Irish priest provokes fury with unionist 'Nazi' jibe

13/10/2005 - 07:09:42
The priest who witnessed IRA decommissioning provoked fury after he compared the unionist community to Nazis for their treatment of Catholics in the North.

Father Alec Reid was involved in angry exchanges with several members of the audience at a public meeting in south Belfast.

The softly-spoken Redemptorist was riled last night after a man began talking about restrictions on Orange marches in the province.

Fr Reid said: “You don‘t want to hear the truth.

“The reality is that the nationalist community in Northern Ireland were treated almost like animals by the unionist community.

“They were not treated like human beings.

“They were treated like the Nazis treated the Jews.”

Willie Frazer, of the victims group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives, attempted to shout the priest down. He claimed that Protestants were butchered by Catholics during the Troubles.

He then stormed out of the meeting, held at the Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, as some of the 200-strong crowd heckled the veteran priest.

Fr Reid, who was formerly based at Clonard Monastery in west Belfast, later attempted to make amends.

He said: “I have said some very hard things about the unionist community, which I think are true.

“There is something else I believe.

“Their history in the last 60 years put them in a position after partition that they did not want.

“They were forced to treat nationalists the way hey did.”

Fr Reid told the audience that the nationalist community would have acted in the same way, had the roles been reversed.

But there was a prevailing sense in the packed hall that the damage had been done.

One women told Fr Reid: “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

After the 90-minute meeting, an Mr Frazer said he was incensed by the priest’s remarks.

He said: “I did fly off the handle but I could not sit there and allow him to accuse the unionist people of persecuting the Roman Catholic community for the last 60 years. That is far from the truth.

“That is not to say Catholics have not suffered but so have the Protestant community.

“He was wrong and bitter and his republican attitude came out when he called us Nazis.”

Mr Frazer, who lost five members of his family, including his father, during the Troubles, added: “Two of my uncles fought in the Second World War.

“It is an insult for that man to call myfamily Nazis and the people of my community Nazis.”

He said he would be raising Father Reid‘s comments with unionist politicians.

Before the 90-minute meeting descended into a shouting match, Fr Reid revealed the men who oversaw the IRA decommissioning were guarded with a loaded Kalashnikov.

He claimed that that gun then became the last weapon in the terror group‘s arsenal to be put beyond use.

The priest vividly described the final act in the historic process, which was carried out by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.

He said: “Everywhere we went this Kalashnikov was there and I could see it was loaded.

“I was beginning to wonder if they were afraid dissidents were coming. They were providing a bodyguard for us, if you like.

“The very last act was this gun. The bullets were taken out of it and it was handed over to General (John) de Chastelain (head of the IICD). It was handed over to him by a senior IRA man. It was a significant moment. This was the last gun. The man handed it over and got quite emotional.

“He was aware that this was the last gun.”

On the enormity of the occasion, Fr Reid said: “We saw the gun being taken out of Irish politics, from a nationalist point of view.”

The Rev Harold Good, the second independent church witness, also attended the meeting.

He praised General de Chastelain and his two fellow commissioners for their integrity and the thoroughness with which they went about their work.

The audience raised a number of issues ranging from the threat posed by dissident republicans to the crucial question of trust.

But, in a bid to reassure the doubters, Mr Good said: “We saw a decommissioning of the intention to return to an armed conflict.”

Fr Reid praised Mr Good‘s trustworthiness and ability when a man asked why the Methodist had been chosen to oversee the process.

In one of the lighter moments of the meeting, the priest said: “If he was in our church we would have no problem in making him Pope.”