Web layout by SAOIRSE -- Irish Freedom
March 7, 1998
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The father of a Co Down schoolboy slain by a British instigated death squad three years ago has spoken of his increasing bewilderment at the fact that not only is his son’s killer due for early release but is also being allowed to retain his membership of the Orange Order.
Norman James Coopey pleaded guilty to murdering 16-year-old James Morgan with a hammer on July 24, 1997 after offering him a lift in his car.
Coopey then went about destroying the evidence. With the aid of an accomplice, Coopey set fire to the boy’s body before dumping it in a pit full of animal carcasses in a field at Clough, Co Down not far from the boy’s home in Annsborough, outside Castlewellan.
A Sunday Times article of February 26 quoted an Orange Order source claiming that Coopey was still a member of the institution.
The source said their was disquiet among grass-roots members that those convicted of crimes should be allowed to retain membership of the Order.
Justin Morgan, James’ father said he was astonished to hear that his son’s killer was a member of the Orange Order.
He recalled that after his son’s death, a local unionist Councillor who is also a member of the Orange Order came and expressed sympathy on the Order’s behalf.
The Orange man neglected to tell him that Coopey was also a member of the institution.
“I really don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know what’s going on in this country,” Justin Morgan said when the Sunday Times article was brought to his attention.
Coopey having qualified for the early release scheme could be freed within 18 months.
“I was reading about Margaret Wright’s killer going on a trip to Disneyland — nothing would surprise me anymore,” Justin Morgan said.
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The mother of a Belfast teenager murdered by the British army said she is “shocked and disgusted” at reports that the two British soldiers convicted of his murder could join a NATO “peacekeeping” force in Kosovo.
Peter McBride (18) was shot dead in the New Lodge area of north Belfast seven years ago. Two members of the British army’s Scots Guards regiment, Mark Wright and James Fisher, were jailed for life in 1995 but were freed last year. In November the British army board decided they could rejoin their regiment.
The Sunday Mail on February 21 reported that the two soldiers had been transferred to another British army regiment, the Irish Guards, and deployed in Germany as part of a planned “peacekeeping” mission to go to Kosovo.
Mrs Jean McBride in reaction said: “I’m disgusted and shocked to hear this. That country has enough problems without convicted murderers running around armed. When Peter was shot I was told it was because tensions were running high on the streets of Belfast.
“If those two could not keep their heads in Northern Ireland, how on earth will they keep them in Kosovo?”
Mrs McBride recently launched a legal battle to have both thrown out of the British army. “One of the things which gave my mind ease was that I believed at least they would never be involved in duties similar to those in Belfast.
“This would prove me wrong. If my solicitor thinks there is any action I can take I will take it,” she said.
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The British instigated death squad, the Orange Volunteers has claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a nationalist-owned bar in Castledawson, Co Derry on February 8.
A number of grenades were lobbed at McNally’s Bar on the Hillhead Road as patrons were enjoying a quiet Monday night drink.
Luckily none of the nine people who were on the premises at the time were injured in the attack.
The bar is owned by Francie McNally, a former Provisional Councillor whose brother Phelim was shot dead by the UVF in November 1988. It is believed Francie McNally was the intended target. In June 1991 the SAS killed another brother, Laurence.
The pub is on the main Belfast to Derry Road and is frequented by members of both communities.
Nationalists in the area have expressed concern over the attack, as a consignment of weapons smuggled in from South Africa for the loyalist death squads during the 1980s included grenades.
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When the annual St Patrick’s Day boxing bouts between the New York Police Department and the 26-County police was announced this year for March 19 in New York, it came to light that the Gardaé had included members of the RUC on their team for the first time ever.
Immediately the Irish Freedom Committee/Cumann na Saoirse applied for and obtained a permit to picket the boxing match.
Following on this development the Emerald Society Pipe Band, which often led the annual Bundoran hunger strike commemoration march, announced that they would this year refuse to cross the picket line.
As a result of the controversy the Jacob Javitts Centre cancelled all arrangements with the organisers.
As SAOIRSE goes to press an alternative venue is being sought.
Collaboration with the British colonial police in Ireland has created a stir in New York.
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In yet another blow to civil rights in the 26 Counties, the Supreme Court there on February 23 overturned an earlier ruling by the High Court following an appeal by the Dublin Administration, which had said that a solicitor representing a person in custody had the right to see “interview notes”.
Deaglán Lavery (23) of Sliabh Foy Park, Dundalk, Co Louth, in what was the first successful challenge to the draconian legislation introduced on both sides of the Border following the Omagh bomb last August, was released from 26-County police custody on the direction of the 26-County High Court. This judgement was based on the fact that Deaglán Lavery’s solicitor had not been given access to 26-County police “interview notes”.
However this was overturned by the five-member Supreme Court, who whilst noting there was inconsistency in the State’s case in that the detained men could see the “notes” but not his solicitor, ruled that the solicitor was not entitled to be present at interrogations or prescribe how they were conducted or where they were held.
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The residence of the Papal Nuncio in Dublin was picketed on Sunday, February 21 to protest at the Vatican’s request for the return of Augusto Pinochet to Chile from England where he has been detained since last October.
Two days earlier, Ruairé é Brádaigh, President of Republican Sinn Féin, said in a statement that the intervention by the Vatican on behalf of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was nothing short of disgraceful. “The implication that it has resulted from lobbying by the right-wing Chilean government does not excuse their action in the least,” he said.
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“When I brought the box into the house I thought it was being used as a lunch-box by one of the men who work at our car business.”
A distraught County Tyrone woman re-counting how she and her family narrowly escaped annihilation at the hands of Britain’s death-squad underlings.
A bomb had been placed in a sweet tin — left on the window sill of their country bungalow at Ballynakelly Road near Coalisland on Sunday, February 28.
The 30-year-old woman, who did not want to be named said she and her husband (32) had been out for the evening and had left their children in the care of a babysitter.
When she returned home by taxi after 10pm, she noticed a large tin box with a Cadbury’s Roses label. The women went into the house to chat to the babysitter and forgot about the item.
It wasn’t until the following morning that she remembered the sweet tin and lifted it into the house through a window.
The woman said: “I took the lid off and looked in and saw a wee clock and then I thought it was maybe parts or something to do with cars but when I showed it to my husband we immediately contacted the police.”
Her two-year-old daughter was standing beside her as she purveyed the contents of the tin and her three-year-old son was also in the house.
The British colonial police (RUC) informed her that the bomb had been fitted with a 60-minute timer and was due to explode on Sunday night.
The placing of the device by depraved elements loyal to the occupying power exhibits clearly the depths they will sink to protect British rule in Ireland.
They would have known that the natural curiosity of children would be to open the box to find some goodies. Nobody had noticed the sinister packet but the mother, who said she was lucky she didn’t take it into the house that night.
British army technical experts examined the device for several hours outside the house on February 29, before carrying out a controlled explosion on it.
Dungannon sub-divisional commander (RUC), Duncan McCausland said the device was similar to a pipe bomb thrown into the kitchen of a nationalist household in nearby Dungannon on January 28. No one was injured in that attack, carried out by the pro-British death squad, the Red Hand Defenders.
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Recent moves by the Dublin administration to join the NATO-led Partnership for Peace by the end of 1999 and to discuss joining the British Commonwealth can only be understood in terms of a quid pro quo for US and British engagement in the Six Counties over the past few years.
Bill Clinton’s price for his involvement in the Stormont process in the Six Counties has been clearly seen in Bertie Ahern’s U-turn on the question of neutrality and his capitulation to the NATO-lovers in Fine Gael, the 26 County Department of Foreign Affairs and the Free State army.
It cannot be said that joining the ‘Partnership for Peace’ was signed up to in the Stormont Agreement —nowhere in the published document is there any mention of it or NATO.
But the hidden agenda of Bill Clinton and the US is that the 26-County State should join the NATO alliance as its enlarges itself and tries to escape from the peacekeeping restraints of the UN.
The aim is to create an independent military force capable of striking out at the perceived enemies of US/NATO and allied to that, the expanded opportunities for selling military equipment to dubious regimes around the world.
Where the 26 Counties comes in here is as a base for US arms company subsidiaries to sell arms in to the European markets.
The former Fianna Fáil EC Commissioner and minister for foreign affairs, Michael O’Kennedy, spoke out trenchantly against membership of the PfP in Leinster House on January 28 last.
He spoke immediately after Bertie Ahern had risen and surrendered on the issue of joining ‘Partnership for Peace’. Yet O’Kennedy’s remarks got not a line on television or in the newspapers.
He said that many members of the PfP were engaged in the “unspeakable trade” of supplying vast quantities of “armaments and weapons of destruction throughout the world” which caused a “continuing cycle of suffering”.
The PfP was the creature of NATO and applications for membership of it had to be submitted to NATO.
He identified some of the NATO fan club in the 26 Counties, including the current secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Padraic Mac Kernan and the former 26-County army chief-of-staff Lt Gen McMahon.
We should reconsider the question of the PfP when it proposes effective controls and restrictions on armaments exports.
Republican Sinn Féin President Ruairí Ó Brádaigh attacked the Fianna Fáil U-turn on joining PfP in a statement on January 20 last. No referendum on the question was now deemed necessary in the 26 Counties even though that was promised by Fianna Fáil and the other Leinster House parties before the Maastricht referendum in June 1992.
In 1996 Bertie Ahern said: “any sleight of hand in trying to push it though the House would be fundamentally undemocratic”.
He requested a “cast-iron” pledge from the Fine Gael/Labour administration that it would not make any move without first consulting the people. In 1999 all is changed. Bill Clinton’s will be done and Bertie does it. No referendum will be necessary.
Fine Gael’s foremost NATO groupie, Gay Mitchell, went so far as to allege that when we signed up for the Stormont Agreement, we signed up for European defence.
It will be interesting to see in the coming months what all those people who were vociferous over the years against “violence”, ie resistance to British occupation of the Six Counties, have to say about joining a NATO-front like the PfP.
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Republican Sinn Féin’s preparations for next June’s local and Údaras na Gaeltachta elections in the 26 Counties are continuing with the selection of candidates in Donegal, Longford, Limerick, Clare and Tipperary.
Sitting Longford County Councillor, Seán Lynch, will be seeking to retain the seat in the Drumlish electoral area which he regained in the last local elections in 1991. He represented the Drumlish area previously for Sinn Féin from 1974 to 1985 and in his last outing was elected on the second count having exceeded the quota.
Seán was chairman of Longford County Council in 1980-81 during the H-Block hunger strikes and was election agent for hunger striker Martin Hurson in the Longford/Westmeath constituency in the 26-County general election.
Also selected to run is the sitting councillor on Bundoran Urban District Council, Joe O’Neill, who was first elected in 1974. Former POW John McElhinney of Letterkenny will be contesting for a seat on the Urban District Council there. John is a member of the Ard Chomhairle of Republican Sinn Féin.
Conventions have also been held in Limerick, Tipperary and Clare and several new faces were selected to fight the local elections on behalf of Republican Sinn Féin.
In Limerick city, Colm Ó Floinn will contest in Ward 4 in the south of the city while Timmy King will be standing in Ward 1, North Limerick.
In West Clare Noel Dickinson will be standing while Geraldine McNamara, also an Ard Chomhairle member, will be standing for the organisation in Tipperary Town.
A convention is being held in Galway city on March 14 next to consider selecting candidates for the County Council, City Council and Údarás na Gaeltachta elections, all of which are taking place this June.
Republican Sinn Féin candidates will be standing on their record of service to the local communities and their commitment to more local control, increased participation in government at every level, a fundamental change in structures, a radical decentralisation of power and administration and the building of a Federal and Democratic Socialist Republic that will ensure peace, freedom, a fair share for all and political recognition to the communities on this island.
Further conventions are taking place shortly around the 26 Counties in order to select candidates.
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Web layout by SAOIRSE -- Irish Freedom March 7, 1998 Send links, events notifications, articles, comments etc, to the editor at: saoirse@iol.ie marked "attention web-editor". |