Post by Wasp on Sept 15, 2010 21:25:52 GMT
McGuinness daren't tell the whole truth about past
Date: 14 September 2010
By LIAM CLARKE
PETER Robinson was dead right. It is unrealistic to expect Martin McGuinness to tell the full truth about Claudy or other atrocities, but that does not stop relatives of the dead from asking him.
When my wife Kathryn Johnston and I researched a biography of McGuinness, he refused to speak to us and issued a statement to "ask republicans to withhold co-operation". When, prior to publication, we asked him to meet us to check facts, his refusal came via a solicitor's letter.
McGuinness has a past he can't tell the whole truth about. Complete frankness would lay him open to police investigation and possibly imprisonment. It would also damage him, and Sinn Fein, politically.
Robinson referred to the so-called republican "honour code" which McGuinness invoked to avoid answering questions about other people at the Bloody Sunday inquiry. Like the mafia's omerta code, or the "don't welch on a chap" code of English public schoolboys, this is a mutual protection measure. If McGuinness talked about someone else, then other people could talk about him.
It is part of the price he pays for leading an insurrection which failed. If the IRA had won, then McGuinness could be open about all that he did, like some old general writing his memoirs. He would get medals for long service and the leaders of the police and army would face a war crimes tribunal.
The fact is that he was indeed commander of the IRA in both Londonderry and later Donegal in 1972, not the second in command as has been claimed by some politicians. He told the Saville Tribunal that he was second in command of the IRA at the time of Bloody Sunday (January 30, 1972) but he became commander shortly after that.
At the time he was a young Turk, ambitious to make his mark, and shortly after the Bloody Sunday massacre he supplanted the previous commander, a quietly spoken pigeon fancier. After that he replaced the late Frank Morris, a veteran of the 1940s campaign from Convoy, as commander of Donegal.
In the months following Bloody Sunday McGuinness gave two interviews in which he was described as IRA Commander in Derry. One was in the Sunday Press in July. In it he said "we don't enjoy killing young soldiers" but added "fifteen soldiers, UDR men and policemen have been shot in retaliation for the murders they committed against our people".
In April 1972, three months before Claudy, he gave an interview as IRA commander to Neil Conan of WBAI radio in America. Conan put it to him that civilians were likely to be hurt in IRA bombings.
McGuinness replied "that's quite right, you know. But we have always given ample warning, and anybody that was hurt was hurt through their own fault; being too nosey, sticking around the place where the bomb was after they had been told to get clear. It has only been their own fault".
When Conan played the tape back to McGuinness in 2002 he refused to comment on it in detail. But however silent he is about it, and however much he may have changed in the meantime, it demonstrates his frame of mind in the lead-up to the Claudy attack.
The IRA has denied Claudy, just as they initially denied the Birmingham pub bombings and the murders of the disappeared. However, it is hard to believe that three major car bombs had been prepared by a group of individuals without help from Derry command, which was headed by Martin McGuinness.
Certainly the Claudy attack seems designed to help Derry Command. It coincided with Operation Motorman when the British army moved into the city's no-go areas. Claudy was intended to divert security resources away from Motorman. A republican veteran told us that Claudy was picked because no IRA members or strong supporters lived there.
The IRA probably did not anticipate the slaughter, but the bombers did little to prevent it. When a call box in Dungiven which they tried didn't work, they let the massacre occur rather than take the risk of phoning a warning from a private house. No wonder they denied their role. One Dungiven man who left Northern Ireland after the Claudy bombing told us that he and his brother fled to Donegal. They met McGuinness at his grandmother's farm where he was based until he was arrested and convicted of IRA membership later that year.
The homestead was just 41 miles from Malin Head, where Chesney was moved after Claudy, and 18 miles from Londonderry.
Chesney had been an active republican since at least 1971 and may have remained active in Malin, a remote area used for IRA training camps. A Derry City Command member told us how he went to Bellaghy in 1971 to swear in new IRA volunteers. Chesney and Tommy Toner, a veteran Dungiven republican who has since died, were on hand to vouch for the recruits' "good character".
That is how trusted Chesney was by the IRA both in his own area and in Derry City Command. The IRA was not a large organisation at that time, and McGuinness' denial that he knew anything about Chesney is as hard to believe as the IRA's denial that it bombed Claudy.
Date: 14 September 2010
By LIAM CLARKE
PETER Robinson was dead right. It is unrealistic to expect Martin McGuinness to tell the full truth about Claudy or other atrocities, but that does not stop relatives of the dead from asking him.
When my wife Kathryn Johnston and I researched a biography of McGuinness, he refused to speak to us and issued a statement to "ask republicans to withhold co-operation". When, prior to publication, we asked him to meet us to check facts, his refusal came via a solicitor's letter.
McGuinness has a past he can't tell the whole truth about. Complete frankness would lay him open to police investigation and possibly imprisonment. It would also damage him, and Sinn Fein, politically.
Robinson referred to the so-called republican "honour code" which McGuinness invoked to avoid answering questions about other people at the Bloody Sunday inquiry. Like the mafia's omerta code, or the "don't welch on a chap" code of English public schoolboys, this is a mutual protection measure. If McGuinness talked about someone else, then other people could talk about him.
It is part of the price he pays for leading an insurrection which failed. If the IRA had won, then McGuinness could be open about all that he did, like some old general writing his memoirs. He would get medals for long service and the leaders of the police and army would face a war crimes tribunal.
The fact is that he was indeed commander of the IRA in both Londonderry and later Donegal in 1972, not the second in command as has been claimed by some politicians. He told the Saville Tribunal that he was second in command of the IRA at the time of Bloody Sunday (January 30, 1972) but he became commander shortly after that.
At the time he was a young Turk, ambitious to make his mark, and shortly after the Bloody Sunday massacre he supplanted the previous commander, a quietly spoken pigeon fancier. After that he replaced the late Frank Morris, a veteran of the 1940s campaign from Convoy, as commander of Donegal.
In the months following Bloody Sunday McGuinness gave two interviews in which he was described as IRA Commander in Derry. One was in the Sunday Press in July. In it he said "we don't enjoy killing young soldiers" but added "fifteen soldiers, UDR men and policemen have been shot in retaliation for the murders they committed against our people".
In April 1972, three months before Claudy, he gave an interview as IRA commander to Neil Conan of WBAI radio in America. Conan put it to him that civilians were likely to be hurt in IRA bombings.
McGuinness replied "that's quite right, you know. But we have always given ample warning, and anybody that was hurt was hurt through their own fault; being too nosey, sticking around the place where the bomb was after they had been told to get clear. It has only been their own fault".
When Conan played the tape back to McGuinness in 2002 he refused to comment on it in detail. But however silent he is about it, and however much he may have changed in the meantime, it demonstrates his frame of mind in the lead-up to the Claudy attack.
The IRA has denied Claudy, just as they initially denied the Birmingham pub bombings and the murders of the disappeared. However, it is hard to believe that three major car bombs had been prepared by a group of individuals without help from Derry command, which was headed by Martin McGuinness.
Certainly the Claudy attack seems designed to help Derry Command. It coincided with Operation Motorman when the British army moved into the city's no-go areas. Claudy was intended to divert security resources away from Motorman. A republican veteran told us that Claudy was picked because no IRA members or strong supporters lived there.
The IRA probably did not anticipate the slaughter, but the bombers did little to prevent it. When a call box in Dungiven which they tried didn't work, they let the massacre occur rather than take the risk of phoning a warning from a private house. No wonder they denied their role. One Dungiven man who left Northern Ireland after the Claudy bombing told us that he and his brother fled to Donegal. They met McGuinness at his grandmother's farm where he was based until he was arrested and convicted of IRA membership later that year.
The homestead was just 41 miles from Malin Head, where Chesney was moved after Claudy, and 18 miles from Londonderry.
Chesney had been an active republican since at least 1971 and may have remained active in Malin, a remote area used for IRA training camps. A Derry City Command member told us how he went to Bellaghy in 1971 to swear in new IRA volunteers. Chesney and Tommy Toner, a veteran Dungiven republican who has since died, were on hand to vouch for the recruits' "good character".
That is how trusted Chesney was by the IRA both in his own area and in Derry City Command. The IRA was not a large organisation at that time, and McGuinness' denial that he knew anything about Chesney is as hard to believe as the IRA's denial that it bombed Claudy.