Despite
it been a bitterly cold day over 300 hundred people
from the Short Strand area assembled. There were
leading members of SF, SDLP, WP and PIRA in the
crowd out side the local shops on the Mountpottinger
Road in a show of public support for the McCartney
family whose brother Robert was viciously murdered
4 weeks earlier, the mood of the people was one
of anger but with a determination that they wouldn't
be going to accept anything less than what the family
was calling for! JUSTICE…
The
McCartney family had called for public support to
highlight the fact that their brother's killers
were hiding behind a wall of silence imposed on
both the witnesses to the murder and the communities
of the Short Strand and the Markets areas of Belfast
using the name of Oglaigh na hEireann East Belfast
Brigade to intimidate and threaten people from even
speaking of the murder.
Shortly
after 14.00 hours the 20 members of the McCartney
family led by Robert's sisters walked the short
distance from the family home carrying placards
calling for justice for the slain brother to the
shops on the Mountpottinger Road. As they arrived
the people gathered to meet them lined both sides
of the road and applauded as the family passed.
With great dignity and their heads held high the
family made their way through a throng of people.
Each step they took was met with applause to encourage
the family to a makeshift platform from which they
addressed the crowd.
Firstly
Paula introduced a niece of Roberts who spoke of
the love she had for her dead uncle. Paula then
took the stand and delivered a passionate plea for
justice, calling on the republican movement to remember
the suffering the Short Strand endured due to over
70 years of British misrule and the many local people
who had lost their lives defending the district
from both British and Loyalist death squads; and
that by protecting her brother's killers the republican
movement was desecrating the memory of every republican
who had ever died for Ireland; that Robert's killers
were unworthy of the name republicans and that if
republicans didn't use every power available to
them to rid East Belfast of these killers then they
were sentencing the all the people of Ireland to
a life of fear and terror and forever criminalizing
the name of republicanism. Paula then introduced
Derry
journalist and broadcaster and one of the founder
members of the Civil Rights Movement Eamon McCann.
The
Derry socialist spoke of his abhorrence to learn
that the killers of Robert McCartney were in Derry
to march in solidarity calling for justice with
the family's of the 14 innocent Derry nationalist/republicans
murdered 33 years earlier to the day by the British
Paratroopers, and then to come back to Belfast and
carry out such a hideous crime. He said that the
killers of Robert McCartney were no better than
the Para's of Derry. The crowd applauded in support.
He asserted that in fact, they are worse, and if
the republican movement did not stop the cover up
of this killing they were acting like British state
and the British army who to this day are still trying
to cover up their dastardly deeds of January 30th
1972 in Derry. That the British officer in charge
on Sunday 30th January 1972 was now the commander
and chief of the British Army - was the Republican
movement to treat the killers of Robert McCartney
the same?
McCann
then spoke of the long and sometimes painful road
the families in Derry had to travel before they
got their inquiry into the murder of their loved
ones. He called on the republican movement not to
make the McCartney family make the same hurtful
journey for justice that the British had put the
families in Derry through and that if they did then
everything that the republican movement ever stood
for would be gone and lost forever.
Paula
then told the crowd the if Roberts killers were
true Republicans then it was their patriotic duty
to resign from the IRA and hand themselves in. And
that if they didn't then the people must stand together
as one and keep the pressure on them until they
do the decent thing.
She
then thanked the community for their ongoing support
and prayed that no other family will ever have to
go through what they are going through. As the meeting
dispersed Mr McCartney's uncle confronted Alex Maskey.
Gerard McKay said, "They butchered my nephew,
butchered him, and all I'm asking you is hand the
12 over, you've handed three over, hand the other
nine over."
Maskey
said that it was not in his power to do that.
