Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Archive for the ‘Media and State Misbehaviour’ Category

Greece protesters storm labour ministry – Al Jazeera English

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http://m.aljazeera.com/story/20131301749125751 So interesting to read this report, note the failure of Irish and British mainline media to report these events, and wonder can Ireland be far behind?

Bernadette McAliskey’s Speech to the January 2013 Bloody Sunday March for Justice – We Have Got to Get Our Act Together or We Are In for One Hell of a Hiding

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Bernadette McAliskey addressing the rally at this year’s Bloody Sunday March For Justice which had the theme ‘End Impunity’. Despite a wet, windy, wintry day around 3500 people braved the elements to march in solidarity with the victims of Bloody Sunday and other injustices

Link to a Video of Bernadette McAliskey’s Speech :

End Impunity! on Vimeo on Vimeo

via End Impunity! on Vimeo.

Some Key Points from the speech :

Is the state of Northern Ireland governed according to the principles of openness, transparency and accountability?

Lawyers and human rights campaigners had to spend a whole day in court to force the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, Alliance Party Leader Mr David Ford, to allow Marian Price spend four hours grieving beside the coffin of her dead sister Dolours. 

Nobody read about this because Mr Ford asked the judge to prevent public reporting of the case in the media.

But Bernadette McAliskey is not reporting; she does not work for the media; so she was only telling us :

The judge told Mr Ford  that his behaviour was “unlawful, unreasonable, and irrational”.

“We are not supposed to say this” advises McAliskey. Read the rest of this entry »

The Force Research Unit – How it Began

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Great work again – hats off to Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell

The Broken Elbow's avatarThe Broken Elbow

By Ed Moloney and Bob Mitchell

In the wake of the de Silva report on the Pat Finucane assassination there has been a renewed interest, at least on the part of obsessives like ourselves, in the origins of British military intelligence operations in Northern Ireland. By coincidence BBC Panorama also has a documentary in the pipeline, postponed recently for some unexplained reason, on the Military Reaction Force (MRF), the prototype intelligence group established by the British Army’s counter insurgency guru, General Sir Frank Kitson. This fascinating period in the Troubles is being revisited on several fronts and deservedly so.

Some interesting light was shed on this early period in the development of military intelligence units and operations by a document released under the 30 year rule back in 2005. It is a Northern Ireland Office briefing paper prepared for a meeting in April 1974 between British prime minister Harold Wilson…

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Column: Newspapers are seeking to outlaw the free exchange of ideas

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Written by tomasoflatharta

Jan 4, 2013 at 11:30 am

De Silva’s Gaping Hole

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A gaping hole in the De Silva Pat Finucane Review

The Broken Elbow's avatarThe Broken Elbow

UPDATED 14.05 EST

STATEMENT BY ED MOLONEY ON THE DE SILVA REPORT – Dec 12th 2012

In his report on the murder of Pat Finucane, Sir Desmond de Silva has this to say in relation to the RUC’s role in encouraging the UDA to target the solicitor (Par 73):

“The critical issue, in my view, was to determine whether RUC officers had been involved in inciting loyalists in custody to attack Patrick Finucane. Allegations that RUC officers had incited loyalists in this manner were first expressed privately by the Ambassador of the Government of Ireland to the Cabinet Secretary on 13 February 1989, the day after Patrick Finucane’s murder.”
In December 1998 I was the Northern Editor of the Sunday Tribune newspaper. During that month I had lunch with the late Tommy Lyttle, then the West Belfast Commander of the UDA. During the lunch he told me that RUC…

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Pat Finucane – A De Silva British State Whitewash?

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Read this – and see that the British State is very unlikely to hold a Public Inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane

The Broken Elbow's avatarThe Broken Elbow

Corrected 14.40 EST

Correction – December 27th 2012 – The Force Research Unit member we identified as Peter Charles Jones from the two photos taken of the unit was in fact a soldier called Kevin Dodds. He was/is a friend of another well known special forces soldier, Charles Pettifer, a former member of the SAS who married Tiggy Legge Bourke, friend of the late Lady Diana Spencer and nanny to her two sons. Dodds and Pettifer, according to our sources, went into business together after military service and set up a risk assessment company (business-speak for private detectives). However as you can see here, Pettifer has since moved up in the world, literally.

Meanwhile the former SAS soldier turned thriller writer known as Andy McNab was obviously indulging in some sly humour at the expense of the former FRU member when he wrote the novel described below (cue tipsy laughter…

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British State Helped UDA to kill Pat Finucane – but Prevented this Loyalist Killing Machine from Bumping Off Gerry Adams

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The British State facilitated the murder of Pat Finucane – and prevented the UDA from killing Gerry Adams – all done to help the Six County Peace Process.

The Broken Elbow's avatarThe Broken Elbow

UPDATED DECEMBER 7th

It remains to be seen just which UDA plot to kill the Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams it was that leading UK barrister Sir Desmond de Silva was referring to when he sent a message to the Louth TD this week warning him that details of the plot would be revealed in his 500-page report into the UDA’s killing of Belfast solicitor, Pat Finucane which is due to be published in the coming days.

De Silva’s private, and remarkably speedy inquiry into the Finucane murder was the response of British prime minister David Cameron to nearly two decades of calls for a full, sworn public inquiry into a scandal that nearly everyone knows, especially the British government, enmeshes MI5, British military intelligence and the RUC Special Branch in a series of murders carried out mostly in Belfast in the 1980’s by Loyalists, acting as a classic counter…

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Wikileaks, Julian Assange and a North American Torture-State (the President is Mr B Obama)

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Wikileaks, Julian Assange and a North American Torture-State (the President is Mr B Obama)

Lots of cowardly junk has been published in Mainstream Media Outlets about the Assange / Wikileaks case; the key feature is a determination to avoid resisting the North American torture-state offensive headed by its leader Barack Obama.

Susan McKay’s August 24 Opinion Piece in the Irish Times is typical of this worldwide trend :

The Assange affair is not just about WikiLeaks, stupid – Susan McKay 

McKay alleges :

Assange has not sought political asylum because of WikiLeaks. He is on the run from allegations of rape. These alleged crimes are defined as both serious and non-political. Political asylum is a hard-won human right – Assange has abused it. In doing so he has endorsed a real witch hunt – against the women who allege he sexually coerced them.”

Mocking the threat to Assange McKay tells her readers : Read the rest of this entry »

Reilly left red-faced as he’s named on debt-default list – National News – Independent.ie

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Health Minister Dr James Reilly Named in Stubbs Gazette – Debts of €1.9
The Irish Independent highlights another Government Minister in trouble :

Dr James Reilly, Fine Gael Minister for Health, joins a growing list of Cabinet Members surrounded by dodgy financial deals. Just like the Ahern-Cowen Fianna Fail governments of 1997 – 2011 – Spot the difference?

NUJ Dismay over Boston Tapes Ruling | Boston College Subpoena News

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National Union of Journalists : Dismay Over Boston Tapes Ruling

NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet said the ruling has “significant implications” for academic and journalistic research.

She said:

“These interviews were recorded between 2001 and 2006 and each participant understood the recording would not be released prior to their death. We salute the stand taken by Ed Moloney, Belfast Project Director and Anthony McIntyre, who carried out the interviews in good faith. It is regrettable that Boston College did not support their legal challenge in relation to the Price interview. It is deeply disappointing that the challenge has failed. As a union we are concerned at the chilling effect which this ruling will have on academic and journalistic research but we are also concerned at the possible threat to the safety of Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney.”

This Henry McDonald Guardian article is also worth reading:

Disclosure of IRA testimony held in Boston could stall search for truth

Link :

Fears US decision to hand over secret IRA testimonies to PSNI may make it impossible to establish truth about the Troubles