Murder is Murder But Not All The Time

Sean Mallory looks at yesterday's meeting between the DUP and the British Prime Minister. Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican.


The DUP, consisting of Robinson and Dodds, meeting with the British Prime Minister Cameron and the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Ms Villiers, was held yesterday in Downing Street to discuss the on-going Stormont crisis that has arisen over the murder of Kevin McGuigan by Adams’ Belfast Provos. 

The meeting, as expected, ended with both parties involved, in agreeing wholeheartedly that the situation is quite serious and does call for further investigation in to how Stormont can continue to exist but without political parties with armed wings or those who condone violence as a means to achieve a political ends. 

Quite an extraordinary position to adopt by Cameron since, like some of his predecessors he is a man with quite a lot of blood dripping from his hands – particularly Libyan blood that is and all achieved by using violent means to achieve a political end or a capitalist one to be more precise.

The sanctions demanded by the DUP and conveyed to Cameron and his staff in plain language leaving no ground for future ambiguity called for the following:

A re-establishment of some form of Provo monitoring body – Unionist paramilitaries were just a second thought in the grand scheme of things as their continued criminal exploits inclusive of murder, are not considered grave enough to warrant a private meeting with the British Prime Minister or don’t seem to threaten the instability of the Stormont Executive and were therefore only mentioned in passing.

For some form of Stormont suspension by a prime minister, who, we are all under no illusion now, has the power and final say on Stormont and its institutions which dispels the myth that Stormont is a government.

For if it was, surely a foreign government couldn’t hold power over it to the point that it can dissolve it when the need arises? 

I wonder how Merkel would react if Cameron rang her to say that he was dissolving the ‘die Bundesregierung’ at the request of the German opposition?

And which simultaneously while Robinson and his harbingers of doom were meeting with Cameron in Downing Street, up at Stormont the same call failed when the UUP refused to support the DUP motion (although Alliance did support it but let’s be honest who cares what they think!) and this in turn has led to more public acrimonious invectives between the DUP and the UUP, on who is responsible for the failure of the DUP motion and also questioning the motivation behind such a motion which the SDLP and SF have both stated as being some form of electioneering stunt by both Unionist parties – SF are also continuing to snigger at the flak being re-directed away from their door and on to the Unionist family’s in-house bickering!

And lastly, the demand to arrest Seán Kelly and Mark McDowell and their return to prison for breach of their licensing, not TV licensing but their license issued on release from prison.

Robinson named these two at the meeting as having breached their licensing, without any evidence produced and demanded that they be returned to prison – indefinitely. 

The fact that they were arrested and released by the PSNI in their investigation in to McGuigan’s murder seems to have been lost on Robinson’s understanding of justice and also on the Alliance Party, who hold the Ministry of Justice and who have yet to publicly point out to Robinson that the exercising of justice is under-pinned by a very important principal and that is the presentation of concrete evidence to prove a charge......something they, the Alliance party, also failed and continue to fail to highlight in the case of the Craigavon Two and no doubt in a few other pending cases involving Duffy et al. 

We can only presume that while they are in charge of justice, it won’t seem to be carried out!!!!

But the one most important aspect of this politically motivated call to imprison two people where there is no evidence to support Robinson’s demand is the simple hypocrisy of it all.

Robinson, Jim Shannon (DUP MP) and Sammy Douglas (DUP MLA) have all written references in support of 74 year old Loyalist paramilitary Samuel Tweed, a felon, who attempted to avoid prison for escaping from a court house over 40 years ago while on charges of being in possession of guns and ammunition on at least two occasions. 

Tweed, who dwelled in Newtownards for this period “unknown” to the RUC, even though it has been alleged that he lived a few doors down from the RUC station.

By virtue of his membership of the East Belfast UDA which was host to a notorious gang of Loyalist murderers from the Newtownards Road known as G4 he must never have slipped off the RUC radar.

This gang operated out of the infamous Bunch of Grapes bar. 

One of their victims, a Catholic from the Short Strand/Markets area, had the number ‘4’ carved in to his body so as everyone would identify their handy work. The body was subsequently dumped in an alleyway out the back of the bar.

A senior member of the organisation responsible for loyalist activity involving murder in East Belfast in the 1970’s and a known gun runner then and now and the police didn’t know he lived beside them!

Now this calls in to question the role of collusion between the British Security forces and loyalists and especially in these extremely turbulent political times in a tea cup, the moral, ethical and sincerity of Robinson and his motley crew, towards murder and justice. Not only this, but it also calls in to question the plausibility of historical investigations especially where people like Ivor Bell are being persecuted for political reasons.

Perhaps Downing Street was the perfect meeting place for such a nest of vipers! 

4 comments:

  1. Why shouldn't Robinson, Shannon and Douglas ask for leniency for the 74 year old Tweed?
    They have every right to, especially so, after the release of John Downey on charges relating to the Hyde Park bombings (and despite forensic links discovered by the HET allegedly linking him to two other killings of UDR personnel in 1972).

    Sammy got 3 years from Judge Babington and John swaggered back to an enforcedly restrained welcome home party in Donegal.

    If Ivor Malachy were to be convicted wouldn't he be equally entitled to calls for clemency from elected representatives during sentencing proceedings too?

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  2. That was the first I knew Tweed had been jailed. WTF is the point in jailing somebody in his 70s for something that happened over forty years ago in a conflict deemed finished? More about judicial vindictiveness than justice.

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  3. AM

    Judge Babington said

    “I am satisfied that you have lived a lawful and law-abiding life over the last 40 years..... However, that does mean that the offences are any less serious, far from it.’’

    Though some might charge that I've got my own biases on such historical pursuals I find myself fully in agreement with your brief, 'in the moment', comment.

    If it is more about judicial vindictiveness rather than justice aren't all the historical pursuit of justice cases vindictive too? In light of the Downey case and the 'letters of comfort' issued to gosh knows whom and for gosh knows what I'd contend they're definitely selective ... and if there's not equality before the law can there be justice?

    How can the treatment of Samuel Tweed and that of John Downey be reconciled in the context of Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law."?

    Anatole France didn't anticipate the anomalies that now exist, and exampled in the treatment of Downey and Tweed, when he quipped in 1894,

    "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread."

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  4. From Sean Mallory

    HJ,

    You seem to have missed the point and the point being is that Unionism has been crying foul over the McGuigan murder yet Unionism doesn’t find fault with their continued support of Unionist paramilitaries and their murderous campaign. Tweed was just an example of this hypocrisy displayed by Unionism.
    Whether he went to prison or not is not the point of the article. I have my own thoughts on that. The problem with what we perceive to be justice here is that it isn’t. It has become a system of retribution, with those in control seeking their pound of flesh at every opportunity. And those in control are the British and Unionists.

    The point is and was, the hypocrisy of Unionism.

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