UNITED STATES AND NORTHERN IRELAND: HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL AND SEE NO EVIL
Posted by Jim on February 18, 2015
by Michael John Cummings
The 1998 signing of the Belfast Agreement brought an end to the armed conflict in Northern Ireland. But the pact had more to do with helping Britain manage partition without all the bloodshed. Justice, democracy and the rule of law are still on the long finger. Anxious about the judgment of history, Britain has spent the past decade destroying evidence and scrubbing the truth from its records. Americans might be surprised to learn that the U. S. ‘hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil ‘policy on N. I. gave cover to British violence.
The ‘truth’ of Britain’s deeds in the North has always been there for those who chose to see. The civil rights protest in 1969 exposed the sectarian garrison and a new UK policy unfolded to keep Ireland divided, in flames if necessary, and to prevent the rise of an economic rival. That policy rollout went something like this.
- 1969-1976 Army and police are unleashed with the Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday murders, the McGurk’s Bar and Miami Showband killings, internment without charge, Diplock courts without juries and daily intimidation of Catholics to drive them into the IRA. The British Army through its Military Reaction Force, 14th Intelligence and Force Research Units provided all this mayhem including the Dublin-Monaghan bombings killing 33 civilians, mostly women and children. The strategy worked. Armed resistance ensued. The U. S. response to all of this was the cowardly “it was an internal matter.”
- 1977-1986 Britain sponsors more loyalist killers. Loyalist collaborator Robin Jackson alone was suspected of killing 100 Catholics. The partnership with the Glennane Gang reaped 140 Catholic killings. Journalist Anne Cadwallader’s book Lethal Allies documents how the corrupt judicial system minimized British culpability. The changing of Coroners Rules only in N. I. aided the cover-up of their crimes. America’s Longshoremen union showed how to protest the death of Bobby Sands but the U. S. Department of State could only whimper. U. S. remains silent while reports from Amnesty International, British Irish Rights Watch, the EU, the United Nations, the European Court of Human Rights, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York document and question British actions.
- 1986-1998 Britain increased their loyalist and IRA informers who alone account for the killing of hundreds. Keeping the cover for IRA informer Steaknife necessitated 40 murders and loyalist double agent Brian Nelson, who coordinated the assassination of attorney Patrick Finucane, required a dozen more. Sir John Steven’s Inquiry documents all this mayhem but took 13 years and 3000 pages (only 20 of which were released). He recommended 23 police and Army individuals be charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Still no reaction from the U. S. In a desperate attempt to incite an IRA response, MI-5 and the Special Air Services (SAS) forces killed 5 elected Sinn Fein Councilor’s and 9 campaign workers. Their crimes? Canvassing and poll watching. The U. S. Secretary of State is silent. By the time President Clinton issued a visa to Gerry Adams in 1992, the British had begun the cover-up. But the sinister forces were not done yet. The corrupt RUC and MI-5 knew where and when the Republican dissidents were to detonate the 1998 Enniskillen bomb but did nothing to stop it. In 1999 loyalist dissidents assassinated Lurgan attorney Rosemary Nelson, who had testified in Congress about police threats to her life. Her death may well mark the unofficial end of the extra-judicial execution campaign waged for 30 years by Her Majesty’s forces.
Did U. S. Presidents know of Britain’s role in all the murders? Did the British lie to U. S. leaders? Did the U. S. censor by denying visas to witnesses of British lawlessness? Were U. S. deportation and extradition cases brought to persecute those who were victims of British cruelty? President Reagan ignored a congressional embargo of sales of Ruger pistols to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Wasn’t that a seal of approval for their role in the killing fields of N. I.? How could the Departments of Justice and State ignore Mutual Legal Assistance treaty requirements in processing politically motivated subpoenas from the police force that conspired to execute attorney Patrick Finucane?
Americans deserve better than three decades of relative silence on the conflict in Ireland. If the late Congressman Joe Moakley could lead fact finding missions to El Salvador and report on army abuses and killings why not such a team for N. I.? The U. S. sponsored a U. N. investigation in to the assassination of Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri so let’s sponsor one for the murders of Rosemary Nelson, Pat Finucane and hundreds of other Catholics? The Department of State should certify they have read all research and publications concerning the police and military excesses in N. I. If the British don’t cooperate then all joint military and police training should cease and all MLAT subpoenas from the UK returned. The British government refuses to hold all those accountable for the killing of Patrick Finucane but we can demand their names and add them to travel and financial sanctions list provided in the “Magnitsky” law. Since the UK is doing all it can to bury their dirty war, the congressional Joint Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe should hold hearings to examine Britain’s campaign of human rights abuses, extra-judicial executions and corruption of law and justice in the North.
All of this doesn’t nearly make up for three decades of U. S. silence, excusing British excesses or looking the other way. But it is a damn good start.