Paramilitaries still active, says report

The Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitaries have killed five people and exiled 600 others since the signing of the Belfast…

The Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitaries have killed five people and exiled 600 others since the signing of the Belfast Agreement, according to a report published yesterday.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Bureau document says the Provisionals had killed three people, injured 46 in "punishment" shootings and carried out 113 beatings and mutilations.

It says loyalists have killed two people, carried out 52 "punishment" shootings and at least 136 beatings and mutilations.

Introducing the report at Stormont yesterday, the bureau spokesman, Mr Vincent McKenna, said he was puzzled as to why the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, could not say whether the Provisional IRA and loyalist ceasefires had been broken.

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He said most incidents were occurring in economically disadvantaged areas of Belfast but warned they were spreading into more middle-class areas.

"We are now receiving information about incidents in places like Holywood, Bangor and Portrush, places that were never touched by this sort of incident before."

He claimed that while the murder of the Lurgan solicitor, Ms Rosemary Nelson, was receiving massive attention, the murders of the Provisional IRA informer, Mr Eamon Collins, and the alleged drug-dealer, Mr Brendan "Speedy" Fagan, were being ignored.

"Rosemary Nelson deserves an investigation but the fact is murder is murder. Rosemary Nelson is no different from Eamon Collins and Andrew Kearney. They all have the same basic human rights and their murders must be treated the same."

He said there should be no place in government for parties linked to paramilitary groups. "Until they decommission and democratise, there can be no room in the corridors of democracy for the grim reapers of murder and mutilation."

The report also includes a breakdown of the number of people killed from 1968 to 1999, their religion and the organisations responsible for their deaths. It shows the Provisional IRA has killed almost three times as many Catholic civilians as the security forces.

Mr McKenna said he planned to visit Dublin and Washington with the report which would also be distributed to the UN and the European Parliament.

Meanwhile, the Ulster Unionist MP, Mr Ken Maginnis, yesterday attacked the "vindictive and dishonest" campaign of Sinn Fein against the RUC and said it had to be challenged.

Speaking at an Ulster Unionist Party press conference, he said it was essential to prevent any dilution in the authority of the RUC, and any reduction in size or any compromise on the standards of entry, referring to the Patten Commission on policing.

He criticised the "predisposition" of the Northern Secretary, Dr Mowlam, to set up inquiries which, he said, fell into the trap of a republican agenda.

He did not believe the bodies of the "disappeared" would be found in the Republic and accused the Provisional IRA of lying. "I am most sceptical of the idea that eight of the nine bodies about which the IRA claims to have information are all hidden in the Irish Republic."

If one looked at a map of Ireland it seemed as if someone had taken a ruler and drawn a line across the country and said "We'll put one there, there and there".

"Can you believe that at the height of the Troubles in the 1970s, the likes of Jean McConville - who was guilty only of giving solace and comfort to a dying soldier - was actually taken from her home in west Belfast, not to Colinglen, but to the Irish Republic in order to be murdered and her remains buried?"

He said that of 190 Provisional IRA members killed during the Troubles, 164 were killed by the IRA.