Archive for the ‘Protecting Sources’ Category
Boston College Oral History Archive – Dealing with the Past: BBC Radio Ulster Talkback Transcript | Boston College Subpoena News
Tommy McKearney (Former IRA Volunteer), discusses the Boston Tapes Dispute with two other panelists – Norman Hamill, a former police officer, and Roger Bailey, a psychologist. It is an excellent debate.
Link :
Former IRA Volunteer, an Ex Police Officer and a Psychologist Assess the Boston Archive
Norman Hamill’s Opinion :
The whole issue is enormously difficult but I think on balance I tend to come down on the side of thinking that the police are making a mistake in seeking these tapes because it is important that history is accurately recorded and that can make a contribution to our understanding.
And after all, we do have a mature attitude to the past now. People aren’t going to serve lengthy prison sentences for anything they’ve done.
So I think on balance it would have been better if the police had let this drop.
The Guardian (July 10) carries an Anthony McIntyre article :
Northern Ireland conflict archives should not fall into police hands
The British State is attempting to monopolise an “official version” of history :
Moreover, the double standards of the British state are on full display. It refuses access to the archives in the possession of its security services to the family of the murdered solicitor Pat Finucane, despite David Cameron admitting security force collusion in Finucane’s death.
What sort of history do we want? :
Ultimately, law enforcement agencies, which cannot escape culpability for Northern Ireland’s “dirty war”, are now trying to shape society’s knowledge of that war by seeking to monopolise control over what unfolds from the past while simultaneously relegating the role of academic and journalistic researchers. Any agency other than law enforcement is liable to be sabotaged. A law enforcement view of history is a partial and self-serving one, which seeks to conceal rather than reveal.
Link :
NUJ Dismay over Boston Tapes Ruling | Boston College Subpoena News
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 :
SECOND FRONT OPENED IN LEGAL FIGHT TO SAVE BOSTON COLLEGE ARCHIVES
SECOND FRONT OPENED IN LEGAL FIGHT TO SAVE BOSTON COLLEGE ARCHIVES
Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre are pleased to announce that they are opening a second front in their fight to prevent the Police Service of Northern Ireland gaining access to the Belfast Archive at Boston College. In addition to the legal action currently ongoing in the federal appeals court in Boston, they have this week filed papers in the Belfast courts seeking a judicial review of the PSNI action alleging that the UK authorities are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and the British Human RIghts Act of 1998. The Judicial Review asks that the British Home Office’s request of assistance from the United States be quashed, the subpoenas be declared unlawful, a discontinuation of the PSNI’s application for the material, and for an injunction stopping any material from Boston College being received by the PSNI. The two legal actions in Belfast and Boston emphasise our utter determination that the enormously valuable historical documents in the Boston College archive will never fall into the hands of anyone except those authorised by the terms of the solemn and unbreakable contracts we made with the interviewees. Ultimately these papers tell a part of Ireland’s recent troubled history and they should be used for no reason other than to educate and inform. Read the rest of this entry »
Violent Legacy of Irish Troubles, British Double-Standards – Boston College Row Revisited
Ed Moloney’s Irish Echo Editorial (an Irish-American Newspaper) on the Boston tapes controversy is required reading for all people genuinely interested in dealing with the violent legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles (1969-1998, signing of the Good Friday Agreement).
Two key quotes :
Number 1 :But the war has now ended, peace reigns and there is a desperate need for dealing with the past in a way that solidifies that peace and ensures an untroubled future.
The British have chosen a way that does the opposite. The Boston College subpoenas symbolize an approach to this issue based on revenge and the view that alleged combatants in that war should be dragged before the courts, convicted and jailed.
Number 2 :
There will be those, of course, who will say that if Gerry Adams did order Jean McConville’s “disappearance” then he deserves to be prosecuted. In a normal society, one ruled by a normal government, that would be a difficult argument to answer. But Northern Ireland is not, even with the peace process, a normal society and nowhere is this more evident than in the administration of justice.
The plain, undeniable fact is that there are double standards in the way justice is doled out in Northern Ireland.
Read, Circulate, and Act.
Slowly, but inexorably, the penny is dropping, both here in the United States as well as back in Ireland.
The Boston College subpoenas seeking access to oral history interviews with former IRA activists on behalf of the police in Northern Ireland are about the dumbest things that have ever happened in the long relationship between the United States, Britain and Ireland.
The difficulty is not how to describe why they are so dumb, but in counting the ways in which they are so dumb.
First of all, this is not the way in which to heal a conflict like that in the North of Ireland.
Over 3,000 people died and tens of thousands were scarred, physically and mentally, by a war that was undoubtedly one of the longest and most violent, if not the most violent in Irish history.
But the…
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Belfast to Boston Via Afghanistan
Eamonn McCann has written a fascinating account of former Royal Ulster Constabulary Officers who urged a legal assault on the Boston Archive in order to settle old scores :
Norman Baxter’s Long Crusade
Well worth reading :
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/13/norman-baxters-long-crusade/
Mr Baxter was part of the police team that unsuccessfully investigated the 1998 Omagh Bombing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8356020.stm
“Be Patient and Never Give up the Struggle” An interview with Tommy McKearney
International Viewpoint has published a stimulating interview with Tommy McKearney,
http://www.tommymckearney.com/Site/Blog/Blog.html
Tommy McKearney - A Patient Revolutionary Socialist
We hope soon to carry a review of Tommy’s recently published book
Goodbye Armalite, Hello Ballot Box?
Tommy welcomes the United Left Alliance Project :
Q: In late 2010 the United Left Alliance came together to contest the February 2011 general elections in Ireland, winning five seats. What is you assessment of the ULA?
TM: The ULA is a positive and progressive development. The fact that organizations of the left have come together at any time is good and that these groups are doing so at this time of capitalist crisis is heartening and encouraging. The ULA has also given some needed visibility to the left through its articulate and high-profile spokespersons such as Richard Boyd Barrett and Joe Higgins.
Asked about Ed Moloney’s “Voices From the Grave” and the British state attack on the Boston College Belfast Project, Tommy says : Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 