Thursday, May 01, 2014
On Wednesday night, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams was detained by the Police Service of Northern Ireland in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville in Belfast in 1972. The case is one of the most troubling to emerge from that dark corner of Ireland over the past four decades, one that saw the widow snatched away from her 10 children, tortured and questioned by the Provisional Irish Republic Army for being an informer to police and British military authorities before she was shot in the back of the head and buried in a desolate beach in the Republic of Ireland.
The are some 20 such cases of ‘The Disappeared’ — victims of the sectarian and political strife that saw 3,500 deaths during the so-called Troubles. But what is most disturbing about these cases is that the leadership of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) — Sinn Fein is its political wing — has kept silent on the issue. According to evidence gathered by the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Adams, who was the commander of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA at the time, gave the order for McConville’s kidnapping and murder. In the past 20 years, Adams and Sinn Fein have tried to polish their tarnished history, but they need to be held accountable for horrific crimes committed for the cause of Irish unity. Facts of history do not change beneath whatever sheen is applied.
Gulf News
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