Beware Black Propaganda.

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement urge all republicans to be wary of black propaganda emanating from within the British intelligence services as evidenced in the lead story of The Jan 16th issue of The Irish News.

The 32CSM have every faith that the republican base will see such stories for what they are, a clear attempt to criminalise and demonise the wider republican movement in advance of a possible reintroduction of some form of internment in the six counties.

The media in recent weeks has carried a number of reports from the constitutional nationalists, policing board and the leadership of the RUC/PSNI stating the need to deal with the ‘dissidents’ as a matter of urgency. Many such leaders have pointed out the success of the Dublin government in dealing with republicans. We believe this is all choreographed and may be the first move in introducing legislation similar to that in the twenty six counties that allows republicans to be interned of the word of a senior garda alone. We believe that either new legislation will be used or that the British will enact existing legislation such as the ‘anti terror’ legislation that was recently cobbled together to intern Muslims in Britain.

Republicans are of the opinion that the ‘exclusive’ in The Irish News has been place by elements within MI5 in order to make moves to introduce such legislation more palatable to the wider nationalist community. Sunday tabloid style sensationalism on the front page of The Irish News is a part of the choreography

Attempts to link Óglaigh na hÉireann to drug dealers and loyalists is an exercise in barrel scrapping which will not fool a single person who has any knowledge of the use of black propaganda in the conflict in Ireland.

We would also advise republicans to be vigilant at this time as such a story may have another sinister purpose. It is possible that this story has been planted in advance of moves to eliminate members of the republican movement and then to write it off as simply a fall out between criminals, thus absolving the British and their pro Stormont allies from any blame.

Finally we would question why not one member of the republican movement was contacted in advance of this story to check its veracity and when did the Irish News begin to use unnamed ‘sources’ to build stories around and then present them as fact. The onus is now on The Irish News to prove their allegations or to risk being viewed as tools of the British intelligence services, whether willingly or otherwise.