From Unity, 5 March 2005

Murder in Belfast

By Lynda Walker

Over the past four weeks the family of Robert McCartney have received support from many people, both within and outside their community. Robert, a 33-year-old father of two young children, leaves behind his partner, Bridgeen, who he was shortly to marry. Robert and his friend Brendan Devine, who survived, were attacked inside Magennis’s bar and left outside to die. No-one in the pub seems to know what happened, and no witnesses have come forward. In fact closed-circuit televsion footage that could have given some clues to the incident has also been removed, and, according to the sisters of Robert McCartney, the bar was given a clean-up operation. “They just closed the doors and said, Nobody saw anything.”
     In a town that has seen many bloody confrontations, this one took place in a venue where Robert and his friend would have felt safe. The IRA is being blamed for the killing, and last Friday they expelled three of their members, giving some substance to the belief. Though it is unlikely that the IRA would have sanctioned such a killing, it does seem very likely that they know who the people responsible are.
     The latest action of the family was on Sunday, when they held a rally in the Short Strand area of Belfast, a nationalist-republican area where they live. At this rally Robert’s young niece read out a family statement that spoke about Robert and what he meant to them. One of his five sisters also spoke about the injustice that had occurred. She pointed to the fact that here in this community people stuck together. “People are sickened by Robert’s murder. People in the Short Strand have endured RUC brutality and loyalist aggression. Many IRA volunteers have gone to jail and died over the years. These qualities have been lacking in the men who stabbed Robert. They are not the kind of people the Short Strand regard as one of their own”.
     The family asked the civil rights campaigner Éamon McCann to speak. He told the rally that those responsible had “carried out a Bloody Sunday in Belfast.” Noting that some of those in the pub had just come from the Bloody Sunday demonstration in Derry, he spoke at length about how they would not be wanted if they remained part of the cover-up campaign. “Give up the perpetrators. Give justice to the family of Robert McCartney.” He said that we haven’t campaigned for civil rights for this kind of injustice.
     So far the family have received widespread support throughout Ireland, and within the close-knit community of Short Strand they were clapped and cheered on Sunday as they walked through the area with placards calling for justice. Gerry Adams and other Sinn Féin representatives have called on people to give evidence to solicitors or to the McCartney family. Several Sinn Féin members were at the rally, including Alex Maskey, but their support for the family will be more welcome if they can help to put pressure on those responsible for the murder and the cover-up to come forward.
     There is no doubt that some will take this opportunity to attack Sinn Féin, but the family has ridiculed the idea that they are out to damage Sinn Féin politically. “What have we got to gain from damaging Sinn Féin, especially when we voted for them?” asked Paula McCartney. “Robert’s murderers were the ones who damaged Sinn Féin, so let’s keep the blame where the blame belongs.”
     No doubt this is an extremely difficult time for the McCartney family. Not only have they to face the situation where people who they politically supported are now seen as their enemy but they have no other option but to work with the PSNI in order to bring Robert’s murderers to justice—a justice that any community would want.

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