Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-09-Speech-1-057"
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"en.20050509.14.1-057"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to begin by welcoming the representatives of the McCartney family here this evening and conveying the best wishes of the European Parliament to all the sisters – Catherine, Paula, Gemma, Clare and Donna, and indeed to the late Robert McCartney’s partner, Bridgeen. There is a welcome to them here in the European Parliament.
The rule of law Sinn Féin advocates, and the IRA enforces, is a brutal regime of terror, intimidation and violence. One parallel to, and incompatible with, democratic society. One so grounded in illegality and criminality that it constitutes an affront to the very concept of justice and leaves its victims, such as the McCartney family in this case, powerless and without redress for their terrible loss.
But these brave women, the McCartney women, through refusing to be intimidated in their four-month campaign for justice for their brother and their partner, have achieved more to highlight the residual thuggery and criminality that has existed in Northern Ireland since the official IRA ceasefire than either of the two governments or the political establishment in Northern Ireland have managed to achieve in the last decade.
Today we, the European Parliament drawn from 25 Member States, add our voice to that of the Irish Government, the British Government and the United States Congress, in support of the McCartney campaign for justice. By bringing the killers of Robert to justice, there is a bigger statement being made in terms of a total rejection by all decent people of this continued wanton killing, maiming and violence. It is a call for real peace.
I hope we will be in a position to help Robert’s family if the necessity arises, if none of the witnesses, nor indeed the IRA or Sinn Féin themselves, are brave and honourable enough to supply to the Police Service of Northern Ireland or the Ombudsman the information necessary to institute criminal proceedings. We are not in danger of creating a precedent: this case is unique. For the first time the provisional movement has been shaken to the core by the depth of reaction from within its own community. They can now put their words into action. This case is a test of the movement’s sincerity, of its repeated disavowal of criminal activity in all its forms – or are they just more weasel words? Time will tell. I commend the resolution to the House.
On behalf of Mr Poettering, the leader of the PPE-DE Group, on my own behalf, and particularly on behalf of my colleagues in the Irish delegation, I would like to pledge our fullest support to them in their courageous, dignified and determined pursuit of justice for their brother Robert’s brutal murder.
As my Party Leader in Dáil Éireann, Enda Kenny, said, Robert McCartney’s vicious beating and stabbing to death was ordered by a commander in the Belfast brigade of the provisional IRA, following a minor dispute between the commander’s uncle and the group with which Mr McCartney was socialising.
Robert McCartney was in the wrong place at the wrong time but this was no minor bar room brawl, as some have disgracefully attempted to portray it. His brutal beating and stabbing was a serious and savage attack, which bore all the hallmarks of a politically motivated IRA murder. It was perpetrated by up to 12 killers, a significant number of whom are known members of the provisional IRA.
Initially, Sinn Féin’s Alex Maskey vehemently denied IRA involvement but, two weeks later, having spoken to the family, Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly issued a statement on the matter and they accepted IRA involvement.
This killing was ruthlessly supervised and forensically covered up by men announcing that their activities were IRA business, by men who proceeded to intimidate the 70 witnesses to the crime and their families, first forbidding them from calling an ambulance on the night in question, as Robert McCartney bled to death before their eyes and his colleague lay seriously injured. Then they warned them not to cooperate with the authorities.
Such is the level of fear and intimidation of the witnesses that the code of silence surrounding the event has still not been broken, nearly four months after Robert McCartney’s death.
In tonight’s motion, we are calling ‘on the leadership of Sinn Féin to insist that those responsible for the murder and the witnesses to the murder cooperate directly with the PSNI and be free from the threat of reprisals from the IRA’, or indeed to cooperate with the Ombudsman of Northern Ireland.
The appalling offer by the IRA on 8 March 2005 to shoot dead the perpetrators of this awful crime is abhorrent and barbaric and has been met with incredulity in the civilised world. To even suggest that amends might be made through such summary justice indicates what few lessons, if any, have been learnt by the IRA over the past 30 years. It shows how little understanding this group has of the basic tenets of the rule of law in a democratic state."@en1
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