Victims of 'punishment' beatings only 14 years old: IRA knows governments will ignore them.

http://www.unison.ie/stories.php3?ca=9&si=827121&issue_id=8033 ^ | September 15th 2002 | JIM CUSACK

[aculeus]

THEY gather at the corner of Castle Street and King Street, at the bottom of the Falls Road in Belfast almost every day. Two or three or four youths in wheelchairs, usually a couple on crutches and their friends, most of them bearing scars of vicious beatings and gunshot wounds. The daily gathering at the corner of the run-down street is one of the most pathetic sights in the city. They are victims of IRA punishment beatings and shootings. All were tried, convicted and sentenced by the backroom courts that sometimes take place in local Sinn Fein offices.

The youths, known locally as 'hoods', display their injuries with a grim defiance. They are like a dishevelled, handicapped brotherhood saying: "Look at us. Look at what the Provos did. We don't care."

The atrocities are not confined to the republican side. On September 2 in the Woodvale area, the UFF leader, Johnny Adair, had his son, Jonathan, shot in the legs on August 10 near his home in the lower Shankill Road.

There are now a sizeable number of young men in Belfast and Derry, in both loyalist and republican areas, who will never walk again or have lost the use of arms and hands as a result of 'punishment' beatings and shootings.

The number of punishment attacks actually rose significantly after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in Easter 1998, despite the fact that it specifically mentioned that such violence should stop.

A report compiled by Queen's University, published in May, showed that the number of shootings where the victims were aged 13 to 19 went up from 12 in 1998 to 64 in 2001.

At the same time, punishment beatings increased from 29 to 55. The IRA carried out more beatings than loyalists. The report also showed that the age profile of punishment shooting and beating victims was becoming younger and led to the report being dubbed They shoot children, don't they. Several shooting victims last year were aged only 14.

There are some recent indications that the IRA has moved away from punishment shootings in favour of vicious beatings like that meted out to the 20-year-old south Armagh man last weekend. But people living in nationalist areas say the effect is the same.

The attack in south Armagh is certainly not in isolation. Another young man from Armagh, who incurred the wrath of the local Provisional IRA, also received a vicious beating just over two weeks ago.

Republican sources said yesterday the beatings continue to be the way the IRA - or sections of it - imposes its control in areas. Anyone who crosses the IRA as an organisation or who has a serious dispute with any IRA member is at risk of a beating.

Orthopedic specialists in the North's hospitals say it would be actually kinder to the victims if they were shot. Many of the beatings are administered with such ferocity, using weapons like iron bars and baseball bats, that bones are irreparably shattered. The injuries are catastrophic and can lead to amputations.

Doctors also have to contend with victims who have had multiple gunshot or beating injuries to legs or arms or both and they are unable to save or repair the most badly damaged limbs.

One youth recently reached the appalling record of having received 18 separate gunshot wounds because of a succession of punishments.

The attacks were supposed to stop after the Good Friday Agreement. There has been a noticeable slowdown in IRA beatings and shootings in some areas in recent months, sources in the Border area and west Belfast said yesterday. But it is believed that this slowdown may be due in part to the fact that punishment beatings have become a sensitive political issue for Sinn Fein.

Senior garda sources said yesterday that there has been a noticeable decline in punishment beatings and vigilant activity associated with the IRA since this year's general election. Gardai said this decline might have resulted from the embarrassing controversy for Sinn Fein over IRA vigilantism in Kerry which led to several Sinn Fein members, including its successful candidate Martin Ferris, being arrested.

Gardai in north and west Dublin other areas where IRA punishments were taking place in the Republic say the frequency of punishment attacks has declined since the election.

Some gardai believe there is a relation between IRA punishment violence and elections as attacks on persistent criminals or vandals are popular in some working-class areas. Sinn Fein vehemently denies there is any such correlation.

The recent reduction in scale of Provisional IRA punishment attacks in the North may be associated with the organisation's reaction to the proposed independent ceasefire auditor.

Sinn Fein last month called for the establishment of an independent auditor to deal with communal violence. But, in an about-turn, the party last week objected to a British government proposal which would mean that the independent ceasefire monitor would also be looking at punishment attacks.

The continuation of IRA punishment beatings in the North has led to derisory comment from Unionists about Sinn Fein Education Minister Martin McGuinness's plans to abolish corporal punishment in schools.

Sources in the Border area between Dundalk and Newry said no matter what happened in other areas it was unlikely that the south Armagh IRA will pay any attention to calls to halt beatings or shootings. Anyone who crosses the south Armagh IRA will be in serious danger.

Its most outspoken critic, the ex-IRA member and author, Eamon Collins was beaten to death by a local IRA gang near his home in Newry in January 1999.

[aculeus]

Barbarians.

[Happygal]

Barbarians on both sides aculeus.

Adair ordered that his own son get knee-capped. That's the mindset.

[js1138]

I don't believe any of this. Bill Clinton says there is peace in Ireland.

[Happygal]

Bill Clinton says there is peace in Ireland.

Another of the great urban myths! :-)

[Ipse Dixit]

Where's Mary Robinson when you really need her?

[Mark was here]

Am I reading this right, they are beating their own members on each side, not their opponents?

Just internal gang warfare?

There is no call for revenge, just some government workers trying to figure it out?

Strange.

[Brush_Your_Teeth]

You know some of these punks deserved to get beaten. A lot of them are not activists who are pissed at the IRA many are drug dealers. This is how you deal with those who would addict your young people when a nation has no trustworthy court system. Install a court that will work to root out these problems and the beatings will stop.

[aculeus]

Yes, both sides. Here's a column from the same source.


We indulge Sinn Fein's two-faced approach to democracy

Sunday September 15th 2002

Punishment beatings are still acts of terrorism, says Alan Ruddock


EARLY last Friday morning, Raymond Kelly was dragged from his car by eight or nine masked men, taken across the border into south Armagh and beaten so savagely that he almost lost his life. His family, who live in the republican heartland of Crossmaglen, know that his attackers were members of the Provisional IRA. Kelly, just 20 years old and a few weeks into a new job as a civil engineer in Drogheda, underwent four operations last week as surgeons tried to save his legs and his life.


It is an horrific story, yet one so commonplace in Northern Ireland that it barely registers. Punishment beatings are a weekly, even daily, occurrence on both sides of the sectarian divide. They are the brutal evidence that the terrorists have tightened their grip on their communities and are immune to police scrutiny. The beatings are acts of terrorism that carry no sanction because they are inflicted on members of the terrorists' own community.


In the era of the peace process, they are not even called terrorists any more. Paramilitary is the politically-correct turn of phrase to describe anyone from a drug-runner to a murderer to a beater of young men. But it is terrorism, pure and simple, and it is carried out by the same organisation that lectures us daily on the failings of the new police service in Northern Ireland.


The men who tied Raymond Kelly's hands and beat him with iron bars and nail-encrusted sticks are all members of an organisation that sits in our Dail, is a member of the government of Northern Ireland and which claims moral superiority over the forces of law and order on this island. Everyone who voted for Sinn Fein in the last general election, everyone who helped elect men like Martin Ferris and Arthur Morgan to the Dail, voted for Raymond Kelly's beating and the beating of scores of young men like him.


Each vote was a personal endorsement of Sinn Fein's violence, its hypocrisy and its contempt for the institutions of democracy. No one voted in ignorance of Sinn Fein's past, or present: they sniffed the violence, and they liked the smell.


So the next time you hear Mitchell McLaughlin, or Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness sound off piously about policing standards in Northern Ireland, remember that their organisation's idea of solid police work is a brutal beating. But remember too that many people on this island are prepared to tolerate, even celebrate, Sinn Fein's rule of law. They are not alone, of course. Loyalist terrorists are even more likely to beat their own: but Loyalist terrorists do not sit in government. We indulge Sinn Fein's two-faced approach to democracy and fool ourselves that our indulgence will wean it away from brutality. Raymond Kelly is yet another tragic symbol of our shame.

[aculeus]

You know some of these punks deserved to get beaten.

Read the details in #8 and think more clearly of what you are saying.

[aculeus]

Am I reading this right, they are beating their own members on each side, not their opponents?

Yes, they are doing this to members of their own communities. It's been going on for years. A teenager who steals a car will be beaten or kneecapped or given a "six pack" shot in the knees, elbows and ankles. Maimed for life for a youthful mistake.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

"IRA punishment violence and elections as attacks on persistent criminals or vandals are popular in some working-class areas."

Seems to be fairly effective- wonder if it would work over here (say on the 16 year old who just raped and murdered his 14-year old neighbor in Anchorage??).

[Mark was here]

A teenager who steals a car will be beaten or kneecapped or given a "six pack" shot in the knees, elbows and ankles. Maimed for life for a youthful mistake.

In Pontiac Mi, Philip Gibson, a child molester was taught a lesson with a hot spatula.

The court sentenced the child molester to 8 to 40 years. So Gibson can get out in 8 years. He molested two boys, so that works out to 4 years a boy.

The signal the court in Pontiac sends is clear - Molest a child get 4 years.

It is no wonder people are not trustworthy of the courts.

William Hatten was sentenced to 1 year in jail and 5 years probation. 6 years of court supervision. Hatten said he was sorry and felt he was doing the right thing when he helped teach the child molester a lesson.

William Hatten is not a terrorist.

Car thieves in Ireland are getting beat up?

Who is the terrorist? The car thief or someone who beats up a car thief or Judges who lets car thieves go, or judges who gives child molesters 4 year terms?

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

You don't think the IRA are balls-deep in the drugs trade?

[smokegenerator]

That is what we need here in the US, that form of justice will bring down the crime rate and drug pilfering amongst the career criminal/s.

[smokegenerator]

youthful mistake they write? what is next? carjacking while their is a baby in the backseat and he/they abandon the baby someplace unsafe? another youthful mistake attributed to a slap in the wrist punishment? You think he would do that if he was given the same IRA treatment, or his friend saw what happened to him for committing that crime? He saw what would happen, I am sure he would reconsider his decision making and knew he would be held accountable for his actions.

[aculeus]

That is what we need here in the US, that form of justice will bring down the crime rate and drug pilfering amongst the career criminal.

Yeah right, let's copy the Saudi Arabians too.

[smokegenerator]

Evidently you agree with the current criminal justice system- let em go if they say I am sorry and out of prison within five years upon conviction of murder? I see your point.

[Castlebar]

Yes, they are doing this to members of their own communities. It's been going on for years. A teenager who steals a car will be beaten......

Of course it ghas been going on for years. The RUC never made any pretense about enforcing municipal laws in the Nationalist community; the RUC never existed for any other purpose than to make war on the people of Ireland. Thus, the IRA had to perform this obvious reponsibility, and NO, the IRA, whatever other warts it has, has never touched, sanctioned or permitted the drug trade.

Aculeus, I uderstand your frustration here. The Orange community is slowly realizing that the IRA's scrupulous adherence to the cease fire is making it extremely unlikely that the grandchildren of today's Orange leaders will see the Union Jack fly anywhere in Ireland. This panics some of the more thick-sculled Paisleyite cowards, but most of the Orange community is wising up, and coming to accept reality.

Deal with it.

[biffalobull]

There are now a sizeable number of young men in Belfast and Derry, in both loyalist and republican areas, who will never walk again or have lost the use of arms and hands as a result of 'punishment' beatings and shootings.

Sounds to me like both GB and Ireland are harbouring terrorists. What do we do about that?.

[aculeus]

Evidently you agree with the current criminal justice system- let em go if they say I am sorry and out of prison within five years upon conviction of murder?

Yeah, right. I don't like it when thugs maim people for life for having committed non-violent crimes therefore I think murders should be let off easy.

(I hope you don't depend on logic to earn a living.)