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Senator John Kerry says release of Boston College tapes could endanger peace process

MA Senator on why the Boston tapes should not be handed over

ANTOINETTE KELLY,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Thursday, April 5, 2012, 6:04 AM

Updated Thursday, April 5, 2012, 6:04 AM

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Boston College will not willingly hand over taped interviews with IRA leaders to British authorities

Photo by Google Images

Senator John Kerry has called on Boston College not to release the tapes to British authorities, as they could jeopardize the peace process.

In a Boston Herald editorial, the Massachusetts senator says that the future of Ireland should not get lost in a violent past.

“History must not be a weapon against those trying to seize the opportunity of today to build a more promising tomorrow,” Kerry wrote.

In December, a Federal Judge ordered Boston College to turn oral histories they had recorded over to the British authorities. The college has since appealed the decision.

The tapes include confidential interviews with the former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Conducted between 2000 to 2006 and known as the Belfast Project, the goal of the college’s academic project was to interview members of the IRA and other Irish paramilitary organizations about their activities during the Troubles.

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Boston College may have to destroy IRA tapes says expert

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“It is my hope that these transcripts remain confidential because for some this has become a matter of life and death,” said Kerry.

“This investigation could endanger a fragile peace process. It is safe to say that any of the crimes that have been described would have occurred prior to the Good Friday Agreement.”

Concluding he said, “We must continue the hard work of writing a new history for a people who have known so much pain.”

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21 Comments

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IrelandNorth | Apr 12, 2012, 08:33 AM EDT

If Northern Ireland isn't part of Ireland, what country is it the northern part of? The problem with chosing a cardinal compass point as a reference for a neo-provincial statelet is that it leads to such confusion between geopgraphy and politics. Many members of the currently constituted Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) (sic) are Roman Catholics recruited from the euphemistically titled 'south' (sic), (which includes both eastern and western Ireland ironically) - pending national reintegration! The original United Kingdom was between England & Wales and Scotland, Act of Settlement, 1777 (a year after the American colonies won their independence by those terrorists Washington and Revere). Then the kingdom of Ireland was annexed in 1800/'01. 26 of Ireland's 32 counties won their independence - Anglo-Irish Treaty, 1922. It is constitutionally oxymoronic for a part of a former kingdom (Ireland) to be united as a kingdom with any other such entity - Great Britian, however fantasical.

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seanomelb | Apr 06, 2012, 07:03 PM EDT

Realist maybe you meant "Anglophobe" and if were not for the IRA campaign the north would be a colder place for nationalists and orange men like you and redbranch could march down the Gervaghy road beating your Lambegh drums and kicking "paddies".No one wants a return to violence except maybe the British government (to settle old scores).

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RedBranch | Apr 06, 2012, 04:15 PM EDT

The senior senator from MA hs 0% Irish heritage. His statements are an attempt to play well with potential voters. His interests are more focused on 'Ketchup with that!' and a lifestyle few of us could imagine. For the IRA apologists on this thread, why are you so hung up on secrecy, surely you should be proud of what the bhoys did in those daring do days of the 70s? Truth be out I say!

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Realist | Apr 06, 2012, 02:50 AM EDT

“This investigation could endanger a fragile peace process"? Really? Back to violence on the streets after the best part of 20 year of peace? I think not Mr Kerry and you have urged no proof whatsoever to substantiate this claim. You are either extremely partisan or extremely naive. I suspect a bit of both. Reviving the 30-year failed PIRA terrorist campaign may be the favourite wet dream of many of our faux Irish Anglophiles here but 'it ain't gonna happen'. Therefore I suggest you dry your eyes as the tapes will be handed over to the British authorities (PSNI). It's just a matter of time. I think a word of thanks, to Boston College, is in order for looking after this information so carefully.

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seanomelb | Apr 06, 2012, 01:44 AM EDT

Quite right Searlit. pilib04!! I agree it's like talking to a brick and waiting for a commonsense response,it'll never happen.

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pilib04 | Apr 05, 2012, 11:13 PM EDT

John Kerry calls it again. It would be counterproductive to the peace process to release the tapes. As for Boston College, they would be hard pressed to ever be taken seriously again.

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pilib04 | Apr 05, 2012, 11:11 PM EDT

Why would Bythebay know anything about Ireland? The poster simply tries to stir up reaction. No one should pay any attention.

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Searlit | Apr 05, 2012, 11:06 PM EDT

I know seanomelb. Sometimes I lose my temper. Relating to another topic. You notice how some people posting don't like the term Irish American? Well, I was thinking about that in terms of the way the English tried to stop the Irish, from being Irish, by inforcing penal laws that outlawed the spoken Irish, the religious services, etc.. They tried so hard to wipe out the Irish culture after killing so many Irish in their different invasions of Ireland and then the genocide, which was labeled a famine. So, my point being that I think it is in our DNA to hold dearly to our Irishness. Sláinte!

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seanomelb | Apr 05, 2012, 10:40 PM EDT

1919!!!! history lesson needed on all fronts.

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seanomelb | Apr 05, 2012, 08:19 PM EDT

I have been posting the same scenario for weeks now that the GFA is in jeopardy if the tapes are released.Searlit!! Bytheway and paradigm are part of the anti Irish brigade who regularly post on IC,engaging in debate with them is just giving them oxygen and some sort of credibility.

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Searlit | Apr 05, 2012, 07:29 PM EDT

Paradigm, I am shocked that you would compare the Irish Republican Army to AQ & Tlban. Ireland's Army has every right to protect itself from occupiers who have tried to take what was never theirs, in the first place, away from the indigenous Irish people. There is a world of difference between the IRA and the extremely violent, totalitarian, mysogynistic zealots that you mentioned - I refuse to. No matter what you think of John Kerry, he is on the right side of this issue, and that is the American side. Britain has no jurisdiction here.

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SeamusMor | Apr 05, 2012, 04:37 PM EDT

Fiat justitia ruat caelum!

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irishpjk | Apr 05, 2012, 03:42 PM EDT

Anything that bollocks is for I am against

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Nicomax | Apr 05, 2012, 12:51 PM EDT

Boston College has more important things to be concerned about today. They are once again in the national Frozen Four college hockey tournament facing a solid University of Minnesota team.

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Paradigm | Apr 05, 2012, 12:24 PM EDT

Kerry is numbscull - who will court publicity whatever the morals of the case. He's just so wrong and if the Belfast Agreement was so tenuous it would have crumbled already. It's neither his job to pander to old prejudices nor is it the U.S. Court's role to seek to hide the awful realities of the past - if there can be no Boston tapes then there should be no Historic Enquiries Team (HET) - seems it's OK to investigate the errors and offences of those charged with protecting the ordinary people but those who terrorised, including poor Jean McConville's killers, are to be protected. Its flawed (Kerry) logic unless he intends to apply the same rules to al Qaeda and the Taliban among others.

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