on self employed barristers “in the context in which it was being discussed”. You decide, Dear Reader.

Thirdly she says that she has “a full mandate”. An extraordinary claim in the circumstances. Nobody has ever voted for her.

Fourthly she says that it is outrageous that I mention her husband’s salary. Well, is not her point to Jim Allister about the payment of money by the state?

Fifthly she objects to the use of the word “comfort”. That word  has been in the public domain for a long time.

Lastly , she suggests that I have attempted “to publicly humiliate her” and added a little note of menace, something the DUP majors in. Ask Jamie Bryson.

When she was appointed I wished her well. I hoped that she might be that ‘breath of fresh air” that we often seek in our politics.

Sadly, by her willingness to get embroiled in a spat with Jim Allister, she displayed all the weaknesses of her boss and of the party in general. Arrogance and willing to spend more time rubbishing unionists than SinnFein/IRA.

I’m disappointed by her and that’s in less than a month.

Anyway, what’s that saying about the heat and the kitchen?

An open letter to Emma Pengelly

I had thought to give you some time to settle into your new role.

Not cognisant with the nuances of DUP South  Belfast, I thought it best to let you bed down and make a fist of it.

Now I read that you want to trade punches with Jim Allister. You, who have  no mandate. You who have until lately, been earning in excess of £90,000. You , who had a completely unaccountable role. Jim Allister has been selected by the people. You have not and might be a little modest regarding that.

You, who together with your [under achieving]  permanent secretary husband , have been trousering over £200,000 per annum.

You want to criticise the Bar for its earnings. Well, they don’t steal the money and they have to be selected , unlike your role as a SpAd.

How do you think the people of South Belfast regard you?

A blow in , because, for whatever reason you were favoured by Peter Robinson, as having , according to the press, been a comfort to him during the Iris crisis.

Worse than a blow in, a well heeled one. How do you justify your combined income, ten times or more the income of a family in South Belfast?

I hope they tip you out at the election.

The past isn’t over

“The reason the past cannot be dealt with is that it isn’t over”. A pithy statement by Eamonn McCann.

Let’s imagine in what civilised country the murders of two pensioners in 1990 by a terrorist organisation would be variously regarded by the Chief Constable as “a legacy issue” or by the pro-GFA press as  ‘the past”.

Just a note of caution here. Every government seeks, by whatever means , to shape events and opinions. History tells us that the British target journalists. See Kim Philby, working for the Observer and the Economist. Frederick Forsyth , also a spook. How many of our ‘respected’ journalists are working for the state, being fed information and shaping stories to suit their masters? How many have skeletons which have been dangled before them by the spooks? Each time you read an article in the local press or on TV , ask yourself, who wrote it and why.

I digress. Crimes such as the murder of my parents in 1990 would be relentlessly pursued  by the Israelis.

Well, twenty five years and more on the past isn’t over, no matter what the state tells Dr Maguire , the Police Ombudsman.

No matter what the OFMDFM told the Victims’ Commissioner, when they appointed her.

I will be returning to that august body in my next blog.

Hiding in plain sight

Aren’t we missing something, Dear Reader?

During the vexed times when Sinn Fein/IRA were negotiating with Blair and matters such as decommissioning, or the lack of it, on-the-runs and Royal Pardons were being discussed there was a class of person for whom there was a difficulty. The murderer  such as Martin McGuinness or Brian Gillen, who had not been convicted. If you had a conviction, a Royal Pardon solved it. If you were outside Northern Ireland you got a letter. What to do with the rest? Given the level of detailed negotiation and subsequent events, there must , at least , have been an understanding about their future.

Try this. Unless the participants  commit a further offence, HMG will ensure that nobody will be prosecuted for a crime committed prior to the GFA. Should the PSNI arrest, charge and/or report someone on the list for an offence pre-GFA , HMG will ensure that , even if there is evidence which passes the test for prosecution, the prosecuting authority will be advised that prosecution is not in the public interest.

The legal basis for this is the Shawcross Doctrine. The executive can overrule the law officers in certain circumstances. Originally , regard had to be given to “the effect which a prosecution successful or unsuccessful as the case may be would have on public morale or order”.

Dominic Grieve also included ” where necessary to safeguard national security”.

Does this explain the paralysis re Gerry Adams, the dropping of a case against McGuinness in the 1980s, the disappearance of the file in Operation Taurus and the remarks of the investigators into the Enniskillen bomb? Does it explain the shock articulated by McGuinness when Adams was arrested and the mention of dark forces. Does it explain Bobby Storey’s guldering on a west Belfast platform? [ the caterpillar, before he was the butterfly]

Prosecutions are going nowhere, unless it is now in the public interest to let them.

Is it?

Human rights in the summer

There is a cartoon of a young lawyer , being interviewed by three American heavyweight partners.

“We practise law for the money, Gene, if you can think of a better reason, let us know”, says the chairman.

It may well be the purest of motives but, having heard little about access to justice from the profession these last six weeks, I wondered how citizens were coping.

Were they able to plead that the fat cats were in their second homes [Banus, Portugal, Donegal or the Port] and would be back soon?

It strikes me, as a retired Non-Human-Rights-Lawyer, that the access to justice argument only surfaces in times of Legal National Emergency. That is to say , a further reduction in fees.

Perhaps I’m unduly sceptical. Well, let me quote from an article written by Professor Kieran McEvoy in 2011.

“Internment suspects were entitled to be represented by a solicitor and counsel of choice… the remuneration was quite substantial for the time – a joint fee of £250-£300 for solicitor and counsel.Although groups of lawyers periodically threatened to withdraw their services, in practice the Northern Irish legal profession cooperated in the system of hearings…It is hard to quibble with the conclusion of Boyle et al [in 1975]  that the legal profession’s decision to continue to provide legal services was in part due to the lawyers’ genuine desire to assist their clients and …also in part due to the very substantial remuneration which had been provided.”

As clients on the Shankill and Falls often observe about lawyers: ‘plus ca change’.

Cameron and platitudes

Here is a question for the relatives and loved ones of the British citizens, butchered on a  Tunisian beach.

How likely is it that Cameron will do anything material in response?

The British government negotiates with , appeases, protects, gives letters of comfort and Royal Pardons to murdering terrorists within its borders. Gerry Kelly , who blew up the Old Bailey, got a Royal pardon.

PIRA terrorists, responsible for thousands of deaths and injury were supplied by Islamic terrorists, yet these  internal terrorists are in power in part of the United Kingdom and Cameron refuses to help compensate their victims.

So don’t imagine Dave is doing anything more that spouting platitudes.

Sorry.

Belfast Telegraph misses the point

Today’s ‘Editor’s viewpoint’ , unsurprisingly, misses the point completely. The test for prosecution is not and never was an issue in MC,AA and BB. It does not feature in Starmer’s report.

Study instead Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy and the Peter Principle.

Look at the officials involved in this shambles and ask if they were up to the job.

Ask them what the organisation expected of them. The answer will be ‘stats’.

In my own experience , the high command  was not interested in issues about victims, for example , about the evidence of young children , there were no medals for that.

Every organisation is taken over by the bureaucrats and every person in it is promoted beyond his/her level of ability. The PPS is no different.

A prominent rapist died today

The murder of “Jock” Davison, while hardly the saddest thing to happen this year, exposes again the double think in this society.

Despite being a terrorist, a member of northern command and no doubt a multiple murderer the Belfast Telegraph described him as “a former IRA ‘OC’ for Belfast and the BBC “the prominent republican”. You would have to look hard to find him described as a terrorist or a murderer.

Imagine a headline “Joe Bloggs, the well known rapist and child molester died today”.

Imagine the howls of outrage from the Sisters, Liberals and others, wanting to know why Joe had not been ‘brought to justice’.

The point is that Northern Ireland’s “free press” is in thrall to the Northern Ireland Office. Giving the Shinners a kicking via Mairia Cahill is good for the establishment , particularly in  Dublin but don’t mention the war.