A chara, – There is a fracture running right down the spine of the conventional hunger strike story and it is this: Brendan (Bik) McFarlane, the commanding officer of the prisoners, has repeatedly said that there was no offer from the British to end the hunger strike before Joe McDonnell died, while Danny Morrison has consistently repudiated this by saying that he told Mr McFarlane the details of an offer when they met in the prison hospital on the morning of July 5th, 1981.
I have asserted that Mr Morrison did indeed inform Mr McFarlane of the offer. I also claimed that Mr McFarlane and I accepted it and that he informed the outside leadership of our acceptance.
Mr Morrison welcomed the recently released Freedom of Information documents. These said: “They [the Provisional IRA] did not regard it [the offer] as satisfactory and that they wanted a good deal more.”
If Mr McFarlane knew nothing of any offer, then on whose behalf did Mr Adams and Mr Morrison reject it? The Freedom of Information documents go on to state that Gerry Adams and Mr Morrison, after initially rejecting the offer, changed their minds when the British threatened to pull the plug on the process.
The documents say that the British threat “produced a very rapid reaction which suggested that it was not the content of the message which they had objected to but only the tone”.
Again, some questions arise:
1. Do Mr Morrison and Mr Adams agree with this interpretation?
2. If they do, why did they not inform the prison leadership, the hunger strikers, the families, and the Blanketmen who stood in queue waiting to go on the hunger strike, of this enormous volte-face?
3. How is it that the last six hunger strikers died if there was no fundamental disagreement between the IRA intermediaries and the British on what constituted a settlement?
4. If Mr Morrison and Mr Adams do not agree with the interpretation in the documents, then why did Mr Morrison “welcome” them in his April 7th statement?
5. Is Mr Adams ever going to break his silence on the hunger strike?
Despite what Mr Morrison says, these documents produce some very disturbing scenarios. Perhaps he should not have been so hasty about saying that they “corroborate” his account of the hunger strike. – Is mise,
RICHARD O’RAWE,
Glen Road,
Belfast.