Allister answers Poots' nonsense in News Letter
23 August 2010
By pretending that the Maze project will be ‘diametrically opposed to glorifying violence’, just who does Edwin Poots think he’s kidding (letter 14th August)? Presumably, those hitherto conned into believing the DUP would stop this IRA/Sinn Fein project because of such stout declarations as that by Nigel Dodds MP, “However it is dressed up, whatever spin is deployed, the preservation of a section of the H-Blocks – including the hospital wing – would become a shrine to the terrorists who committed suicide in the Maze in the 1980s.” (June 2007).
Was Mr Dodds wrong? One thing is certain he and Mr Poots can’t both be right!
Just as the stadium project was jettisoned because the DUP at that point would not accept it or a ‘Conflict Resolution Centre’ on a site tainted by the preservation of H-blocks, so the present proposal will be so blighted. Retention of the H-blocks will both brand and ghettoise the entire valuable site, particularly any housing development where the chill factor of retention of the Provos’ citadel of terror will impact severely on unionist house buyers, producing the new Poleglass of Lisburn.
If, as Mr Poots says, the Conflict Resolution Centre will have no nexus with the ugly H-blocks, which he compliantly retains as DOE Minister, then why does it have to be sited at the Maze at all? Why not on the Belfast northshore, or Carrickfergus or anywhere else, if there is and will be no connection between the Centre and the history of the site? The answer, of course, is that there is a very direct and pervasive connection between the Provos’ terror, dirty protest and hunger strike and the choice of the Maze for a centre focusing on ‘The Troubles’, and a connection which only a fool would believe will not be exploited at every turn by an IRA/Sinn Fein that delights in wallowing in its blood-soaked legacy.
At its kindest, Mr Poots shows signs of such naivity when he declares “there will be no terrorist commemoration rallies” at the site! How can he say that? If his partner in government, Sinn Fein, as is their wont, give notice for such rallies to mark the hunger strikes on the public site at the Maze, then how does he propose to stop them? Of course, the site will be used at every opportunity to glorify terrorism and it is Mr Poots retention of the unmeritorious Maze buildings which guarantees it as a mecca for physical force republicanism.
Mr Poots says he can’t delist the prison buildings. Wrong. Does anyone imagine for a moment that if the boot was on the other foot and Catriona Ruane had the opportunity as a Minister to take a defining action in the interests of her community that she’d be a shrinking violet, cowering behind and talking up threats of judicial review? No, she be exercising her ministerial authority and getting away with it, just as she has in education.
The brutal truth is that delisting and demolishing the Provos citadel would so destablise the Stormont regime that it is the last thing those determined to cling to power will do. Sadly, they are prepared to peddle any deception to cover their u-turning tracks, just as when it came to reciting who could sit on the management board Mr Poots failed to mention that ex-prisoners are guaranteed special representation! I wonder why?
