A new book launched recently details a police force
totally out of control, implicated in many civilian deaths and colluding with
death squads to target a minority.
The
surprise for many, who may not have heard of
these revelations, is that it all happened in Britain. The virtual
silence
concerning the publication of “Lethal Allies” maybe says something about
the
state of denial that still exists on these islands regarding much of
what happened in the statelet of the north of Ireland in the names of
the British people.
Lethal Allies details120 deaths that occurred in an
area known as “the triangle of death” in the north of Ireland between 1972 and
1978. Only one of the people killed had any links with republican paramilitary
organisations.
The Triangle of Death” extended from Tyrone and
Armagh in the north down to Dundalk, Monaghan and on occasion Dublin.
There are details of people in pubs or going about
their business, gunned down in cold blood or blown up. The lack of any effective
follow up to these crimes led a number of people in the early stages to
question whether there was collusion going on between the loyalist killers, the
British army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
Among those to speak out early on were local
priests Father Denis Faul and Father Raymond Murray who wrote a booklet on the
ongoing slaughter called “the Triangle of Death.”
Authored by journalist Anne Cadwallader, Lethal
Allies was a joint effort involving the Pat Finucane Centre and Alan Brecknell,
whose father was murdered at Donnelly’s bar in 1975.
A lot of the evidence contained in this
comprehensive book was obtained from the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) set up
by former Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland Sir Hugh
Orde.
The HET were supposed to investigate individual
cases and then put together an overarching report but this never materialised.
The lack of an overall report was one of the reasons for the book being
produced.
It seems that those in London and those guiding the
war in the north of Ireland knew from the early stages that there was collusion
going on between the security forces and the police
The records show that some 1800 guns stolen from
the Ulster Defence Regiment (a division of the British army), finished up in
paramilitary hands. The British government knew that 15% of the UDR were in
Loyalist groups, so served as soldiers and paramilitaries at the same time.
In one case two GAA football supporters had gone
over the border to watch a match. On the way back Colm McCartney and Sean
Farmer were pulled over by a fake UDR checkpoint and shot dead. An RUC patrol
had earlier been stopped by the checkpoint, yet knowing that there was nothing
official due to be happening in that area did nothing about it.
The
charmed life of Loyalist paramilitary Robin
Jackson is a recurrent theme of the book. Involved in murder after
murder,
Jackson continually evades justice. In the early stages he was
identified by
the wife of Patrick Campbell, who he murdered, but the evidence was not
considered strong enough by prosecutors to proceed. “He all but
confessed in a
police car but this was still not regarded as strong enough to proceed,”
said Cadwallader, who recalled how Jackson had been caught with a list
of names
believed to be targets. He went on to kill many more people, prior to
dying of
cancer himself in 1998.
Jackson crops up time and time again.”There is incontrovertible
evidence that Robin Jackson was an RUC agent,” said Cadwallader.
What becomes clear is that the police did very little to
investigate and apprehend those responsible. The result was that many more
people were killed by several individuals like Jackson, who went on to become
multiple murderers.
One of the central messages of ‘Lethal Allies’ is that if
the security forces had been doing their job, acting within the law and to
uphold the law, much of this killing could have been avoided and the whole
conflict ended earlier.
One
view offered was there were those in the
security services who - in line with past colonial struggles - wanted to
precipitate a situation whereby they could be allowed an even freer
rein to operate.
Indeed, the crucial part of the whole collusion
story missing from this book is who was pulling the strings from London and how
it all ties back to the highest echelons of government and the security state.
Drawing on the work of the HET and others, Cadwallader
puts together a comprehensive account of those involved, stretching up into the
higher regions of the RUC but it is difficult to believe that killing and
disorder on such a scale was not being authorised from a far higher level. That
is a story that still remains to be told.
It is a view shared by Sinn Fein MP for Mid Ulster,
Francie Molloy who believes the British government has far more information it
can put into the public arena on collusion and the role of state forces in
these activities.
In one chapter, there is detail of the destructive effect all of these
deaths have had on the families left behind. So there is Maureen McGleenan, the
mother of Gerard, who never really recovered from the death of her son. He died
as he stepped onto the street, as a bomb went off at the Step Inn in Keady.
Maureen visited her son’s grave every day for 30 years. Many suffered trauma,
receiving little help to cope. The work of the HET though has helped many,
beginning some sort of healing process as a result of having the truth at least
partially officially recognised.
The author revealed that some of the families of
those murdered are pursuing civil actions. Some are suing the Chief Constable
of the PSNI because they want disclosure and an apology. “Some sort of truth
commission is needed for individual families who’ve been treated with such
cruelty by the state,” said Cadwallader, who suggested that Northern Ireland
just will not be able to move on until these issues are dealt with.
“I’ve said I don’t see the point of getting an 80
year old man in the dock for the murder of my father,” said Brecknell, who
told of the importance of the families’ stories being told.
Former Northern Ireland Police ombudsman Baroness
Nuala O’Loan has suggested an Article 2 of the European Convention on
Human Rights (right to life) Compliant Investigation Unit should be set
up with full police investigatory powers and no time limit.
There clearly needs to be something done to bring
out the truth of what happened over three decades in the north of Ireland.
The
HET made a start but the grudging way things have been handled, suggest that
this is the minimum that those with much to hide thought they could get away
with. As time passes, so the task of dealing with the crimes of the past fades.
Alan Brecknell makes a good point, about dragging up 80 year olds to face the
courts but the truth of what happened and why does need to be told.
Time is running out. Many of those involved have
already died off. Some of the evidence has been destroyed and more may well be
as time goes by. And there are many on these islands that hope to see this
period simply shepherded off into the historic archives.
This though will not help the victims or their
families who survive. A failure to acknowledge just what did go on during these
years in the north of Ireland from the Cabinet table to the assassin on the
ground will only mean that it could all happen again.
Indeed, there is already a legacy of the Troubles
in the years since with the so called war on terror. In this case, despite that
lack of bombs and bullets on the streets, repressive anti-terror laws have been
brought in going beyond much of what existed during the years of the conflict
in the north.
A legacy of this period in the north of Ireland has
been the conversion of the rule of law into an easily manipulable set of rules
used by those in power to persecute minorities. It is a dangerous slope that
ends in the police state, which is what it would seem the north of Ireland descended
into for much of the last century.
* Lethal Allies is published by Mercier Press, price £12.99
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