There
is a clip in one of Peter Taylor's films about
Loyalism in which a leading Loyalist says the
following or something very similar, "God
did not sprinkle looney dust over our community
one night and the next day we woke up and went
on the rampage, killing and maiming any Catholics
we came across." Indeed they did not. Reading
the NI Police Ombudswoman Nuala O'Loan's conclusions
after her enquiry into collusion between the Mount
Vernon UVF and members of the RUC Special Branch,
it becomes pretty clear the only looney dust that
was contributed to what was already a highly combustible
situation was put there by the UK Security Forces,
and with the full knowledge of powerful people
within the heart of the UK State apparatus, who
coldly calculated that if enough innocent working
class Catholics were murdered, it just might turn
their community against the PIRA or at the very
least put pressure upon its Army Council to enter
into peace talks.
Thus
the order went down the Security Forces' chain
of command to entice the more psychotic members
of the UVF and UFF to set up murder gangs. The
quid-pro-co was to be immunity; not only for the
murders these people carried out on behalf of
their new patrons, but also for their criminal
activities as a whole. Plus, if their collars
were felt by an over keen or off message member
of the RUC, the terrorist would be babysat throughout
their ordeal. An additional sweetener was offered
up to keep these depraved warriors of the UK State
on side. They would be offered the opportunity
to rake in a tidy sum by touting on their own
community. Not being the type of people to look
a gift horse in the mouth, by the time the armed
conflict came to a halt in 1997, two thirds of
the leadership of the loyalist paramilitaries
were in the pay as registered touts of either
the RUC/PSNI, FRU or MI5.
Shamefully,
in the past week it is becoming increasingly clear
that it is not in the interest of the north's
main political parties to demand a public enquiry
into security force collusion in criminality.
Thus we have had the despicable spectacle of the
Unionist parties, who have based themselves throughout
the troubles on supporting the rule of law, denigrating
Nula O'Loan and the report she has issued, whilst
defending those serving PSNI officers who have
refused to be questioned by the Ombudsman's officials.
This is today's equivalent of cheering on those
members of the security forces who burned down
the Stevens inquiry team's Carrickfergus office
as they were about to arrest Brian Nelson, one
of the FRU's [British army intel unit] key agents
who was acting as an intelligence officer for
the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
Sinn
Fein, despite much huffing and puffing down the
years on the issue of State collusion in criminality,
has been little better. Seemingly they are fearful
if they're successful in demanding an inquiry,
it will undoubtedly open up the question of the
degree of collusion that took place between the
security forces and rogue members of the PIRA.
What we have is both the Northern Irish media
and its new political establishment, the DUP and
SF, jointly attempting to move collusion into
the dustbin of history. All so that they can,
they claim, move on and get to work tackling the
real problems the people of the north face in
the here and now.
Such
an argument is complete and utter hogwash. A society
that does not understand and learn from its past
is doomed to repeat it. It looks very much like
the political strategy that led to the UK's security
forces colluding in criminality with mass murderers
is once again taking place, only this time it
is not in Ireland but Iraq. Could it be that the
security services have exported their evil strategy
from the north of Ireland to the meat grinder
of a society that is post invasion Iraq?
Almost
every day Shia Death Squads are going about their
business killing scores of Iraqis, who just happen
to be Sunni Muslims. The UK media, much as it
did when something similar happened to working
class Catholics in the north of Ireland, puts
these murders down to psychotic terrorists working
independently of the main parties and who it is
claimed are bent on provoking civil war.
But
if we take a step back, the main insurgency against
US/UK forces comes from within the Sunni community
of Iraq, whilst the murder gangs are almost exclusively
Shia. Admittedly, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian
and Al Qaeda leader in Iraq, set the whole thing
in motion, but he is no longer alive and since
his demise Sunni insurgents have been ordered
by their leaderships not to participate in sectarian
attacks on the Shia Iraqis. [It looks increasingly
like al-Zarqawi may have been a CIA asset all
along]
It
is also a fact that these Shia Death Squads are
linked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which
is responsible for the Iraqi police and numerous
intelligence organizations (which act as liaison
bottlenecks with the US/UK occupation authorities).
Just as the Death Squads in the north were undoubtedly
linked to the RUC Special Branch, and in all probability
MI5 and army Intel, something similar may well
be occurring in Iraq. There is a commonality between
current events in Iraq and what happened in NI
back in the 1980s early 90s.
This
is yet another reason why there must be a public
enquiry, or at the very least a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission which will look into the whole sorry
business of UK State collusion with death squads
in the north of Ireland — no matter if those
involved are serving members of the PSNI, or any
other State institution, or were members of the
UDA, UVF or IRA.
If
the UK State is not prepared to order such an
inquiry, due to the similarity of what went on
in the north with what is occurring in Iraq today,
the international community has a duty to instigate
such an inquiry. For collusion in murder by a
State is suerly a war crime, and there is one
thing that all the main political parties in the
north now appear to agree on: that the frightful
years between 1969 and 1997 can now be described
as a war.
