Unionists and Alliance united in condemnation of memorial gathering to honour bomber Bobby Sands in wake of New IRA explosion
There has been widespread denunciation of a pending Bobby Sands memorial gathering which is being promoted by Sinn Fein.
Alliance, the UUP, TUV, and DUP have all issued statements condemning it.
The planned memorial will be this Sunday at the Bobby Sands statue in Twinbrook, south-west Belfast, at 2pm, followed by the annual Bobby Sands lecture at 8pm in the Andersonstown Social Club by Belfast Sinn Fein chairman Harry Connolly.
It marks the 45th anniversary of Sands’ death.
Sands was arrested alongside other IRA men following a gunfight with police after they had blown up a furniture shop in Dunmurry, south-west Belfast, in 1976.
Last Saturday night the New IRA exploded a car bomb in Dunmurry – an act Sinn Fein regional leader Michelle O’Neill had condemned as “terrorism”.
A number of the parties criticising Sunday’s upcoming memorial drew attention to Sinn Fein’s lionisation of a famous IRA bomber while condemning a latter-day IRA bomb.
A statement from Sinn Fein West Belfast MLA Danny Baker, titled “Join with us on Sunday to honour Bobby Sands' endearing legacy” (sic), said: “Bobby Sands is a hero to people in west Belfast, across Ireland and to oppressed peoples around the world.
“On Sunday, I encourage republicans to gather at Bobby’s statue to pay tribute to his endearing sacrifice and legacy.
"His life was dedicated to the pursuit of a new, united Ireland and now the mantle to achieve that future rests with us.”
UUP leader Jon Burrows said: “Those who engage in terrorism today cling on to the republican ideology that, in the right circumstances, violence for political ends is justifiable.
“Sinn Fein needs to stop riding two horses - they cannot say if was right to main and murder when the Provisional IRA did it, but wrong when another republican terrorist organisation does it.”
Alliance deputy leader Eoin Tennyson said: “Justification or romanticisation of past violence only creates the conditions in which more young people today can be groomed by those who would seek to justify current violence.
“Events that stray beyond remembrance and into glorification of terrorism are unacceptable and an insult to victims.
"They are all the more galling in light of events of recent weeks.”
TUV deputy leader councillor Ron McDowell noted that the statue where Sunday’s gathering is to be held was erected illegally.
“The sectarianism which motivated the crime for which he was in jail - a bomb attack on a Protestant-owned furniture shop - continues to leave a bitter legacy,” said councillor McDowell.
"Furthermore, last weekend we saw how republicans continue to employ his tactics when a police station in the same area as the Sands bombing was attacked.”
And DUP North Belfast MLA Brian Kingston called the “open glorification of an IRA figure” a “slap in the face to every victim of IRA terrorism”.
"Sinn Fein continues to drag Northern Ireland backwards, promoting a narrative that seeks to justify and sanitise the IRA’s campaign,” he said.
"There can be no moral ambiguity about terrorism - it was wrong, it was unjustifiable, and it devastated countless families.
"If Sinn Fein is serious about reconciliation, it should start by ending the glorification of those involved in violence.”