Our record of donations to human rights funds is well documented. The LAOH has been constant in prayers for peace and justice through out our history. As a resident of Florence Township, Burlington County, New Jersey, I live within the 4th Congressional District represented by Congressman Christopher H. Smith. I thank you Chairman Smith and members of the Committee, on behalf of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians in America and all women of goodwill. I urge you to pursue with appropriate legislation and the moral authority of these United States an end to the abuse of basic human rights practiced in Northern Ireland with great dispatch. 3 MY TURN PEACE ISN'T Second, the IRA must immediately restore its ceasefire. At the G-7 meeting in Denver last weekend, Blair said he would give Sinn Fein one last chance to enter the talks. The police officers' murder by the IRA was reprehensible and should be unequivocally condemned; it should be the last such atrocity in Northern Ireland's troubled history. And both sides must find a way to make progress in the talks on substantive issues. I know they can do it. For more than a year I've met with each side's with them. For the most part they're men and women of intelligence, experience and determination. But, like all of us, they and their communities are products of their history-and their history is one of centuries of conflict. It isn't easy to go against community attitudes; it's harder still to change them. But I know these men and women well enough to know that they can successfully turn the tide. It's not too late to negotiate an end to centuries political leaders, listened to them, worried of bloodshed and despair in Northern Ireland BY GEORGE J. MITCHELL S THE PEACE PROCESS DEAD? THE QUESTION HANGS OVER Northern Ireland like a heavy fog, blanketing the land with fear and anxiety. I Last week, in the most recent episode in a recurring cycle of hope and despair, optimism was once again struck down by an assassin's bullet, complicating even further the negotiations sponsored by the British and Irish governments. Launched after a decade of effort, the talks have been difficult; progress has been painfully slow. The sticking point has been the decommissioning of arms illegally held by the competing paramilitary groups. But hopes rose again when a new British government was elected in May. Tony Blair and his secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, moved quickly to reach out to Sinn Fein. Because of the relationship between Sinn Fein and the IRA, the previous government had refused to meet with Sinn Fein until the IRA restored the 18-month-old ceasefire it broke in February 1996. Blair reversed that policy. . In early June British officials held two meetings with Sinn Fein, and a third was scheduled for last week. The sessions' goal was to restore the ceasefire and engage Sinn Fein in the talks, which are aimed at achieving a settlement that would command the support of both communities. Progress seemed possible. Then, last week, with shocking brutality, two police officers in Northern Ireland were murdered, each shot several times in the back of the head at close range. The IRA quickly claimed responsibility, and the British government called off all further contact with Sinn Fein. Progress toward peace again seemed a distant dream. Is it? I may be an incurable optimist. but I believe a historic opportunity to end centuries of conflict in Northern Ireland still exists. If it's not seized now, though, it may be years before we have another chance, and the failure could cost many lives on both sides. It's worth pursuing a political settlement for one overriding reason: the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland want political stability and reconciliation. To give up now, to succumb to despair and sectarian war. would be to declare that a handful of men of violence are winners and the rest of the people are losers. That's a result I'm not prepared to accept. The next few months are critical. First, the marching season must pass without violent incident. That's when each side celebrates its history with an estimated 3.000 summer marches, most of them by Protestant organizations. There was widespread rioting during last year's season. A repeat this year could doom the talks, discourage economic investment and devastate Northern Ireland tourism. Today, urged on by business and church leaders, local newspapers and Secretary of State Mowlam, people in both communities are working feverishly to avoid that result. Third, the twin demons of Northern Ireland-violence and intransigencemust be overcome. They feed off each other in a deadly ritual in which most of the victims are innocent. During the past two years I've come to know and admire the people of Northern Ireland. They're energetic and productive. They deserve a better life than they've had. Of course, there are those who don't want anything to change, ever. They want to re-create a past that is gone forever. But their way will only guarantee never-ending conflict. It will ensure that the next half century is as full of death and fear as was the past half century. If. on the other hand, we can end the violence and people can live free of fear, then gradually the walls of division will finally come down. I'm constantly asked by Americans concerned about Northern Ireland, "What can I do?" Here's my answer: The American people, and especially the leaders of the Irish-American community, must say clearly and repeatedly that they condemn violence, that they demand its end, that they will not support those who engage in or condone violence. They must say it publicly, loudly and forcefully. Political violence, from whatever source, is morally wrong. It's counterproductive. It deepens divisions. It increases hatred. It hurts innocent people. It makes peace and reconciliation more difficult to attain. It must end. After his election, to emphasize its importance, Prime Minister Blair chose Northern Ireland for his first trip outside London. In a speech there he said: "I am ready to make one further effort to proceed with this inclusive talks process. My message to Sinn Fein is clear. The settlement train is leaving. I want you on that train. But it is leaving anyway, and I will not allow it to wait for you. You cannot hold the process to ransom any longer. So end the violence. Now." So the process must and will move on. Only the outcome is in doubt. Some have said that the political talks are all that's preventing widespread war. But as the participants in those talks know better than anyone, they cannot go on indefinitely. They must either move forward or end in failure. For the people of Northern Ireland, the time for decision is now. 1 To: Chairman Benjamin A. Gilman HOUSE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS NAME: Raymond Murray, Parochial House, 1 Convent Road, Cookstown, County Tyrone, N. Ireland. TITLE AND ORGANISATION : Rt Reverend Monsignor. Relatives for Justice. 23 June 1997 Report on Human Rights N. Ireland BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. Formerly chaplain of Armagh Prison, N. Ireland, 1967 to 1986. Parish Priest, Cookstown, County Tyrone. Chairperson of Relatives for Justice and Chairperson of the Campaign for the Right to Truth. Well-known crusader for human rights in Northern Ireland. Author of The SAS In Ireland (1990) and many books and pamphlets and numerous leaflets on the violation of human rights there. Relatives for Justice was formed in April 1991 in order to focus on the use of state terror by the British Government in Northern Ireland. It was founded by people who lost relatives as a result of the British Government's shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland, its widespread use of the deadly plastic bullet and its collusion with 'loyalist' death squads. STATEMENT OF REV. MONSIGNOR RAYMOND MURRAY Relatives for Justice represent poor, humble and vulnerable people who have suffered at the hands of the state in the past twenty-nine years. Great publicity has been given at home and abroad to testimonies from victims and their relatives who have suffered grievously at the hands of paramilitaries. I sympathise with these victims. I hope they are ably represented at this committee and that their story will be told. In this statement I am focusing narrowly on a section of people, victims and their relatives who feel they have been neglected and ignored. The ghetto poor have to a great extent been a voiceless people - although they can be eloquent - voiceless because they are without power. Government officials, religious people and academics were not always willing to listen to them and so their lack of human rights and civil rights and justice were not addressed. They found it difficult to get their story told. These persons have been the victims of the corruption of law. Such a problem is worldwide. I am focusing here on Northern Ireland and Britain but governments and politicians in the Republic of Ireland must also be challenged on periods of ill-treatment of suspects and occasions of inhuman conditions in prisons; their silence on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, considered to be the work of the British secret service in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, is as deafening as the explosions themselves. The 2 agents of the law in Northern Ireland and Britain, people in charge of the law, have violated the law to use it as a weapon to torture men in interrogation centres, to send some innocent people to jail for life, to kill and injure civilians with plastic bullets, to shoot citizens with army guns, to act in collusion over twenty-five years with the murderous intent of the loyalist paramilitaries. A second hurt, added to the injuries, is that the law has provided no adequate remedy for proper investigation; no truth or justice for the relatives. The British Government does not hold the high moral ground in the conflict in Northern Ireland. Like the paramilitaries it should also acknowledge and repent for its crimes, the deaths and suffering of innocent people it has caused. Truth helps a peace process and has healing effects. Justice and charity flow from it. My statement outlines 16 classifications of the violations of human rights. The headings are: 1. Internment of 2000 Catholics men and 30 women under special powers and the cruel ill-treatment of same, 1971-75. 2. Inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in Palace Barracks, Holywood, and Girdwood Barracks, Belfast, 1971-2. 3. Torture of 14 hooded men by sensory deprivation in Ballykelly Barracks in 1971. 4. Duress: Arrested people in the 1970s were forced to sign statements admitting crimes the police wanted to connect them with. Corrupt courts for many years accepted these statements. 5. Harassment: For 20 years nationalists were subjected to arbitrary house searches, house-wrecking, beatings, verbal harassment, census taking by security forces. 6. Ill-treatment of arrested persons in RUC stations 1972-75. 7. Ill-treatment of arrested persons in the interrogation centres at Castlereagh and Gough Barracks 1976-77. 8. Alleged verbal statements of accused given out by the police were accepted on their word in the Diplock Courts; beating, thumping and kicking prisoners and interrogating them for long periods and putting them in postions of stress, were not accepted as cruel and degradng treatment and statements taken after these forms of ill-treatment were accepted in court. There followed great disparity in sentences and some of the sentences were inhuman. Despite the censures of the British domestic report, the Bennet Report, in 1979, ill-treatment continued, centred on beatings designed not to 3 leave marks, on psychological torture and threats, blackmail and the use of supergrasses. 9. Severe punishments were inflicted on prisoners who refused to do prison work and wear prison clothes in the 1976-81 period. 10. Degrading stripping naked of the women prisoners in Armagh Prison 1982-86. 11. 18 innocent Irish people were imprisoned for long years by police action and judicial procedures in Britain which were contrary to human rights. The cases of the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Maguire Seven, and Judith Ward are known internationally. They were finally released and declared innocent after spending many long years in prison. Their cases now make legal history. I expres my eternal gratitude to Congressmen Hamilton Fish and Benjamin Gilman who helped me publicise the plight of the Birmingham Six. In April 1992 the Committee on the Administration of Justice published a booklet on the trials involving persons accused of being implicated in the deaths of British Army Corporals David Howes and Derek Wood in March 1988. It as essentially a study on the right to a fair trial in Northern Ireland. I understand that a representative of familes pleading the innocence of people sentenced for this terrible crime will pit their case before the committee.. 12. Some Irish political prisoners in British prisons were treated with cruelty. 13. The Prevention of Terrorism Act brought great suffering to many thousands of Irish in Britain. 14. Widespread and deadly use of rubber and plastic bullets resulting in severe injuries and the deaths of 17 people, of whom 8 were children and one was a woman. The Royal Ulster Constabulary still make use of this lethal weapon. Last year they fired 6000 rounds into a small Catholic ghetto after forcing a large Orange Order loyalist parade through the Catholic area of Portadown in County Armagh. This lethal weapon has never been used in riot situations in Britain. I understand that a relative of one of the victims of plastic bullets will give evidence to the committee. 15. Murder and unjust killings by the security forces. 148 members of paramilitary organisations and 138 innocent civilians have been killed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the British Army; some of these can be classified as murder and some as unjust killings. Prosecutions and conviction of members of the security forces have been avoided in most cases. The case of the 14 civilians shot by British paratroopers on January 1970, the shooting dead of six unarmed men by the RUC in County Armagh in 1980, and 46 |