Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

After both the Manchester and London Bridge terror attacks, party political campaigning was briefly suspended.  However, Islamic terrorism has inevitably become an important issue in this general election and, rather ironically, Jeremy Corbyn is on the offensive , criticising Theresa May and the Conservatives for imposing cuts on the police that put public safety at risk. This is not a subject on which the Labour leader has much credibility.  Not only has he a long record of sympathising with terrorist causes, he and his associates have also actively opposed many of the security agencies that are charged with keeping us safe.  The blogger Guido Fawkes points out that , just three years ago, Corbyn defended the idea that young British people who had fought for ISIS in Syria should be allowed to return to the UK without “legal obstacles”. The Labour leader also argues that British foreign policy, including military involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, has hel

Over the past six weeks, Northern Ireland’s Executive has not operated properly, even by its own fitful standards.  After revelations that IRA members were involved in a murder in Belfast , and the subsequent resignation of the Ulster Unionists’ only minister , the Democratic Unionists devised a bizarre ‘go slow’ to prove that it was not ‘business as usual’ at Stormont.  Almost all the DUP's ministers, including the party’s leader and Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Peter Robinson, resigned from the Executive.  However, finance minister, Arlene Foster, was nominated to replace Mr Robinson in a temporary capacity, supposedly to prevent nationalist parties from running amok in government.  Meanwhile, the party’s remaining three ministers, whose portfolios include health, enterprise and social development, were continually re-nominated to their positions, from which they then resigned again, on a weekly basis.  Confusing?  Absolutely.  Inexplicable?  Pretty much. Aft

What a month to debate military intervention in another country’s affairs!  The 24th of March marks the twelfth anniversary of NATO bombing Yugoslavia.  The supposed success of that mission buoyed the interventionists, inspired Tony Blair and set the scene for a bloody decade to come.       Now the Gaddafi regime is proving resistant to concerted internal opposition to remove it and peaceful western pressure for it to go.  Yesterday David Cameron asked his Ministry of Defence to draw up plans for a “no fly zone” in Libya, which could prevent the Colonel bombing his enemies.  It’s not Belgrade 1999, but the rhetoric about not “standing idly by” has a similar ring.  Nick Robinson asks whether this could be "Cameron's first war" . No wonder some Libyans are nervous.  They need only look at Iraq to see the possible costs of western “help“.  The debate still rages as to whether the country is better off, now that its bloodthirsty dictator has been removed and replaced by

From preliminary reports it looks like a deadly blast at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport was caused by a suicide bomber .  The explosion ripped through the international arrivals hall, killing at least  35 people  and injuring around 130. Domededovo is Russia’s busiest airport and a major hub for flights to and from the rest of Europe.  I have experience of the long queues which congregate at the immigration desks, and there must’ve been thousands of passengers in the terminal when the bomb detonated.  Some eye witness accounts of the aftermath are beginning to emerge and they are horrific. This is another attack clearly calculated to maximise loss of life and injury.  Last March, 39 people were killed during a series of coordinated suicide attacks on the Moscow metro, attributed to the Chechen ’Black Widows’ group. Female suicide bombers also blew up two aircraft, which had taken off from Domodedovo, back in 2004.  Whoever is responsible for the latest atrocity, Moscow remains a p

In yesterday's Belfast Telegraph I argued that, if Northern Ireland remained "quite civilised" during the Troubles, it was no thanks to Pat Sheehan or other IRA members. Is it a shock that Pat Sheehan, convicted IRA bomber-turned-West Belfast MLA, has a warped view of the Troubles? As the latest back-street revolutionary to turn Armani-clad seer and represent Sinn Fein at Stormont, it would be more surprising if he saw republican violence for the futile nihilism it was, rather than as a "probably quite civilised" campaign. That won't relieve the hurt and revulsion felt by victims of 30 years of IRA 'civility' when they read his comments - made in an interview with David McKittrick. The Assemblyman, recently co-opted to replace Gerry Adams, lauds the organisation for its restraint: "The IRA, if it had wanted to kill Protestants, could have left a 1,000lb car-bomb on the Shankill," he reasons. Of course, the IRA did actually leave a bomb o

Rationalism and perspective in action. The extremist pastor, Terry Jones, may have ’suspended’ his Qur’an burning stunt, but it hasn’t prevented fellow extremists, in Afghanistan, attacking a Nato base in protest. Jones’ plans were deplorable, of course, but isn’t it sad that hysterical overreaction from fundamentalist Islam has become accepted as a fact of life? The Dove World Outreach Centre, which pedals Jones’ hate-filled take on Christianity, is a tiny organisation.  Most sources agree that it attracts fewer than 50 members to Sunday service.  Its controversial ’Burn a Qur’an Day’, scheduled for the anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Centre Attacks, which falls tomorrow, could scarcely be less well judged, but, for all the public outcry, the worldwide riots which were expected to ensue were hardly a proportional reaction. I am no proponent of evangelical Christianity, but, if the boot were on the other foot, it’s unthinkable that the reaction would be so vehement.  That’

Some local bloggers make it their business to immerse themselves in ’sectariania’, forever compiling a list of grievances against ’themmuns’.  They seem to think it important to prove which ’side’ in Northern Ireland includes the most hate-filled thugs.   Generally I avoid covering hate crime and the squalid list of ’dissident’ attacks in Northern Ireland.  They are, after all, terrible topics to commentate upon.  Anyone with any wit knows that it’s inexcusable, it’s loathsome, it’s repugnant - what more is there to say?  The idea that these attacks have political content, which should be taken seriously, is itself beneath contempt. Sometimes, however, there is an incident which makes you feel so hopeless, which makes the bile rise in your throat to such an extent, that it’s necessary to contextualise it, somehow. Yesterday saw just such an event , as a group calling itself the Real UFF left two pipe bombs at Catholic Primary Schools in Antrim.  This wasn’t an act of recklessness

Early this year the Guardian provided blanket coverage of Sinn Fein’s ‘Irish Unity’ conference in London.   A questionable editorial choice , given that the talking shop was considered irrelevant by just about every other British newspaper. Usually its pages are light on comment from Northern Ireland, but the paper’s one regular contributor of Ulster opinion is a certain Gerry Adams.  Whatever patronising, tacked together, imbecilic garbage occurs to the Sinn Féin president, can’t be rushed to the Guardian’s presses quickly enough. His latest sortie draws ridiculous parallels between Afghanistan and the Northern Irish Troubles.  And I only wish that Kevin Myers response had also been carried by a national British paper.  It appeared in the Irish Independent and you can also read the full article in today’s Belfast Telegraph.  Here I reproduce my edited highlights. I'll take criticisms of NATO/US/British policies in Afghanistan from anyone -- Amnesty International, the Quaker

Predictably, there’s been an enormous quantity of analysis and reportage, following the publication of the Saville Report on Tuesday.  If posting has been light over the past couple of days, it’s because I’ve been making an effort to digest the best of it. There is a lot to commend the thrust of Turgon’s post on Slugger O’Toole, which examines unionist reaction to Saville.  He identifies two ’predictable’ responses which he believes are emblematic. One, as typified by Gregory Campbell, casts doubt on the report’s interpretation.  The other, as articulated by Sir Reg Empey and others, points to a disproportionate concentration of resources on the victims of Bloody Sunday, as opposed to victims of Republican violence. I accept that these arguments have been raised and that they are, as Turgon contends, ’understandable’.  I also agree with his broader point that, should we deny moral equivalence between terror groups and the British army, we should also expect standards of self-scr

Fountains at the Park Kultury, close to the scene of the second explosion. In today's Belfast Telegraph I provide analysis of the week's events in Russia. Last Tuesday, just 24 hours after suicide bombers killed 39 people on the Moscow metro, a pair of explosions claimed 12 more lives in Dagestan, a republic near Chechnya, in Russia's troubled south. Wednesday saw two further fatalities, as another bomb went off in the same region. It was a bloody week in Russia and there is apprehension that terrorist violence, linked to Islamist separatists in the Caucasus, could escalate yet further. Life has remained cheap in Chechnya and Dagestan, but the carnage on Moscow's metro demonstrated that insurgents are willing and able to wreak havoc right at the centre of Russian power. I highlight the role of 'The Black Widows' and the leader who recruited them. Under the tutelage of Chechen terror chief Doku Umarov, it is feared that 30 new members have been trained to commit

Tragic news from Moscow of a type which the city hasn‘t experienced for six years. This morning two suicide bombers killed at least 37 rush hour commuters at the Lubyanka and Park Kultury metro stations. A strike at the Lubyanka station, which stands close to the former KGB headquarters, and still houses the current Russian security apparatus, the FSB, is likely to be symbolic. The square is just a brief walk from the Kremlin. Park Kultury is better known as Gorky Park. It lies a little up the Moscow River, but it is also at the heart of the city. The metro is notoriously busy and, no doubt, at 8am local time, was crammed with people attempting to get to work. It is believed that two female suicide bombers carried out the attacks. Whether they were Chechen, as reports suggest, or part of the wider Islamist insurgency in the Caucasus, time will tell. Certainly it is a reminder that Russia is struggling with a fanatical and lethal foe operating within its borders. In November t

Yesterday evening the BBC aired the most entertaining Winter Olympic event to date. Ski cross features four downhill skiers, hurtling down a snowboard track, together. They hurdle jumps, perform hair-raising manoeuvres in order to overtake opponents and the inevitable tangled skis cause all manner of spectacular crashes. It was the second most compelling sport on TV last night, the first being Gerry Adams’ moral contortionism on Channel 4 . The Sinn Féin President’s meditations on ‘the Jesus story’ were predictably noxious. Predicated on a monstrous blend of moral relativism and abstraction, Adams’ gospel of the Troubles implies that the killers were no more culpable than the victims. And at the bottom of all our problems, original sin, exclusive to the English, to ‘the Brits‘, absolving Gerry and his comrades of any responsibility. “Stupid operation” rather than barbarous mass murder, “political activist” rather than terror chief. Adams’ Orwellian lexicon is littered with euphe

Sinn Fein’s ‘Irish Unity’ world tour has reached our nation’s capital: London. A venue which has more relevance to Northern Ireland politics than the United States of America, though hardly replete with the people who must be persuaded of the merits of a united Ireland, if it is to ever to become a reality. Although the conference is as irrelevant as ever, it does offer a neat guide to Republicans’ fellow travellers in the United Kingdom. Despite fitful interest in politics in Northern Ireland, the Guardian has decided to offer blanket coverage. Is the newspaper an unofficial sponsor of this event? I see that regular contributor, husband of the paper’s deputy editor and former republican prisoner, Ronan Bennett, is taking part. Certainly it’s unusual to find so much comment about Northern Ireland appearing at CIF all at once. Martin McGuinness rolls out his stock platitudes , Margaret Ward, a regular Sinn Féin mouthpiece, does her bit and Paul Bew’s dissenting opinion is adorn

Is anyone else profoundly, stultifyingly, mind-numbingly bored by the saga unfolding at Hillsborough? From its outset I’ve been cynical about the process. Talks conducted between the DUP and Sinn Féin, Siamese twins bound together by common dependence on dysfunctional carve-up at Stormont, were never likely to deliver a genuine fresh start for power-sharing. But over the course of the past week cynicism had been replaced by tedium. We have had news of countless ’breakthroughs’, several impending and significant arrivals by prime ministers and even a US foreign secretary, a welter of leaking and spinning which has amounted to nothing. Meanwhile, at Stormont, Assembly business has effectively ground to a halt. The UUP and SDLP have participated, waiting to be included in the process at Hillsborough, but the DUP and Sinn Féin have been working with skeleton teams. Indeed Jeffrey Donaldson, Nigel Dodds and other figures have been consigned to the business of every day politics, seemin

Eoghan Harris is a commentator accustomed to transgressing republican shibboleths. In his latest Sunday Independent piece he ponders Gerry Adams’ response to a family history disfigured by involvement in campaigns of terrorist violence, as well as paedophilia. Although Harris takes a circuitous, and rather more interesting route, he reaches a conclusion which echoes my own reflections on the Sinn Féin president’s skewed sense of morality. It is ‘time (Adams) took the final step and admitted that the armed struggle “besmirched” the tricolour as much as the abuse’. Gerry Adams might command sympathy by describing shame at the abusive actions of his father. He might, Harris hints, even seek to exploit a national mood of sympathy, as the Republic of Ireland as a society grapples with its own issues around clerical and institutional abuse. But if we are generous, and allow that Adams’ motivations may not be exclusively tactical and manipulative, still, we can hardly applaud his cando

Gerry Adams’ influence within Republicanism might be on the wane, but he has lost none of his capacity to astound and revolt. First we had Adams’ interview on Christ and forgiveness. Now another clear example of the Sinn Féin president’s warped morality has emerged. Speaking about ‘Republican honours’ accorded to his father, who had repeatedly abused children within his own family, Adams’ observed, “I didn’t want him buried with the tricolour, I think he besmirched it.” It is impossible to read this statement without reflecting on a succession of IRA funerals which Adams was happy to attend. Thomas Begley, who killed himself in the process of murdering nine Saturday afternoon shoppers on the Shankill Road, clearly did not ‘besmirch’ the tricolour, in Adams’ estimation. He was happy to act as Begley’s pall bearer. Gerry feels that emotional, physical and sexual abuse of children brings shame on the Republic of Ireland flag whilst murder, maiming, torture and all manner of other c

I’m afraid that, once again, this piece resembles a ‘Quote of the Day’ which ‘Three Thousand Versts’ purports not to carry. The Ulster Political Research Group is a rather grand title for the UDA’s ‘advisory wing’. This repository of wisdom has defended Torrens Knight, the loyalist murderer, who was recently returned to prison after an assault on two sisters in Coleraine. You’ll remember that the brave soldier’s original conviction was for entering the Rising Sun bar in Greysteel where he and his colleagues proceeded, indiscriminately to gun down eight unarmed civilians who happened to be drinking there. The UPRG’s Ali Crawford commented , “As far as I am led to believe Torrens Knight has bothered no one in or around Coleraine since his early release up to the point where he has been found guilty, pending appeal of this alleged assault." Well good for him! Between his involvement in cold blooded murder and assaulting women Mr Knight has been a fine upstanding citizen! With du

‘When Tory politician William Hague referred to loyalists as ‘thugs’, my heart sank’, claims Roy Garland, in his weekly diatribe against ‘English’ Conservatives. ‘No group of people’ should, he contends, be dismissed in such a way. Not even, apparently, groups whose activities conform to the very definition of thuggery. First, I don’t believe that Garland’s ‘heart sank’ when the Foreign Secretary attacked loyalist paramilitaries. On the contrary, his communal instincts kicked in, ‘he’s having a go at ussuns as well as themmuns, what an opportunity’ (or words to that effect). Second, his latest article contains a heart rending tale of a nice young man who joined a paramilitary organisation and then began to change it. Indeed it is positively glowing on the topic of loyalist groups and their stout community work in general. What a load of twaddle! This is the same narrative, told from a different perspective, which we get from Republicans. Fine young men, compelled by extraordina

Gerry Adams, or 'this blog' as he now prefers to call himself, would no doubt be keen to assure voters that they are not witnessing the fag end of his political career. After all, he recently assured the media that he will remain Sinn Féin's president as long as he damn well pleases (or words to that effect). Democracy, eh? Still, there's no harm in having more than one string to your bow. Gerry is already a confirmed man of letters (albeit one who attracts widespread academic derision) and 'a blog'. Now he's turning his attention to the tourist industry , offering guided tours of South Armagh. I'm sure 'Cú Chulainn Tours', staffed by ex republican terrorists, offers a highly impartial account of the area's history!

I don’t suppose that I was the only one reminded of Stuart Neville’s novel ‘The Twelve’ , when I read newspaper reports detailing SOCA’s seizure of a South Armagh republican’s assets, which took place yesterday. Newsline featured pictures of Sean Gerard Hughes’ farm, and I almost expected to hear the whine of an injured bull terrier. Sinn Féin’s response has, thus far, only exacerbated the sense of déjà vu. Neville’s book was a work of fiction, but the Republican movement which provided its backdrop hardly required a painstaking imaginative effort. For the uninitiated, or those outside Northern Ireland, the Serious Organised Crime Agency was granted a court order to seize assets belonging to Hughes, on the grounds that they are suspected to come from laundering the proceeds of mortgage fraud, evading tax and fiddling the benefit system. He has previously been convicted of fraudulently claiming income support. Sinn Féin’s MP for the area, Conor Murphy, who is also Regional Develop