[caption id="attachment_70295" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty."]
Massachusetts State Representative Eugene O'Flaherty has written Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton requesting her intervention in the Boston College archives case.
"I write to request your intervention in a matter that threatens the work done by so many to maintain a fragile peace in the North of Ireland through the Good Friday Agreement," O'Flaherty wrote Clinton.
"I know personally how well the region is doing after having returned from a fact-finding visit recently with colleagues of mine in the Massachusetts Legislature. I write with concern that much of the progress I witnessed in ventures between the communities will be threatened with this court action in which the United Kingdom is subpoenaing oral history records from the 'Belfast Project' collected by researchers at Boston College University," O'Flaherty added.
The rationale for this legal effort is not consistent with earlier representations made by those negotiating in good faith that that the treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom would not be used in connection with acts allegedly committed prior to the Good Friday Agreement.
"I question the legal justification presented by Her Majesty's government given the enormous goodwill that created such an historic agreement.
Given the strategic significance of stability in Northern Ireland, it is in the best interest of the United States government to not cooperate with the strict reading of the Treaty and allow for a waiver given the serious possibility of the agreement being undermined.
I respectfully request that you involve yourself personally and urge our Attorney General to withhold American cooperation on these British requests and to state that we will oppose any effort to use the Treaty for political purposes when it will undermine the peace in Northern
Ireland," O'Flaherty concluded.
O'Flaherty's letter follows similar communications to Clinton From Senator John Kerry and Congressman Joe Crowley.
