EU Commission President, Barroso has no right to come to Ireland to advocate a yes vote

by Margaret Sat Sep 19, 2009 21:46

Obviously the Fianna Fail Government and the Pro-Lisbon 2 Elite are so desperate that they have sanctioned /welcomed the visit of Barrosa .
Do not insult the Irish people any further ,go home Barrosa ,we have already voted NO.Mind your own business.

by Edward Horgan - Peace and Neutality Alliance Sat Sep 19, 2009 23:02

I agree fully with Patricia McKenna's comments above on the inappropriateness of Barroso's intervention on the YES side in the Lisbon debate. The Irish media are being censored at the highest levels to ensure that as far as possible only comments favourable to the YES side and to the likes of Barroso are published.
On Friday, Reporter Pat Flynn submitted the following report to the Irish Times, which was published on the Times website for a while, but failed to pass the editorial censors on the Sat Print issue, which had about two full pages almost exclusivly promoting the YES message. The following is the unprinted Pat Flynn airticle:

"Friday, September 18, 2009, 16:16Barroso Shannon meeting criticised
The President of the EU Commission should be reminded of the "ongoing abuses" of Irish neutrality at Shannon Airport when he holds a meeting there tomorrow with members of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs, the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (Pana) has said.
The Committee will meet Commission President José Manuel Barroso tomorrow morning in Shannon Airport where they will discuss the upcoming Lisbon Treaty referendum and consider his views on aspects of the treaty.
However, Pana criticised the Commission President for coming to Ireland seeking a Yes vote and has described as "disturbing" that he should chose to hold the meeting at the scene of "ongoing abuses" of Irish neutrality.
Pana's international secretary Dr Edward Horgan said: “In view of the fact that Ireland was specifically criticised for its unwillingness to co-operate with EU Parliament’s investigation in to the rendition for torture activities of the CIA, it is very appropriate that the EU Commission President should be reminded that this is the airport that was heavily involved in that rendition programme".
Dr Horgan said: "Despite Ireland’s clear implication, no satisfactory explanation has ever been offered by Ireland for its involvement in that programme which included the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.”
“However, it is also very inappropriate that the EU Commission President should be actively campaigning for the Lisbon Treaty when the Irish people already rejected it by a significant majority.
The fact that he is holding this meeting in Shannon Airport in particular is also disturbing since the airport has been, and continues to be, the scene of a gross abuse of Irish neutrality in spite of the so called legally binding guarantees on Irish neutrality promised by EU leaders,” Dr Horgan said.
The former Irish Army Commandant added: “And, no doubt, while Mr Barroso is holding his meeting in Shannon, some of the US troops who pass through Shannon every day on their way to Iraq and Afghanistan will be in the airport at the same time. What more evidence does he need that Irish neutrality continues to be compromised while there is nothing in the Lisbon Treaty to suggest that this will change even after another referendum?”
Mr Barroso will also meet students and staff at the University of Limerick tomorrow afternoon. The 53-year-old former Portuguese prime minister was re-elected to the position of European Commission President yesterday and was quick to signal that his first priority was to get the Lisbon Treaty ratified to end EU institutional debates and that he would travel to Ireland tomorrow as part of that effort."

On Sat 19 Sept, John Lannon and I held a protest at Shannon airport to greet Mr Barroso. We were surprised at the almost complete absence of any effective Garda security measures for this VIP visit, which was in marked contrast to the unduly expensive Garda and Irish army security precautions that are mounted whenever a US military aircraft or US VIPs are at the airport. It would seem that the CIA and US security based at Shannon are dictating to the Gardai the levels of security that is to be provided for US forces passing through Shannon. RTE reporter Adrian Lydon did interview me at the protest as Barroso was passing in his convoy with Willie O'Dea, and RTV TV news did carry some of this interview on the 6pm and 9pm news. However, the two main points I had made at this interview were first, that Barroso had witnessed the US troops at Shannon and therefore was aware that Irish neutrality no longer existed, and secondly, that Irish complicity at Shannon airport with the US torture rendition programme had never been fully investigated. These comments were edited out by the mandarins at a higher level.
It is becoming increasingly more difficult to expose the truth in relation to human rights abuses in Ireland.
Thankfully INDYMEDIA has not been censored yet.
We followed the Barroso bandwagon into Limerick and joined protests at the Limerick market and City hall.
At 2pm I was one of less 100 students and staff who were allowed to attend a meeting with Mr Barroso at the University of Limerick. This meeting was carefully engineered by the device of confining it to one of the smallest meeting rooms, when all the larger meeting rooms in the university including the Concert hall which holds over 1,000 were available.
Mr Barroso began by stating that he came to Ireland today to support the YES campaign in the Lisbon Treaty Referendum. As Patricia McKenna emphasises above it is completely inappropriate, and the electorate should remember this on 2 Oct. Barroso waffled in Euro-speak throughout, mentioning that the Lisbon Treaty had been altered to meet the reservations of the Irish people, which is a false statement. At the limited question time, it transpired that almost half the student questions came from non-Irish students. I did get a question in, reminding him that he had seen the US troops at Shannon that morning, and does this not make a mockery of the so-called legally binding guarantees on Irish neutrality? Also, is it appropriate that Mr Barroso as EU Commission President should threaten the Irish people that they might loose their commissioner if they voted NO? On the US troops and neutrality issue he said that this was a matter for the Irish Government and not the EU, but stated that there were several other neutral state in the EU in addition to neutral Ireland and they had no difficulty with the Lisbon Treaty. I interrupted him at this point and reminded him that Ireland was not a neutral state as it was in breach of the Hague Convention on Neutrality by allowing US troops to transit through Shannon on their way to war. On the issue of his threat to the Irish people he denied that this was a threat and he was simply pointing out the facts.
In response to questions from other attendees, he claimed the EU had no PLAN B in the event of another Irish NO vote. This is most likely false, and it is vital that the Irish electorate put this matter to the test, again and again and again.
He was asked an important question on the introduction of Genetically Modified foods to the EU, and his response was that this was not an EU matter but a matter for individual states, but then went on to state that as an politician he was not expert in such areas and said we had to trust the scientists in such matters. He raised the issue of trust again in response to issue of the so-called "legally binding guarantees". He said the 27 EU heads of Government had agreed to these guarantees and that they would come into force at some time in the future, and we need some trust in such matters. This prompted a question from, I think, a Spanish postgraduate, about the lack of democracy in the EU because only the Irish people were given an opportunity to vote on this matter. His answer was that the democratically governments of the other 26 states had ratified the Lisbon treaty on behalf of their peoples, and we have to trust our political leaders. Question time finished shortly after this before anyone had a chance to ask, what about the French and Dutch people's rejection of the EU Constitution, which was then rejected by the their respective "trust-worthy" political leaders who went on to ratify Lisbon against the expressed wished of their peoples.

This stuff is so incredible you couldn’t make it up!
For humanity's sake and for human rights vote NO

Barroso Jet at Shannon 19Sept09

OMNI Troop Carrier warplane at Shannon 19Sept09

by Cecil R Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:20

The article the Times did not print is poorly written and very partisan. Its not surprising it was not published. Its nothing to do with censorship. The Times has carried plenty of anti Lisbon articles from Coir and others. If there is bias its in the other direction in the Daily Mail and Village magazine and on the part of Vincent Brown in his TV show for example. Vincent is often putting his own eurosceptic view across.

by Edward Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:45

"Give credit where its due Ed
by Cecil R Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:20
The article the Times did not print is poorly written and very partisan. Its not surprising it was not published. Its nothing to do with censorship. The Times has carried plenty of anti Lisbon articles from Coir and others. If there is bias its in the other direction in the Daily Mail and Village magazine and on the part of Vincent Brown in his TV show for example. Vincent is often putting his own eurosceptic view across. "

My point Cecil, is that the key issue of Irish non-existent neutrality, and the related issue of one and a half million US troops transiting through Shannon airport is being censored out of the Lisbon Treaty debate. It is not just the Irish Times, but vitrually all media sources. The media are publising the most questionable aspects of the COIR campaign and ignoring the indisputable facts at Shannon airport.
You cannot have so-called legally binding guarantees for non-existent Irish neutality