CALEDONIAN COMMENT

It has been revealed that a Roman Catholic priest organised the IRA car bomb attacks (afternath pictured above) in the Ulster village of Claudy in 1972 and his role was covered up by senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers, UK government ministers and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, according to an official investigation. The government said today it was “profoundly sorry” about the cover-up, while the Roman Catholic church has said it accepts the findings, calling them “shocking”. 9 people - Protestants and Roman Catholics –  were killed and more than 30 injured when 3 vehicles exploded on the main street without warning on 31 July 1972. In the mid-morning atrocity 3 of the dead were children. No one was ever charged with the killings, and the IRA at the time denied responsibility.

The report by the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland published yesterday confirmed suspicions that Father James Chesney (pictured above), a priest in the nearby village of Bellaghy, was directly involved in the IRA operation, and suggests his involvement was even greater than previously assumed. RUC detectives who investigated the attack reportedly concluded “that the priest was the IRA’s director of operations in South Derry and was alleged to have been directly involved in the Claudy bombings and other terrorist incidents”. But they failed to act on the intelligence and evidence they had gathered because senior police officers intervened to prevent them interviewing him. The report adds: “Police investigators spoke to a former special branch detective who said he had wanted to arrest Father Chesney in the months after the bombing, but that this had been refused by the assistant chief constable (ACC) special branch.”

Senior politicians, including the then Northern Ireland Secretary William Whitelaw (pictured above), feared the arrest of a Roman Catholic priest in connection with such an atrocity – at a time when sectarian killings in Northern Ireland were out of control and the province stood on the brink of civil war – could destabilise the security situation even further. A deal was therefore arranged behind closed doors to quietly remove Father Chesney from Ulster. Documents seen by the police ombudsman show that the authorities considered “what action, if any, could be taken to render harmless a dangerous priest, Father Chesney, by perhaps bringing the subject into any conversations they may be having with the Roman Catholic church at some future date.”

It was reported later that William Whitelaw had subsequently held a meeting with Cardinal Conway (pictured above), the then head of the Roman Catholic church in Ireland, and: “The Cardinal said that he knew that the priest was a very bad man and would see what could be done. The Cardinal mentioned the possibility of transferring him to Donegal.” What an obscene disgrace this whole episode has turned out to be. The RUC should have arrested this terrorist priest. William Whitelaw should have been fired and prosecuted for conspiracy to cover-up a terrorist outrage. And as for the Roman Catholic church, their concern at the time over a “very bad man” didn’t extend to handing him over to the authorities, just as their mock-outrage over priestly paedophiles in their ranks today doesn’t persuade them to hand the offenders over to the police. And the argument that arresting this priest in 1972 would have started a sectarian civil war is nonsense too – especially if the Roman Catholic church had handed him over – how could a sectarian conflict allegedly caused by the arrest of a Roman Catholic priest be justifiable if the people causing the arrest had been the Roman Catholic authorities themselves ?

What is shown clearly here is that the police, the government and the Roman Catholic church had more concern for a priestly “very bad man” than they had for women and kids blown to bits by terrorist bombs. Everyone still alive responsible for this outrage to democracy and decency should be charged with perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to murder. And do we have any surety that their concern is any greater today ? Don’t hold your breath. Our whole police and political establishment reeks of corruption and selective outrage – why did we have a Bloody Sunday enquiry but won’t have a Claudy enquiry ? Why aren’t the surviving criminals responsible for this cover-up not going to be prosecuted ? And why are we next month spending taxpayer’s money to subsidise a “state” visit to the UK of former Hitler Youth and Nazi anti-aircraft gunner Pope Benedict XVI (pictured above), now shown not only to be the titular head of an international paedophile ring but also the head of an organisation with terrorist murderers within its priestly ranks ?

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The founder of the whistle-blowing WikiLeaks website yesterday accused the Pentagon of “dirty tricks” after false rape allegations were made against him, revealing that he has been warned before he could be the target of a “‘honey trap”. Australian Julian Assange (pictured above)dismissed the rape and other sex abuse accusations, saying he had never had sex which was not consensual. The secretive campaigner spoke out in Sweden after authorities there revoked a short-lived warrant against him on a rape claim, saying the accusation against him had no substance. The WikiLeaks website caused a storm last month when it posted 77,000 Afghan war documents online, many highly critical of Allied forces, particularly American forces. US authorities claim that publication on the Web has put the lives of troops and security sources at risk.

US intelligence services have described his website as a “threat to the US Army and Defense Department”.  And the Pentagon (pictured above) has demanded that WikiLeaks return all leaked documents and remove them from the Internet. But undeterred, Mr Assange has recently been in Sweden, home to several of WikiLeaks’ internet servers, where he announced last week he would soon publish thousands more classified Afghan war documents. Good on him. After all, didn’t we witness the excruciatingly naff spectacle of an American soldier waving goodbye to Iraq last week, claiming that the US had “brought democracy” there ? It would therefore be ironic if the Americans now tried to suppress democracy. In any case , the Pentagon engaging in dirty tricks ? Hard to believe.

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The West’s worries about Iran’s nuclear plans increased over the weekend with the opening of the Islamic Republic’s first energy-producing nuclear reactor (pictured above). The long-awaited project, near the city of Bushehr, despite being opposed by the US for years, is nearing completion. Iranian and Russian engineers will reportedly spend the next 2 weeks loading fuel into the plant. More than 80 tons of uranium fuel will be moved into the reactor core. And in about 2 months the reactor will start generating electricity. Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said yesterday: “Despite the sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities.”

At the same time Iran yesterday unveiled an unmanned, long-distance bomber drone (pictured above) described by the country’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , as “an ambassador of death” to Tehran’s enemies. At an attendant ceremony , Ahmadinejad said the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) – named Karrar, meaning “striker” in Persian – had “a main message of peace and friendship” but was intended to deter aggression “and keep the enemy paralysed in his bases”. So there you have it folks - Iran has peaceful nuclear reactors and peaceful unmanned bomber drones. I wonder if the Israeli Air Force will see things that way ?.

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Thousands of Barclays Bank (above) customers in Britain were unable to get into their bank accounts or withdraw money from cash machines over the weekend after a nationwide system crash. The problems, which began around 12 noon on Saturday, affected telephone and online banking services and caused chaos and anger at shops and other retail outlets across the UK as embarrassed shoppers had to abandon their purchases at the checkouts. Barclays’ telephone centres were swamped with calls from angry customers, many furious at the lack of any help or information from the bank. Amazing that people still believe they’ll get ANY level of customer service from ANY bank. Or any money.

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In the UK it’s been reported that Royal courtiers are caught in the middle of a battle of wills between Prince Philip and the Queen (couple pictured above) over how to celebrate his forthcoming 90th birthday. Her Majesty is understood to want “something special” while Phil the Greek, the longest-standing and most expensive asylum seeker in British history, apparently ”doesn’t want much fuss” for the milestone birthday next June. “There is a bit of a battle going on”, said a Palace aide. Well perhaps Caledonian Comment can help solve the problem – how about a private party at the Queen’s own expense with no press coverage, as opposed to a taxpayer funded public junket over an event that the vast majority of us don’t give a toss about ?

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Pictured above is former Hitler Youth and Nazi anti-aircraft gunner Pope Benedict XVI, who is on record as saying that Britain’s equality legislation, whereby gay couples can adopt, represents ”a violation of the natural laws”. And a Roman Catholic adoption service in Leeds is now facing closure after it lost its legal battle with the UK Charity Commission for the right to be able to discriminate against gay couples. The organisation ”Catholic Care” applied on religious grounds to be allowed to offer its adoption-support services to prospective heterosexual parents only. But the independent regulator for charities in England and Wales found against “Catholic Care”.

Now in actual fact this blog doesn’t particularly like the notion of gay couples adopting. If you have a responsibility for placing orphaned or endangered children into a new familiy scenario, my view is that completing that process by attempting to give the child a mother and a father is a pretty sound and common sense idea. But in the UK the law is the law, and unless and until the law is changed, the Roman Catholic church has no right to try and subvert it or ignore it. For good measure, it also has to be said that for the Vatican to pose as a concerned agency for the welfare of children and their protection from gays, when many of its priests themselves ignore “natural law” and routinely sodomise young boys, is a classic example of hypocrisy even by the corrupt standards of the Roman Catholic church.

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Many Americans believe that President Barack Obama (pictured above) is a Muslim, according to a new opinion poll, despite his repeated public statements about his Christian faith. The survey discovered that 18% now think that Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. Only about 34% believe he is a Christian, down sharply from 48% in 2009, and 43% say they have no idea what his religion is. And the remaining 5% ? Presumably they’re either too busy filling out building application forms for the construction of mosques in their locality, or maybe, just maybe (although it is America after all), they’re too sensible to care.

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And while we’re on about Islamic problems in the US, a Muslim woman has filed a complaint claiming that the Disneyland restaurant in California where she works would not allow her to wear a hijab. Imane Boudlal (pictured above) claimed that when she wore the hijab to work last Sunday, her supervisors told her to remove it, or work where customers couldn’t see her, or go home. Ms Boudlal, who wore the scarf in observance of Ramadan, went home. When she showed up for work the next 2 days, she was told the same thing, she said. It seems she’s only just started this thing of wearing a hijab, so presumably a compensation action is imminent. But here’s an idea for the Disneyland management – tell her to dress up in a full Minnie Mouse costume. Nothing in the Koran about that, is there ?

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