
Issue No 81		08 December 2000

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Letters to the Editor

McGuiness Defended

read with amazement the utter crap about Mr Martin McGuinness ;"Concerns About Fundraising" Workers on line December 1.

Nothing could be further from the truth , I attended a function at Trades Hall here in Brisbane addressed by Mr McGuinness and was extremely enamoured by his abilty to empathise with the audience. There were something like 200 at the meeting which is pretty good for Brisbane, especially as it was $25/20 to get in. The TLC secretary spoke welcoming McGuinnes and pledging the support of the Trade Union Movement for the "peace process". Before McGuinness spoke a group of aboriginal dancers welcomed with the traditional dances and songs. I am sorry for any readers who have not seen a genuine dance group in action. The music and the gestures are thousands of years old. It reminds the whites of a past before colonialism and it is humbling to see it survive.

After the address Martin mingled with some of the dignatories and some say that he has offered his professional electoral services to the Queensland Branch of the A.L.P.

He produced the following newsclippings as a reference to his abilities in collecting votes.

McGuinness 'elected by vote-rigging'

A former Sinn Fein election organiser has claimed that Martin McGuinness got into politics, thanks to systematic vote-stealing by republicans. Willie Carlin, a key Sinn Fein worker from 1982 to 1985, says a decisive 2,700 votes were cast fraudulently for the present Northern Ireland education minister by party supporters in the 1982 Stormont assembly elections.

Later, a party was organised for the election workers and Carlin alleges that a plaque was presented to the person who had voted the most times. The winner, a woman, had cast 67 ballots, just two ahead of the runner-up, he said.

Carlin, who was secretly working as a British intelligence agent within Sinn Fein, said he was proud of his role and now supported Sinn Fein. Recently, he returned to Londonderry for the first time in 15 years to show a BBC camera crew how he had organised electoral malpractice with the full knowledge of his British Army paymasters, who believed it would help maintain his cover.

Carlin's revelations were broadcast in the BBC Spotlight current affairs programme. The Spotlight team has invited the two Sinn Fein leaders with whom Carlin worked most closely, McGuinness and Mitchel McLaughlin, to comment, but so far they have not. In his first crucial election in 1982 McGuinness secured 8,207 votes and was elected on the first count.

"We not only ran a system of personation and stealing votes and vote-rigging - we closed polling stations through violence at 8.05pm in Rosemount. When our vote was out, drained and exhausted, personation done, stealing done, we knew we could get no more out of it," Carlin said. "People were told to 'get up there and start a row because there are only SDLP voters left."

Afterwards, Carlin briefed the Northern Ireland Office on how the Sinn Fein personation campaign was carried out so that it could change the law, bringing in new systems of voter identification to stamp out the abuse.

In 1985, Carlin was a community leader in the Gobnascale area of Londonderry and Sinn Fein planned to make him a council candidate. "I am convinced that if I had stayed in place I would now be in Stormont with Martin and Mitchel."

Carlin's intelligence was valuable because he was able to give his handlers an inside knowledge of Sinn Fein thinking, during a period when the government was in secret contact with the group. "I was told that my reports were sometimes read in cabinet and that they believed I would have gone right to the top of Sinn Fein if I had stayed on."

There seems little doubt of that since he had all the qualifications -- a liar, a cheat and closely allied to murder!

Perhaps he could be invited back for our next Federal Election?

Lenny Murphy

Brisbane

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Issue 81 contents

Interview: Back to Work
After a stretch of unemployment following the 1996 election, former Keating Minister Robert Tickner is now helping others find work.

Media: Reality Check
Aiden White, head of the international journalists' union, argues that online journalism presents a new set of challenges for organising.

Economics: In the Same Boat
In an unprecedented move, a coalition of industry, community and trade union groups have joined forces to address long-trerm unemployment.

International: Nepalese Hotel Workers Ask for Support
Hotel workers in the small Himalayan nation of Nepal have finally decided to vent their anger and call a general strike for Monday - over a 21 year old dispute.

Unions: Speaking in Tongues
Labor Council's Mark Morey outlines the successful campaign by local government workers for a community language allowance.

History: Fighting Words
The anti-conscription campaign of 1914-18 tore the ALP apart; but this was not the first time the labour movement took a militantly anti-war stance.

Politics: A New Socialism
In an extract from his new book, political economist Frank Stilwell argues the need for a new radicalism to counter the Third Way

Satire: Roy Slaven on the Rampage
John Doyle's history of the ABC stretches back to a 1958 evening in Lithgow on which he was "scared shitless" by Blackboard on Mr Squiggle.

Review: Mauled in the Bear Pit
Vengeance may be sweet but it is always made better when you are able to write a book about yourself that also provides the opportunity to dump a bucket load on those who undertook your removal.

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