IAUC Response to NY Times News Story “Secret Archives of Ulster Troubles Faces Subpoena”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/world/europe/13ireland.html?_r=1

May 14, 2011

Letter Editor
NEW YORK TIMES
620 8th Ave
New York, New York 10018

Dear Editor:

The report of Jim Dwyer (“Secret Archives of Ulster troubles…” 5/13) is troubling. Oral histories compiled from loyalists and Nationalists engaged in the conflict in Ireland are being subpoenaed by England from the Boston College Irish Archives under a sealed court order with the U. S. Attorney as errand boy. Is this what that vaunted ‘special relationship’ is all about?

Britain has spent decades and millions destroying the evidence of various ‘independent’ inquiries into the Royal Ulster Constabulary; obstructing investigations by denying Judge Barron of the Irish government info on the Dublin/Monaghan bombings or delaying for 40 years the inquiry into Bloody Sunday; conspiring to silence by assassination witnesses like solicitors Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson and five elected officials; and smearing those like John Stalker who documented the corruption of the police in N. I. All of these actions bring to mind the character Fagin in the film “Oliver” when he contemplates changing his ways but concludes “..I’m a villain and a villain I will stay!!”

The pattern and purpose of all these actions is to insure that British foul deeds in Ireland are portrayed as morally justified and a practical necessity. Her Majesty’s government may have lost the battle to subjugate the Catholic minority in garrison Ulster but it only really cares about winning the war over how historians portray the conflict.

Sincerely,

Michael J. Cummings, Member
IAUC National Board