Friday 22 August 2014

Lessons from the past.

Throughout this year's Edinburgh Festival, a play called 3000 Trees was performed at the fringe.  It's based on a man called Willi McRae.  He was a human rights champion and an anti nuclear campaigner. In fact, the play was about the untimely death of William McRae.
By some strange coincidence, there were two plays with the same title, both about the death of Willi McRae, being performed at the festival. One was by George Gunn  and the other by Andy Paterson. 

In the comments below the description of the former play, is a lead to an article in Electric Scotland written by John McGill, Scotland - UN founder and secretary.
 A little way down,  he describes how his own car had previously been shot at  ... An attempted murder and a murder...What else could it have been? This led me on a trail through the reports available on the internet.
The starting point came from the testament by a former Strathclyde P.C.. Donald Morrison,
 http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/210087/I-will-sign-affidavit-tying-MI5-to-McRae-murder
which was recently made more relevant by another article, http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/492477/Police-probing-killing-of-SNP-activist-have-interfered-with-my-statement
One line stood out for me in The Herald Scotland report, which says that the Scottish lawyer had also had a puncture on his way back to his country cottage...which he was never to reach.   If he did have a puncture, had someone fired at the tyre? Was it that which led up to his death? If so, then perhaps John McGill was fortunate that the bullet which hit his car had missed the tyre and hit the body of the car. It was also fortunate, perhaps, that Willi McRae was still there to advise him which police station to go to.
Willi McRae would have been vulnerable while he was changing the tyre.... and it takes time.
It was reported that the damaged tyre was on the back seat of the car, but the rolls of maps tied up in pink ribbons and the spare briefcase which had been seen there by the police constable, were nowhere to be found in the car.
Why would anyone want to murder Willi McRae? It could not have been suicide. Even I understand that people don't shoot themselves behind the right ear and then completely dispose of the bullet casings, wipe the gun clean of finger prints and throw it at least 40 feet out of the car window.
One thing is for sure, he was renowned for his success in leading the successful opposition to the storing of nuclear waste in the hills around Mulwharcher, which led to a public inquiry, and which the protesters won.
"Nuclear waste" McRae sad, during the inquiry, "should be stored where Guy Fawkes put his gunpowder". 
According to The Scottish Express, and other reports, he, himself, was on the verge of being elected  to Westminster on the back of his anti-nuclear campaign.
As I understand it, Willi MacRae was soon to have given evidence at a preliminary hearing which would lead to a  public inquiry into the fast-reactor proposals for a "European Demonstration Reprocessing Plant'' at Dounreay.  The day before the shooting, he had told John McGill about information he had regarding the plans for storing nuclear waste.: "They're going to bury the stuff where the sand never dries!"  John McGill explained that this referred to a proposed underground storage facility at Applecross sands. Willi McRae carried a copy of the Dounreay papers with him at all times, (his office and homes having been repeatedly burgled), but they were not seen by the people who went to assist him, when he was found unconscious in his car.
Another well known anti nuclear campaigner, Hilda Murrell, had been murdered three years before in 1984.  A pacifist and famous rose grower, she was passionately against the dumping of nuclear waste and was due to present a paper at the Sizewell B inquiry entitled "An Ordinary Citizen's View of Radioactive Waste Management".  She was, it has been recorded, very worried that something was about to happen to her.
The U.K. is not the only place that this apparently, happened.  In the USA, Randolf and Joy Thompson, found themselves having to flee Pennsylvania after they had tried to make public the fact that the radiation releases from Three Mile Island were far higher than than the government and industry acknowledged.
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/04/post-4.html
 All this was a long time ago; one would hope that it could never happen again. One asks "What kind of industry needs to go to such lengths to cover up the truth?"

In a few days' time, the people of Scotland will vote on whether they want to become independent or stay in the union. The country is exceptionally rich in wind and wave power.  If they choose independence they can become nuclear free.
http://www.banthebomb.org/ne/scotlandnato.pdf 

Sources.
Mullwhacher Enquiry, against nuclear dumping there, and joint founder of the "Oystercatcher Movement", against dumping in Glen Etive, was the nuclear lobby's most formidable and feared antagonist in Scotland - See more at: http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMWhoKilledWillieMacRae.aspx#sthash.7r3LNoHr.dpuf
Mullwhacher Enquiry, against nuclear dumping there, and joint founder of the "Oystercatcher Movement", against dumping in Glen Etive, was the nuclear lobby's most formidable and feared antagonist in Scotland. - See more at: http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMWhoKilledWillieMacRae.aspx#sthash.7r3LNoHr.dpuf
Mullwhacher Enquiry, against nuclear dumping there, and joint founder of the "Oystercatcher Movement", against dumping in Glen Etive, was the nuclear lobby's most formidable and feared antagonist in Scotland. - See more at: http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMWhoKilledWillieMacRae.aspx#sthash.7r3LNoHr.dpuf
http://www.electricscotland.com/independence/scotEUMcRae.pdf
http://www.whale.to/c/death_of_william_mcrae.html
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/the-death-of-willie-macrae-1.688252
http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMWhoKilledWillieMacRae.aspx
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/the-mcrae-mystery-960817
http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/william_mcrae.htm
"Oystercatcher Movement", against dumping in Glen Etive, - See more at: http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMWhoKilledWillieMacRae.aspx#sthash.Sas2PZyb.dpuf
 http://www.disclose.tv/forum/willie-macrae-murder-t87205.html
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/07/01/from-the-province-of-the-cat-29-the-struggle-of-life-and-death/
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/492477/Police-probing-killing-of-SNP-activist-have-interfered-with-my-statement
http://3000trees.com/ http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/210087/I-will-sign-affidavit-tying-MI5-to-McRae-murder
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/mar/20/who-killed-hilda-murrell
 http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/mar/18/hilda-murrell-michael-mansfield?guni=Article:in%20body%20link
http://hildamurrell.org/
http://hildamurrell.org/source-documents/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Murrell
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/04/post-4.html