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The Blanket - A Journal of Protest & Dissent

State Terrorism Par Excellence

 


Anthony McIntyre • 27 January 2007

The incubus that stalked Northern Ireland's nationalists has been glimpsed as a result of Nuala O'Loan's report on collusion between RUC Special Branch and loyalist death squads. Only glimpsed because, like the Loch Ness monster, its fullness evades us. Confined to the relatively miniscule Mount Vernon estate in North Belfast, it tells us nothing about the certain replication of murder throughout the North as a whole. Speaking with Sinn Fein MLA Francie Molloy a few evenings ago, a shudder rippled through me as he detailed the sectarian onslaught experienced by nationalists in Mid Ulster's murder triangle area. Nationalists have never been in any doubt that Robin Jackson and cohorts perpetrated the Murder Triangle assassination campaign in full consort with senior officials in the state security services.

Even if the argument is accepted that informants within the UVF were essential to the preservation of nationalist life there is an immediate quandary. It would have to be established that nationalist lives were saved. We know that similar arguments put forward in a court of law by Brigadier Gordon Kerr on behalf of UFF murderer and agent of the British state Brian Nelson were without foundation. Brian Nelson helped save two lives, those of Freddie Scappaticci and Gerry Adams, Scappaticci because he was a tout and Adams because the British knew he intended winding up the IRA campaign. But in the case of the Mount Vernon UVF it seems that those doing the killings were the informants. What was the purpose of employing informants to stop killings if the bulk, if not all, of killings were being carried out by informants?

This raises the 'appalling vista' of the UVF's raison d'etre solely being its usefulness to the British state as it sought to sickeningly squeeze the nationalist community to a point where it would vomit out the IRA. This reframes the issue of collusion. Did RUC Special Branch collude with members of a loyalist murder gang because its smashing was considered unattainable and the only choice was the realpolitk one of between bad and worse? Or did the UVF, regardless of its origins in 1966, owe much of its subsequent existence to the perceived need of special branch for a weapon in its war against the IRA? If it is the second question that prompts accurate answers then we move beyond the issue of collusion. Special Branch did not merely collude with UVF death squads, it created them.

For years individuals like Mark Thompson of Relatives For Justice have drawn our attention to the malign role of the British state in the Northern conflict. But even he might be stunned by just how deeply the state murder business permeated Northern society.

Unionists on the other hand at best pretended all was rosy in the orange garden. The mitigation proffered by unionist stalwarts such as Ken Magennis that Northern Ireland was in the grip of a war and terrible things happen during a war cuts no cloth. This disingenuous defence actually accentuates the crimes committed by the British state. Ten republican volunteers died trying to prove what the defenders of RUC Special Branch then denied but who are now shouting it from the roof tops - that what took place in the North of Ireland was not a sectarian conflict but a war in which the British state was one of the chief protagonists.

RUC Special Branch functioned as a terrorist gang. It was the cutting edge of British state terrorism. Nuala O'Loan has performed outstandingly in bringing the matter to public attention. But a combination of complacency and thwarting should not be allowed to paralyse the search for justice. There can be no question of future investigation being lured down some meandering British judicial lane where it can be safely strangled. The entire process should now be taken out of the realm of the British state altogether and placed before an International Criminal Tribunal for Northern Ireland sitting at The Hague. Like Jean Kambanda, Slobodan Milosevic, Jorge Videla, the British leader who headed the state terror campaign should not be allowed to escape justice. The loophole afforded to her friend Augusta Pinochet should be foreclosed. As she haughtily told the world many years ago, crime is crime is crime.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Index: Current Articles



28 January 2007

Other Articles From This Issue:

Done & Dusted
Anthony McIntyre

Once Again, The Big Transition
Dolours Price

Plastic Bullet
John Kennedy

Provos Embrace Total Collaboration with British Rule
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh

British Policing is Not an Alternative
Francis Mackey

$F Hats
Brian Mór

Policing Problems
Tommy McKearney

SF Seeks to Curtail NI Policing
David Adams

Digging Up the Truth
John Kennedy

State Terrorism Par Excellence
Anthony McIntyre

Collusion: Dirty War Crime
Mick Hall

Repeating the Pattern of the Top Brass
Eamonn McCann

Collusion revelations: disturbing but not shocking
Brendan O'Neill

England's Legacy to Ireland: State Sponsored Terrorism
Richard Wallace

Application for Service in HMPRUC
Brian Mór

The Revolution is the People
Michéal MháDonnáin

Rates and PFI Payments
Ray McAreavey

Reviews of 'Century'
Roy Johnston

A Peacemaker at the Start and the Finish
David Adams


22 January 2007

Only A Fool
Anthony McIntyre

Wake Up & Smell the Coffee
John Kennedy

Killing the Messenger
Martin Galvin

Turning Tide
John Kennedy

Derry Debate
Anthony McIntyre

The Issues That Need Debated
Francis Mackey

The Rule of Whose Law?
Mick Hall

GFA Gestapo
Brian Mór

When in a Hole...
Mick Hall

Don't Be Afraid, Do Not Be Fooled
Dolours Price

Provie Peelers
Brian Mór

No Other Law
32 County Sovereignty Movement

Whither Late Sinn Fein?
Michael Gillespie

The Final Step
John Cronin

Moral Duty
Dr John Coulter

Repatriated Prisoner's Thanks
Aiden Hulme

McDowell Blocks 'Last' Repatriation
Fionnbarra O'Dochartaigh

Óglaigh na hÉireann New Years Message 2007
Óglaigh na hÉireann

A "Must Read" For Those With a Serious Interest
Liam O Ruairc

George Faludy’s Happy Days in Hell
Seaghán Ó Murchú

Reflections on the Late David Ervine
Dr John Coulter

In Memoriam David Ervine
Marcel M. Baumann

Michael Ferguson
Anthony McIntyre

"Bloody Sunday" Commemoration Event
George Cuddy

Just Books Belfast Relaunch & Fundraiser
Just Books

 

 

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