Hume 'wanted internment brought back'

Foreign Affairs documents released from the Republic's National Archives reveal that Irish diplomat David Neligan believed Mr Hume supported the controversial tactic to lock up suspected terrorists.

The papers reveal that Mr Hume reportedly suggested a return to internment to combat Provisional IRA violence which had escalated massively in the period before the future Nobel Peace Prize winner is said to have made the suggestion.

Mr Hume's supposed contention came around two months before he assumed the leadership of the SDLP in 1979 and just over a week after the IRA murdered Earl Mountbatten at Mullaghmore, Co Sligo by placing a bomb on his boat. On the same day, August 27, 1979, at Narrow Water, Co Down, the IRA claimed the lives of 18 members of the Parachute Regiment by detonating two huge landmines.

In March 1979, another republican group, the INLA claimed responsibility for the murder of Conservative MP, Airey Neave when a bomb detonated under his car as he drive out of a House Of Commons car park.

On August 9, 1971, an Army swoop, code named Operation Demetrius, saw hundreds of terrorist suspects arrested and detained without trial in prison camps, including Magilligan, County Londonderry. The introduction of the policy by then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner saw over 1,800 nationalists and 107 loyalists detained. The policy was continued by the 'direct rule' government after the suspension of the Stormont regime in March 1972. Internment continued until 1975.

The apparent suggestion by Mr Hume for the re-introduction of internment to the Irish official in 1979 is at odds with his previous stance on the issue.

In October 1971, Mr Hume joined four Westminster MPs on a 48-hour hunger strike in a protest against internment. And in January, 1972, Mr Hume was amongst anti-internment protestors who confronted the British Parachute Regiment on Magilligan beach, close to the site where internees where being held. Subsequently, Mr Hume has claimed that it was this experience that led him to withdraw his support for a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association anti-internment planned for Londonderry on January 30, 1972. Mr Hume did not attend that rally, deemed illegal by Stormont and which became known as Bloody Sunday in which 13 people were shot dead.

A spokesman for the SDLP told the Sentinel: "John Hume's record in opposing internment and consistently abhorring violence from all quarters speaks for itself, regardless of what any Irish government official may have believed."