The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, has welcomed the announcement by the human rights group, Amnesty International, that it intends to visit Northern Ireland for talks with political parties, the RUC and pressure groups.
Mr Trimble wrote to the London-based organisation on Monday inviting it to investigate paramilitary-style beatings and shootings in the North. The Ulster Unionist Party leader yesterday expressed the hope that Amnesty would produce a report on the attacks, which he said, were being carried out by republican and loyalist paramilitary organisations. "I am pleased that Amnesty International has responded positively to help with this serious issue. It can assist the authorities in bringing the necessary pressure to bear on the organisations responsible for the attacks, to make them stop," he added.
A spokesman for Amnesty, Mr Rory Mungoven, said that representatives from the organisation would liase with the Northern Ireland Office and arrive for general talks with interested parties within the next two months. However, he stressed it would not be investigating specific incidents at this stage. According to Mr Mungoven, Amnesty had hoped to visit the North for "some time" and had made approaches to do so late last year. "We're pleased that Mr Trimble is ready to talk. We're pleased that he's recognised the important role that human rights organisations can play." Mr Mungoven said Amnesty could offer "moral persuasion", but that "ultimately it's the community and Northern Ireland's institutions that have to hold the answers".
The Sinn Fein Assembly Member, Mr Alex Maskey, also welcomed Amnesty's forthcoming visit. "Over the years they have been consistent in their attention to human-rights abuses and have made many reports and recommendations on various matters. Their involvement at this stage in the peace process could only be beneficial."
However, Mr Maskey said the invitation extended to the human rights' group by Mr Trimble was an attempt to "further his narrow unionist agenda". He urged Amnesty to be "consistent" and to examine the 1997 murder of Robert Hamill in Portadown and the "siege of Garvaghy Road".
The Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, yesterday urged that the political process not be "jettisoned" because of the activities of paramilitaries. He said to talk of "parking" or "reviewing" the agreement because of the decommissioning issue or ongoing punishment attacks would be a statement of no confidence in the process. "If this political dispensation were to collapse, I pose the question again, would that end punishment beatings, would that ensure that decommissioning took place? I'm quite sure the answer to that is no."
Mr Vincent McKenna, spokesman for Families Against Intimidation and Terror, said his group wished to meet with Amnesty "urgently" to discuss punishment attacks. "I don't care who else Amnesty International wants to talk to. But we want to talk to them urgently about the mutilation beatings and how to stop the next barbaric abuse of human rights."
In an interview on Tuesday with BBC1's Spotlight programme, Sir Ronnie Flanagan gave his assessment of punishment attacks. "If the IRA, UVF and UDA as organisations decided this should stop it will stop," he said.
Reacting to the chief constable's remarks, Mr Robert McCartney of the UK Unionist Party called on the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, to eject Sinn Fein and the Progressive Unionist Party from the Assembly. He said it was clear the IRA and the UVF were behind the attacks. "It is not the job of the chief constable to say whether there has been a breach of the ceasefire. But he is equally making it clear that it is not his function to say if the cease-fires are holding, that is a matter for the Secretary of State," said Mr McCartney. The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the Rev Ian Paisley, condemned what he identified as a policy of appeasement to terrorists being pursued by the British government. "Oppose the agreement and the government will brand your good as evil, support the agreement and your evil will be sold as good," said Dr Paisley.
Meanwhile, the Sinn Fein Assembly Member, Mr Gerry Kelly, has called for an inquiry into the shooting dead of six Catholics in the New Lodge area of Belfast in FEBRUARY 1973. Speaking at a commemoration event last night, Mr Kelly, alleged collusion between the British army, loyalists and the RUC and urged the families of those who died to "pursue that quest for truth".