BRITAIN IN IRELAND: YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Posted by Jim on October 27, 2014
by Michael J. Cummings
You can examine any trouble spot in the world today and see some comparison or some contradiction with British rule in Ireland. Of course, to do so will require a strong stomach as the stench of British hypocrisy and arrogance infuses each example. But the long view of these few examples is to encourage American policy makers to question British influence on U. S.- Irish relations in the small arena of foreign affairs and to challenge basic assumptions by the British government.
Let us begin with Iraq. Last month U. S. jurors announced murder and manslaughter verdicts of four employees of Blackwater, the mercenary company hired by the U. S. State Department. They killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007. Now in 1972 the British Army killed 13 innocent unarmed civilians. It took 42 years for the British to stop lying about those killings but it has not charged, much less prosecute, any of the soldiers involved. Nor do they intend to! The British would be the first to claim the slaughter an ‘internal’ domestic matter as there was no threat to the rule of law. Why is it that America can prosecute their mercenaries in 7 years for an incident in the midst of a war but Her Majesty’s government cannot prosecute their soldiers for their murderous rampage of Bloody Sunday in ‘peace’ time?
Moving on to Syria. New York Times reporter Marlise Simons revealed that the U. S. and the U. K. are currently funding investigators who are scouring Syria for records that might reveal evidence of war crimes. This is the same government that has ignored provisions of the N. I. Good Friday Agreement of 1998 to support a Historical Enquires Team (HET) to review the killing of nearly 1000 Catholics over three decades. The British have done all they can to obstruct any review of those cases and has most recently claimed there is insufficient funds for the HET. Better to spend money documenting the crimes of Syria’s Assad than to expose one’s own crimes in Ireland!!
Let’s try Russia and the Ukraine. In his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Charlie Flanagan, blasts the actions of the Russian Federation in Crimea and the Ukraine pointing out they clearly contravene a range of international agreements. He did not take the opportunity to remind the Delegates that Britain carved up N. I. by force and without a democratic mandate, much like Russia’s Crimea takeover. Inexplicably, he does not cite Britain’s contravention of the 1998 international treaty called the Belfast Agreement. Cameron has simply refused to hold the required independent public hearing into their killing of attorney Patrick Finucane. Britain’s murdering and lawless security services, like those of Russia, are seemingly immune to the obligations of international laws and treaties.
The ECONOMIST, a British weekly magazine that frequently represents the views of the Government, had the temerity recently to cite the Cambodian government for failing to arrest and prosecute more Khmer Rouge for their murderous campaign in the 70’s. For decades the British Army and MI-5 colluded with loyalist thugs to kill innocent Catholic civilians. Two soldiers spent less than a year in a military compound for their murder convictions. Remarkably one was restored to rank. Author Anne Cadwallader’s book LETHAL ALLIES documents much of this savagery aimed at ending the Catholic civil rights campaign. The Cameron government takes every opportunity to obstruct any talk of dealing with the past in Ireland. However, it does not hesitate to use its media influence to shine a light elsewhere to distract from its deeds.
South Africa and the United States were also the target of this hypocritical venom from the ECONOMIST. Under the headline “How not to quell a riot” the magazine criticized the Ferguson Police Department . Isn’t that rich? The renamed but not reformed Royal Ulster Constabulary is the most incompetent, lawless and political police force in Western Europe. It escapes scrutiny and change because secret government reports remain sealed to avoid revealing how Northern Ireland’s Murder Inc. operated !!
An opinion piece of the magazine recently rebuked the government of South Africa for interference with the independent judiciary in the work of a Commission investigating the killing of 34 miners. Britain’s corruption of law, justice and the judiciary in N. I. is of biblical proportions . The editors must have read Matthew 7:5: “ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Not content to intern and imprison innocent people, officials at the highest levels of government in London orchestrated campaigns of violence which took the lives of over 1000 British Subjects including attorneys Rosemary Nelson and Patrick Finucane, officers of the court and defense counsel.
South Africa, Russia, Syria, Cambodia. These are but a few—- China, Sri Lanka and Egypt are others—- of Britain’s fellow travelers in respecting human rights, promoting justice, democracy and the rule of law. How can the U. S. effectively challenge injustice and promote freedom with Britain’s colonial corruption hanging like an albatross around its neck? A recent interview with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about Syria may have touched upon the nub of the problem. He noted the short term obligation to destroy ISIS and of the long term necessity of re-configuring the post W W I boundaries of Middle East nations. Those lines, like the tortured boundary drawn through the 9 county province of Ulster, were drawn up by British bureaucrats over bottles of fine claret and to suit their political purposes.
Northern Ireland is Britain’s showcase of how NOT to govern. It places the UK in the company of scoundrels and tyrants. Making excuses for their treachery in Ireland portrays America as a willing co-conspirator and collaborator and is a constant source of inspiration and justification to those who would do harm to our values. Those who serve Britain fighting evils like ISIS don’t deserve to be associated with the crimes committed in the Queens name in Ireland.
President Clinton rewrote America’s playbook on Northern Ireland . Let’s hope that ‘can do’ attitude animates this latest round of talks and inspires Special Envoy Gary Hart, Nationalists and Unionists together to craft some new ‘game-changer plays’and, better still, to craft a new playing field.