Sinn Féin has reacted furiously to the publication of the International Monitoring Commission report into paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, which has seriously damaged the credibility of the peace process by publicly stating the obvious, writes Newton Emersonéin's stamping of its foot and spluttering indignation a bit contrived
"If the IMC had fulfilled its remit it would also have investigated the DUP's links to Ulster Resistance and the British government's involvement with unionist death squads," Sinn Féin national chairperson Mitchell McLaughlin told BBC's Newsline this Tuesday, adding "What about themmuns?" They started it."
Sinn Féin assemblyman Alex Maskey went further, describing the IMC as "a blatantly one-sided tool of British oppression which focuses exclusively on the activities of terrorists while completely ignoring the activities of non-terrorists".
The government was also criticised for its intention to withhold financial assistance from Sinn Féin and the Progressive Unionist Party. "We're being fined £120,000 for three murders while the loyalists are only getting fined £27,000 for nine murders," said a Sinn Féin tax accountant yesterday. "That works out at £40,000 per whack for us but just £3,000 a go for the prods. It's discrimination so it is."
However the Northern Ireland Office has denied the accusation. "Because republicans only killed other republicans and loyalists mostly killed other loyalists during the period in question these fines actually place a higher value on Catholic lives," explained an Equality Commission spokesperson yesterday with obvious relief.
Other sanctions being considered by the government include:
1. Restarting the assembly, throwing Sinn Féin out, then suspending the assembly again;
2. Knighting UDA brigadiers, admitting them to the peerage, then abolishing the House of Lords;
3. Charging 17.5 per cent VAT on sales of An Phoblacht;
4. Charging people with a statutory crime on the basis of admissible evidence.
"Clearly option 4 will only be used as a last resort," said IMC chairman Sir J. Edgar Dyson yesterday. Secretary of State Paul Murphy has also ruled out withholding assembly salaries from paramilitary-linked parties. "By not paying assembly members suspected of killing people, we would create the suspicion that assembly members are paid not to kill people," explained Mr Murphy yesterday. "This would be a gross insult to those for whom this is not actually the case."
Much of the IMC report focuses on the attempted abduction this February of republican Bobby Tohill. Mr Tohill was enjoying a drink in a Belfast bar when five men approached, sealed him inside a binliner and said they were taking him to south Armagh to be shot.
Publicly Sinn Féin denied that Mr Tohill's life had been threatened, claiming he had simply misunderstood the term "cross-Border body". But privately republicans remain mystified by the official fuss surrounding the incident. "It was internal housekeeping," said one source. "It should have been swept under the rug."
Sinn Féin has also rejected the commission's claim that the IRA was responsible for the disappearance of South Armagh republican Gareth O'Connor. "It is British securocrats who have questions to answer on that score," said yet another party spokesman yesterday. "Last weekend the Sunday Business Post reported that the PSNI had seven telephone numbers for Mr O'Connor. As this man divided his time between two houses, owned two mobile phones and was required to report daily to two police stations on both sides of the border, they should only have had six numbers for him. The seventh number was obviously used to activate his secretly-implanted MI5 mind-controlling subcutaneous transponder, as the Sunday Business Post quite rightly implied."
In addition to murder and kidnapping, the commission has accused paramilitary-linked political figures of personal involvement in assault, smuggling, robbery, arson, extortion, drug dealing, racketeering, fraud, handling stolen goods, handling counterfeit goods and passing poor works of fiction off as autobiographical. These charges have been ridiculed by Sinn Féin president-for-life Gerry Adams. "We are an Irish republican socialist party committed to justice and equality for the working class," said the unemployed barman via encrypted video phone from his five-bedroom Donegal beachfront retreat.
Meanwhile in Belfast the High Court has thrown out a Sinn Féin application to stop publication of the full IMC report. "It is hypocritical of the British government to publish the IMC report despite possible legal implications when it refused to publish the Cory report despite possible legal implications," explained a human rights lawyer yesterday. "That is why it is not hypocritical of Sinn Féin to insist on the publication of the Cory report despite possible legal implications while objecting to the publication of the IMC report despite possible legal implications."
The case continues.
Newton Emerson is editor of the satirical website portadownnews.com