Consider
this. A leading Western nation goes to war under
what most of the world's population regard as dubious
circumstances, bordering on illegality; a sizable
section of the said country's own people feel much
the same about their Governments justification for
war. Nevertheless the armed forces of this country
are called upon by its politicians to do their duty,
which, as is their way, they do without question.
Thus a few weeks into the conflict, the young pilot
of a warplane along with his navigator/bomb aimer
take to the sky to destroy an enemy target. Prior
to take off they had been briefed by their superiors
that their mission would be extremely dangerous,
as they would be attacking the enemy's main military
Command and Control bunker, which was situated in
the heart of the
enemy's capital city. Over the target, the bomb
aimer did what he had to do, then launched the planes
missiles. Unfortunately due to a fault in the weapons
guidance system, instead of hitting the intended
target, one of the missiles landed in the center
of a busy downtown market, killing tens of shoppers,
men, women and children who were about their daily
business.
When
the air crew returned to base they are told of this
and understandably are distraught, but are told
by their superiors, and later also by their nation's
leading politicians and media pundits, that unfortunately
this is the nature of modern warfare; the important
thing to do is put it behind them and get on with
the job. Little more is heard of this matter, bar
that is, in the hearts and minds of the families
of the innocent victims of this 'act of war'.
The
above scenario was taken from an actual incident
involving members of the British Royal Air Force
during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. However, change
the location to Belfast 1993 and replace the high
tech weaponry with a standard explosive device manufactured
by the IRA's engineering department. Change the
young RAF air crew for two IRA volunteers of a similar
age, who have been briefed by their senior officers
to enter into the heart of enemy territory, to place
an explosive device, the purpose of which is to
kill the senior ranks of the loyalist terror group
the UFF/UDA, individuals who were at that time overseeing
a bloody campaign to terrorize the nationalist population
into accepting the then status quo in the North
of Ireland.
This
campaign had already taken the lives of countless
Catholics, often in the most barbaric manner, the
majority of whom had no connections with armed Republicanism.
The
two IRA Volunteers were ordered to enter the shop
below the flat where the UFF leadership were meeting,
order everyone out, place the bomb on the stairs
leading up to the flat above, set the timer and
make good their escape. Unfortunately for all concerned,
the bomb exploded prematurely, devastatingly killing
nine innocent people who were either working, or
waiting to buy fish and chips, in the shop below
the flat. One of the Volunteers was severely injured
in the blast whilst his comrade was killed outright.
As to the UFF/UDA tops, it appears IRA Intel had
been faulty, as the UFF leadership had already left
the building well before the PIRA active service
unit arrived.
Of
course in the latter incident, the surviving volunteer
was Sean Kelly, who having being released from prison
on license under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement,
had recently been returned to jail by the Secretary
of State for NI Peter Hain, only to be re-released
immediatly prior to the latest IRA statement.
Mr.
Hain has never made public his reasons for acting
as he has done, beyond claiming that Mr Kelly had
broken the terms of his release. Unless Mr. Hain
publishes his reasons for returning Sean Kelly to
jail and then re-releasing him, it is difficult
not to believe he acted due to political pressure,
firstly from Unionist politicians and their henchmen
and women in the media and British parliament, and
then from the PRM. In other words, political expediency,
not the rule of law was his motivating factor.
Sean Kelly has become a particular hate figures
for these people, as they see a convenient peg on
which to hang their prejudice to gain political
advantage. The latter group, ever since Mr. Kelly's
release on license, have done all they can to stoke
the fires for his return to jail, making it almost
inevitable, unless, that is, on his release he had
gone off and become a hermit in the Sinai desert.
In their attempts to return him to jail, and by
so doing re-write the history of the struggle Mr
Kelly and his fellow volunteers were engaged in,
he has been continuously described by them as Ireland's
foremost mass murderer, as if when he committed
the act for which he was imprisoned he had acted
as an individual, totally divorced from the political
and military environment he then lived in. He has
also been compared unfavorably with pedophiles and
called countless other unhelpful names. Whilst one
could understand the families of those who lost
loved ones due to the
explosion in Fizzell's expressing themselves in
this manner, for unionist politicians and much of
the media to follow suit appears to me to be an
attempt by them to demonize and re-write history.
Mr.
Kelly and his fellow Volunteer were not suicide
bombers, nor were they psychotic as some in the
media have described them. They considered themselves
soldiers on a mission, the purpose of which was
to kill people who had been responsible for countless
cold blooded murders of their totally innocent Catholic
near neighbors, and were in the process of planning
more of the same. Of course what happened on that
fateful day should, in a civilized society never
have occurred. [And
incidentally the same goes for those innocent shoppers
atomized whilst buying food in the Baghdad Market.]
However back in 1993 the north of Ireland was still
far from being such a society. Bringing that about
was after all what we were told the torturous GFA
negotiations were, and sadly still are, all about.
The
responsibility for the death of those nine innocent
people on that dreadful Saturday sits on the shoulders
of far more people than Sean Kelly. Those of us
who are old enough all have to take some responsibility
for the type of unequal and oppressive state-let
that evolved in the north of Ireland, which led
members of the UFF/UDA to regularly sit in the flat
above Fizzell's chip shop and plot the murder of
their near neighbors with impunity, which in turn
led to Sean Kelly and the organization he belonged
to attempt to stop them by force of arms.
To
demonize, attempt to criminalize and return to jail
the likes of Sean Kelly simply will not help an
already difficult situation. We all have a duty
to those thousands who have had their lives stolen
in this conflict to oppose all those who wish to
engage in the re-writing of history in the aforementioned
manner. For if history is rewritten to suit the
powerful (that is, the very people who got us into
this mess in the first place), as it so often has
been in the past, it is hardly surprising if it
repeats itself, over and over again. For how can
future generations learn from such a tardy re-writing
of the truth?
