Sinn Fein threaten veto of victims definition bill

[pete2]

Sinn Fein has warned that it will try to veto any attempt to prevent dead IRA men from being defined as victims.

The party accused the DUP of abandoning inclusivity and championing a hierarchy of victims after it announced plans to change the legal definition.
The DUP wants to ensure people like Shankill fish shop bomber Thomas Begley, who died in the blast, can't be placed on the same level as the innocent.

Sinn Fein victims' spokesman Francie Molloy said: "The DUP need to get real about the victims issue. For too long they have sought to play politics with it and attempt to elevate one victim over another. That approach has failed and Sinn Fein will robustly block any attempt to go back down that road."

..
DUP European candidate Diane Dodds earlier said the DUP was drafting a changed bill. "I hope that our legislation will attract cross-party support at Stormont," she said. "Murderers like Thomas Begley, the Shankill bomber, cannot be put on the same level as the innocent people he cut down in cold blood."

UTV News - Sinn Fein to veto victims definition bill

[Skin]

UTV News - Sinn Fein to veto victims definition bill

So the DUP have taken on the role of GOD , they have become the final judicators.

[markeys]

So the DUP have taken on the role of GOD , they have become the final judicators.

Yes, lets concentrate on that. Lets forget that the IRA wen on a rampant murder campaign against the wishes of the people.

[Skin]

Yes, lets concentrate on that. Lets forget that the IRA wen on a rampant murder campaign against the wishes of the people.

Why should we forget about the IRA campaign?

[turdsl]

Sinn Fein soon to be largest party in the North, great future,

[pete2]

Why should we forget about the IRA campaign?

He was being sarcastic.

turdsl why does SF want IRA men to be labeled 'victims'? Is there money attached to this?

[turdsl]

No money,just equal respect.if there is a hierarchy of victims one worse than the other it would go on forever.

[Seánod]

"Sinn Fein victims' spokesman Francie Molloy said: "The DUP need to get real about the victims issue. For too long they have sought to play politics with it and attempt to elevate one victim over another. That approach has failed and Sinn Fein will robustly block any attempt to go back down that road.""

I wonder will this be the same way they robustly got the transfer of policing and justice, robustly got the Irish Language Act, robustly got representation in the Dáil, robustly opposed 'decommissioning'... could we really have any faith in their ability to robustly oppose anything any more? Apart from robustly supporting the PSNI in their hour of need...

Sinn Féin have sunk in a swamp of paperwork in Stormont.

[turdsl]

IF the people keep robustly voting for them and increasing their seats that's a job well done, the trust of the people that's what count.

[groundhog day]

this just highlights that psf took republicans into an agreement, not on the basis of equality, but on the basis that they were wrong, and that partition and the force that backed it up was right. This sentiment runs throughout the letter and the implementation of the GFA.

This is the strategy that has been present from the start of the "peace process". Republicans had to call a ceasefire before the government would talk to them, they had to renounce violence when the state could use as much violence as it saw fit, they had to give up their guns, while the british army and the paramilitary ruc kept theirs, they had to accept that ireland would never be a sovereign state until the minority in the north east accepted it. At every turn the moralism of the state prevailed and the moralism of republicanism was denied.

We saw firstly De Chastelain and then Alderdice head Commissions that announced to the public each time republicans had stopped their wrongdoing and had destroyed a bit of their evil arsenal. And when republicans had finally admitted that they had been wrong for so long, they were not allowed to progress until they learnt what was right. The barely reformed RUC was right, Orange marches were right. Those who stood up to to the police were traitors. Now that the process is complete, they can have justice and policing devolved, but of course, they cannot take the ministry itself.

If you negotiate on your knees, then what do you expect? Republicans will always be second class citizens in a partitioned orange state. You will not get an Ireland of equals until you negotiate as equals. It does not matter that you call yourself the joint first minister, if every measure that you seek to achieve requires permission either from the unionist minority or from your british masters.

This is the fundamental flaw in PSF strategy. We should not be surprised to see that the DUP do not treat republicans as equals when the "leadership" of republicanism itself undermines the legitimacy of its own ideology at every turn.