EXTRADITION BACK AGAIN

The message conveyed by the arrest and attempted extradition of Belfastman Angelo Fusco at the beginning of the New Year is that political extradition is set to continue regardless of current political developments at Stormont. Even at this late stage in the current partition process the Dublin administration is proceeding with the controversial extradition of political prisoners.

Angelo Fusco being driven away from Tralee after his arrest on January 4.

The fact that the same old agenda is being pursued by the British government and 26-County administration has caused much anger among nationally-minded people and acute embarrassment for Fusco's Provisional associates.

The Dublin authorities want to extradite Angelo Fusco back to the British regime at Stormont in which two of his associates are ministers. Administering British rule now means getting their own comrades extradited from the 26 Counties.

The position into which the Provisionals have put themselves is shown up with all its huge contradictions.

Angelo Fusco was originally captured by the British Crown Forces in May 1980 following a gun-battle with a British army SAS unit on the Antrim Road in Belfast in which SAS Captain Herbert Westmacott was shot dead.

The following year, on June 10, 1981 Fusco and seven other prisoners shot their way out of Crumlin Road Prison with smuggled handguns two days before being sentenced for killing the SAS officer. He received a life sentence in his absence.

In January 1982 Fusco was arrested in Tralee, Co Kerry by 26-County police and was sentenced to ten years in Portlaoise for the Crumlin Road escape. As his sentence neared completion the British served extradition warrants on him and fellow-Crumlin Road escapees Michael McKee, Anthony Sloan and Paul 'Dingus' Magee.

In 1995 the Dublin High Court quashed the extradition warrant against Angelo Fusco. The case then went to the Supreme Court which ruled in February 1998 that he should be arrested and extradited. He had been bailed a month earlier and had settled with his family in Tralee, Co Kerry.

Fusco had been on the run since the Supreme Court judgement but was, in fact, living openly in Co Kerry until his arrest at a checkpoint near Tralee on January 4, on foot of the original extradition order granted by Dublin District Court in 1992.

The Supreme Court judgement in the extradition case of another Provisional member, Nessan Quinlivan of Limerick, is due to delivered shortly, so the extradition issue is not going away.

It is part and parcel of the current partition process aimed at derailing the Irish struggle for English disengagement.

DROP NAME

Meanwhile on the very day (December 19) that the last European colonial outpost in Asia, Macau, was returned to China, it was reported that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness would be allocated offices as British MPs at Westminster.

At a time when the last direct colonialism in Asia had been ended these two people were moving towards cementing in position the British colonial presence in Ireland.

When Cumann na nGaedheal / Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Workers' Party entered the partitionist assemblies at Leinster House and Stormont, they had the decency to cease calling themselves Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin was founded 94 years ago to withdraw the Irish representation from the British parliament and to convene a Constituent Assembly to act as the supreme authority for all Ireland.

Newspaper reports stated that Adams and McGuinness will not be allowed to enter the Commons chamber without swearing the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen of England.

However they are already halfway towards accepting seats in the British Parliament which is totally contrary to basic Sinn Féin ideology from its inception and they should forthwith cease using the name Sinn Féin.

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