Helsinki Commission hears of Glenanne cover-up

Posted by Jim on March 21, 2015

There has been “dishonourable silence” from the British government on
evidence of deep collusion between the British forces in Ireland and
unionist paramilitaries during the conflict, an Irish human rights
researcher author has told a US congressional panel.

Anne Cadwallader, a former journalist who currently works with human
rights group, the Pat Finucane Centre, testified before the Commission
on Security and Cooperation in Europe on Capitol Hill, discussing the
findings in her 2013 book, ‘Lethal Allies: British Collusion in
Ireland’.

The book covers the murders of more than 120 people from 1972 to 1978 in
counties Tyrone, Armagh and Monaghan, providing evidence that Loyalists
killers were helped by members of the then RUC police and the British
Army’s Ulster Defence Regiment.

The murders were linked to the Glennane Gang in Tyrone and Mid-Ulster, a
region that became known as the “Murder Triangle” during the 1970s
because of the number of murders carried out on Catholics.

Ms Cadwallader testified before the committee, also known as the
Helsinki Commission, about a bomb attack on the Step Inn bar in Keady,
County Armagh in August 1976 that killed two Catholics, mother of three
Elizabeth McDonald and 22-year-old Gerard McGleenan.

She told the committee that a paper trail has been found showing that
the bomb was made, transported and detonated with the active involvement
of members of the RUC and the British Army.

“To this day, no one in authority has ever gone to any of the bereaved
families or the injured to acknowledge the state’s involvement in these
horrific crimes,” she told the committee. “The papers establishing the
state’s guilt lay for over 30 years in locked police archives. Those who
knew at the highest levels, and I mean the highest levels, must have
hoped they would never be discovered.”

There has been “deafening silence” from the London government since her
book was published, she said.

“It is, in my view, a most shabby, unworthy and dishonourable silence.
The guilty silence of a disgraced establishment that hasn’t the courage
to face the truth,” she said.

Ms Cadwallader appeared with Geraldine Finucane, widow of lawyer Pat
Finucane who was murdered by loyalists in 1989, and Kieran McEvoy, a law
professor at Queen’s University Belfast.

The Pat Finucane Centre wants the British government to release all
records showing collusion between the British Crown forces and
loyalists, and a public inquiry to be held into Mr Finucane’s killing.

The committee’s chairman, Congressman Chris Smith, remarked that the
British government’s reputation had been tarnished by the refusal to
hold a public inquiry into Mr Finucane’s murder and his committee was
“not gonna let up” until all the information about the killing is “laid
bare” and the people responsible are held to account.

“It is bewildering how a mature democracy like the United Kingdom could
be so obstinate in not letting this information out,” said Mr Smith, who
was chairing his 15th hearing since 1997 on human rights in the north of
Ireland, nine of which involved members of the Finucane family providing
testimony.

Congressman Brendan Boyle, a member of the commission, described Ms
Cadwallader’s evidence of collusion as “overwhelming”.

“It’s time for Britain to finally deal openly and honestly with this
issue and release all of the evidence,” he said.