Allister speaks out on anniversary of Omagh massacre
15 August 2008
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister MEP:-
“As, today, all of Northern Ireland, but particularly Omagh, remembers the dastardly republican massacre 10 years ago in Omagh, our thoughts, naturally, are with those so dreadfully bereaved.
At this difficult time I am sure the victims could well have done without the controversy visited upon them by the insensitivity of the local Council. I greatly regret that the Sinn Fein dominated Omagh Council has put political expediency before the unvarnished truth by sanitising its memorial to let militant republicanism off the hook for this wanton mass murder. I, therefore, fully understand the resentment of many of the relatives.
Equally, it is appalling that for all its occasional pious words Sinn Fein failed to wholeheartedly urge and direct full co-operation with the police so that justice might have been obtained through criminal convictions. Sinn Fein’s equivocation and failure to do all it could, particularly back at the critical moment in 1998 and since, has been a huge contributor to the lack of justice for the Omagh victims. In 1998 they refused to urge people to help the RUC, since the product on the ground of areas they control demonstrates they are still holding back.
Just as in the Robert McCartney case, their fingerprints are all over the non-cooperation which has protected the killers. Their actions and inactions are a timely reminder of their unfitness not just for policing and justice control, but for any government office.”
