PAY BACK TIME FOR THE IRA

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has talked of revenge against NATO nations for the no-fly zone and military operations currently being carried out against his regime in Libya under the UN motion.

Of course Gaddafi has his hands full on his own turf without being able to plan outrages in Britain or France. However that is not to say his surrogates will not do his work for him.

British Intelligence has for long stated the major threat in the UK comes not from Muslim inspired terrorism but rogue elements amongst Irish Republican groups. These members of the IRA and INLA do not accept the peace agreement and power sharing accords and are carrying on the fight long abandoned by their brothers and sisters in arms and Sinn Fein.

To see just how an important role Libya played in arming the IRA we have to go back to 1986 when Gaddafi resumed supplying arms to the Republican terror organisation because Britain assisted the USA in the bombing of Tripoli. Sound familiar?

In fact the first arms delivery was discovered back in 1973 when the Claudia was intercepted with guns and ammunition off the Irish coast. Experts say the most significant weapon supplied by Gaddafi to the IRA was Semtex which was used to create landmines for attacks against British soldiers in Northern Ireland. Before Libya’s intervention the IRA was fighting a modern war with ancient weapons.

At the time of the decommissioning of the IRA’s weapons it was estimated the organisation still held 2.5 tonnes of Semtex with a shelf life of another 20 years. Some of that would have gone, perhaps the vast majority, but enough may remain for dissident Republicans to plant another bomb in London in support of their aims and as a thank you to their embattled arms supplier. Even if the Semtex has gone they are not short of a bomb or two.

As I was writing this British Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, was being interviewed by The Guardian. In the interview he said the dictator could stage another Lockerbie-style terrorist attack: “The British people have reason to remember the curse of Gaddafi - Gaddafi back in power, the old Gaddafi looking for revenge, we have a real interest in preventing that...”

Clarke is envisaging an attack should Gaddafi survive in Libya. I am suggesting it may come before that.

VIOLENCE AS USUAL

After a period of ‘internal reflection’ the Basque terrorist group ETA announced on Sunday that it is violence as usual – no surprise there then. It reaffirmed its use of violence to achieve its separatist aims but said it also remained open to a political solution.

In a statement released in the pro-independence Basque newspaper Gara, a usual mouthpiece for ETA, it declared: “We reaffirm our commitment to continue with arms in our hands while our enemies opt for repression and denial.”

It continued: “But at the same time we say that ETA’s desire has always been to find a political solution to the political conflict...desire and total readiness to take that path.”

In July ETA marked its 50th anniversary with a series of terror attacks in Spain. It has been blamed for the deaths of 828 people in its campaign for an independent Basque homeland in parts of northern Spain and south western France – a campaign that is rejected by the vast majority of people living in the region.

The news that it is violence as usual will surprise no one. In 2007 ETA called off a 15-month-old truce following a deadlock in tentative peace talks with the Spanish government. Since then Spain’s Socialist government has taken a hard line, repeatedly ruling out new negotiations. There have also been a series of successful operations by Spanish and French police that have weakened ETA by seizing key personnel and arms supplies.

The ETA statement came as security authorities in Northern Ireland warned of the serious threat posed by dissident republican groups there. This followed an upsurge in attacks in the province for which the Real IRA claimed the credit.

It is a chilling reminder that at a time when our political leaders point to Afghanistan as being the cradle of terrorism the most real threat to our safety is on our own doorstep and comes from our fellow countrymen.

VICTORY FOR JOURNALISTS ... & JUSTICE

On June 5 I blogged here about the case of the Northern editor of the Dublin-based Sunday Tribune, Suzanne Breen, and asked you to sign a petition in her support.

She was the subject of a legal case brought by the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde, who wanted information on the murders of two British soldiers in March.

Suzanne Breen had received the Real IRA’s claim of responsibility for shooting dead Sappers Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, and Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham, at the gates of Massereene Army Base in Antrim.

The police wanted the court to force Breen to reveal her sources. Not only does this go against journalistic practice as a source is always protected but to have revealed the name or names would have endangered Breen’s life. Indeed had she done so it would have made many journalists’ lives more dangerous as it could have given suspicion to them also being forced to divulge sacrosanct information in the future.

Breen was adamant that she would never reveal her sources. Had she been ordered to do so by the court and refused she would have faced up to five years in prison.

She told the judge that protection of sources was the linchpin of investigative journalism and that is was the police’s job to investigate crime - not the media’s.

However there is another aspect to this case. The police and security services brought their action under the terrorism legislation. This meant that the lawyers and police spoke to the Belfast Recorder Tom Burgess in secret. Breen’s legal team made her case in public and were not party to what the police were saying and could not refute any claims made by them. This simply flies in the face of justice as we know it.

In the event Belfast Recorder Tom Burgess acknowledged that there was public interest in catching the killers but said the journalist’s right to life outweighs that.

The victory has been hailed as a victory for journalists. It is.

It is also an important victory for the British legal system where a judge refused to be bullied by the police and security services in to ruling in their favour!

SUZANNE BREEN: JOURNALIST FACING JAIL

http://tiltingatwindmillsblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/suzanne-breen-journalist-facing-jail.html

NO CUDDLY TEDDY

I always read the Simon Heffer column in the Daily Telegraph. I rarely agree with his views but I like the way he tackles issues and states his beliefs in a forthright manner. No waffle there.

On Saturday, surprise, surprise, we were of like minds.

He cited the extraordinary decision of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to announce in his speech to a joint assembly of the US Senate and Congress that Ted Kennedy was being honoured with a knighthood.

As the conferring of this honour was not publically discussed in the UK ahead of the event I can only presume it was for US consumption and designed to grease Brown’s path to receiving a rousing cheer from America’s elected representatives.

Now Ted Kennedy is one of the three brothers that made such a mark on US Politics. Alongside JFK and Bobby he is the youngest and the least. Their father, Joseph, was a “bootlegger” then US Ambassador to the Court of St James in the years leading up to World War II and was no friend to Britain.

Ted was expelled from Harvard for cheating in his Spanish exam and later on the night of July 18, 1969, Kennedy drove off a bridge in Chappaquiddick Island after attending a party for women who’d helped in Bobby’s election campaign. In the car with him was Mary Jo Kopechne. I am sure you remember as well as I that Ted escaped and swam to safety, but Kopechne died in the car. Kennedy left the scene and did not call authorities until after Kopechne’s body was discovered the following day.

I accept that in the intervening years Ted Kennedy has distinguished himself in public service in the USA. I also felt sorry for him when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. However, as Simon Heffer rightly points out, Teddy was a staunch supporter of the Republican cause during the 1980s and 1990s during which period he welcomed IRA assassins to numerous St Patrick’s Day parades. So somebody explain to me, please, why Kennedy has been honoured for his contribution to US-British-Irish relations?

As the US has painfully learnt since 9-11 terrorism is no laughing matter especially when it strikes at the heart of one of your major cities. The honour for Teddy Kennedy on that citation is an insult not only to the victims of the IRA but to every one of us. We shouldn’t be surprised that Gordon Brown insults our intelligence but with two British soldiers gun-downed in cold blood this weekend, by the same IRA gang that Kennedy supported in the past, the Prime Minister owes us yet another apology.

HACE LA GUERRA, NO EL AMOR

El jefe militar de las FARC colombianas ha prohibido las relaciones de pareja entre los guerrilleros para frenar las numerosas deserciones de enamorados.

A curious tale this. According to the Bogota newspaper ‘El Tiempo’ the top man in the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, better known as FARC, has banned the male and female guerrillas from forming romantic relationships. In this way Mono Jojoy, alias Jorge Briceño, hopes to eliminate the large number of desertions from the terrorist group by members who become lovers. Indeed last year alone FARC is said to have lost 3,500 members to romance.

Now as far as I am aware from the various police reports detailing ETA arrests there are often romantic partnerships or marriages between this organisation’s terrorists.

In contrast when I lived in Ireland the IRA and other paramilitary groups seemed to be male dominated but I suspect there were women in the background in “support roles”.

Hmm.

Well whilst Mono Jojoy might insist that “hace la Guerra, no el amor” might solve his man-woman power problems – for the wider world “make love not war” should be the mantra to bring the peace we all desire.

The trouble is that the majority of terrorists are fuelled by the dogma of hate so love, as we know it, is an unknown quality to them.

I guess they just hate to love and love to hate – except in FARC!

IS IT TIME TO FINISH OFF ETA?

There are many people in the State security forces in both Spain and France who now believe that the time is right to carry out the final strike against ETA.

They argue that the terrorist organization is divided, demoralized and has little support in the Basque region.

However there seems a reluctance to act on the part of Zapatero and his government. Even the proposal to kick ETA supporters out of the town halls they control in the Basque region has not been acted upon.

One theory is that Zapatero wants to end his second term with the signing of a peace document with ETA. Hence to achieve that aim the terrorist organization has to be kept alive.

Having been in London and then Dublin at the height of the IRA and Loyalist campaigns of the 1970s, which included the assassination of the British Ambassador to Ireland, I have experienced at first hand what living in the midst of terrorism means.

One thing is for certain. Terrorists by their very nature do not observe the same laws and norms of behaviour that we do.

People that can slaughter innocents in the name of an ideal that has little popular support are not capable of negotiating a peace with anybody. They have only one objective and that is victory, a bloody victory that will create a Basque nation under their control.

Ah, you may cry, but look at Ireland and what has been achieved there under the peace process!

True those republicans and loyalists who have seen fit to follow a democratic path have come together in a power sharing initiative, even though that path is far from smooth.

However the reality comes from the British security services. They report that the main threat to Britain comes not from Islamic terrorism but from the remnants of the IRA and other Republican terror groups.

The simple truth is you cannot make peace with terrorists – you have to eliminate them before they eliminate you. To believe otherwise is pure folly.