Adams Tries a Little DiversionWell, now Robert McCartney's murder's just
a bar brawl:
The political effects have been huge, and the republican message is that there will be no hiding place in the movement for anyone involved. "I'm trying to be a bit understanding about all of this," Mr Adams told The Independent. "These were a group of people who were out drinking, who sparked off each other. It wasn't an IRA attack, it wasn't a republican plan, it wasn't an operation.Sorry, Gerry. It starts out as a bar brawl, I will grant you. But two things move it beyond that. First the fact that Robert McCartney was murdered, and his companion, whom he was trying to save, was the subject of an attempted murder. Those are the acts of thugs who feel protected by their IRA status.
And second, the coverup, where IRA techs swept the bar clean of evidence, including tape from a closed-circuit camera, and senior IRA men warned the people in the bar not to talk about the murder (to the point where most of the 72 patrons in the bar claim to have been in the bathroom at the time the fight began).
You don't get out of that aspect. As with Nixon, it's not the crime (savage though it is in this case); it's the coverup. Adams seems to be stressing the need for the killers to turn themselves in; what he should be stressing is the need for witnesses to come forward and offering them express protection
from the IRA.
Background on the McCartney Murder
