http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20000723/t000069193.html
Ex-Official Admits She OKd Bugging of
Sinn Fein Car
N. Ireland: 'Lives were being
lost,' and
the 1999 eavesdropping amid peace
talks
was 'to make sure we knew what was
going on,' Britain's
then-secretary says.
From Reuters
BELFAST, Northern
Ireland--Former
Northern Ireland Secretary
Marjorie "Mo"
Mowlam has admitted that she
sanctioned
the bugging of a car used by Sinn
Fein
leader Gerry Adams while peace talks
were being held last year, the
BBC said
Saturday.
"Lives were being lost. At
least it was
done to make sure we knew what was
going on," Mowlam said in an
interview
to be broadcast Monday, details
of which
were released by the British
Broadcasting
Corp. in advance.
The Northern Ireland office
refused to
confirm any involvement by
British army
intelligence or others.
Officials of Sinn Fein--the
Irish
Republican Army's political
wing--found
a microphone, wiring and
transmitter in a
car used by Adams and his deputy,
Martin
McGuinness, in December 1999 after
peace talks with rival pro-British
Protestant politicians had ended.
"Republicans would be
disappointed
but not surprised by this
revelation. It is
evidence of the effectiveness of the
British 'securocrat' agenda
within the
system--at such a sensitive time
in the
talks--to subvert efforts for
peace," a Sinn
Fein spokesman said.
The discovery sparked a row
at the
time between Ireland and London.
Adams
accused Britain of a serious
breach of
faith and said it had damaged the
peace
process.
Political parties from both
sides of the
sectarian divide in May revived
an uneasy
power-sharing government of the
Protestant majority and the Roman
Catholic minority.
The IRA and other mainstream
guerrilla groups are observing a
cease-fire while Protestant and
Catholic
politicians try to seal a lasting
peace. But
renegade Irish republicans and
pro-British
"loyalists" have been blamed for
sporadic
outbreaks of violence.
Mowlam left her job as Northern
Ireland secretary in a government
reshuffle in October 1999 and is
now the
British Cabinet Office minister.
