Fresh from an appearance at Saturday's St. Patrick's Day parade in Hamilton, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith turned to more serious matters Wednesday, hosting a hearing on peace and justice in Northern Ireland.

    Called "Northern Ireland: Why Justice in Individual Cases Matters," the hearing centered on the bloody violence waged in Northern Ireland during a nearly four-decade conflict between unionist and nationalist forces there.

    Smith, R-Robbinsville, is the chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, more commonly known as the Helsinki Commission. Wednesday marked the commission's 12th hearing on Northern Ireland.

    Those testifying before the committee included family members of people killed or assassinated by paramilitary or security forces, many believed to have loyalist, or British, ties. They renewed the call for more investigations into the murders and greater transparency on the part of the British government.

    "Today family members of people killed in Northern Ireland will tell us about their efforts to learn the truth about possible British government collusion or complicity in their loved one's murder," Smith testified on Wednesday. "I join my voice with theirs to say: enough obfuscation and stonewalling."

    Smith said his interest in investigating abuse in the UK country was born in Hamilton, where residents like Sean Pender, the state vice president of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, pressed the congressman on what he was doing about Northern Ireland. 

    Pender attended the Washington, D.C. hearing Wednesday.

    "We're trying to get justice for the people of the North," he said. "The most important part of this is to try and put a society back together that was torn apart by wars."

The Times of Trenton article:
http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1300427110280642.xml&coll=5