Intelligencer

Sad News on Mo

Former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam has been moved to a hospice after a recurrence of the brain tumour which she fought off so bravely when she was Northern secretary.

Mowlam was a larger than life figure in that job, impossible to dislike, profane, outspoken and, above all, a perfect match for political opponents of whatever stripe that came out against her.

She also did a tremendous job, one that should have resulted in a major promotion. However, her popularity threatened to eclipse that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who promptly dispatched her to a meaningless cabinet post.

Now that she is so ill it is a time to remember just what a difference her personal style made in the North, making it possible to actually like a British secretary rather than have to put up with the pomposity of men like her predecessor, Sir Patrick Mayhew.

Colombia a U.S. Non-Story

Given the harsh headlines in Ireland and predictions that the U.S. government was pressing the Irish government hard, it is surprising how little attention the Colombia Three episode has actually gotten in America.

With President Bush happily chopping wood on his Texas ranch and Congress mostly already away on summer vacation, there was precious little coverage in any of the media of the return of the three men to Ireland.

Indeed, the only major coverage of Colombia in recent weeks was a New York Times front page article on the rampant political corruption and the role of right wing militias in executing innocent civilians.

There has been a flood of stories in Ireland predicting American wrath at the escape of the three men, but if the truth is told, the main reaction has been a predictable yawn. There was a deafening silence from the usual quarters on Capitol Hill about the case.

Indeed, when Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams was the focus of a question and answer section in The New York Times Magazine section last Sunday he was not even asked about the case — a clear indication that it has failed to register in any meaningful way over here.

Main Colombia Fallout

The main fallout for Sinn Fein due to the Colombia Three will be that several right wing members of Congress will re-examine their relationship with the party. However, given the good news of the week before about the IRA ceasefire, it is unlikely any will break off contact.

There is no question that representatives like Peter King will be deeply resentful of what the Colombia Three got up to, but it is unlikely that he will come right out and attack Sinn Fein on the case. King has wavered quite a bit in recent times while waiting for the IRA statement, but once it came he was quickly back in the fold.

The main opponent of Sinn Fein on this issue has been John Mackey, an influential staff member of the International Relations Committee in the House of Representatives. Mackey, a former Sinn Fein supporter, has been briefing against the party again these days, but with little apparent success.

Sinn Fein Ahead of the Posse

Once again Sinn Fein appears to be one step ahead of the posse.

If the IRA had not made their announcement, the latest episode of the Colombia Three saga might have resulted in the party being banned again from the U.S. However, the sequence of events was in the party’s favour.

That seemed to be no coincidence. Indeed, one congressman said privately that he believed the Colombia Three return was deliberately engineered to happen before big acts of decommissioning took all the media attention away from the case over the next two weeks.

“It was a perfect time to deal with the issue and to put it behind them,” he said.

That it was the right time to put the matter behind them would also be the opinion of a number of Irish American leaders, none of whom expect the three to ever face trial in Colombia.

“The worst thing the Irish government could do is to send them back to Colombia. I think they should be left alone to get on with their lives. I think the Irish government should follow our tradition. We should shelter the fugitives,” said Frank Durkan, Manhattan civil rights lawyer and Irish American leader.

The Irish American Unity Conference, in an equally tough statement, said that sending the men back would be an horrific injustice given the reality of the legal system in Colombia.

There are other reasons why extradition seems very unlikely. Just a few weeks ago an Irish court refused to extradite an alleged paedophile priest in part because the sheriff in Arizona where the offence allegedly happened is in the habit of dressing up his prisoners in pink underwear in order to humiliate them.

That seems pretty harmless in comparison to what has happened in the jails of Colombia to hundreds of prisoners who are tortured, murdered and otherwise made to disappear, according to a New York Times article.

Whatever the men were doing there — and no one in the U.S. believes they were up to any good — the broader issue of whether they ever got a fair trial in Colombia seems to dominate.