[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 41 (Tuesday, March 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S2782]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  THE ASSASSINATION OF ROSEMARY NELSON

   Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. 
And in a few days, we will celebrate the first anniversary of the Good 
Friday peace accord, which our esteemed former colleague, George 
Mitchell, negotiated, and which promises to resolve and heal one of the 
oldest conflicts in Europe: Northern Ireland. Now comes the distressing 
news that a car bomb has taken the life of Rosemary Nelson, a prominent 
Roman Catholic human rights lawyer. A group known as the ``Protestant 
Red Hand Defenders,'' outlawed earlier this month for bomb and grenade 
attacks, has claimed responsibility for this heinous and cowardly act.
  These dissidents, and others like them--both Protestant and Roman 
Catholic--are determined to prevent peace. They claim they act on 
religious principles but, in fact, they worship only violence. 
Fortunately, they are the minority. Northern Ireland is on the path to 
peace.
  Rosemary Nelson was 40. She was married and had three children. She 
was murdered because she represented nationalists in high profile 
cases, including the Roman Catholic residents of the Garvaghy Road area 
in Portadown who asked, simply, that Protestant unionists pick some 
other place to march.
  Last September, Ms. Nelson testified before the House International 
Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. 
She spoke about the harassment and intimidation of defense lawyers who 
represent Republicans and nationalists, and she accused the Royal 
Ulster Constabulary (RUC) of threatening her and her family.
  These are serious charges. Unfortunately, she is not alone. Last 
year, I met with Sean McPhilemy, author of The Committee: Political 
Assassination in Northern Ireland. The book, based on a documentary 
shown on British television in 1991, charges that current and former 
members of the RUC have colluded with Loyalist terrorists to murder 
Irish Republicans and nationalists. McPhilemy struck me as an earnest, 
principled, and exceedingly careful journalist--married to a 
Protestant, by the way.
  Tomorrow, Senators Dodd, Kennedy, Mack, and I, and our House 
colleagues--Speaker of the House Hastert, Minority Leader Gephardt, and 
Congressman Walsh--will release our annual ``Friends of Ireland 
Executive Committee St. Patrick's Day Statement.'' In that statement, 
we will express our concern about protection for lawyers active on 
human rights cases, and bring to attention a report on the subject by 
the Special Rapporteur of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
  Attacks on the judiciary--whether on judges, lawyers, officers of the 
courts, or witnesses--are intolerable and represent, perhaps, the 
gravest threat to the fragile peace which now prevails, tenuously, over 
Northern Ireland. There can be no permanent peace in Northern Ireland 
if these charges regarding the RUC are true. RUC complicity in 
political assassinations would be state-sponsored terrorism.
  Authorities in Northern Ireland need to catch and prosecute Rosemary 
Nelson's murderers, and they need to ensure that members of the RUC did 
not aid and abet these cowards. The RUC needs to go under a microscope. 
If there are problems, a new law enforcement authority, which has the 
unquestioned support of nationalists and unionists, needs to be 
established.
  Rosemary Nelson saw the seeds of peace planted in Northern Ireland. I 
hope and pray that her three children will live to see those seeds 
blossom into something permanent and beautiful.

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