Madam, - Martin McGuinness (July 8th) says that Fintan O'Toole's assertion (Opinion, June 28th) that he (Mr McGuinness) was the leader of the Provisional IRA in Derry in November 1973 is inaccurate.
It is noteworthy, however, that he does not contest Mr O'Toole's later assertion that it is almost inconceivable that Mr McGuinness did not know that the IRA's total denial of its responsibility for the killing of 14-year-old Kathleen Feeney on November 14th, 1973 and the laying of responsibility on the British Army was not merely inaccurate but a deliberate lie to the family and the people of Derry.
Mr McGuinness's refusal to address the substantive issues raised by Fintan O'Toole's excellent article is disappointing if not totally unexpected. The main thrust of the article is that whereas Sinn Féin demands full accountability for the victims of the British state and loyalist paramilitaries, it has difficulty with being fully accountable itself.
Whether or not Martin McGuiness was the leader of the IRA in Derry at the time of the killing of Kathleen Feeney is interesting but not vitally important. The nub of the issue is whether Mr McGuinness knew the truth of the matter and for 32 years remained silent while calling regularly for openness, honesty and accountability on the part of others and insisting there should be no cover up of collusion between the British state and loyalist paramilitaries.
On the question of his leadership of the IRA in Derry in 1973 or elsewhere at any other time, surely a simple statement giving dates and positions held, if any, within the IRA would clear up the matter quite easily. As Gerry Kelly, justice spokesman for Sinn Féin, states so eloquently in rightly demanding public inquiries into at least nine murders, including those of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, "once the wall of silence has been knocked down, only true accountability will ensure that wall can never be rebuilt".
I presume Martin McGuinness agrees with his colleague and that this call for the demolition of the wall of silence applies to Sinn Féin, loyalist paramilitaries, the British and Irish governments and the Provisional IRA. Let there be no "hierarchy of victims"; as Mr McGuinness states, "republicans support the achieving of truth and justice for all those seeking it, without exception". An end, therefore, to the silence, the lies and the unmarked graves. - Yours, etc,
DECLAN MORIARTY, Wheatfield Close, Clondalkin, Dublin 22.
Madam, - Martin McGuinness claims (July 8th) that republicans are trying to redress past wrongs and "support the achieving of truth and justice for all seeking it, without exception". This blatantly untrue statement is yet another example of the warped logic and despicable hypocrisy of Mr McGuinness and Sinn Féin/IRA.
Does he seriously expect people to believe that the families of the Protestant workers gunned down in cold blood by the IRA at Kingsmills will ever receive justice? When will justice be done in the case of Tom Oliver, the Co Louth farmer mercilessly tortured and shot to death by the IRA? Or dare I remind Mr McGuinness of the no-warning IRA bomb in the small village of Claudy, which left five innocent people dead?
Mr McGuinness and his IRA friends speak of the past Troubles in terms of "war". In that case it is about time they put the phrase "war crimes" in their vocabulary. Then, if they ever dare confront and acknowledge what they have done in the past to so many innocent people, some kind of progress may begin to be made in the whole sordid and bleak saga that is Northern Ireland. Meanwhile Sinn Féin/IRA continues its very successful effort to sanitise the recent past and dupe a lot of ill-informed, ignorant idiots into voting for a party with its own private, thuggish army. - Yours, etc,
ANTHONY HARTNETT, Chestnut Grove, Bishopstown, Cork.