18.7.04
EX-GUNRUNNER FIGHTS BAN ON REBEL SINN FEIN
Henry McDonald
Sunday July 18, 2004
The Observer
George Harrison's only regret in life is that he didn't smuggle more guns from the United States to armed republicans in Ireland.
At 89, the veteran gunrunner should be putting his feet up in his Brooklyn flat rather than championing the dissident republican cause across the Atlantic.
He has even vowed to defy the new State Department ban on Republican Sinn Fein in the US, which bans the anti-peace process party from raising funds in America.
Last week RSF became the only Irish party to be placed on the State Department's foreign terrorist list since George Bush began his war on terror. 'I'm going to increase the donations I give to Republican Sinn Fein every month from now on,' said Harrison from his Brooklyn home.
'Every month I buy a large amount of RSF's newspaper Saoirse and then distribute them around New York. I'm going to ask the party to send more papers and get more money over to them. If the Bush administration wants to jail me, I'm ready.'
Harrison was the man who armed the Provisional IRA with Armalites and M60 machine guns in the 1970s and went to jail in 1981 after being snared in an FBI 'sting' operation. The former IRA man switched his allegiance five years later to Continuity IRA and RSF because Sinn Fein recognised the Irish parliament.
Asked, despite the new State Department ban, if he would send guns to dissident republicans today, Harrison replied: 'Absolutely. If I could get my hands on weapons I would send them to Ireland.'
Harrison said he didn't believe that the new ban on RSF fundraising would stop dissident republican supporters sending money back to Ireland: 'If they want to lock me up, so be it, but I will continue to support RSF regardless of what Bush and his cohorts try to do.'
Between 1971 until his arrest 10 years later, Harrison was a prized asset for the Provisional IRA in the US. Leading republicans, including Martin McGuinness, stayed at his home in Brooklyn. From the mid-1970s, Harrison's arms network was dispatching 200 to 300 weapons a year to the Provos. The gunrunning operation ended in 1981, after CIA agent George de Meo, an arms smuggler, betrayed Harrison to the FBI. Five years later, Harrison denounced Gerry Adams and McGuinness for lifting Sinn Fein's ban on entering the Dail and backed Ruairi O'Bradaigh's breakaway Republican Sinn Fein.
The State Department's new ban faced its first challenge last night, after a New York radio station interviewed O'Bradaigh, who is banned from entering the US. John McDonagh, the Radio Free Eireann presenter who interviewed O'Bradaigh, described the ban as 'totally absurd'.
McDonagh said: 'RSF is a legally registered political party not only in Ireland but the occupied Six Counties. Even in Britain, RSF organises openly and legally and raises finance in cities like London and Glasgow.'
He said that the State Department ban would make it impossible even for RSF members to visit the US on holiday, adding that RSF's support group, the Irish Freedom Committee, would host a fundraising concert later this year for CIRA prisoners' families. The guest speaker, McDonagh said, would be Ruairi O'Bradaigh, who will speak to supporters in America from a live television feed in Ireland.
The State Department says on its website that RSF is an 'alias' for Continuity IRA and labels the party as a foreign terrorist organisation under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The ban prohibits anyone under US jurisdiction from funding the party or giving it any material support.
Henry McDonald
Sunday July 18, 2004
The Observer
George Harrison's only regret in life is that he didn't smuggle more guns from the United States to armed republicans in Ireland.
At 89, the veteran gunrunner should be putting his feet up in his Brooklyn flat rather than championing the dissident republican cause across the Atlantic.
He has even vowed to defy the new State Department ban on Republican Sinn Fein in the US, which bans the anti-peace process party from raising funds in America.
Last week RSF became the only Irish party to be placed on the State Department's foreign terrorist list since George Bush began his war on terror. 'I'm going to increase the donations I give to Republican Sinn Fein every month from now on,' said Harrison from his Brooklyn home.
'Every month I buy a large amount of RSF's newspaper Saoirse and then distribute them around New York. I'm going to ask the party to send more papers and get more money over to them. If the Bush administration wants to jail me, I'm ready.'
Harrison was the man who armed the Provisional IRA with Armalites and M60 machine guns in the 1970s and went to jail in 1981 after being snared in an FBI 'sting' operation. The former IRA man switched his allegiance five years later to Continuity IRA and RSF because Sinn Fein recognised the Irish parliament.
Asked, despite the new State Department ban, if he would send guns to dissident republicans today, Harrison replied: 'Absolutely. If I could get my hands on weapons I would send them to Ireland.'
Harrison said he didn't believe that the new ban on RSF fundraising would stop dissident republican supporters sending money back to Ireland: 'If they want to lock me up, so be it, but I will continue to support RSF regardless of what Bush and his cohorts try to do.'
Between 1971 until his arrest 10 years later, Harrison was a prized asset for the Provisional IRA in the US. Leading republicans, including Martin McGuinness, stayed at his home in Brooklyn. From the mid-1970s, Harrison's arms network was dispatching 200 to 300 weapons a year to the Provos. The gunrunning operation ended in 1981, after CIA agent George de Meo, an arms smuggler, betrayed Harrison to the FBI. Five years later, Harrison denounced Gerry Adams and McGuinness for lifting Sinn Fein's ban on entering the Dail and backed Ruairi O'Bradaigh's breakaway Republican Sinn Fein.
The State Department's new ban faced its first challenge last night, after a New York radio station interviewed O'Bradaigh, who is banned from entering the US. John McDonagh, the Radio Free Eireann presenter who interviewed O'Bradaigh, described the ban as 'totally absurd'.
McDonagh said: 'RSF is a legally registered political party not only in Ireland but the occupied Six Counties. Even in Britain, RSF organises openly and legally and raises finance in cities like London and Glasgow.'
He said that the State Department ban would make it impossible even for RSF members to visit the US on holiday, adding that RSF's support group, the Irish Freedom Committee, would host a fundraising concert later this year for CIRA prisoners' families. The guest speaker, McDonagh said, would be Ruairi O'Bradaigh, who will speak to supporters in America from a live television feed in Ireland.
The State Department says on its website that RSF is an 'alias' for Continuity IRA and labels the party as a foreign terrorist organisation under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The ban prohibits anyone under US jurisdiction from funding the party or giving it any material support.
