Statement From RNU/Cogus POWs'

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Saturday July 02, 2011 21:31 by RNU PRO - Republican Network for Unity (RNU)

We the Cogus POWs' in Maghaberry Prison have given the hard fought for 12th August 2010 agreement every opportunity to develop and play out!

We watched from almost the following day of the agreement the slow erosion and poa interpretation of the agreement being implemented.

The following is a statement from RNU/Cogus aligned pows sent to their representative group outside!

We the Cogus POWs' in Maghaberry Prison have given the hard fought for 12th August 2010 agreement every opportunity to develop and play out!
We watched from almost the following day of the agreement the slow erosion and poa interpretation of the agreement being implemented.

The NIPS, DOJ and British Government has used the agreement to undermine the pows and to set them on a path against each other to damage the prison struggle and ultimately the wider republican struggle.
We warned all of the above about the consequences of playing with the agreement and republican pows!

The Cogus POWs' gave the agreement time, despite our reservations and our reps outside concerns. We ensured that we didn't make any knee-jerk decisions and didn't give the LPOA and NIPS any opportunity to say that republican pows didn't live up too their side of the bargain in the agreement.

On Tuesday 28/06/11 we passed information to our reps that we had had enough of waiting and for our reps to inform the JFG,that we believed that the 12th August agreement should have been fully implemented by the 1st July 2011, a full 11 months after the agreement! We informed the JFG and our reps outside that on the 1st July we would barricade the entrance to the canteen and set fire to the barricade. We would also will wreck our cells and commence a "dirty protest".

The republican POWs' aren't asking for any concessions, as alluded to by the DUP, we are asking for an agreement that we all signed up too be implemented in Full and for the ending of brutal degrading strip-searches. We have put forward a proposal this week that would end the need for such strip-searches to take place, we also offered possible ways to ensure a harmonious wing for ALL pows and for the staff working in Roe House, on Friday these options were finally rejected despite goodwill by pows and others outside.

The republican pows call on the DOJ and the NIPS to take their heads out of the sand and to stop posturing and to use imaginative ways to resolve the prison dispute and to stand up to the LPOA and to FULLY IMPLAMENT the agreement and to end strip-searching in 2011.

Finally we call on everyone to get behind the prisoners who will need all of your support to push this agreement over the line.

Signed representative ;Cogus POWs' Roe House, Maghaberry Prison