Family leads backlash in SF heartland

SINN FÉIN was yesterday told the party would get back into government in Northern Ireland if the Republican movement gave up ‘arms and crime’.

The family of murdered Belfast man Robert McCartney received the support of hundreds of people at a rally in the Nationalist Short Strand area yesterday.

As a senior Sinn Féin representative was challenged by a relative of Mr McCartney for the party to do more to bring the killers to justice, the brutal murder and cover-up by members of the IRA was compared to the actions of the British paratroopers in Derry on Bloody Sunday.

Thanking the local community for its support, the victim’s sister Paula McCarthy again called for justice and truth and demanded that all those involved in her brother’s murder do the honourable and patriotic act by handing themselves in to the authorities.

After the IRA expelled three of its members over Mr McCartney’s murder, police arrested one man at the weekend when he turned up at a PSNI station. The man was accompanied by his solicitor and was later released without charge.

Also addressing the rally, veteran human rights activist Eamonn McCann said those who murdered Mr McCartney on January 30 had brought themselves down to the same level as the paratroopers on the bogside on Bloody Sunday.

Sinn Féin MLA Alex Maskey was angrily confronted at the rally by Mr McCartney’s uncle, Gerard McKay, as he demanded more action from the republican movement.

“They butchered my nephew, butchered him, and all I’m asking you to do is hand the 12 over, you’ve handed three over, hand the other nine over,” he said.

Speaking at an IRA commemoration in Armagh, Gerry Adams said he fully supports the McCartney family’s demands for the truth and that the murder had shocked hundreds of thousands of republicans throughout Ireland.

The Sinn Féin president also said that his party is “totally and absolutely committed to bringing the peace process to a successful conclusion”.

The Republican Movement received encouraging signals from the most unlikely of sources yesterday when Ian Paisley said he would still share power with Sinn Féin if there was “no arms, no crime, democracy only”.

The DUP leader said it had to be clear that the IRA were no longer involved in violence and criminality for devolved government to be restored.

Describing the prospect of direct rule in Northern Ireland for the next 10 years as “utter nonsense”, Rev Paisley accepted he could become the First Minister in a power-sharing government of unionists and nationalists in the near future.

“Yes, according to what you mean by power-sharing, power-sharing in the sense that everyone in it said: ‘No arms, no crime, democracy only’. Yes,” the 78-year-old said.

In an interview with RTÉ, Rev Paisley also cheerily spoke at length about his growing relationship with Bertie Ahern, including “some humourous episodes” with the Taoiseach. “He is a very able politician and I understand he is a very good constituency worker, which appeals to me.