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SHINE A UV LIGHT FOR FREEDOM

by admin 23 May, 2020

Once upon a time the US produced lacerating protest singers. Not any more. It has fallen to the Irish to fill the gap. Paddy Goodwin and the Holy Ghosts’ new song, ‘Jesus Is My Vaccine’, was written in anger at the treatment meted out by the knuckle-dragging neanderthals who abused nurses during the recent anti-lockdown protests in the US. Goodwin constructed the piece with his collaborator Enda Whyte in the hope that it would be woven into a video of clips and quotes from the heart of Trump-land. Then, Irish artist Conor Casby (famed for his painting of Brian Cowen) provided a picture depicting Trump as a Plague doctor. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cowen_nude_portraits_controversy) The plague doctors were charlatans who went around with hocus pocus snake-oil cures for the bubonic plague. Most of them helped spread the plague rather than cure it. Remind you of anyone? The combination of slide guitar, coruscating lyrics, Casby’s artwork and the video clips can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MthVGsirxhM

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Greens need a wellbeing prenup.

by admin 22 May, 2020

Quality-of-life indicators guarantee good policies and, crucially, implementation that can save Eamon Ryan from allegations of unrealism. By Michael Smith. The danger: farce When Napoleon III, nephew of the dictator Napoleon Bonaparte became dictator of France himself in 1851, Karl Marx wrote: Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. The problem: last marriage didn’t work out The Green Party, which was married to Fianna Fáil from 2007-2011 (and the PDs up to 2009) is in danger of entering a farcical re-marriage to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. If you’re marrying someone you think isn’t into you, you should get a detailed and watertight pre-nup. Especially if you were married to them before and it didn’t work out; and they’ve been making nasty comments about you for years. Unfortunately, as they endlessly but secretively progress their formal talks not on nuptials but on a programme for government, there is no suggestion on a strategic level the Greens. have remembered that the age-old and continuing problem with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the environment is they are often happy to make promises and even to provide new measures, it is just that they do not provide for their enforcement. If the Greens do not adjust their capacity for realism there is a danger they will split. Worse, at the moment, the split on offer – between Catherine Martin, Deputy Leader and Eamon Ryan, Leader – isn’t even on ideological grounds. The Greens, who can often be soft-minded seem to be teed up for a silly contest pitting the need for loyalty to a lovely fella on the one hand against the need for someone who’s a woman and not (deepdown) from Dublin 4 on the other; without particular reference to efficacy, radicalism or lessons learnt. The solution: “credible” quality of life indicators The Greens already failed to plant the ball in the open net Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael left them when those parties notably committed in their framework document for coalition of 15 April to “credible” quality of life indicators. Indicators means measurements of success. It has long been established that environmentalists best achieve both a) the full breadth of their quality of life agenda (also known as a wellbeing or sustainability agenda) and b) its enforcement, through up to 100 of these indicators which replace GDP as the gauge of society’s success. This agenda is well recognised by the UN, OECD, EU and others. The point is that it covers a multitude including reduction of emissions and protection and enhancement of biodiversity; and a full range of other environmental and of social and economic indicators that are established progressively, rendered as targets and systematically monitored. If the targets are flouted the pre-nup kicks in dictating divorce. Environmentally you might have climate, biodiversity, balanced rural development, numbers, quality and mix of new housing etc. Socially you might have equality of income and wealth, employment rates, imprisonment rates, implementation of Sláintecare etc. Economically you might have growth, inflation, household and national debt etc. …A hundred indicators in total. What else? Official buy-in including from Finance Department Through these, enshrined in a programme for government and with buy-in from top civil servants and the Departments of Finance and the Taoiseach, the Greens should establish, and guarantee implementation of, radical policies and standards. The Greens’ current approach: following up 17 questions The letter from Eamon Ryan to the bigger parties of 23 April, following up the big parties’ framework document, did duly outline that such indicators should “shape the economic recovery”. But that suggests he sees them as secondary to the economy and there is no mention of them in the 17 questions included in the letter or, inevitably then, in the nice flexible follow-up letter from the bigger parties of 28 April. Unlike other Green parties, interestingly the Irish Greens down the years, even in their constitution, seem never to have embraced the centrality – promoted by the UN – of sustainability and quality of life. Then again the Greens also left out biodiversity – remember we’ve lost 60% of vertebrate animals in the last fifty years and it’s supposed to be the second most important issue for them – from their questions. They’re making it up, you know. Many commentators, who know nothing about the environmental agenda, assume the Greens are big policy wonks. Environmentalism is a bit off the track for the sort of journalists who become respected political commentators in the Irish Times and Business Post. They don’t want to do any research about whether the Greens have good policies or indeed how they did when they were in government from 2007-11 and they don’t want to be mean to this new agenda and its sunny leadership. So they assume the Greens are masters of policy. A recent profile of Eamon Ryan in the Business Post and another assessment by Harry McGee in the Irish Times on whether the Greens ‘played senior hurling’ in government, fall into this category. If you have a reputation for getting up early you can sleep until noon. The Greens were no good at policy when they were in government 2007-2011 and they are not good at it now. Of course most of the other parties are worse. The Greens’ history: underachievement I’ve been around long enough to be aware how little the Greens achieved in coalition from 2007 to 2011. We need only to look at the statistics on what sort of impression they made on the guts of their agenda. Planning If we had planning legislation that worked we wouldn’t have continued to build one in four houses one-off in the middle of the countryside and allowed Dublin to sprawl all over Leinster when the ideal, and even the national planning strategies, required channelling development away from Dublin into other cities and rural towns. Biodiversity and transport We did not arrest cascading

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How the Irish Times got its biggest story of the last 50 years wrong.

by admin 21 May, 2020

The Assistant Editor of the Irish Times distorted the truth about the Arms Crisis. He was a friend of both the chief of staff of the Official IRA and the Taoiseach, ‘Honest’ Jack Lynch. The Official IRA had a vested interest in manipulating the story. Over time, the journalist portrayed Lynch as the hapless victim of the Arms Crisis. This article will look at his relationship with the Marxist wing of the IRA, the Officials. By David Burke Part 1: Dick Walsh and the Official IRA. CATHAL GOULDING AND THE ALDERSHOT MASSACRE Cathal Goulding In February 1972 the Army Council of the Marxist wing of the IRA, the Officials, directed an attack on the HQ of the British Army’s 16th Parachute Regiment Brigade at Aldershot in Hampshire. At the time, the Army Council consisted of Cathal Goulding, Sean Garland, Tomás Mac Giolla and others. On 22 February a time bomb was conveyed to the Aldershot complex in a Ford Cortina vehicle. It weighed 280 pounds (130 kg). The driver alighted and fled the scene with the bomb detonating seconds later. The Officials who had scouted the complex cannot have missed the fact there were many civilians in the vicinity. A few seconds later five kitchen staff were slaughtered: Jill Mansfield (34); a mother of an eight-year-old boy. Her body was identified by a tattoo on her arm; Thelma Bossley (44); Margaret Grant (32); Cherie Munton (20); Joan Lunn (39), a mother of three. So too was a gardener, John Haslar (58) who died from a fractured skull. Finally, a Catholic priest, Gerry Weston (38) perished. 19 others were wounded by the explosion. Not a single soldier died. CROCODILE TEARS AND LIES Goulding and his cronies declared that “initial reports confirmed that several high-ranking officers had been killed [at Aldershot]. British propaganda units then moved into action, and miraculously the dead officers disappeared”. The statement added that the Official IRA’s intelligence department, had ascertained that 12 officers of the Parachute Regiment had been killed in the attack. These claims were entirely dishonest. On 23 February, the Officials explained that the attack had been perpetrated in revenge for Bloody Sunday: “Any civilian casualties would be very much regretted as our target was the officers responsible for the Derry outrages [i.e. Bloody Sunday]”. Stripped of the crocodile tears, Goulding was saying that it was acceptable to kill a handful of kitchen staff, a gardener and a priest in a botched atrocity because his motive had been pure – the murder of soldiers. Stripped of the crocodile tears, Goulding was saying that it was acceptable to kill a handful of kitchen staff, a gardener and a priest in a botched atrocity because his motive had been pure – the murder of soldiers. The Officials also said that the bombing would be the first of many such attacks on buildings occupied by British Army regiments which were serving in the North. In November 1972 Noel Jenkinson from Meath was convicted for his part in the Aldershot atrocity. He died from a heart attack in October 1976. Cathal Goulding The Army Council of the Official IRA remained tight-lipped about the other members of the Aldershot unit and they all escaped justice. I spoke to Sean Garland – briefly – about the Aldershot atrocity many decades later. He acknowledged that the attack was “indefensible”. In fairness to him, he did seem genuinely remorseful. A FUNERAL ORATION FOR A FALLEN OFFICIAL IRA VOLUNTEER Dick Walsh was the political editor of the Irish Times. He died in 2003 at the age of 65. After his death, his former colleagues at the paper described him as someone who was “believed to have used his influence in the left-wing circles in which he then moved to urge the Official republican movement to abandon violent means to settle the Northern Ireland problem”. If he did, he certainly took his time about it. Joe McCann of the Official IRA. The violence continued. Walsh did not shun the Official IRA after Aldershot, nor does he appear to have advocated an abandonment of “violent means to settle the Northern Ireland problem” in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Why can this be said? Because Walsh helped write the funeral oration for an Official IRA volunteer called Joe McCann which was delivered by Goulding. McCann was killed on the streets of Belfast on 15 April 1972 while being chased by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment. He was unarmed. Details of his death can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_McCann. McCann is the silhouetted figure in the main photograph of this article, the man crouching with a gun in his right hand.) There was little sign of a foreswearing of ‘violent means’ in the oration. Goulding said that “those who are responsible for the terrorism that is Britain’s age-old reaction to Irish demands will be the victims of that terrorism, paying richly in their own red blood for their crimes and the crimes of their Imperial masters”. Perhaps blood was still high after the Bloody Sunday atrocity and the murder of the unarmed McCann by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and Walsh only came around to lobbying for non violence tactics later. Perhaps Goulding added the blood-curdling rhetoric himself. Walsh was presumably strongly in favour of the ceasefire the Officials purported to call on 30 May 1972. I say “purported” because Goulding, Garland and Mac Giolla et al reserved the right to engage in “defensive actions”. Hence, the Official IRA did not go away; far from it in fact. They retained their arms and engaged in murderous feuds with the Provisionals, the INLA and others. The Officials killed 25 people between the calling of the ceasefire and 1983. While the feuding might conceivably be shoehorned into the category of “defensive actions”, the bank robberies and building-site extortion rackets the Officials carried out, could not. Interested readers should purchase a copy of ‘The Lost Revolution’ by Hanley and Millar for further details about the feuding – and much

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The pall is lifting on Northern Ireland’s Legacy stitch-up.

by admin 21 May, 2020

Proposals to cover up the past breach elementary human rights and received wisdom built up over a generation. By Christopher Stanley. Through the pall of a pandemic Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland Programme Director for Amnesty International UK, wrote in the Belfast Telegraph (19 April 2020), on the current crisis wrought by the coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic and the importance of learning lessons from it. He noted, eloquently and compellingly, that we could emerge from it into a society where politics and society cohere around human rights. He concluded: Such a human-rights-based approach to government can help us forge a better, shared Northern Ireland and build upon the strong bonds of social solidarity so evident in our current crisis. When we finally emerge from the curse of coronavirus – and we will – what a legacy that would be. (Belfast Telegraph) Human Rights lie at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement 1998. They are embodied in its letter and spirit. Patrick Corrigan wrote about the commitment to a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland which was contained in the GFA and is now being revisited under the British government’s New Decade, New Approach document which guides the devolved administration at Stormont. Human Rights must be the core of the out-workings of the Legacy of the Conflict in Northern Ireland. The current pandemic will alter the landscape of our jurisdiction when it is finally defeated. It will change our attitudes and perceptions, needs and priorities. It may open a possibility where the violent Legacy of Past in Northern Ireland, which haunts the present and determines the future, can at last be sutured after years of contested narratives of truth about what happened here between 1969 and 1998.For what many of those – relatives of the victims and the survivors and their families – want is truth. Many also want justice and accountability but at the fore is to know why a death or an injury happened. It is not about retribution or reparation. It is about being able to move forward with the past – bear in mind these dead. Before the pandemic crisis, the British government published its latest approach to the Legacy of the Conflict. The proposals are a dramatic departure from a) the Stormont House Agreement 2014 (SHA) and b) the attitude towards the Legacy that was taken by the most recent Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Smith). The position of the British government now is to conflate a specific narrative (an interpretation of the Conflict) with a swift Draconian measure to finally sever the present from the past and to protect one particular group of perpetrators/victims – the agents of the state. At present these agents are British Army Veterans but they will inevitably eventually include all members of the British Security Forces, including those from paramilitary organisations used as agents or informers. This political positioning will cause resentment and resistance in Northern Ireland. The intention is to introduce: A new independent body [that] will conduct swift, final examinations of all the unresolved deaths. Only those cases where there is new compelling evidence and a realistic prospect of a prosecution will be investigated. Once cases have been considered there will be a legal bar on any future investigation occurring. This will end the cycle of reinvestigations for the families of victims and veterans alike.This new approach seeks to put victims first with information recovery and reconciliation as the overarching goal – with a way forward that delivers for all those affected by the legacy of the Troubles and enables all sides of the community to continue to reconcile and prosper. In these two short paragraphs, the British government lays bear an intent which has been clearly seen in some sections of the Tory party since the GFA and which has been articulated by some of the inhabitants of Hillsborough Castle (Patterson, Villiers, Bradley). The end will be swift and final. There is a hierarchy of victims. Veterans (agents of the state and British Security Forces deployed or recruited (as agents or informers) during the Conflict) become victims if they face arrest and prosecution. Therefore they will be granted immunity. The evidential threshold is high;’‘compelling evidence” and “realistic prospect of prosecution”. After years of being consulted, the people of Northern Ireland were faced before the present lockdown with a stark reminder of the way Westminster/Whitehalll saw Northern Ireland as ’good soldier’ and ‘bad terrorist’ – all other contested narratives being ‘pernicious’. In Northern Ireland there was a robust civil society reaction of disapproval. For example, Relatives for Justice (RFJ) said: These measures will further deepen divisions in society and will certainly not aid any measure of reconciliation – they will aggravate existing hurts and wounds and will be seen as further evidence of a systemic cover-up of British State crimes. This will be challenged on every level by families including in the domestic and European Courts. For example, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) and a group of academics from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) analysed the British government’s new proposals against a three-point test: a. The extent to which it is consistent with binding domestic and international human rights obligations, in particular Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the right to an effective investigation into conflict-related deaths.b. The extent to which it is compatible with the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), the cornerstone of the Northern Ireland peace process.c. The extent to which it is compatible with the Stormont House Agreement. Although the design of that (SHA) is complex, it was arrived at after months of tortuous negotiations between the two governments and the five largest political parties, and it remains the closest we have come to a workable consensus on dealing with the legacy of the past since the GFA of 1998. On each test the proposals of the British government is setting itself up to fail. Just as the English politicians and their Whitehall civil servants knew they would. In the words of RFJ: Throughout the statement

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GREENS CAN OWN THE NARRATIVE FOR A NEW GOVERNMENT:

by admin 20 May, 2020

By Dr Peter Doran, Katherine Trebeck and Dr Tony Shannon. WELLBEING ECONOMY AGENDA FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET “Country marks a commons of earth and elements: a shared ecology of lands and waters”. (Richard Kearney and Sheila Gallagher, 2017) The Green Party may be lining up as relatively junior partners in the new government formation but the Atlantic wind is at their backs when it comes to owning and leading the narrative for a pioneering post-pandemic recovery that places a holistic vision of ‘wellbeing’ at the centre of a new programme for government. In doing so, the new government will find allies in an emerging alliance of wellbeing economy leaders in New Zealand, Iceland, Scotland and beyond. These countries’ leaders have been to the forefront of the response to the pandemic and they will also pioneer transformations for mid- to long-term wellbeing economies as part of a Wellbeing Economy Government network (WEGo). We are calling on Ireland to join other leaders in the Wellbeing Economy Government (WEGo) partnership so that Ireland can collaborate in learning how to ensure its economy works for people and planet: building a new economy fit for the 21st century. We are calling for all government outcomes and budget calls to be measured against agreed wellbeing outcomes with the full participation of all ministers, departments and agencies. New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has already placed intergenerational wellbeing goals at the heart of her Government’s programme. Ardern says fundamental values pursued by the New Zealand Government are empathy, care, compassion and collaborating for the common good. In her thought-leading book ‘Doughnut Economics: 7 ways to think like a 21st Century Economist’, Kate Raworth explains: “For over 70 years economics has been fixated on GDP, or national output, as its primary measure of progress. That fixation has been used to justify extreme inequalities of income and wealth coupled with unprecedented destruction of the living world. For the twenty-first century a far bigger goal is needed: meeting the human rights of every person within the means of our life-giving planet”. Those profound challenges that Covid-19 herald, offer an opportunity to society, to now build back a wellbeing economy instead of reverting to the same old structures: ‘building back better’ rather than returning to business as usual. Building on ‘The Great Pause’ The new Irish government looks set to emerge during this ‘great pause’ in the global economy. The unthinkable has become the imperative. In our homes, our workplaces, and places of education we have been on an enforced retreat, a time of reflection on what is most important to us. Connections with friends, family and colleagues have never appeared more important. The hidden, under-valued and intimate economy of regard and care – exemplified by the contributions of workers in hospitals and care settings. They are our new super-heroes. Nature has taken a breather, skies have cleared of urban pollution, and climate change emissions are on their way down. Foxes are reclaiming the night streets. Design is the first step to a new system. This applies to our economic systems just as surely as it applies to architecture, so it applies to the way in which we produce our food, our shelter and other necessities. Our societal and ecological crises are, at root, a crisis of value. This moment of pause has brought increasing clarity to the things we value most, we now see how valuable food, health, income security, education, mobility, access to nature, social connection and public services are to us. Our fixation on other measures of value, such as the relic of GDP, does more to obfuscate than inform such vital policy decisions. The root cause of our multiple challenges – of inequality, access to adequate shelter, universal health provision and the climate emergency – is how the economy is currently designed – in a way that does not balance the needs of people and planet and in a way that values measures such as short-term profit and GDP, rather than those broader values that are key to a decent society. These economics structures are design choices from the past – and hence can now be reconsidered and redesigned, for the future. Building Back Better The negotiations on the formation of a new government present a unique opportunity to (re)consider the policies required to ‘build back better’ so that, rather than our society remaining in service to our economy, our economy must serve us and our societal and ecological wellbeing. With international allies in other thought-leading nations shifting towards wellbeing, these negotiations present the next Irish government with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance society via positive disruption to the economic status quo, shifting to ‘build back better’ while easing back on the gears of an economic machine designed for another age. We can live well and flourish with some boundaries. In fact some limits are strangely liberating. Signatories Katherine Trebeck, Advocacy and Influencing Lead Wellbeing Economy Alliance; Co-author: The Economics of Arrival: Ideas for a Grown Up Economy; Senior Visiting Researcher University of Strathclyde | Honorary Professor University of the West of Scotland. katherine@wellbeingeconomy.org Dr Tony Shannon, Ripple Foundation, Dublin, Ireland tony.shannon@ripple.foundation Dr Peter Doran, School of Law, Queens University Belfast; Advisory Committee, UK What Works Centre for Wellbeing; Wellbeing Economy Alliance; Co-Convenor of Northern Ireland Roundtable on Wellbeing (with Carnegie United Kingdom Trust) (2014-2015). Author: A Political Economy of Attention: Reclaiming the Mindful Commons. p.f.doran@qub.ac.uk Reference: Ten principles for building back better to create wellbeing economies

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Power Without Full Responsibility. Caroline Hurley reviews ‘The Education of an Idealist’, by Samantha Power.

by admin 15 May, 2020

Named one of Time’s ‘100 Most Influential People’ in both 2004 and 2015, Irish-American Samantha Power served as US President Obama’s human rights advisor for four years and a further four as US UN Ambassador. She is famed for her achievements but also for her conscience. By Caroline Hurley. Samantha Power was born in 1970 to Dubliner Jim Power, a musical dentist and Vera Delaney, a multi-talented sportswoman and medical doctor from Cork, both dividing studies between London and Dublin. She was brought up in Dublin, living in Castleknock and attending Mount Anville school, sadly spending too much time downstairs in Hartigan’s pub while her father drank his health away upstairs. Her mother’s specialities took her to Kuwait in 1977 to set up the first kidney-transplant and dialysis unit. Power retained strong memories of visiting. An affair between Vera and her boss Eddie Bourke inspired their plan to emigrate to America. Vera sued Jim, whose alcoholism was worsening, for child custody. The judge’s comment opens the book: “what right has this woman to be so educated?” With no divorce and less than 10% of married women working, Vera’s confrontation of the Irish system for her rights was exceptional, and paid off. The new family resettled quickly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and never looked back. As a young adult, Power heard how her father’s decomposed remains were found in her childhood bed. Therapy in response to severe anxiety symptoms centred on this relationship. She suffers demobilising anxiety attacks and back pain: “lungers” is the term used by a former boyfriend who witnessed her struggling to breathe. Pathos aside, Power’s depiction of Irishness veers towards caricature, perhaps because although well-disposed she invests so much in the damage her father seems to have precipitated. She went to school in Atlanta, Georgia, obtained a BA in Yale and a JD law degree in Harvard. A trip around Europe in 1990 broadened young Samantha’s horizons, as did a stint as administrative assistant to Mort Abramowitz, highly-respected President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank. Abramowitz’s opinion columns, friendships and diplomatic efforts for the former Yugoslavia momentously drew Power away from a possible career in sports journalism and into the escalating ethnic conflict between Bosnian Serbs and non-Serbs. She became a war reporter there. On her own initiative, she drafted a chronology of events titled ‘Breakdown In The Balkans’. The hundred copies she self-printed quickly ran out due to the ‘hugely useful’ content, as American leaders struggled to comprehend and top officials resigned in protest at US inertia. Feistily forging a news pass at the Foreign Policy desk, Power toured the Balkans in August 1993, relying on UN papers and protection at checkpoints, meeting many tortured bereaved refugees and making new journalist friends. Back in Washington, US News published her eye-witness account. She returned to Zagreb, proceeding to Sarajevo, Srebrenica and beyond. Hazardously chronicling survivors’ experiences for nearly two years, demand grew for her reportage. She blames herself for not personally preventing the 1995 murder of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica: I was the correspondent in Munich while the bodies burned in Dachau. … I had power and I failed to use it. The book makes it clear that Samantha held herself to the highest standards, at this stage. To her indignation, loopholes in UN approval of the no-fly zone patrolled by US and NATO aircraft allowed slaughters to continue. Throughout her career, Power has repeatedly banged her head against such internal UN dysfunction, especially the veto system pitting the five permanent members at cross-purposes. A theme developed here too, of Russia’s reflex denials, accusations of fake news and weaponising social media, ploys aped by Russian allies. By now Samantha Power was being noticed, and she impressed. Declining a job from Richard Holbrooke who had brokered the Dayton peace accords on Yugoslavia in 1995, she decided to study law with a view to prosecuting human rights abuses. Three years later she became the Founding Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2001 she wrote a piece in the Atlantic featuring exclusive interviews with scores of those in the US administration who had dealt with atrocities in Rwanda. It outlined countless missed opportunities to mitigate a genocide. Researching exhaustively, complemented by some human rights and teaching work, she grabbed a book deal. ‘A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide’ was published in 2002. Blending activism and diplomacy, she stressed the importance of recognising war’s human consequences and considering every non-military solution first, stopping short of embracing non-aggression and a global security system without war (see WorldBeyondWar.org/alternative). In the end she wonders why American leaders who vow “never again” repeatedly fail to halt genocides. It is an appealing message from the pen of a talented, and idealistic, future leader. And being Samantha Power, she won a Pulitzer for it. She went on to cover the 2004 massacres from Darfur, Sudan. Power’s first and latest books covers – “A Problem from Hell” and “The Education of an Idealist” As early as 2005 diplomat Peter Galbraith connected Power to then-Senator Obama’s team and in 2008 she moved onto his campaign group as he vied with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. In March 2008 she suggested, irritatingly for her boss but as it turned out accurately, that Obama would not be in a position to withdraw as quickly as he was promising in his campaign he would, from Iraq. A major hiccough a few days later was an interview about the campaign with The Scotsman, where she proclaimed: We fucked up in Ohio. In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio’s the only place they can win. She is a monster, too—that is off the record—she is stooping to anything … if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is

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THE ACCUSED AND THE ACCUSERS: IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

by admin 15 May, 2020

Two recent hearings of the Independent Investigation Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in London heard arguments for and against abandoning its investigation into the allegation of sexual abuse made against the late Greville Janner. Now the Chair of the IICSA has determined that this module will go ahead but that the majority of its evidence will be adduced and examined in private and that any report will similarly be limited. In this article, Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant with KRW LAW LLP in Belfast, who represents a survivor of abuse in both Belfast and then in London, provides an insight into the manner in which the IICSA has approached the inquiry into the allegation against Greville Janner. Introduction The operation of a statutory inquiry is, after the initial impact of victim statements, taken little notice of until, perhaps, the publication of a report and recommendations. In Ireland, in relation to the Conflict, we saw this in the Smithwick and Barron inquiries in relation to the murder of two senior RUC officers and the Dublin-Monaghan Bombings of 1974 respectively. My wistfulness covers territory extensively covered in Village – historic institutional sexual abuse. At the point of publication of the auspicious inquiry report there may be either the furore of joy or outrage or muted despair as a 20,000 page document enters the space of the circular filing cabinet. I have been unexpectedly involved either directly or indirectly, either as lawyer or observer, in a number of statutory inquiries in both England and Northern Ireland: those investigations established under section 1 of the Inquiries Act 2005 or by the exercise of specific legislative provisions available under devolved powers. These have included, in England, those concerning the torture and murder of Baha Mousa, the unlawful killing of Al-Sweady, the Mid-Staffs Hospital Inquiry (my Mother had been a victim), the aborted Detainee Inquiry; and in Northern Ireland the as yet to occur Patrick Finucane inquiry, and the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry into systemic sexual abuse. One of the module strands of the HIA Inquiry concerned The Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast. Arising out of the ‘failure’ of this module there continue to be demands by victims for further investigations into their abuse and the knowledge of and manipulation by state agencies and agents – a particularly low point in Ireland’s Dirty War exacerbated by the stench of collusion and political corruption. Representations had been made to have ‘Kincora’ and its associated institutions within the remit, jurisdiction and terms of reference of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry (IICSA) in London. These were refused by the British government – the HIA would suffice. However, a number of victims were trafficked from Northern Ireland to London to continue their abuse as sex workers. Hence my presence at the IICSA on behalf of one of these ‘others’, on 25 September 2019. I represent a client (‘A’) who was trafficked from Belfast to London to be a sex-worker into the notorious Piccadilly Rings, a Dilly-Boy. He also ‘worked’ in a male brothel in West London. The account of his abuse in Belfast and London has been published in Village. His sister and brother were also abused in Northern Ireland and his brother was also trafficked to England but he was then 18. ‘A’ was 16 when he arrived in London having escaped the ‘care’ of the system. At the request of the IICSA he has provided a detailed Witness Statement which alleges that he was 17 when he was approached by Greville Janner in Piccadilly and then lived with him for a week at his Dolphin Square flat in Westminster and accompanied him to a performance at Earls Court where he met Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. The date of that performance at Earls Court cross-referenced with Prince Andrew’s diary engagements and the date of birth of ‘A’ suggests he was 17. The date of that performance at Earls Court cross-referenced with Prince Andrew’s diary engagements and the date of birth of ‘A’ suggests he was 17. ‘A’ was paid by Janner for sexual services and provided with meals and clothes. Janner also appeared as a witness on his behalf at Bow Street Magistrates Court when ‘A’ was charged with offences relating to prostitution. ‘A’ had a number of convictions resulting in fines. His other clients included a member of the London Metropolitan Police. Being arrested and charged was seen by our client as an occupational risk. Finally, ‘A’ freely admits that he would not have thought of making a complaint to any institution as he had been abused by politicians, social workers, judges and policemen – those who were trusted with the protection of the vulnerable. Having been invited to provide a Witness Statement to the IICSA in relation to the module “An inquiry into the institutional responses to allegations of child sexual abuse involving the late Lord Janner of Braunstone QC” I attended what in effect was a case-management hearing. ‘A’ is not a Core Participant (yet) but a potential witness. My expectations of the culture and organisation of the IICSA, given the seriousness of its work, had been raised following what can only be described as a troublesome beginning. They had been raised because of the relative silence around it proceedings. These are my observations of one day at the IICSA. 24 September 2019 A first preliminary hearing into the allegations against Greville Janner had taken place in 2016. Despite its website and apparent accessibility, the physical location of the IICSA was difficult to find. I had to telephone the inquiry: 18 Pocock Street, an anonymous street in Southwark, South London, marked on the day only by a small press presence outside the building. I had gone into Blackfriars Crown Court seeking directions. I can appreciate the need for discretion, given the nature of its work, but for a public inquiry it was as if ‘it’ did not want its location to be known. I recall I had attended the first session of

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Looking up in a lockdown.

by admin 6 May, 2020

An Indian woman’s experience of isolation downs and ups on Irish shores. By Mehar Luthra I was about to leave and take the bus to the university when I got a call from one of my classmates. An older Irishwoman, she asked me if I needed her help with anything and implored me to give her a call if I did. Thoroughly bewildered, I thanked her and asked why she sounded so worried. RTE had just broken the news: Ireland was now officially in lockdown. I had, of course, anticipated this but there was momentary shock still; eclipsed, however, by immense countervailing gratitude that this kind lady’s first thought was concern for a stranded Indian girl. I reassured her that I was well and living in a secure apartment with a nearby grocery store. In a country that had only ever shown me smiles, banter and kindness, I was preparing to hunker down and weather the storm. But still for several days I would sit still in the bedroom of my apartment as the unseen divider raged on outside the curtained windows. I made to-do lists and pondered whether to stick around or go home. Everyone I saw asked me why I had chosen to stay back in Galway and hadn’t raced home to my family in New Delhi. But one thought recurred over and over: if I did go back home, I would simply be sitting in the bedroom of another apartment (this one shared by my parents and sister) and I would still be doing the same things I am doing here. So why would I drag myself through traumatised airports and risk infection just to go and sit beside a different curtained window in another city ravaged by the same virus? It’s curious. Before I made my unhasty choice, every person I encountered suggested the same thing: stay where you are. The universe, in all its simultaneously unwavering and perpetually varying wisdom, had decided to nudge me to stay put. But neither did I leave my heart in India. I had feared that I would be crying tears of regret every night into my pillow, missing the company of my oldest friends, weak in the solitude. But no. I did cry into my pillow sometimes in the early hours of the mornings, unable to sleep, heavy with exhaustion and the heartbreak of a carefully planned-out summer shattered. But then I would have done the same into the pillows that I left behind in New Delhi too, wouldn’t I? Regret, I was not open to. Now, hysteria and doom did come in gentle waves slithering through the letterbox studded in my front door. They peeked out from behind windows and verandas and underneath the empty and cold oven in my kitchen. I begrudged my body its daily need to be fed, it’s urgent imperative to be stretched, fed, comforted and entertained. Dating apps were useless and my laptop looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to empty buckets of words into its hungry void on days I could barely formulate coherent thoughts. Why did I have to eat and shit and breathe and hydrate? It seemed unfair somehow that I could not count on oblivion when so many other things and routines had been wiped out. And my mouth remained bare of lipstick, my shoes unworn. I spent many days under the covers, simply wishing I could stay under and hibernate as bears do. During long nights spent willing myself to sleep, the bathroom light from under the doorway anchored me like the North Star and pulled me out of my own head with its swirling thoughts and bubbling worry. Spring came knocking on our doors and tugged at our sleeves, even in Galway. It seemed like the rampant new season hadn’t received news of its cancellation. Flowers bloomed defiantly, leaves latched onto branches and the pathway to the grocery store began to line itself with cheerful tulips. Birds reclaimed lost lands and cats sunned themselves on shining roofs. I took my coffee on the tiny, square balcony that gives over roads, filled now with car after car passing by in a hurry. Where were these people going? The virus was stalking us – were they running away? I now felt warmth and a gentle breeze in a land that had only ever given me winter. Some days I was productive and could almost remember routines that had seemed endless to me only a few weeks beforehand. I stretched, and performed sit-ups, push-ups, leg raises and ab-crunches – until my body sang with soreness and the delight of tested muscles. I read great tomes, lost myself in my writing and sucked, as reward and vitaliser, at my coffee until not a drop remained in my oversized, cheerful yellow mug. I waged war with my skin and exiled pimples and blackheads. Didn’t they know there was a lockdown in place? Go home. I called people incessantly, perhaps as a reminder to myself that I still had friends and people I could count on. I devoured comedy movies and revelled in the twin pulls of irritation and gratitude when I spoke to my parents who couldn’t help but worry and fret. I embraced moments of sympathy and gushes of affection for my parents. Mothers and fathers must live in a cloud of self-inflicted anguish and anxiety, even without this novel plague. I retreated into a shell for days on end, reappearing with a thwarted zest for conversation and camaraderie. It was becoming easy to resign myself to the blanket of powerlessness that covered me and my life, a dome which had descended on my hopes and dreams. Much harder was to find joy; and the urge to express hatred, love, ambition. Or even hunger. My anxiety packed a suitcase and settled down to wait in the corners. Its roar began to sound farther and farther away until I could tune it out and go about my dinner. The world was at a