This
is not a subject I'm returning to with any pleasure,
but needs must and although I have said this before,
I hope readers will indulge me as it cannot be said
enough times. The responsibility for any touting
which has gone on within the Provisional Republican
Movement lays with the British government.
No
matter how inept the SF leadership has been in dealing
with the infiltration of their organization by British
run touts, who pays the piper calls the tune. If
Ireland had not been partitioned in 1922 and the
subsequent northern state-let had not become such
a cold house for Catholics and nationalists, then
all that has followed would never have occurred.
One
expects the British government, Pontius Pilate like,
to wash away any public responsibility for the mayhem,
confusion and suffering their touts and agents of
influence have caused, let alone the shame the aforementioned
touts have brought to the doors of their own families.
But
one had hoped for better from the SF leadership.
They have truly behaved in the most disgraceful
manner. Their negation of duty has been such that
anyone who has ever been a member of the PRM, could
now be named as an informer by the British Security
Forces and they would have no one to speak up with
authority to deny that they were British touts.
Once the Adams leadership knowingly lied about Freddie
Scappaticci not being a a tout, their word on this
matter became worthless; not only with their media
contacts, but also with a sizable section of the
north's nationalist and republican population.
It
looks very much like ten to 15 years ago, the PRM
in Belfast became aware they had a major problem
with informers at a senior level of the organization.
A number of highly prominent Belfast Republicans
were secretly stood down from front line positions.
Whether any of these individuals were also offered
an amnesty if they admitted their guilt we do not
know, but it seems unlikely as the consequence would
be almost unthinkable for all who have supported
the Provisional Republican Movement down the years.
Thus
what happened was a swathe of once prominent republicans,
whilst remaining active on the periphery of the
movement were no longer at the centre as members
of Adams 'kitchen cabinet'. This did not mean they
were all informers, simply there were suspicions
against one or more of them due to the roles they
had played up until then within the PRM.
By
and large these are the people whose names have
been placed in the public arena as touts in the
last week or so following the outing of Denis Donaldson.
All of them have either been named as touts in the
past or innuendoes about them have swept republican
areas of Belfast at some time or other. Although,
it needs to be said, in the main no solid information
against them has been brought before the public
eye.
It
appears the only advice they have been given by
the leadership of SF is to see a solicitor, which
given the situation they find themselves in is worse
than useless, designed as a stalling exercise in
the forlorn hope that this problem will simply go
away. It may do so, temporarily at least as far
as the SF leadership is concerned, as other events
move the media's agenda elsewhere. But for the individuals
at the centre of this storm and their families,
having been branded as informers will be akin to
having had the mark of Cain placed upon them.
It
has become increasingly clear Sinn Fein's leadership
is unwilling or unable due to lack of resources
to bring the extent of the British Security Services
infiltration of their own organization into the
light of day; and this is in spite of Mr Adams'
number two Martin McGuinness having been recently
named on the reputable Slugger O'Toole web site
as an alleged informer.
However,
before any one gets too smug, if the Loyalist and
Republican organizations have been thoroughly infiltrated
by British spooks, touts and agents of influence,
it does not take a flight of imagination to conclude
it is more than likely other Irish institutions
and organizations, north and south have also been
targeted by the same security personnel.
Might
the Garda Siochana, PSNI, Stormont Assembly, House
of the Oireachtas, Irish Army, political parties
on both sides of the border, trade unions and business
associations, even sporting bodies, etc also have
been targets? One just does not know for sure, but
what we do know is the war in the north has given
the British Security Services both the justification
and opportunity to strike at the heart of Irish
life both north and south of the border.
Before
one thinks this suggestion is a flight of fancy,
it is worth remembering the first President of the
Irish Free State, who was once Charles Stewart Parnell's
right hand man, was almost certainly a British agent
of influence and to this day the British refuse
to release the public records they hold on this
man.
This
has gone way beyond being a matter for smugness
and guffaws at Gerry Adams and his party's sad predicament.
One has seen how the Secret State was used by the
UK Government to bounce that Nation's people into
an illegal and hopeless war with Iraq, which in
itself makes a nonsense of Mr Adams' claim that
Tony Blair is not in control of his Security Services.
It
seems in the north the British Security Services
may have been used to collapse a democratically
elected political institution.* Is it not time an
Independent International Tribunal was established,
divorced from governmental control and made up of
good men/woman and true from around the world, it's
mandate to investigate the extent of British Security
Service infiltration across the whole of public
life on the island of Ireland.
If
we once again wait for the current storm to blow
out, we will find ourselves in years to come returning
to this subject time and again, whilst during the
intervening years the British spooks will corrupt
and ruin Ireland's democratic institutions by moulding
them to the UK's political elite's will. Ireland
will thus increasingly resemble a Banana Republic
of the type that exists in Central America, in which
a powerful neighbor feels it is their right to infiltrate
their security services into its body politic and
civil society.
Is
it not time for all the peoples of the isle of Ireland
to say, Enough! We demand the truth!
