Inside File Adi’s endless mission

By Ray O’Hanlon

Every cloud has a silver lining. Even a nuclear one. In the case of the radioactive pall that spread over Europe after the Chernobyl meltdown 15 years ago this week, a shining — as opposed to glowing — edge in the whole sorry mess came in the form of Adi Roche, onetime Irish presidential hopeful and tireless activist for the victims of a peacetime Hiroshima that, tragically, could have been avoided.

Roche is in New York this week to launch "Black Wind/White Land-Living With Chernobyl," an art and photographic exhibition at the United Nations that both illustrates the human catastrophe that was Chernobyl and the grim fact that 15 years is nothing in the life of a decrepit and dysfunctional nuclear reactor. Indeed, there is more than a grain of truth in the widely held view that "the next Chernobyl will be Chernobyl." The concrete sarcophagus built around reactor No. 4 after the April 26, 1986 explosion at the Ukraine power plant is again leaking, and as Roche recently told "IF," only three percent of the radioactive matter in the reactor had to escape in 1986 in order to spawn a disaster big enough to kill tens of thousands of people and potentially destroy the health of as many as nine million people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Since its founding by Roche in 1991, the Cork-based Chernobyl Children’s Project has brought 8,500 children from the worst affected areas to Ireland for a month’s vacation. Studies show that a month away from their radiation-poisoned homeland can give these kids hope for two more years of life. And we complain about gas prices. The exhibition in the Visitor’s Lobby at the UN building is open to the public this Thursday and Friday, April 26-27.

Viva, Eduardo Juan!

Move over Bernardo O’Higgins and Che Guevara Lynch. The ties that bind Echo columnist Jack Holland to his native Belfast will always be strong, but life moves on and it was with a spring in his step that our Jack set off for the federal building in Manhattan last week to take part in a very special ceremony. Holland was to be sworn in as a U.S. citizen. Now as we all know, the number of Irish becoming Americans these days isn’t quite what it was, though a primary reason for this is by no means a bad one — better economic times back in the auld sod. Anyway, Holland arrived at the federal building in his suit, ready and eager to swear allegiance to the Stars and Stripes when he was told, sorry, no way you can become a citizen, at least not today, amigo.

Seems that the INS is in full Spanish mode these days. Holland’s full name is actually Edward John Holland and that’s what went down on all the forms he had to fill out in advance of his big day. But somehow, along the way, "Edward" became "Edwardo," which is not even how to spell Eduardo, but never mind.

Anyway, "Edwardo Holland" was duly sworn in as a new Americano and a stirring moment it was-o. Nothing like it since the Alam-o. But Edward John Holland still had to schlep out to the INS facility on Long Island a couple of days later to make sure that the real gringo Holland was listed in the INS records. Madre le Dios!

Caution ‘warren-ted’

The David Rupert/Real IRA saga rumbles on. As readers are aware, the FBI in Chicago last week told the Echo, in the person of the above "Edwardo" Holland, that it had nothing to do with Rupert at all, this in the face of a slew of papers on both sides of the Atlantic reporting that Rupert is in the witness protection program and ready to testify against alleged Real IRA leader Mickey McKevitt.

Warren Hoge of the New York Times, however, was a little more circumspect when it came to the, eh, facts of the story. "This week," Hoge wrote, "The Independent of Ireland and the Sunday Times in Britain published articles revealing the role of the American, David Rupert, 49, whose cooperation with the Irish national police the British and reportedly the FBI, led to the arrest. Law enforcement officials in London and Dublin confirmed the accuracy of the reports."

Clearly, Hoge was unable to stand up the FBI role from his perch in London, this despite the presence of a Bureau office in the British capital. "Reportedly" is always a word to watch but clearly not everybody did in this case because despite that fact that it was used by America’s paper of record — bow, scrape, grovel — some publications still chose to disregard Hoge’s red flag.

Ones-selves alone?

England has a rosy future as an independent state outside not just the European Union but also the, gasp, United Kingdom, according to a new book penned by Tory MP Sir Richard Body. In a report on the book, The Daily Telegraph highlighted Body’s assertion in his book, "England for the English," that the breakup of the UK has become almost inevitable and that England would in many ways be better off on its own. Body’s book, according to the Telegraph, goes much further than his party’s policy on devolution of power in the UK. The Conservatives, the paper reported, want to keep the UK intact within the EU although party leader William Hague has called for "English votes on English laws" — a development that "would see Scottish, Welsh and Ulster MPs banned from voting in England on issues such as the National Health Service, which have been devolved."

Added the Telegraph: "Mr. Body claimed that the departures of Scotland and Northern Ireland from the UK are a question of "when" rather than "if". Begob, if someone in Ireland wrote a book called "Ireland for the Irish" these days they’d be locked up in a home for the bewildered. Worse, they’d be trashed by the Sunday Independent.

They said

€ "The hapless blow-in Englishman who heads the Parades Commission, to whom the Orangemen do not speak, has been demeaning himself by getting down on his knees to plead with these bigots." Robert Heatley of the Belfast-based Campaign for Democracy in the American Irish Political Education Committee’s April newsletter.

€ "Even as the British Pharaoh once again oppresses with this ham-fisted decision by the commission, a greater power has chastised him." Ned McGinley, national vice president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, on the Lower Ormeau Road Apprentice Boys parade canceled due to foot-and-mouth disease.