'The Fourth Man' or 'Who Else Was in the Queue in Kew?'

national | arts and media | feature

Monday May 10, 2004 21:55

by Captain Blue - The Captains without the Kings

captainwhite at eircom dot net

Revisionist 'General' Targeted by 'The Captains without the Kings'

Yet another midnight communique from Captain White and his merry mob has arrived to once again add some sparkle to the dreary unpaid lives of pale tired post-Mayday frenzy IMC hacks. The plot thickens . . . this time we leave you in the capable hands of Captain Blue.

"On October 2 1969 the then British Ambassador to Dublin, AW Gilchrist wrote to AKK 'Kevin' White in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The letter quoted the then Proprietor of the Irish Times, Major Thomas B. McDowell, as referring to Douglas Gageby, the Editor, as a “renegade or white nigger”. This was a reference to Gageby’s coverage of “northern questions”. The letter quoted Major McDowell, a member of the Judge Advocates Department of the British Army, as asking 10 Downing Street for guidance in cancelling out the editor’s views and in eliminating “unauthorised” news items further down the chain of journalistic command. The British authorities released the letter under the ‘30 Year Rule’ in late 1999.

As he promised when he signed off the last time (Thursday, Apr 29 2004, 1:38pm) , Captain White has mobilised the intelligence corps in order to discover who suppressed publication of the “renegade.. white nigger” letter in January 2000. While the intelligence corps of most armies tries to plug information leaks, ours unplugs them. The Captain tasked me (Blue) and my team with doing whatever was necessary to get to the bottom of this matter. I wish to report that the chaps have come up trumps and have unearthed the person responsible for sitting on the British Ambassador’s October 2 1969 letter."

Captain Blue Continues his Tale Here >>

Whodunnit Background
1. “The correspondence is being destroyed” : First Part of the Whodunnit
2. Jack Lane Slams Irish Times: Letter to Madam Revealed: Second piece of the Jigsaw
3. Deep Background: Gilchrist Indonesia Ireland Dossier

FANNING THE FLAMES
In 1969 the troubles had broken out in earnest. British soldiers were introduced to the streets of Belfast in August of that year. The Unionist dominated and largely discredited Stormont regime was on a path to self-destruction, due to Unionist resistance to reform.

Irish journalists assembled in the Public Records Office in Kew on December 22-23 1999 to view newly released government documents that were embargoed until January 2000. They assemble at that time every year. 1999 promised a bumper crop of information, as events in 1969 had changed the course of Irish and British history.

One of this group came upon the “white nigger” letter and decided to suppress what would have been the news story of the new Century. He did not show it to the journalists present. He reportedly thought they might “go off half-cock and publish it”. He thought they might consider it newsworthy so he did not show it to them. He apparently did not divulge the contents to The Irish Independent, the newspaper he wrote for in January 2000 on the documents he had surveyed.

Was he completely devoid of an ordinary news sense or so fully possessed of one in that he knew the impact the letter would have when splashed across newspapers. Maybe he did not relish the prospect.

Did he breach the code of ethics of journalism in suppressing the document? He may have contravened the basic tenets of another profession he professes to be a member of.

ITS HISTORY
This person is in favour of the informed consent that the governed must give in order to assent to being governed. It is just that he does not want to the governed to have the information, even when the state says he is permitted to reveal it. He took it upon himself to deny the public access to material released under the 30-year rule. In other words, a prominent academic researcher and journalist took it upon himself to apply his own secrecy rule. He decided that as far as journalism was concerned this document was ‘history’.

Why did he do this?

If asked he will probably say he did not think it “merited publication”. The point is he did not give anyone else the opportunity to decide whether it should be published or not.

The information indicated a close relationship between the owner of the Irish Times, Ireland’s newspaper of record, and British intelligence services. This information would have caused many to be suspicious of what lay behind the liberal veneer of the Irish Times. The Major was depicted as a willing accomplice in a propaganda war. One thing is clear from other documents released that year. 10 Downing Street stated that the Major McDowell’s role and his acceptance to Whitehall due to his continuing role in the British Army made the use of his services an item of intelligence rather than one of diplomacy

DISCRIMINATING RESEARCHER
Perhaps our Irish censor thought the information too “incendiary” for a gullible public easily persuaded by those he opposed, Irish republicans. Perhaps he did not want to hand them historical ammunition. He was the gatekeeper and he shut the gate on the information.

After contributing copious amounts of learned copy to the Irish Independent about the contents of the PRO files in Kew, the individual continued to keep the public in ignorance of the contents of the letter in question. The question has to be asked, what else has he come across over the years that does not “merit publication”. It might simplify the task of historical research if we were given the opportunity to consult the material that this individual has cast aside during his researches.

NUTTY PROFESSOR
Academic life is governed by the dispassionate weighing up of evidence and debate over documents. The documents have to be there to be debated. Researchers are obliged to reveal relevant sources so that they can be evaluated. Suppression of relevant information is regarded as a very serious issue, second only to making it up. If the individual looked at the document and decided for his own peculiarly eccentric purposes that it was not worthy of public view, he might have a defence, not a persuasive or a convincing one, but a defence nonetheless.

By accepted journalistic and historical research criteria a document in which an official of a foreign government determines in concert with the proprietor the means whereby an Irish newspaper and its editor is to be subverted is one that should be brought to public attention.

MODERN HISTORY
Luckily, another researcher, Jack Lane of the Aubane Historical Society, came across the document in January 2003 and promptly sent it to Geraldine Kennedy, Editor of the Irish Times, on January 10th of that year. He pointedly asked her who ran the Irish Times. She replied on the 15th that the paper was set up as a trust in 1974 and refused to confirm the veracity of the document.

Here the matter appeared to rest, after the Irish Times refused to publish the document, investigate the allegations it contained or enquire into why the document was not published in January 2000.

In retrospect this was a mistake. It fuelled the suspicion that the Irish Times had something to hide. The Times certainly wished to downplay the significance of the material discovered and appeared to operate a strategy of censorship through silence.

INDEPENDENT MINDED
On January 26th 2003, the Sunday Independent published a story on the “white nigger” aspects of the document. The Irish times responded publicly for the first time one day later on January 27th with an anonymous piece by “Irish Time Reporter” and headlined “Major McDowell rejects UK envoy’s allegations”. This one reactive story did not properly delve into the allegations or bring into being a process of enquiry into why the document had been suppressed.

In retrospect this was yet another mistake. In appearing to kill off the story in this way the Irish Times was stoking up suspicion that it had something to hide. In addition, the implicit Irish Times suggestion that a British official was lying to his colleagues in Whitehall about the utterances and opinions of Major MacDowell, an apparently significant intelligence asset, was barely credible.

The following Sunday the Sunday Independent returned to this aspect of the story. The allegation that a diplomat “sent abroad to lie for his country” would lie at home to his close colleagues was addressed. The author effectively derided and demolished this suggestion and quoted liberally from related documents released at the same time, documents with which he showed a distinct familiarity. There was curiously little enquiry into how this one significant document had gone missing.

Aside from that, it was a work worthy of the talents of the Professor of Modern Irish History in UCD, Professor Ronan Fanning, who had clearly done his homework.

AMUSING
Professor Fanning failed to state another thing. He was in Kew in 1999 with the journalists in question.

Ronan Fanning saw the document in Kew.

He refused to use it himself, share it with fellow researchers, journalists, and the public or, it appears, his employers, the Irish Independent. It is believed however, that he has shown it to friends over the years, those he thought might find it “amusing”. He has reportedly shown it to one Irish Times columnist who has also seen fit not to go public on it or to mention it to his employers.

Fanning had the opportunity to reveal that it was he who had the document all the time, but he chose to stay silent.

JOIN THE KEW
A clue to his involvement lay in a sentence at the end of the article in the Sunday Independent on January 26th. It said “The Sunday Independent has learned that a copy was sent to Gageby, now aged 84, some months ago.”

Since Jack Lane had the letter for barely one month, the sender was most likely a person who was in Kew in 1999, who had seen and suppressed the document and who had associations with Independent newspapers.

Fanning was in Kew, he wrote on the PRO files for the Irish Independent and he now contributes to the Sunday Independent. His authoritative and magisterial denunciation of the Irish Times on February 2nd 2003, in combination with the statement the previous week is what set off the trail of evidence leading to Fanning’s door.

THE FOURTH MAN
Once it became established that the journalists present in Kew, Rachel Donnelly, Aidan Hennigan and Bernard Purcell, who worked cooperatively and who shared information, had not seen the letter and could not have reported on it, it became necessary to find out who else was there. The letter was impossible to miss by anyone with eyes in their head.

Fanning had the eyes, which he used to keep the rest of us blind to sight of the letter.

Nevertheless it is still curious that no one else saw the letter in that file on the day. Professor Fanning must have been working assiduously with the contents the whole time he was there, to the exclusion of the possibility of other journalists seeing the letter in that file. It has to be asserted that Professor Fanning would not have dreamed of preventing them from gaining sight of it. Such a thought is unthinkable in this unbelievable saga.

SANE PROFESSOR
To think however, the matter might have rested with the Sunday Independent article of February 2 2003 had it not been for another journalist and professor (of journalism this time), Roy Greenslade, Media commentator with the Guardian in London. He became interested in the story after the letter appeared on the Internet in early April 2004. He wrote about 300 words on it and did an interview for Newstalk 106.

Since then Roy Greenslade has been criticised by the Irish Times for apparently suggesting on Newstalk that the Irish Times had suppressed the document. If he did so, this was a reasonable supposition. The Irish Times certainly suppressed the document in January 2003 and suppressed discussion of its contents. The suggestion that a journalist and history professor contracted by a rival of the Irish Times suppressed knowledge of the document originally is one that occurred to no one.

That is until now.

QUESY
To date, the Irish Times continues to have difficulty accepting responsibility for its role in the prolongation of this affair. Major McDowell continues as Life President of the Irish Times and Douglas Gageby is unwell. Gageby was unwell when Professor Fanning sent him the document. It is to be hoped that this act of generosity did not make Gageby feel worse.

What are the lessons of this sordid affair: publish and be damned, don’t publish, get found out, and be damned anyway.

TAKE HIS CUE FROM KEW
Over to Professor Fanning – it will be interesting to see him stutter his way out of this one. He may take his cue from his recent paper ‘“Playing it Cool": the response of the British and Irish governments to the crisis in Northern Ireland, 1968-9’.

History students in UCD and his colleagues may be surprised by his actions. We can be sure that he will attempt a cogent explanation that will, undoubtedly, be sophisticated.

Those who were in editorial positions in the Irish Times in 2000 may now read with some amusement critical coverage in the Sunday Independent of the halting and embarrassed Irish Times reaction to this affair.

Ronan Fanning is the Sunday Independent’s house academic – a man who cannot break a major story about another newspaper when it is right in front of his nose, but who keeps it for his own private amusement and that of his rarefied circle of friends. In addition, when the Sunday Independent wrote on January 26th 2003 that the letter had been sent to Gageby some months previously, it means that someone in the Sunday Independent knew or guessed the full story and chose to say silent. Curious behaviour,

Are there any loose ends? There is one curious story doing the rounds that a leading figure in the Irish Times, not a journalist, may have gone back to Kew to “check out” the file in 2000, but came back and said there was nothing else of major significance concerning the Irish Times there.

Another loose end is a proper discussion of what exactly the Major and his MI5 friends resolved to do and indeed what did they do in the years after 1969? Historical research is required. Don’t call Professor Fanning.

http://www.ucd.ie/history/personalpages/fanning.html

The absent minded Professor Fanning

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Comments (26 of 26)

Jump To Comment:

relative revisionism?

by oh being such a pro. prof. Mr Fanning....

Sat May 08, 2004 23:53

"on revisionism"
"anti-revisionist historians fear, not a revision of facts, but a revision of their faith" ...
"Irish Nationality is not a faith but a practical moral standing".
source:-
The Irish Review, No. 4 (Spring 1988), 147pp. [Cork Univ. Press].

by it was the wombles wot dun it your honour

Sun May 09, 2004 01:28

So what?

by boy seoirse

Sun May 09, 2004 20:53

I'm tired reading about the historical equivalent of a PostIt note stuck on a TD's desk complaining about someone who missed a round in the Dail Bar. WHO CARES? Let's face it, the only reason you people keep harping on about it it bcause it has the word "nigger" in it. The rest of us couldn't give a monkey's. GET OVER IT.

SO What? I'll tell you so what!

by Zip

Sun May 09, 2004 23:07

This story is mad, both the Indo and IT have seious Q's to answer not to mention that nutty professor! The IT was being used by the Brits at the time...... who's to say Harney along with buckled Bush haven't got the same influence today! So what my arse!

thanks

by keep it up

Sun May 09, 2004 23:10

very interesting.

i hope to see more in the future.

next chapter?

It was UCD’s Prof. Fanning that withheld the I.T. 'White Nigger' letter!

by Peter Sutherland's Nemisis

Mon May 10, 2004 12:31

Well lets all tell the good folks down in the Irish Times in D’Olier Street in Dublin then! Simply email the following letter to:

lettersed@irish-times.ie; newsdesk@irish-times.ie; readersrep@irish-times.ie; cbrady@irish-times.ie; editor@irish-times.ie

Dear Madam/Sir,

turns out it was UCD's Professor Fanning of the History Faculty that spent three years covering up that the publishers of the Irish Times were (are?) in cahoots with British intelligence services in drafting editorial policy.

Please see full details at:
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64944

Yours etc,
………….

And when we are it, we may as well send same to UCD News and th UCD Observor:
Ucd.news@ucd.ie; observer.news@ucd.ie; university.observer@ucd.ie

"So what? I'm tired reading" or "Please, my brain hurts"

by R. Isible

Tue May 11, 2004 04:31

boy seoirse wrote: "I'm tired reading about the historical equivalent of a PostIt note stuck on a TD's desk complaining about someone who missed a round in the Dail Bar."

To which there are at least two possible responses: first, I pity you. If you get tired reading then I can only imagine the agony that typing must have caused you; second, the revelation that one of the most respected papers in Ireland was at least partially controlled directly by the British is at the very least interesting. It's hilarious that it appears that the person claimed to have covered it up is a professor in the "nationalist" university.

You then followed up your whining with: "WHO CARES? Let's face it, the only reason you people keep harping on about it it bcause it has the word "nigger" in it."

And I can only tell you that it's quite obvious that you care. A lot. Thanks for caring. And for sharing.

This is all really interesting stuff.

by kim philby - "kept you safer than you will know another 30 years"

Tue May 11, 2004 16:36

and it is very relevant to our present course in history and international relations.
These titbits are just a small example of the kind of inteference, not only thought natural but desirable in "the majority Irish State" in the beginning of the conflict in the other Irish State.
Many readers are too young to have personal memories of that period, and many more have passed through the universities of Ireland happily swotting under revisionist historians who played active roles in suppressing truth, and playing the agenda of the "BHS" in that period.

The "BHS" is the nickname given to MI5 by it's own workers/slaves. They're a mostly now a very disgruntled lot, and have failed the test on several occasion to do what they're supposed to do "protect the UK".
For several years now they've had to recruit in open newspapers for people to do the listening for them.
There are many reasons for their consistent failure,
1. they're disgruntled.
2. everyone else in the game hates them.
3. they are more than usually dedicated to dirty tricks.
4. they are very very and stupidly prejudiced.
5. no-one else will help them because they think they're wankers and for far too long were obsessed with Irish rebels or following around secretaries to the Warsaw Pact or getting their members sucked in a now closed public toilet in Wandsworth. This did nothing for their popularity, but did ensure big big bucks during the Thatching years. In the post-Thatch, their failure to catch the Brixton Nail bomber before he had attacked two other minority groups demostrated that even with all their toys, they really are quite useless. They couldn't even move all their files out of the old office to millbank before the squatters had gone in to do a rave. 3am that summer night, a few of them turn up,
:- "ah there's a lot of classified documents in that back room can we have them back please?"
:- "do you want to call the police?"
:- "eh, no that would be embarassing"
:- "do you want to take them now?"
:- "eh, don't have a vehicle permit."
:- "couldn't you get a taxi, or we could lend you the rig van"
:- "eh, no that could be embarassing"
:- "well what do you suggest then?"
:- "eh here's a mobile number, and fifty quid, if you keep everyone out of that room till 9am and give us a call, we'll have the permit and come back and move the stuff".
:-"sorted. TA. you want a line?"
:-"eh, no i'm on duty".

Now that was Lahndin, it was a very different story over in the wee six. More than ten people were injured, for being in the way of BHS people who were being chased by the RUC guns a blazing through Belfast on many seperate occasions. Why? Because they "didn't have a permit, and hadn't thought to tell anyone they were up to something".
IF they couldn't even bother to communicate with their own "side", then what do you reckon was the hope of treating the Irish with decency and honour?

The result was the creation of the British National Crime Database, which since the early years of Blair (the current PM of the UK) has increasingly taken over the investigative and monitoring functions of the Home Service.

The role of BHS/MI5 in Irish affairs is very resented. VERY resented.
RESENTED but very.

The monitoring of Irish Telecom traffic since the Thatch years is a blatent incursion of Irish sovreign territory and independence. And the various dirty and slander campaigns launched by them in the last 40 years will some day come out to be aired. And a sordid story of sowing division, and an attitude to their closest neighbours, which had more in common with Ian Smith's love of fellow Zimbabweans than normal bilateral co-operation on security matters.

If in the greater world, of geo-political co-operation and conflict resolution and so on, we are now very obviously seeing a new attitude to the lies, distortions and secrets of the past sixty years, (and we are), then it will only be a short time before the peoples of Ireland (north and south) naturally demand open-ness on the hanky panky from "the Wandsworth suck my dick through a hole in the cubicle" bunch. But for now know this:-

Not a single one ever had either the foresight to be a commie or the decency to defect.

And all the movies ever made about them give them negative press.

And know this kids,
far too much of the conflict which psychologically scarred you and your cousins and neighbours in Britain could have been avoided with a different set of prejudices at heart of the British Home Service.

So for the sake of your future and peace and reconciliation, ask these questions, often and well.

Fanning a fan of Gilchrist (who was a fan of "a little shooting")

Tue May 11, 2004 21:51

One two points to clarify.

I wrote above that Ronan Fanning was writing for the Irish Independent in 2000. In fact, he was writing for both the Sunday and the Irish Independent. He wrote the same thing for both publications on January 2 and 3, 2000 – was he paid on the double for his lack of effort? It is not as though he was short of news, after all he had the Gilchrist “white nigger” letter to report – oh wait, I forgot, it did not “merit” publication.

Speaking of Gilchrist, Fanning shows him the most abject deference. While the Irish are chaotic, the Brits are calm and measured. Fanning got quite excited about an Irish Cabinet minute which revealed that the Minister for Finance, Charles J Haughey, was to receive monies for the aid of relief to beleaguered nationalists in the North. He was less excited about the fact that the nationalists were burned or intimidated out of their homes in the biggest forced population movement since the Second World War.

Speaking again of Gilchrist, Fanning shows him further due deference on Feb 2, 2003, in defending Gilchrist’s honour against that of Major McDowell, after the British Army Major denied describing his editor in typical barrack-room imperialist language (phraseology no doubt pleasing to the ear of the superior of the two, in rank and station).

And Gilchrst again. This messenger for Her Majesty had been around the block more than once. Wherever there was trouble in some far (or near) flung part of the Empire (or what remained of it), Andrew was there. Take the massacre of over 1,000,000 in Indonesia in 1965. Nick Cohen, writing in the Observer (Sept 5 1999), had this to say

“In 1965 Michael Stewart, the Foreign Secretary in Harold Wilson's Labour Government, surveyed the mass graves of Indonesia with an air of satisfaction and expectation. Britain had facilitated the murders of about one million Indonesians in the coup that brought pro-Western General Suharto to power.

'A little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change,' Sir Andrew Gilchrist, our Ambassador in Jakarta, had told the Foreign Office earlier in the year. To ensure that one of the great massacres of the century could be executed without the killers being distracted by pressures from abroad, the British Army was pulled back from a confrontation with Indonesian forces in the disputed colonial territory of Borneo.

Stewart showed no remorse and the myth of British decency ensured that few have demanded that the politicians and diplomats involved in Cold War crime should be held to account since. 'It is only the economic chaos of Indonesia which prevents that country from offering great potential opportunities to British exporters,' he told Wilson. 'If there's going to be a deal with Indonesia... I think we ought to take an active part and try to secure a slice of the cake ourselves.'”

Commenting on British efforts at ‘regime change’ around the world during the course of the 20th Century (one which endures into this) Mark Curtis added the following in the Guardian (May 21 2003)”

“The files also reveal British support for "regime change" in Indonesia in 1965 - one of the worst bloodbaths of the 20th century. "I have never concealed from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change," the ambassador in Jakarta, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, secretly informed the Foreign Office. A million people were killed when the army exterminated the Indonesian Communist Party, PKI.

The Foreign Office stated that "we can hardly go wrong by tacitly backing the generals". London directly aided those engaged in slaughter by conducting covert operations to "blacken the PKI". Britain also delivered secret messages to the army promising not to use its military forces in the region to undermine "the attempts which they now seem to be making to deal with the PKI".

General Suharto removed Sukarno's nationalist government and instigated a brutal military regime, which ruled until 1998, with constant British support.”

This is the gent Professor Fanning was at pains to defend in the course of omitting to mention his own role in not reporting a news story.

And this is the same Professor Fanning who lead off one of his pieces with an explanation of his disagreement with “the left”. When you are right, you are right.

Not long after facilitating the butchers of Indonesia, the British were facilitating the Parachute Regiment in Derry, The Shankill Butchers in the backstreets of Belfast and the butchery on the streets of Dublin and Monaghan in 1974. "A little shooting" indeed.

who else

by james

Wed May 12, 2004 15:01

if one news paper owner took this line who else what about the buissness or political class whats my vote worth if this is the case

Quislings

by Major Conan Drumm

Wed May 12, 2004 18:20

conandrumm at hotmail dot com

We may safely conclude that lots of our erstwhile leaders - editors, publishers, politicians, academics, ranking members of the garda, and other eminences - were cosied up to by British 'diplomats' in Dublin, especially during the 60s and 70s.

Her Majesty's perfume has a heady aroma, you may be sure many members of the Irish establishment inhaled.

and here's another Mc Dowell up to no good!

by :-)

Wed May 12, 2004 19:43

this man keeps space records.
http://www.planet4589.org/space/
if anyone can find a Mc Dowell in the world today who isn't up to no good, they'll get a free guide to occupation link.
imagine that! a home for life.
aren't we generous on indymedia?
wouldn't get that on politics.ie or slugger o' toole.

Captain White:

Wed May 12, 2004 19:49

you write: "the biggest forced population movement since the Second World War."

And I assume that you mean within Ireland?

Meanwhile in Coleraine :-

by sub commandant orange - tous les jours, tous les jours, toujours a la liberté!

Wed May 12, 2004 21:46

They are obviously thrilled over in Slugger O'Toole land by our array of flags these last few days. We shown the reader and visitor to Ireland's most visited trans-national political and historical resource site, a number of flags.

c/f the illustrations @:-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64948
for the current Israeli flag, the Iraqi flag and the suggested hybrid for illegally occupied Iraq by the USA.
c/f the photo:-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64945&condense_comments=false#comment73837
of the still legal flag of Iraq which flwe within sight of the US Secretary or Health.
c/f the flag of Bush (2) George Dubya, Bush (3) Jeb and Bush George daddy (1)
which is a flag of certain associations, namely the closing days of the US Civil War (1861-1865)
c/f
http://www.us-civilwar.com/
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64978&condense_comments=false#comment74123

and the flag of Massacheusets
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64993&condense_comments=false#comment74151

and the students of Ireland who think it would be a great idea to fly the dirty white flag on the Liffey till the Corporation bail out for enough Ariel to wash them.

The PSNI (formerly RUC) [Formerly RIC] {formerly the Peelers Europe's first truncheoned and incorporated police force}
and local groups have set up the
Flag Forum!

Apparently, flags are a bit of a issue in the wee north. and the tricolour she is fine for me and my pals.

so i'm not complaining about that.
nor are we.

But flags are important, and loads of people don't want to visit middle brow Ulster, becuase:-
1. They don't like the flags.
2. They feel intimidated by the flags.
this is in a different way from like say U.S. Secretary of Health might have felt intimidated by spotting the flag of Iraq being flown out the window. No they feel really intimidated.
Now please note, more people don't want to visit middle brow Ulster, because of the racist attacks.
They've been talking about them for a while as well.
Oh, and one last thing, more people don't want to visit Middle brow Ulster, than will ever be put off visiting a working class bus stop street in Dublin by this afternoon's very stupid behaviour. Which won neandarthal Ulster no friends @ all.

Now the communities of middle brow Ulster wherever that might be, are going to talk about flags, and loads of people are going to help them keep that chat/moot as open to all sides as possible. If this means talking in different places under different flags about the same problem, then it will be all the more like a proper moot.

oh and some people don't have even a democratic mandate anymore, so this time we ought remember how many they talk and walk for.

check out the coleraine tourism site.
tells you about Coleraine, and points the cyber visitor in cyber silly but heck safer than the real world to the list of World Flags on the left hand bar.
http://www.matchc.com/travel/Coleraine.html
aren't they hopeful?
so was he
http://www.serve.com/pfc/index.html
so were lots of people.

scientologists go to:-
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=520581

Blue, not White

by Captain Blue

Wed May 12, 2004 22:11

Apologies,
Biggest forced population movement in Europe since the Second World War.

Gilchrist's other feat (three time loser)

Thu May 13, 2004 19:05

Sir Andrew Gilchrist was ambassador to Indonesia, Iceland and Ireland. His singular feat was in was in watching as each of his embassies was stormed by an 'angry mob'. In Indonesia and Iceland, they were burned to the ground, whereas in Ireland the burning took place in 1972, after his departure.

More on his manipulation of the British media in the lead up to the massacre in Indonesia later. Journalists were like putty his hands – Major McDowell was small fry in comparison, though I bet McDowell’s is the first time a newspaper proprietor went and actually asked the British government to run the paper.

Anyway, as far as embassies went, Gilchrist was three-time loser.

might be interesting

by im lazy

Thu May 13, 2004 20:18

could you make a summary of all this, including the ITs recent replies, it seems very interesting but im having trouble following it all, making the effort to concentrate and read through it all...

Re. Biggest forced population movement

by the pendantic bastard

Thu May 13, 2004 21:17

Biggest forced population movement in Europe since the Second World War.

Debatable .....

Many of the big forced population movements in Eastern Europe (e.g. Sudeten and other expelled Germans etc.) could be seen as having taken place *after* the Second World War ...... albeit in its immediate aftermath ........

So it may depend on the exact interpretation one attaches to "since the Second World War" .... i.e. whether this is to be reckoned from the official cessation of hostilities or after all the dust had settled as it were ....

But perhaps I am being a tad too pedantic towards the good Captain who has rendered such noble services ...

IT's recent replies?

Thu May 13, 2004 21:22

The IT's recent replies? Zero to none so far.
Captain White did get one message from the Irish Times, though. The message and reply went as follows:

From: "Peter Murtagh"
To: "Captain White"
Subject: Re: Is this a story?

Please cease communicating with me as I have no wish to receive this material.
Thank you
Peter Murtagh

From: "Captain White"
To: "Peter Murtagh"
Subject: Re: Is this a story?

Your wish is granted and your lack of curiosity noted.

Note to Indymedia readers:
For historical research: don't call Professor Ronan Fanning
For news stories: don't call journalist Peter Murtagh

Note to lazybones: copy the material into a word doc, print it off and read it at your leisure. It might help you sleep. Alternatively, get a job in the Irish Times.

Pedantic (2)

by Captain White (taking over late shift from from Blue)

Thu May 13, 2004 21:34

As the defeated Nazi's never actually signed a peace treaty with the Allies the Second World War is still on - there was only a ceasefire. After most of them were knocked off or had been given jobs in the US space programme and the West German civil service, this minor detail of history was forgotten - until now

Take your point - biggest forced population movement since the conclusion of hostilities in the Second World War (,,,,, which hasn't concluded.... of forget it). Anyway it never bothered Ronan Fanning, irrespective of what you want to compare it with.

Wait till you see the stuff Blue is preparing on Gilchrist in Jakarta (while waiting, take a look at "The year of Living Dangerously" with Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson, which looks at the year of the coup, 1965).

Re. Hostilities not concluded ...

by the pedantic bastard

Thu May 13, 2004 22:18

Good Lord Captain ! Can you be serious ..... I had always thought that the cads had capitulated unconditionally ...

Perhaps I should start dusting off my gas mask and polishing the buttons on my Local Defense Force uniform while waiting for the Indonesia file to arrive ........

Re. Prof. Fanning

Thu May 13, 2004 22:20

But one thing is clear and undisputed ... as your dispatches demonstrate .... history is too important to be left to the (court) historians .....

Don't call us, we'll call you

by Captain White

Thu May 13, 2004 22:42

Blue has been back on and has asked me to reinforce the message: do not under any circumstances contact Peter Murtagh in the Irish Times

Do not email him.

He is not interested in anything anyone may have to contribute on this subject. There is no point. He has made that quite clear. This is not a story.

He was young once.

Re. Peter Murtagh

Thu May 13, 2004 22:58

And may I add .... as I might well have done before (mea culpa) had I fully considered the facts of the case .... journalism is too important to be left to the journalists ........ (but of course the cunning old bounder Major McDowell knew that only too well .....)

Ignore them journalists

by media jam

Fri May 14, 2004 03:49

and all their silly ways.

Indymedia is not constrained by what they teach in their schools - radical, passionate, fearless tellings of the truth only here.

No gods, no masters, no laws.

And who was this senior non-journalist IT person - go on, you know you want to say.

the biggest post WW2 (europe 1939-1945) movement of people

by rien pour nous

Fri May 14, 2004 16:03

was between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland until
the collapse of former Yugoslavia.
It is still not known how many people left Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzogvina Macedonia Kosova all those little bits.
But it was in excess of three million.
http://croatia.indymedia.org
and guess what FG/FF/PD and Ltd Co,
all thatchers children why yes.
a great number of those,
our brothers and sisters
are now Irish.
whether you like it or not.
and Irish they will remain.
but relax they are the diasporia
and no many of them will be Irish
in your little island.
Coz you've got such restrictive ideas of what Irish is over there.
and loads more are swedish.
it says so
on their little papers.
I'm Irish Bok! Dobra Dan!
Dobra Jutro! Hvala!
to the fucking victory.
or it says
I'm swedish.
Bok! Dobra Dan!
dubrovnik. Mr Mc Dowell.
but u know.
why I like u (politics aside)

anyway, if Bertie and Ltd Co,. are to be useful, and they do appear to want to be useful, they should be doing many things on the home front.
The European Home Front.
& I've been too hard on them for the more difficult western ideological cultural front for a while. So Home Front pointers:-
and yes it's the sticky no man's land of the balkans, but it has to be finished.
And it will be finished by Europe.
And you know it has to be that way.

The main obstacles at the moment for bringing former Yugoslavia back into the fortress, and believe you me comrades it is better to be in the fortress than to be out,
is the lack of serious attempts to facilitate the return of those refugees.

Perhaps too many beurocrats, and you know that type of fecking eejit muppet still want to ask too many questions.

= Less of the questions, more of the repatriation.

If one thing is true, it is this, those with the tast of blood in recent European history showed themselves in the Balkans, but when we demonstrate a real and geniune concern for their suffering, they do seem to become a wee bit more rational.

http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/en/laenderinfos/laender/laender_ausgabe_html?type_id=10&land_id=88
http://global.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/pid-1002340883/section-books/code-w/

If you think this is irrelevant,
you really understand very little about
contemporary Europe.
or the size of the task of reconciliation, peace and rehabilitation facing Europe.

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Comments (26 of 26)