|
With
the naming of Sean Mag Uidhir (Maguire) as an [alleged]
informer by the media's very own tout on line Peter
Keeley (Alias Kevin Fulton), it increasingly looks
like the current incarnation of the Stakenife affair
had its origins in events that took place in the early
1990s - in a nondescript Belfast house which the RUC
raided to free former PIRA volunteer Sandy Lynch,
who also moonlighted as an RUC special branch informer.
Indeed
if the press reports are to be believed, two ranking
PIRA members who according to their current accusers
were informers working for the British State, had
been sent by their PIRA commanders to 'interrogate'
a third informer. Whilst a fourth man who was the
real target of the RUC on that day had been sent by
the Army Council to oversee their interrogation of
the prisoner and if necessary confirm judgement of
any Court Martial that may or may not have taken place.
If, and I stress the word, the aforementioned has
any basis in truth then it is almost surreal or out
of a Monty Python movie; the more one hears of this,
the words salt and pinch springs to mind. What is
becoming increasingly clear is that the dramatic events
of that day may have set in motion a chain of events
the ripples of which are still being felt today. The
question that needs to be asked, is this a natural
flow of events or is some unseen hand stirring up
the waters?
Lynch,
a PIRA volunteer who had fallen under suspicion as
an informer, by all accounts had been arrested by
Provo security and taken to the house to be interrogated
and possibly court martialled. This explains the presence
at the house of the three people who besides Lynch
have emerged as the major players in this wretched
affair. Fred Scappaticci, Sean Mag Uidhir and Danny
Morrison. If we are to believe the media, Scappaticci
visited the house in his role as a senior Provo policeman,
Mag Uidhir as one of Lynch's superiors in the PIRA
Belfast command structure and Morrison as the representative
of the Army Council, although he claimed at his later
trial that he was there to organise a press conference
with Lynch as its main participant.
It
is hardly surprising that the three men who visited
the house where Lynch was being held were not on the
premises all at the same time, as this would have
been basic security on their part. What is clear is
that the RUC officers, who were watching the house,
passed up the opportunity of arresting either Scappaticci
or Mag Uidhir before they left the house. Both of
them were supposedly high on the RUCs arrest wish
list at the time, but on that particular afternoon
they had an even bigger fish to fry, the Republican
Movement's publicity chief Danny Morrison. Much hinges
on whether they had certain knowledge that he would
visit the house that afternoon or they had worked
it out via probabilities. It is doubtful if we will
ever know for sure, but much of the rumour and speculation
hangs on this conundrum. Danny Morrison, who at that
time was near the top of the RUC's list of major Republican
Movement targets, having been a main player for a
decade, and in the process emerged as the most able
and efficient propagandist then working for Gerry
Adams and his leadership within the Provisionals.
The
Branch were not to be disappointed, as Morrison fell
into their hands at the same time as they crashed
through the door of 124 Carrigart Avenue to free Lynch.
Scappaticci and Mag Uidhir were no longer in the building;
it was the fact that they escaped the RUC net that
set the rumours buzzing over the next decade and more.
As
was the norm after all failed PIRA operations, an
internal inquiry was conducted by its security department
or possibly in this case, as PIRA security may well
have been involved in any lapse, by more senior republicans
maybe even army council members. This would to a degree
explain Scappaticci's later naive, bitter, and, if
he is innocent, stupid behaviour. We can only speculate
about what conclusions were reached by this inquiry
and what decisions the Army Council took on reading
its report. What is becoming clear is that the whole
Stakenife affair grew out of the fact that Lynch was
able to fall into the welcoming arms of his RUC saviours
at the very moment Danny Morrison was approaching
or was on the premises. What we also can reasonably
conclude is that the military careers of two ranking
republicans came to an end that afternoon and also
that of then Republican Movement's foremost publicist
and propagandist, who with his arrest and subsequent
conviction ended up being sentenced to 8 years in
jail. The latter's career on his release from jail
remains one of the untold mysteries of the last thirty
years. For Morrison never returned on release to the
upper reaches of the RM that he previously inhabited.
Indeed some senior republicans seem to have lost all
confidence in him; the reasons for this have never
been fully explained. The public version being that
on his release from prison he wished to concentrate
on his writing career and although there is nothing
to doubt this, this explanation does not sit too well
with some. Although their hostility could be explained
by these people feeling that Morrison wrongly placed
his private life before that of the RM.
It
looks likely the internal PIRA inquiry came to no
concrete conclusion about whether there were other
informers besides Lynch in the house during his period
of captivity within it. Was it therefore recommended
that all three of the leading players, Scappaticci,
Mag Uidhir and Morrison be stood down from all active
service, thus membership of the PIRA?
This
would explain in part not only the aforementioned
about Morrison, but also Scappaticci's recently revealed
odd behaviour, when he met the producers of the TV
program The Cook Report. According to a tape
they produced of their meeting with him, he badmouthed
Martin McGuinness in a most derogatory and foolish
way. The TV people claim they never ran the Scappaticci
interview because shortly after meeting him they themselves
were approached by British Intelligence. The securocrats
apparently told them that Scappaticci was one of their
most important informers within the IRA and they were
asked not to make the interview public, as his exposure
would jeopardise future operations, and etc.
I
have no doubt that the TV people were approached by
someone from the securocrats, however to believe that
such people would give the name of one of their top
informers within PIRA to the producer/researcher of
a TV programme is to defy belief. So what were the
securocrats up to; could it be that they were putting
into place the bricks of a possible future sting?
They would have been aware that Scappaticci was disgruntled,
angry about being stood down, perhaps they had approached
him to work for them and he had turned them down,
who knows. He had after all spent years cleaning the
Provisional stables and being stood down whilst having
a cloud over his head was all the thanks the leadership
gave him.
He
was not the type of man who could go off and build
a different type of life within the Republican Movement,
unlike Mag Uidhir, by studying, and he was not cut
out for a political career. Even if it was offered
him which, due to his history would have been doubtful.
Finally, due to the nature of his work within the
Provos, which at times amounted to being a secret
police officer, if smeared he was unlikely to have
many members of the Republican Movement coming forward
to defend him. He was rumoured to have accompanied
too many Provos under sentence on their last walk
along dark border lanes to have gained any personal
popularity within republican circles. The meeting
with the team from the Cook Report would also
explain the half hearted defence of Scappaticci by
senior Provo figures as it is likely they too knew
about it, possibly from Scappaticci himself when interrogated
after the first revelations about him being Stakeknife.
And they were aware that it would be revealed at some
time.
As
to Peter Keeley, the Newry born informer, naming of
Sean Mag Uidhir as an informer? This info looks doubtful,
as how would Keeley know? Today he claims to be in
dispute with his former State employers, so it is
unlikely he gained the information from them after
he came in from the cold, so to speak. Whilst working
as an informer he would not have been given information
about other under cover operatives and informers working
for the army, police or security service for basic
reasons of security, in case he was exposed and interrogated
by the IRA himself. This being so how would he have
come across such information?
We
can take it for granted that all agents and informers
working within the Republican Movement are not given
a Christmas party once a year organised by their employers,
the British State, at which they swap notes and stories
about each other. Although according to the former
deep penetration British Army agent Willie Carlin,
who, whilst a serving British Army soldier was sent
back to Derry to infiltrate the Republican Movement
and did so with some success, managing to stay active
for almost a decade, he and Keeley along with other
disgruntled agents/informers have met to discuss passed
events. This being so it would not be hard to plant
information amongst this unsavoury bunch that would
find its way into the media. Indeed it is possible
that the differences between the likes of Keeley,
Carlin or one of the others who make up this sorry
bunch and their British masters are fabricated and
one or more of them are still working as an active
agent of the securocrats.
I
have no doubt that the British State has had an informer
or informers within the upper reaches of the PIRA;
why should the Provos be any different from previous
generations of Republicans all of whom were infiltrated
at one time or another by the British or Free State
security? The questions are, are any of these informers
still operational and was the Stakenife affair designed
to keep the spotlight off them, or is the whole affair
the normal bog-standard security sting that plays
on human weaknesses, especially gossip, ego and petty
slights?
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews +
Letters + Archives
|
