The Five Demands

E’ forte la rabbia per la decisione del presidente irlandese Mary McAleese di invitare il capo di un gruppo  paramilitare lealista ad una cerimonia legata alla visita della regina in Irlanda

di Doris Ercolani

Il leader dell’ Ulster Defence Association Jackie McDonald compare tra i tanti lealisti invitati a Dublino, dove presenzieranno a una cerimonia in onore dei soldati irlandesi che hanno prestato servizio nelle forze armate britanniche durante le  guerre mondiali.
Il figlio di una donna uccisa in un attentato lealista ha dichiarato: “McDonald e gli altri lealisti  dovrebbero invece andare a visitare in Irlanda del Nord i cimiteri dove sono sepolte le loro vittime.”
Peggy Whyte aveva 52 anni quando fu uccisa da una bomba, che si pensa sia stata lasciata dai lealisti dell’Ulster Volunteer Force davanti la sua casa in University Street, Belfast, nel mese di aprile del 1984.
Suo figlio, Jude Whyte, ha detto: “Sarebbe molto più importante parlando di pace e di riconciliazione che i lealisti visitassero quei cimiteri per guardare i danni che la loro organizzazione ha fatto. Le loro vittime erano civili disarmati che non erano pericolosi per nessuno. Cercate di capire il danno che la popolazione civile ha subito. Loro hanno spezzato vite e cuori, mutilato e ucciso un sacco di gente. E’ tempo di chiedere loro scusa.” Tuttavia, il Reverendo Mervyn Gibson, che siede alla Loyalist Commission, ha difeso gli unionisti che hanno offerto “un contributo significativo al processo di pace. Ci sono state vittime da tutte e due le parti e le scuse dovrebbero quindi venire da entrambe le parti”.

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Irish dissidents’ arrests an attack on free speech, claim republicans (The Guardian)
Arrest of Old Bailey bomber Marian Price condemned as ‘de facto internment’ by republican supporters.
Irish republican supporters of Old Bailey bomber Marian Price said her arrest and those of others is an assault on free speech.
The Republican Network for Unity (RNU) denounced the Police Service of Northern Ireland‘s decision to prosecute Price on charges of encouraging terrorism as “de facto internment”.
Martin Óg Meehan, the RNU’s spokesman, the prosecution showed that Britain wanted to suppress free speech.
Meanwhile, there is growing anger over Irish president Mary McAleese’s decision to invite a loyalist paramilitary leader to a ceremony linked to the Queen’s visit to Ireland.
Ulster Defence Association chief, Jackie McDonald, is among a number of loyalists invited to Dublin where they will attend a ceremony in honour of Irishmen killed in the first and second world wars while serving in the British armed forces.
But the son of a woman killed in a loyalist bomb said that instead McDonald and other loyalists should be visiting graveyards in Northern Ireland where their victims are buried.
Peggy Whyte was 52 years old when she was killed in a bomb, thought to have been left by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force, at the front of her home in University Street, Belfast in April 1984.
Her son, Jude Whyte, said: “It would be far more important in terms of peace and reconciliation that they perhaps visited the graveyards and looked at the damage their organisation did,” he said.
“Their casualties and victims were unarmed civilians who were no harm to anybody. Try to understand the damage that the civilian population suffered here.
“You broke a lot of hearts and you maimed and murdered a lot of people. It is time to say sorry to them.”
However, Reverend Mervyn Gibson, who sits on the Loyalist Commission, defended loyalists who had made “a significant contribution towards peace”.
“There are victims on all sides and apologies wanted on both sides,” he said.