WBAI 99.55FM Pacifia Radio
New York City
2 May 2015
(begins time stamp ~ 26:45)
JM: When I
was starting this show and thinking about what I was going to do I was going to
be covering one event that happened in Glasgow but after I spoke to Jim
McDonnell it morphed into that I have to cover now two events that went
on in his life. But I'll go to the first one first about his arrest there last
week in Glasgow. Jim, as a member of Republican Sinn Féin you were asked to
speak at an Easter commemoration which is not unusual – which has been going on
for hundreds of years in this country, in Ireland and over in Glasgow. Explain
to our audience what happened.
SM: I went up to the commemoration and as you
know I was asked to speak. When we had
gotten to the end of the road as it were – you have your speeches and play the
national anthem. As Maureen said, she read out The Proclamation. I had a few
words to say and I said my speech and then the police approached me even before
the national anthem...
JM: ...What did they say to you when they
approached you before the national anthem?
SM: They told me that – at the end of my speech I
said Tiocfaidh ár lá which means our day will come in Irish – they told me you
weren't allowed to say that in Scotland because it was sectarian and they
wanted to take my name and address. So I asked them if I was being detained and
they said: Yes. And then they said to me
they had to take me to the police station to verify my details. So I went to
the police station to get my details verified and then I wasn't released. And I
was interviewed later that evening by two officers and during that interview
they asked me questions about my speech. And then I said: No comment. And then
after that they said I was going to be charged with committing like terrorist
offences. So I wasn't actually charged with membership of anything. I was
charged with trying to get support for the Provisional IRA – that's what they
said.
SB: And Jim, they said that the words “Tiocfaidh ár lá” which as you said is our
day will come in Irish is somehow sectarian which means
anti-Protestant. How could the words Tiocfaidh ár lá be anti-Protestant?
SM: There's a lot of confusion in Scotland. The
Scottish government have brought a lot of sectarian laws and it's all to do
with football and people singing Irish songs at football and they're trying to
make Irish songs sectarian.
JM: And there have been a lot of arrests of fans
for singing that - even in the streets for just singing even The Fields of
Athenry - and now, it's even getting into the Irish language which
Tiocfaidh ár lá? I mean, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness should have been
arrested a hundred times over because that's all they seemed to finish their
speeches with throughout Ireland and I would dare say if they were in Scotland
they would probably doing the same thing. But you end up being arrested. What
did the charges bring on? I mean, how long were you held? When's your next court date? What was the bail?
SM: I don't have a court date. I don't have a
court date because the law's a bit different in Scotland so I don't have a
court date. But basically they just arrested me and kept me from my Saturday
afternoon until they made me go to court on the Monday afternoon.
JM: And then were you represented in court or how
does that – do you have like legal aid?
SM: Of course. Of course I was, yeah. I was
represented, yeah.
JM: But did you have to pay for the lawyer?
SM: No.
No.
JM: So this was the state paying for the lawyer
and the exact charge was you were
enticing people to join a terrorist organisation?
SM: Yeah, basically yeah.
JM: Being this is, I would say, one of the first
of its kind – we were talking to Maureen – it is I think, unbelievable that
there was coverage of this in the Scottish newspapers...
SM: ...You wouldn't get any coverage.
JM: There was none?
SM: You wouldn't get any coverage because what's
happening in Ireland and Britain is that they are trying to stifle anything
Republican – anything that goes against the normalisation policy in The Six
Counties. They make it look as if everything's rosy to the outside world when
really it's not.
SB: As you know, Jim, I think this is a pattern
of something new that's happening. The British government seems to be on the
offensive against every breed and kind of Irish Republican. Dee Fennell was
arrested a little over a week ago for making a speech where he said that armed
struggle against the British Army was legitimate in 1916 and is legitimate
today – which I would say is free speech. And you have a very strange case of
the British government today prosecuting a dying man for something he did
fifteen years ago for which he got an amnesty. So you seem to be part of that
on-going pattern of attacks on Irish Republicans.
SM: Yeah. And it's only going to continue. It's only going to get worse.
JM: Well, that brings us to the next case because
the British government seems to have a lot of interest I you, Jim. Where are
you from? Where were you born and
raised?
SM: I was born in Paisley in Scotland. But I
stayed there 'til I was ten and then I moved to England.
JM: So, one of the highlights of your life –
never mind giving speeches up in Glasgow – but is to come to New York for Saint
Patrick's Day – enjoy the festivities here in New York - you've been doing that for quite a while now.
Explain what happened this March.
SM: I've been doing it for three years now and I
absolutely love it! And New York is absolutely fantastic! Everybody's friendly.
It's a great place to be. And basically before I came to New York I was getting
emails telling me that people could get me a job and stuff like that.
JM: Now who
were the emails coming from?
SM: Well, it's going to be from MI5, isn't it?
JM: Well, no – I don't know. What was the subject
headline? MI5?
SM: Just we can help you – we can help you - I've
got people in America that want to talk to you and then maybe they want to
offer you a job.
JM: But what is the email address? Was it from an official government source?
SM: No. It
was just an email – a made-up email.
JM: And offering you work – and did they say what
you would have to do for that work?
SM: No. No.
JM: Alright, so now you're getting this and
you're coming to New York - and then what happens?
SM: I got to New York and I was thinking because
of that maybe when I get to New York they're going to turn me back – put me on
the plane – but I don't know why they would do that - as I said I'm not a
threat to American or anybody else for that matter. But I got there and after
the first morning I got a couple of phone calls – three phone calls in fact –
to my room. Two from an American lady saying: Hi, Jim. I'm a friend of the
person that sent me the email – Paddy, in fact – I'm a friend of Paddy's – do
you want to come and meet us across the road?
So I just put the phone down. And I got another one about a half an hour
later and I put the phone down.
And then the third one said: Hi, Jim. It's Tim from MI5 – do you want to come and
meet us down the road? So I put the
phone down again. And that day when I went out I noticed a couple of people
following me. And the guy had a limp – it was a very pronounced limp so he
wasn't hard to spot - he followed me to restaurants, etc.
JM: What hotel was this? Give us the exact location.
SM: It was in Midtown. And it was the – oh, I
can't remember what it's called now – the Fairfield Inn and Suites it was. So the next morning I get up and there's a
letter under my door basically saying: Hi, Jim. We need to have a chat. You
know we've got to have this chat so it might as well be now so you can get on
with your holiday. And then I just – I ignored that as well. And then I don't
know if they were still following me about but the last day of the holiday I received
a text message that said: Don't worry about your flight home. It's all squared
away.
So they even offered to pay for my flight
but they said: Don't worry about your flight home. It's all squared away. So I
was thinking: What? I was more worried about getting into America than getting
out.
JM: Now, we thank you for coming on and speaking
about this. I mean, we've had throughout the years here in New York City MI5
working – going to construction sites along with the FBI - and this definitely
follows the pattern of having the American call you first and saying that
they're friends of the MI5 agent to come and meet.
SB: And we actually heard from a barrister who
practices out of Belfast who was stopped at Kennedy Airport by the FBI and MI5
and tried to interrogate him and he told them to get lost, of course. But as
John said this is a continual pattern operating with MI5 and the American
government. So you might be in fairly
good company here, Jim.
SM: (laughs) Thanks for that. I mean I've done speeches
all over England and Scotland and (inaudible) and nobody has ever said: You're
going to be arrested for this or that or the other. So it's a new development
for me.
JM: And Jim, here's the other part of the
development: Now that you refused while you were in New York to meet with the
FBI and MI5 – because I can only assume the woman was FBI - that now you go
back and you give this speech, speaking in Irish for one sentence, and you're
arrested that this could now affect your visa to come into the country and to
come to the parade.
SM: Exactly.
JM: So like – on the visa application – I don't
know - have you ever been convicted or arrested?
SB: Convicted.
JM: Convicted?
SM: Convicted.
JM: Could you be then - if you are convicted that
would end your travel plans anywhere into the United States.
SM: To America. Yeah.
JM: But you can just see this is all part of
their plan and all part of what they want to do to silence - and it's the whole
re-writing of what happened in 1916 and probably one of the biggest re-writing
is the Fine Gael government over in The Twenty-Six Counties where they put out
– to celebrate 2016 - they don't mention The Uprising! I mean, it is getting so
bizarre what's going on but it's also very dangerous what's going on with
people being arrested.
Now it hasn't happened here in New York
quite yet. There's a Fenian Commemoration coming up in two week's time. There
was an Easter commemoration up in The Bronx at Woodlawn Cemetery recently but
that still doesn't mean that the FBI haven't approached people who were at that
to become informers. But it seems that they have a lot of money and a lot of
travel that they can follow you here from Scotland and put a little bit of fear
into you because I have to say Jim, if you're getting emails, and your phone –
you're getting text messages - and then you're getting letters slipped under
your door at the hotel – that's pretty frightening!
SM: Yeah, also – well, they're not frightening
me. They certainly won't intimidate me. I'm a Republican. I'm going to remain a
Republican. Nothing is going to take me away from that path; not them - not
anybody. I mean I've even been approached in the street and near my home
address as well by them. I've actually met Tim now and he tried to speak to me
but I wouldn't speak to him then either. They can't intimidate me. They can't
intimidate Republicans and this is why they'll try and use – try and destroy
your life sticking you in gaol, see what
I'm saying?
JM: Yeah. We're very grateful that you came
forward with this because I know a lot of people who probably wouldn't come
forward with it because they don't want to get mixed up and they don't want to
have MI5 saying I heard you on the radio and stuff like that but we're very
grateful here in New York to stay on top of things like that. And we would only
wish that some of the Irish-American papers here would pick up on that – that
we have people coming in from Scotland and they're being terrorised by MI5 and
FBI.
SM: What you have to remember is Mr. Adams was
over there telling people that it's all finished in Ireland now. There's
absolutely nothing. There's no resistance. Everything's all normal. That's a
bare-faced lie and he knows it.
SB: Yes, but Lord O'Dowd, as we call him, in The
Irish Voice covered that like it was the greatest thing that happened in
the world. I don't think Lord O'Dowd will be covering your arrest. And I don't
think he'll be covering the fact that the FBI and possibly the CIA is
cooperating with MI5. I don't think that's going to be reported in The Irish
Voice.
SM: I don't think it will be, either.
(inaudible)
JM: You know what, Jim? Thanks for coming on, we're going to play a
little music and try to get back with Des Dalton who's on the road out of Belfast
and it's really his organisation that's being targeted over in Glasgow and over
in England and here in New York City where foreign intelligence services are
working the streets of Manhattan. Such a job that they have!
(ends time stamp ~
41:10)
I love Scotland, but there really is some crap that goes on here.
ReplyDeleteThe legislation that got Seamus arrested was introduced by the same SNP that's currently making political capital by posing as defenders of the Human Rights Act in the UK parliament.
This is a country that opposes sectarianism by dividing children from age five onwards,via "denominational" schools.
Note the language. "Sectarian" is what you are when you express an opinion on Ireland.
"Denominational" is what educationalists are.
Meanwhile our Polizei arrest football fans for singing songs that are legal at rugby matches.
Class-based or what?
And our freedom-promoting government criminalises good people for articulating words that would have passed without comment during Elizabeth Windsor's visit to Dublin a wee while back.
Best wishes to you, Seamus.
MI5 has been operating in the U.S. since 1991. FBI Agent Joe Doyle informed me in early 1991 that MI5 had bribed and subverted some of his colleagues, and Doyle further informed us that his subverted colleagues were planning crimes against us to "silence" us. We couldn't believe Doyle's warning after he insisted, despite his absolute obligation to uphold the U.S. Constitution at all times, that he couldn't do anything to protect us or stop the crimes. The crimes started a few weeks later with the murder of the Langert Family with FBI Agent Lewis' 357 Magnum and went on for a few years with FBI repeatedly raiding, framing, incarcerating us. The MI5/FBI leader of a 12-man gang of subverted FBI agents was Agent Patrick "Ed" Buckley. MI5 sent him to Ireland about 1994 until Mission Accomplished on the evening of 15August1998 when MI5 demobilized him and life-long criminal David Rupert. At the 2003 frame-up "trial" of Michael McKevitt in Dublin Rupert voluntarily testified that Buckley left him alone in Ireland briefly while he flew to the Atlanta Olympics bombing murder site. There Buckley and colleagues performed Buckley's specialty; they framed Security Guard Richard Jewell for it. There are many crimes initiated in the U.S. by MI5 but perpetrated by the FBI. Ask us for evidence. Chris and Mary Fogarty, Chicago
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