PRC-UTE
1st February 2007, 00:53
Collusion
So the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, Nuala O’Loan has produced a report that shows that there was collusion between Special Branch officers of the then Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and members of the loyalist outfit the Ulster Volunteer Force. Lordy Lordy! What a shocking state of affairs. The only shocking thing about it has been the response of the political leaders of Unionism. Apart from the PUP’s Dawn Purvis, the leaders of Unionism talked about the good work of the RUC, the many lives saved and how all this was plot to rewrite history. They are scared to face up to the ugly face of their own history.
The report only dealt with North Belfast where a UVF unit carried out 10 murders, 10 attempted murders, 10 punishment shootings, 13 punishment attacks, a bomb attack in Monaghan and 72 other criminal offences while simultaneously working as informers for Special Branch during the 80’s and 90’s. Republicans have known almost from the year 1969 that the Special Branch saw Ulster Loyalism as another weapon in the struggle to subdue the demands for a united Ireland. In the 1920’2 and 30’s an Inspector Nixon of the RUC led a loyalist murder gang. There has always been a close relationship between police and loyalism in the Northern state.
The cold reality that needs to be faced up to by all who have been involved in the conflict is that the actions of the loyalist paramilitaries were part and parcel of the British occupation of Ireland. The bombing of catholic owned pubs, the burning out of Catholics from previously “mixed” areas, the cold blooded butchery practiced by the Shankill butchers, the firebombing of catholic areas, the bomb attacks on people and property south of the border and the assassination of political leaders within nationalism and republicanism were all carried out by loyalism as part of the British war machine. Over 200 weapons from the UDR/RIR (the local official militia of the British army) found their way to the UDA/UVF/RHC (the unofficial militia of the British Army). In 1973 the British Army itself estimated between 5% and 15 % of the soldiers in the UDR were connected to the loyalist murder gangs.
The collusion took different forms at different times. For example the RUC denied the existence of a sectarian murder campaign for many years during the 1970’s. Instead they were motiveless murders or random murders. These murders were rarely fully investigated. Files went missing. Suspects were not questioned. Forensics investigations were not carried out and relatives kept in the dark about the progress of investigations. Files on republican suspects were copied and given to loyalist murders.
Leaders within republicanism were targeted for harassment by the security forces and then details of cars homes etc fed to the murder gangs. In a number of cases agents of MI5 trained loyalist murder gangs in the skills of assassination and also set up a number of pseudo gangs to carry out random acts of violence as they had done in Aden, Cyprus and Kenya during those countries struggle for freedom. British army activity or rather lack of activity during the Ulster Workers Council (UWC) in 1974 was a clear example of collusion with loyalism. They idly stood by while fascist thugs through a lock out brought down the power-sharing executive. Of course this was nothing new for in 1914 the officer class of the same army refused to obey their orders to move their men to the north from the Curragh.
The result of this collusion can be seen in the statistics of deaths. Loyalist gangs killed 864 civilians mostly Catholics with no connections to republicanism. The Stevens inquiry found that
‘UDA had access to a large number of security files on republicans’
Most of the loyalists involved in the murder of Pat Finucane worked for one or other branches of the security forces as paid informers and also active murderers.
Al of this was approves at the highest level of the British Government. Someday when all this has passed, historians will conclude that the evidence shows that the murders of IRSP members, Miriam Daly, Ronnie Bunting and Noel Little were approved in committee rooms in Number 10 Downing Street.
Of course in time history will also uncover episodes of agents within Republican groups being allowed to get away with murder because it suited the long term plans of their masters in MI5 MI6 or the Special Branch.
The report by Nuala O’Loan allows the British to say “Yes there was some bad things done by a few bad apples and it was wrong, we apologize and now it is time to move on as that can not now happen, given all the reforms we have introduced.”
That report plays into the politics of today. It allows the pro-policing Sinn Fein (P) to claim that all this is because they held out for so long from endorsing policing and now it is time to get in and change from within as real chance has taken place.
Do they really believe that MI5 will have no connection with policing? All policing is political. Just ask the minority communities in British cities or talk to the families of the miners of Britain.
British enquires into British activity in the North are to all intents and purposes a waste of time. Good for the lawyers, good for the media but bearing little or no relation to the truth. They have only been set up to create a context within which nationalists can be encouraged to work the sectarian six county state. It is not about the truth. Truth is not exactly a virtue one associates with the British Prime Minister Blair. All the enquires of the day will not chance the fundamentals of the Irish question. No amount of spin will change that fact. British Imperialism still rules the six county state.
The British state coldly and calculatingly armed trained and unleashed murder gangs against Catholics as part of their campaign to subdue republican resistance. There were not a “few bad apples” morally compromised by colluding with brutal murder gangs. The British were not a neutral force standing between two warring sectarian tribes. They were the instigators of sectarian violence just as they have been in Iraq.
Tony Blair and the New Labour project are not squeaky clean. They are as guilty as Thatcher and every other British Government that presided over the occupation of Ireland.
The struggle goes on but in a changed political context. Republicans need to be wary of reacting emotionally to the events of the day and mounting short-term electoral challenges that ignore the social and economic issues of the day. Republican socialists have always argued that the class and national questions cannot be separated Now is not the time to abandon that core belief. Instead we must take our message into all arenas of conflict and raise the banner of class struggle high.
(Gerry Ruddy)
So the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland, Nuala O’Loan has produced a report that shows that there was collusion between Special Branch officers of the then Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and members of the loyalist outfit the Ulster Volunteer Force. Lordy Lordy! What a shocking state of affairs. The only shocking thing about it has been the response of the political leaders of Unionism. Apart from the PUP’s Dawn Purvis, the leaders of Unionism talked about the good work of the RUC, the many lives saved and how all this was plot to rewrite history. They are scared to face up to the ugly face of their own history.
The report only dealt with North Belfast where a UVF unit carried out 10 murders, 10 attempted murders, 10 punishment shootings, 13 punishment attacks, a bomb attack in Monaghan and 72 other criminal offences while simultaneously working as informers for Special Branch during the 80’s and 90’s. Republicans have known almost from the year 1969 that the Special Branch saw Ulster Loyalism as another weapon in the struggle to subdue the demands for a united Ireland. In the 1920’2 and 30’s an Inspector Nixon of the RUC led a loyalist murder gang. There has always been a close relationship between police and loyalism in the Northern state.
The cold reality that needs to be faced up to by all who have been involved in the conflict is that the actions of the loyalist paramilitaries were part and parcel of the British occupation of Ireland. The bombing of catholic owned pubs, the burning out of Catholics from previously “mixed” areas, the cold blooded butchery practiced by the Shankill butchers, the firebombing of catholic areas, the bomb attacks on people and property south of the border and the assassination of political leaders within nationalism and republicanism were all carried out by loyalism as part of the British war machine. Over 200 weapons from the UDR/RIR (the local official militia of the British army) found their way to the UDA/UVF/RHC (the unofficial militia of the British Army). In 1973 the British Army itself estimated between 5% and 15 % of the soldiers in the UDR were connected to the loyalist murder gangs.
The collusion took different forms at different times. For example the RUC denied the existence of a sectarian murder campaign for many years during the 1970’s. Instead they were motiveless murders or random murders. These murders were rarely fully investigated. Files went missing. Suspects were not questioned. Forensics investigations were not carried out and relatives kept in the dark about the progress of investigations. Files on republican suspects were copied and given to loyalist murders.
Leaders within republicanism were targeted for harassment by the security forces and then details of cars homes etc fed to the murder gangs. In a number of cases agents of MI5 trained loyalist murder gangs in the skills of assassination and also set up a number of pseudo gangs to carry out random acts of violence as they had done in Aden, Cyprus and Kenya during those countries struggle for freedom. British army activity or rather lack of activity during the Ulster Workers Council (UWC) in 1974 was a clear example of collusion with loyalism. They idly stood by while fascist thugs through a lock out brought down the power-sharing executive. Of course this was nothing new for in 1914 the officer class of the same army refused to obey their orders to move their men to the north from the Curragh.
The result of this collusion can be seen in the statistics of deaths. Loyalist gangs killed 864 civilians mostly Catholics with no connections to republicanism. The Stevens inquiry found that
‘UDA had access to a large number of security files on republicans’
Most of the loyalists involved in the murder of Pat Finucane worked for one or other branches of the security forces as paid informers and also active murderers.
Al of this was approves at the highest level of the British Government. Someday when all this has passed, historians will conclude that the evidence shows that the murders of IRSP members, Miriam Daly, Ronnie Bunting and Noel Little were approved in committee rooms in Number 10 Downing Street.
Of course in time history will also uncover episodes of agents within Republican groups being allowed to get away with murder because it suited the long term plans of their masters in MI5 MI6 or the Special Branch.
The report by Nuala O’Loan allows the British to say “Yes there was some bad things done by a few bad apples and it was wrong, we apologize and now it is time to move on as that can not now happen, given all the reforms we have introduced.”
That report plays into the politics of today. It allows the pro-policing Sinn Fein (P) to claim that all this is because they held out for so long from endorsing policing and now it is time to get in and change from within as real chance has taken place.
Do they really believe that MI5 will have no connection with policing? All policing is political. Just ask the minority communities in British cities or talk to the families of the miners of Britain.
British enquires into British activity in the North are to all intents and purposes a waste of time. Good for the lawyers, good for the media but bearing little or no relation to the truth. They have only been set up to create a context within which nationalists can be encouraged to work the sectarian six county state. It is not about the truth. Truth is not exactly a virtue one associates with the British Prime Minister Blair. All the enquires of the day will not chance the fundamentals of the Irish question. No amount of spin will change that fact. British Imperialism still rules the six county state.
The British state coldly and calculatingly armed trained and unleashed murder gangs against Catholics as part of their campaign to subdue republican resistance. There were not a “few bad apples” morally compromised by colluding with brutal murder gangs. The British were not a neutral force standing between two warring sectarian tribes. They were the instigators of sectarian violence just as they have been in Iraq.
Tony Blair and the New Labour project are not squeaky clean. They are as guilty as Thatcher and every other British Government that presided over the occupation of Ireland.
The struggle goes on but in a changed political context. Republicans need to be wary of reacting emotionally to the events of the day and mounting short-term electoral challenges that ignore the social and economic issues of the day. Republican socialists have always argued that the class and national questions cannot be separated Now is not the time to abandon that core belief. Instead we must take our message into all arenas of conflict and raise the banner of class struggle high.
(Gerry Ruddy)