Pressure for Britain to face war crimes tribunal over collusion

Posted by Jim on June 11, 2016

Pressure for Britain to face war crimes tribunal over collusion

There are fresh calls in the north of Ireland for a much stronger
approach to the issue of state collusion following confirmation that it
played a significant role in the 1994 Loughinisland massacre.

After decades of cover-up, one complete whitewash and years of deep
hostility from public officials in Belfast and London, a Police
Ombudsman’s report on Thursday found that state agents were indeed
involved in the random killing of six Catholic civilians, which was then
covered up.

The murders took place in the Heights Bar in the County Down village
when a death-squad opened fire on people watching the Ireland soccer
team play Italy during the 1994 World Cup in America. Gunmen in
balaclavas burst into the bar and shouted about “Fenians” before firing
indiscriminate.

The attack took place amid negotiations between the Provisional IRA and
the British government to being about a ceasefire, which was announced
ten weeks later.

The new Ombudsman’s report, the second by that office on Loughinisland,
was described the Guardian newspaper as “a devastating report that is
likely to challenge previous official narratives of the nature of the
conflict”.

It detailed a catalogue of collusion before and after the massacre,
which included the importation of the weapons used in the murders and
scores of others by British agents; the direct involvement of police
agents in the planning of the killings; and ‘catastrophic failures’ in
the investigation of suspects and the destruction of evidence.

In an unusually strong statement, Ombudsman Michael Maguire said he had
“no hesitation in unambiguously determining that collusion is a
significant feature of the Loughinisland murders”.

He found that there was a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” by
the security forces to the use of informers.

The report comes more than four years after Mr Maguire dramatically
scrapped his predecessor Al Hutchinson’s investigation into the murders
and ordered a new inquiry into the killings. The original investigation
had been branded a whitewash by the victims’ families when it was
published in 2011.

Former Republican MP Bernadette McAliskey, a survivor of another such
attack, said the findings support a potential action at the
International Criminal Court in The Hague.

“When we look at Bloody Sunday, Balllymurphy, Stakeknife and what is
beginning to emerge in the loyalist community as well, there is case for
war crimes,” she said.

“The British Government used its military to perpetuate a 40 year war
here. It used its undercover secrecy to keep it going and lied with
impunity about its own actions.

“When you go back and look at what was happening during the peace
process, it was ambiguity. It was fudge and they hoped they’d get away
with it. We have never had truth, never mind justice.”

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams called on the 26 County government to put
pressure on Downing Street to “open its books” on collusion following
the report.

He also urged Dublin to demand the British government hold the long
promised inquiry into the murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane.

“A step change in the Irish government’s response to collusion is
urgently needed. As a co-equal guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement,
the Irish government must use all of the resources… including the
United Nations, to exert pressure on the British government.”