FR. MC MANUS WELCOMES CONGRESSIONAL HEARING

Posted By: May 13, 2013

CAPITOL HILL – Friday, May 10, 2013 — Irish -Americans greatly welcome the Congressional Hearing: “Recent Developments in the Investigation of the Murder of Human Rights Attorney Patrick Finucane,” to be held on Wednesday May 15 at 10 AM. before the House  Subcommittee on Human Rights.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus – President of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus – said: “We congratulate Chairman Smith on this, his fourteenth  Hearing. He has shown remarkable commitment to Irish human rights, and relentless dedication to justice for Pat Finucane.”
Fr. Mc Manus continued: “ Institutional memory here is important. From 1974 to 1995  Human Rights Hearings  on Northern Ireland were banned, at the behest of the British Embassy (and with the connivance of the Irish Embassy)  — and banned by famous Irish Catholic Speakers. When I struggled to have Hearings, Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-IN) Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Human Rights, and later Chairman of the full Committee, would demand that I’d prove the violations were ‘on-going and not just in the past.’ That chicanery suited the British perfectly because – in a split second – everything is in the past. There is an old saying that ‘every Englishman accepts that his grandfather did bad things in Ireland.’ Now, ironically, as we reflect on the British Government assassination of the heroic Pat Finucane in 1989 – and as Congress quite rightly demands answers – we must be fully aware that British Government injustice is on-going in Northern Ireland. And this is nowhere more dramatically proven than in the brutal mistreatment of the equally heroic Marian Price, now effectively interned for two years. That a 58-year old, very ill, iconic Irish patriot like Marian be treated in such a cruel and vindictive manner – in the middle of the Irish peace-process – should be of deep concern to the US Congress and all people concerned about human rights.”