One of the three IRA men arrested in Colombia at the weekend was
allegedly Sinn Fein’s link with Cuba. Niall Connolly is suspected of involvement
in arranging Gerry Adams’s trip to the Caribbean island next month.
Connolly, a former teacher from Dublin who travelled under the name
David Bracken, had been the republican movement’s contact in Cuba since 1996,
according to security sources in Belfast. They said that the IRA “envoy”
was believed to be part of a team helping to organise Mr Adams’s eight-day
trip to the island as head of a Sinn Fein delegation.
Connolly, 36, and two other IRA men, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan,
are being held by the military authorities in Bogotá where they face charges
of training members of a guerrilla group and possessing false passports.
Last night Sinn Fein tried to distance itself from the incident,
insisting that Connolly was never a member of the party and had had no part in
preparing arrangements for Mr Adams’s visit to Cuba. A spokesman said:
“Sinn Fein has no representative, nor has had a representative, in South
America.
Other than our international department in Dublin, nobody else has been
involved in making arrangements for our delegation’s visit.
“None of the three men arrested in Colombia is a members of Sinn Fein.
They
were not there on Sinn Fein business.”
Security sources described Connolly as an “envoy” or “ambassador” for
the
IRA who worked behind the scenes developing contacts for the terrorist
organisation. He had no previous convictions and is fluent in Spanish.
The arrest of the three men is highly embarrassing for Sinn Fein as the
episode exposes what the Government and others have described as the
inextricable link between the IRA and the party. It has thrown into
doubt
the wisdom of the Government’s policy of reducing security in Northern
Ireland in response to a belief that the republican leadership has been
acting in good faith throughout the IRA ceasefire.
Michael McGimpsey, an Ulster Unionist minister in the power-sharing
Executive, said the arrests, together with the Florida gun-running
trial,
had proved that Unionists had been right to push republicans on the
decommissioning issue. “This is more than a setback to political
progress.
It is an indicator, if one were even needed, that republicans are not
genuine about making peace,” he said.
The arrested men were described by Pat Byrne, Garda Commissioner, as
known
members of the Provisionals. But it is their links with Sinn Fein that
have
outraged both Governments, infuriated Ulster Unionists and dismayed
moderate
nationalists.
Monaghan was once a member of Sinn Fein’s ruling national executive and
was
pictured on a platform with Gerry Adams in 1989. McCauley was director
of
elections for Sinn Fein in the Upper Bann constituency in 1996.
Connolly is a highly educated former teacher. He has worked as a
carpenter
in El Salvador and travelled in Venezuela, Panama and Nicaragua.
Monaghan was given a three-year jail sentence in the Irish Republic in
1971
after being found guilty at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin of
unlawful
damage, conspiracy and possession of firearms.
McCauley, an IRA explosives expert, survived the shooting in November
1982
that sparked the “shoot-to-kill” controversy. He was convicted of
possessing
three rifles and given a suspended prison sentence.
Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.
