Jude Collins

Monday 23 May 2011

Rosemary Nelson: the truth at last?

News flash: President Obama has cancelled his flight to Monegall today, not because of high winds but because he’s read and listened to our commentators on the queen’s visit last week. “Having thought carefully about the arguments presented” the President said, “I am convinced that their central message is a valid one. And so I have instructed my aides that we will not after all be visiting Moneygall, the birthplace of my ancestors. As the commentators on the queen’s visit repeatedly pointed out, we must leave the past behind, draw a line under it and look to the future. The past is gone and should play no part in our political future, specifically my bid for re-election in 2012”.

The family and friends of lawyer Rosemary Nelson, however, are less enlightened. Today, they and the general public will look back to 1999, when Mrs Nelson was killed by a car-bomb. At the time, the authorities blamed loyalist paramilitaries; Mrs Nelson’s family, friends and a lot of others claimed there was collusion between loyalists and British security forces. Certainly a year before her death the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Param Curamaswamy, stated on television that her life could be in danger. Later that same year Mrs Nelson confirmed the death threats, including threats made by RUC police officers.

The report released today will reveal all. Or will it? British Secretary of State Owen Paterson has held up publication while the document was screened for “matters of national security”. In oher words, we’re checking to make sure we, Britain, and our forces, don’t come out of this looking any worse than absolutely necessary. So although I hope the family and friends of Mrs Nelson, and the wider public, get the full story, I’m not holding my breath. One thing’s sure: no police officer, past or present, will spend a day in prison for the murder of this woman.

Thank goodness the President of the United States doesn’t favour killing people he doesn’t like and has heeded the calls here to leave the past behind.

1 comment:

  1. The treatment of the people of Ireland to accommodate first the Bhanrion of the Sasanaigh and the Duke of Hazard and now potus and flotus...the latest plastic paddy coming looking for the Irish vote... is akin to the Highland clearances...
    The people of Moneygall have been moved en-masse out of the village whilst it is swept and they scanned are by US security...
    There's a welcome on the mat for all but the 'ordinary' indigenous Irish or the Irish diaspora...
    Unless you're Irish come into the parlour...
    No doubt we will be told there is no-one as Irish as the Dalai Lama when he eventually pitches up for the VIP treatment...
    This tokenism is beginning to gall this Gaeligirl...enough already!
    Call me cynical but the timing of this report to coincide with the visit of O'Bama and immediately after their Brittanic majesties 'ground breaking momentous historic blah blah blah' visit is surely no coincidence...?
    Could there be a better time to bury bad news...? Or does anyone other than the politicians South of the border really give a damn...? Not that they ever gave a damn about the Nationlist Community?

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