Statement by Mid and East Antrim councillor Timothy Gaston:
“Last week Republican News reported:
“West Belfast MP Paul Maskey will travel to Cuba this Thursday as part of a Justice for Colombia delegation from Ireland and South Africa to meet with negotiators of the Colombian peace process. The delegation includes Ebrahim Ebrahim (ANC), Mohammed Bhabha from the African National Congress, Jeffrey Donaldson MP of the Democratic Unionist Party, Mark Durkan MP of the SDLP and Reverend Harold Good“.
“Given that just last Tuesday a report was published which highlighted the fact that the IRA’s alleged decommissioning was a sham as they “continue to have access” to weapons one would have thought that Mr Donaldson would have thought twice about heading off to Cuba with Sinn Fein/IRA presumably to sell Northern Ireland as a model of how to build a peace process.
“However, we now know that Jeffrey Donaldson did go to Cuba with Sinn Fein/IRA’s Maskey to meet with Colombia representatives, including FARC commander Timoleón Jiménez.
“Timoleón Jiménez, according to the US State Department in 2011, “set the FARC’s cocaine policies directing and controlling (i) the production, manufacture, and distribution of hundreds of tons of cocaine to the United States and the world; (ii) the “taxation” of the drug trade in Colombia to raise funds for the FARC; and, (iii) the murder of hundreds of people who violated or interfered with the FARC’s cocaine policies”.
“Doubtless Mr Donaldson will claim that he wants Colombia to learn from Northern Ireland and that the presence of Rev Good shows that they are encouraging Colombian terrorists to decommission (as mentioned in the Republican News report) but what confidence can anyone have in the Northern Ireland peace process given last week’s report?
“It is now beyond dispute that almost 20 years after the Belfast Agreement the IRA remains in existence, retains some departments, has a regional command structure, is engaged in intelligence gathering, engages in smuggling and other criminal activity and has been involved in violence, including murders. Furthermore, the IRA Army Council “oversees” Sinn Fein.
“That is not what TUV says about the current state of the Republican movement but what last week’s report by the intelligence services told us.
“Should Unionists therefore really be traveling the world with the political representatives of a still armed and active terrorist organisation presenting it as the way forward?
“The DUP used to rightly criticise Sinn Fein/IRA for fraternising with FARC – now Republicans take the DUP with them!”
Note to editors
You can view a report on the meeting in a FARC propaganda video here around six minutes in.