Here is a peice that was written about another member of s/f the people that want to have a united Ireland at any cost.
FROM the moment Martin McGuinness took command of the Derry Brigade in 1971, it quickly developed into one of the Provisional IRA's most effective units, according to a former IRA commander who worked closely with him at the time.
The former terrorist, who is under an IRA death threat after becoming a key informer on the IRA's activities, said that the brigade was driven by McGuinness's own determination and sheer force of personality.
The informer told The Telegraph: "He demanded total commitment and support from subordinates, and he got it. He wouldn't say a lot at meetings, but he was very quick to grasp the key points. And believe me, once he'd made up his mind, that was it - he might be all smiles but nobody ever crossed Martin twice."
Like the intelligence services, this former terrorist is certain that Mr McGuinness took part personally in the Derry Brigade's operations. "It is unlikely he could have got such respect from his volunteers and risen to the top of the tree without getting some blood on his hands."
Soon after the Derry Brigade had turned large areas of the city into "no go" zones, Mr McGuinness was to be found chairing press conferences and guiding journalists around "Free Derry". On one occasion, he introduced a sniper who claimed to have killed a soldier at an observation post on the city's ancient walls.
The anti-British atmosphere in Londonderry was so intense that when Rifleman Joseph Hill of the Royal Green Jackets was shot and killed during rioting in the Bogside area in October 1971, IRA supporters clapped and cheered as his body was taken away. A month later, three young Catholic women were tarred and feathered before jeering crowds in the space of a few days. Their "crime" was going out with British soldiers.
Even though the Derry Brigade controlled the Catholic areas of Londonderry, it made no attempt to prevent the mob's actions. It was only after fierce media criticism that the leadership issued a statement denying any involvement in the attacks, while reiterating its warning against Catholic women fraternising with British soldiers.
On January 27, 1972, three days before Bloody Sunday, a routine police patrol on the fringes of "Free Derry" was ambushed by Provisional gunmen with automatic weapons. Sgt Peter Gilgunn, a 28-year-old Catholic, and a Protestant colleague, Constable David Montgomery, 20, died as 17 bullets ripped through their car.
These were the first local officers to be killed after Mr McGuinness took over the Derry Brigade; today, he pointedly refuses to say whether he sanctioned what one prominent nationalist MP at the time had denounced as "a dastardly act". Last week, Gregory Campbell, a member of the hardline Democratic Unionist Party and Northern Ireland's regional development officer, called on the Saville inquiry to question Mr McGuinness over his involvement in the murders.
In another atrocity carried out by Provisionals two weeks later, armed men dragged Thomas Callaghan, a 45-year-old Catholic who served part-time in the Ulster Defence Regiment, from the bus he was driving. His corpse was found three hours later, hooded and gagged, with his arms tied behind his back and a bullet in his head.
At his funeral, attended by mourners of all faiths, Catholic clergymen condemned the "irresponsible protectors bringing ruin to our city and distress to families". Mr Callaghan's widow observed sadly that she could have accepted his death on UDR duty but not "while he was simply doing his job".
Following two spells in jail in the Irish Republic in the mid-1970s for belonging to the IRA, Mr McGuinness became a power in the Provisionals' "Northern Command". Security sources are convinced that he served as chief of staff from 1978 to 1982 and was involved in the decision to bomb the British mainland.
Apart from running the Derry Brigade during the early 1970s, Mr McGuinness also forged a close relationship with Gerry Adams, then head of the Ballymurphy Brigade in Belfast.
The former IRA commander told The Telegraph that Mr McGuinness and Mr Adams made a formidable terrorist double act. "Don't believe the rubbish about Martin being the hawk and Gerry the dove. They played off each other and God help anybody who got in their way once too often."
While both men could be extremely arrogant and uncaring about the consequences of their actions, the former Provisional said, Mr McGuinness usually tried to avoid civilian casualties in the Derry Brigade's operations.
Sometimes, however, things went badly wrong: on one occasion early in 1972, bombers arrived to blow up a hotel where a Catholic wedding reception was being held. When 17-year-old Alphonsus Patten, best man to his brother, tried to intervene, he was shot in the face at point-blank range and badly wounded.
That incident drew a furious response from the Official IRA, which accused Mr McGuinness's Provisionals of "callous cowardice". The Derry Brigade also came in for scathing criticism in April 1981, after Joanna Mathers, a 27-year-old Protestant, was murdered while collecting completed census forms in a Loyalist area. The Provisionals denied responsibility, but IRA detainees in an H Block of the Maze prison publicly expressed their disgust at the killing.
In August 1988, when Mr McGuinness was no longer in direct operational control in Londonderry but still exercised a powerful influence, a bomb in a house in the Creggan area killed two civilians instantly, one a woman of 60, and fatally wounded another. The Provisionals had planted the bomb in the hope of luring police into a trap, stationing three men nearby to keep local people away.
When Mr McGuinness insisted on attending one of the highly emotional funerals, he was jostled, insulted and sworn at by mourners. The son of one of the victims said that Sinn Fein had offered to pay for the service but were told to get lost. As for Mr McGuinness, "he may have been head of the IRA but he was lucky not to get kicked to death".
Philip Jacobson is the co-author, with Peter Pringle, of Those Are Real Bullets, Aren't They? Bloody Sunday, Derry, 30 January 1972.
So in my opinon what is neeeded in Northern Ireland is new people to lead ,after all Isreal refused to deal with Arafet even thought he was the leader they could nt forget what he had masterminded, yet Blair and his goverment, Ahearn(who does nt want to ever share power with s/f) insist's that unoinist's who never killed have to share power with these men it's no wonder unionist's are wary would nt you be?
