“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.” Frederick Douglass

Posted by Jim on January 27, 2016

State forces illegality still being shielded

Posted by Jim on

“In the face of public knowledge about the illegal activity of the security forces in allowing killings to take place the British government’s refusal of adequate investigative procedures holds the concept of the rule of law during The Troubles up to ridicule.”

State forces illegality still being shielded

Brian Feeney. Irish News (Belfast). Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Allison Morris’s startling revelations in this paper on Monday concentrated on the role of informers in the IRA leading to the officially authorised killing of loyalists, civilians and other IRA members.

That concentration was because the information came from documents concerning IRA informers stolen from Castlereagh. It is clear that the handlers of those informers often didn’t act to prevent killing in case their sources were revealed.

The most egregious example given was the multiple killing in Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill which caused loyalist retaliation resulting in over a dozen sectarian killings in the next week but also produced a huge political reaction which almost derailed the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993.

Unfortunately there was nothing new in 1993 about the RUC, MI5 and military intelligence playing fast and loose with people’s lives here and it wasn’t just civilians or members of paramilitary groups. In November 1981 Constable William Coulter, a 23-year-old married man was killed in an IRA bomb attack at Unity Flats as Land Rover patrols changed shift. A booby-trap bomb hidden behind a fence exploded killing him and injuring others in the Land Rovers.

It quickly emerged that Special Branch knew about the bomb. Indeed the man who allegedly detonated it by line of sight was arrested next day and charged. The Police Federation complained vociferously that the patrol had not been warned about the bomb. They weren’t told in case it exposed the informant whom the RUC fervently believed would turn supergrass, the prevailing fashion in those days.

The informant did not turn supergrass, withdrew his evidence and all charges were dropped. One policeman was killed, others injured and a family wrecked by someone in Special Branch playing God. After an internal RUC investigation the constable’s widow who had given birth to a son three weeks after his killing was awarded a substantial five figure sum in compensation by the High Court. It wasn’t the first time this sequence of events occurred and of course we know of umpteen other examples over the next 20 years.

Thanks to Baroness O’Loan’s time as Police Ombudsman we know this sort of intelligence chicanery leading to the death of civilians, paramilitaries and security force members was just as prevalent with handlers of loyalist killers as with the IRA.

It’s the real reason our proconsul[Northern Ireland Secretary of State] won’t countenance a proper Historical Investigation Unit and for her insistence on ‘national security’ reasons for refusal to disclose any awkward evidence. Astonishingly the DUP is content with that even though it could mean denying relatives of members of the RUC and UDR receiving compensation from the courts. Anything is acceptable rather than admit the security forces were up to all kinds of nefarious activities throughout The Troubles.

We know from recently released State Papers how furious the Irish government was when in 1988 Sir Patrick Mayhew announced no prosecutions of any police or military personnel involved in the hayshed shootings in 1982. “An inquest will be held in due course’’, he told the Commons. That was 28 years ago. Five attempts to get the inquest started have failed. The conclusions of the highly classified Stalker-Sampson reports are now well known but no inquiry into security force illegality will ever take place.

The recent revelations of intelligence chicanery about the Shankill bomb and other murky dealings with double agents leading to killing cry out for a public inquiry. The Pat Finucane Centre has pointed out that initially the British government refused an inquiry into the killing of Alexander Litvinenko but the High Court ruled that decision wrong and a public inquiry ensued which, with no cooperation from the perpetrators, published important findings about the culprits.

That process demonstrates that even with opposition from the British government successful inquiries could be held despite non-cooperation from paramilitary groups, the Ministry of Defence and PSNI who have become experts at prevarication and obfuscation as evidence in the current investigation by Lord Justice Weir amply demonstrates.

In the face of public knowledge about the illegal activity of the security forces in allowing killings to take place the British government’s refusal of adequate investigative procedures holds the concept of the rule of law during the Troubles up to ridicule.

“But what if all that we once thought we knew about that time and the events that followed was wrong?

Posted by Jim on January 25, 2016

“But what if all that we once thought we knew about that time and the events that followed was wrong?
What if the dark hand of British intelligence was playing both sides of the chess board at one time and the innocents standing in Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill Road on October 23 1993 were considered collateral damage?”

Results of investigation could forever change our understanding of the past

Allison Morris. Irish News(Belfast). Monday, January 25, 2016

For those old enough to remember those bloody and at times savage days of the early 1990s, when the north’s conflict spiralled downwards into a series of tit-for-tat sectarian killings, there are numerous tragic events ingrained in the memory.

But even among the almost daily carnage, the Shankill bombing stands out as an event that shocked a population seemingly desensitised from years of conflict. Most people can tell you where they were when they heard the news, my terraced house on the other side of the peace wall in the Clonard area of west Belfast shook violently from the force of the blast.

Retaliation for the IRA bombing was swift and brutal and it was just a week later when news reports showing broken bodies being pulled from the rubble on the Shankill Road were replaced with the scenes of bloody carnage at Greysteel.

Much has been written about that period and the aftermath and with the north on the brink of all out civil war there was a push towards a political settlement. Both sides were as a result forced back to the negotiating table with a war weary public ready to embrace a deal that may have otherwise been unthinkable.

Victims were forced to accept the early release of all paramilitary prisoners, for republicans a settlement that fell far short of the once demanded United Ireland. Unionists agreed to share power and sit in government with former IRA members.

But what if all that we once thought we knew about that time and the events that followed was wrong?

What if the dark hand of British intelligence was playing both sides of the chess board at one time and the innocents standing in Frizzell’s fish shop on the Shankill Road on October 23 1993 were considered collateral damage?

The Irish News has seen evidence that shows the man who was the Ardoyne ‘commander’ of the IRA from 1991 until 2001 was in fact a top level informant.

Also, that prior information was passed to his handlers about the plan to kill UDA leader Jonny Adair in his office situated above Frizzell’s shop. How previous plans to kill the high-profile loyalist were abandoned as unworkable before the idea of walking a bomb into the building was floated by the compromised IRA leader. That Adair, who met with UDA members every Saturday at the office, wasn’t there on the day of the attack. Was he warned while innocents were allowed to perish?

All this has been known to republicans since the break in at Special Branch offices at Castlereagh in 2001 when classified documents detailing the information being passed by the Ardoyne commander to his handlers was stolen by the IRA.

And while people close to the Sinn Féin leadership, such as Denis Donaldson and Roy McShane, were outed for political reasons, efforts have been made to conceal the extent to which the ‘military’ side of the organisation was infiltrated.

Should a Police Ombudsman’s investigation reveal that the Shankill bombing and other events carried out by the Ardoyne IRA during that period were preventable, our understanding of that time will have changed forever.

For the victims, those injured and those who lost loved ones, this development raises allegations of collusion that overshadows all that has gone before it.

Was a botched attack allowed to go ahead and did the state allow civilians to die to shame republicans into a ceasefire?

That’s now a question for the police ombudsman to answer.

Top informer linked to Shankill Road bomb

Posted by Jim on

Decrypted classified documents obtained by the Provisional IRA have
shown that a state agent was behind one of the most notorious tragedies
of the conflict, the Shankill Road bomb attack in 1993.

According to a report this morning, a former IRA ‘commander’ in Ardoyne
has been exposed as an informer and double agent working for RUC Special
Branch for more than a decade. Known to Special Branch as ‘AA’, he
cannot be named for legal reasons.

According to the documents, the informer’s handlers were fully informed
of the plan to target the offices used by loyalist death squad leader
Johnny Adair and other UDA leadership figures.

For reasons still unknown the bomb exploded prematurely, killing eight
civilians as well as IRA Volunteer Thomas Begley and injuring his
comrade Sean Kelly. The outcry over the loss of life increased pressure
on the Provisional IRA to call a ceasefire, which they did ten months
later. It also brought about a wave of ‘reprisal’ attacks by loyalists
such as the Greysteel massacre a week later.

The informer in question was identified after the IRA decoded
information from documents taken from inside the Special Branch’s
headquarters at Castlereagh on St Patrick’s Day in 2001. Calls made to
his special branch handlers are logged throughout the documents,
including the information that he carried out the scouting operations
for the attack himself.

He was also involved in numerous other IRA actions at the time he was
working for the RUC. He was quietly replaced by the Provisional Army
Council in 2002, although no explanation was given to the Volunteers
under his control, and continues to live in the Ardoyne area.

The British Crown forces have previously been accused of allowing other
attacks to proceed for their own sinister agenda, such as the devasting
‘Real IRA’ attack in Omagh in 1998. Twenty-nine people died in that
attack after telephoned bomb warnings failed to clear the area around
the bomb. The public outcry led to the organisation calling a ceasefire
three weeks later.

The Police Ombudsman has now been asked to investigate the evidence that
the RUC “could have prevented” the Shankill bomb. The complaint has been
made by a family member of one of the victims, and was lodged on Friday.

Bloody Sunday programme of events

Posted by Jim on January 23, 2016

Bloody Sunday is unfinished business.

The Inquiry Report published in 2010 met some but by no means all the
demands of the campaign for truth and justice.

The Inquiry found that all of the dead and wounded had been unlawfully
shot. But the key demand for prosecution of the perpetrators continues
to be thwarted at every turn.

The Report left a shadow over Gerald Donaghey, murdered at Abbey Park –
while exonerating the senior politicians and military top brass who had
sent his killers into the Bogside. This is a disgrace and an insult to
Gerald’s relatives.

The commemorative programme for 2016 reflects the diversity of those
whose experiences we share: we march for the families of the Ballymurphy
massacre and for the victims of the paratroopers’ killing on the
Shankhill – as well as for the families of the hundreds across the North
killed directly by the State or through collusion.

Bloody Sunday is emblematic, too, of much of the horror happening around
the world. The Derry massacre has this in common with atrocities
everywhere: that it was perpetrated with malice aforethought by men
uniformed to represent a State which declares itself democratic and
claims commitment to human rights. There are Bloody Sundays somewhere
every day of the week. We remember all those victims also on the annual
march.

This year’s programme also reflects the diversity of those whose
experiences we share. We will hear from victims of police racism in
Britain; from the environmentalists infiltrated and abused by undercover
London police; from Dublin TD Clare Daly on political policing of
Shannon airport and anti-water charges campaigners and from many other
victims of State oppression.

Cultural events will include a new play at the Playhouse, “Hairy Jesus”,
by award-winning writer and actor Donal O’Kelly, the Irish premier of
the “Hard Stop”, a new documentary on the killing of Mark Duggan in
London in 2011 and the launch of new book at the Culturelann, “The Media
and Bloody Sunday”, by two Ulster University academics.

Bloody Sunday was a murderous assault on the people of the Bogside. But
it didn’t arise from antagonism between “the two communities.” It was a
crime planned in advance and condoned in the aftermath by
representatives of the British ruling class.

The campaign for the full truth has lasted for 44 years. We will
continue along the path, sustained by the knowledge that we are
accompanied every step of the way by many who, even in far distant
places of which we know little, add their voices to ours, as we echo
theirs, in calling for justice for all.

Full Programme of Events, 25th-31st January

Mon 25th Jan 2016

7.30pm: Ardoyne – Exhibition Launch

Exhibition by photographer Joe Gilmartin exploring life in Ardoyne and
North Belfast over recent years and the experiences of its residents in
their daily struggle against state control, sectarianism and
marginalisation.

Ardoyne residents will be in attendance to launch the exhibition. It
runs until the 31st Jan.

Venue: Eden Place Arts Centre

Tues 26th Jan 2016

7.30pm: This Changes Everything – Film & Discussion

This documentary’s message: the earth will survive, but this may be the
last century in which it is habitable for human kind.

Based on Naomi Klein’s book of the same name, it argues that we can
seize the crisis as an opportunity to transform our failed economic
system!

James Orr, of Friends of The Earth NI, will be part of the Q&A drawing
out the significance for us and some of the key sites of struggle for
climate justice here.

Venue: Nerve Centre Admission 3 pounds

Wed 27th Jan 2016

4.30pm: The British Media And Bloody Sunday – Book Launch

This book by Greg McLaughlin & Stephen Baker is a cross media analysis
of Bloody Sunday and its legacy identifying two impulses in its media
coverage: an urge to rescue the reputation of the British Army vs
Britain’s troubled conscience.

To be launched by Prof. Martin McLoone, and Eamonn McCann. Venue:
Culturlann Panel

7.30pm: Refugee – Film and Discussion

Screening of short film, Reunited Lives’, on refugees from the north
going south in the early 70’s followed by discussion on the current
crisis where, with the exception of Germany, Europe is turning its back
on the plight of refugees fleeing war it is complicit in.

Speakers:

Briege Voyle (featured in the film), Agim Kryeziu a refugee from Kosova
living here some twenty years, Aza Ali Ahmad from Mosul northern Iraq
recently arrived, Eamonn McCann activist and journalist. Chair:
Bernadette McAliskey. Venue: Nerve Centre

Thur 28 Jan 2016

7.30pm: The State We’re In – Panel Discussion

2016 marks the centenary year of the Easter rising in Dublin, this event
will explore where Irish society now finds itself when set against the
aspirations and avowed ideals of that time. Speakers:

Patrick Murphy, Irish News columnist, will offer his own inimitable take
on the subject while journalist

Chris Moore will approach the subject through the lens of the Kincora
scandal contrasting it with the ideal of “cherishing all of the children
of the nation equally”

Geraldine Dunne, Dublin Southside Travellers Action Group, will speak
from a traveller perspective on her community’s place in modern Ireland.

Chair: Paul McFadden Venue: Nerve Centre

Fri 29 Jan 2016

1.00pm: Shannon Airport & 21st Century War – Book Launch

John Lannon will launch this important publication he co-edited with
Roger Cole. It chronicles the Irish government’s shameful misuse of the
civil airport at Shannon, allowing it to be treated as a forward
operating base for the US Military and CIA!

Venue: Central Library

8pm: Hairy Jaysus – Drama

Award-winning playwright & actor Donal O’Kelly’s solo play about
pacifist, feminist and socialist Frank Sheehy- Skeffington, shot dead in
Portobello Barracks, 26th April, 1916. Told through the eyes of a Dublin
street beggar today.

Dubbed “Hairy Jaysus” by his friend James Joyce, Sean O’Casey said that
Sheehy-Skeffington was, “the soul of revolt against man’s inhumanity to
man, the ripest ear of corn that fell in Easter Week”.

Venue: Playhouse, Admission 8 pounds (6 concession)

Sat 30 Jan 2016

12.00pm: The Whole Truth – Panel Discussion

Where to now for truth and justice for murders legitimised by the state?

The experiences of three women seeking redress for the murder of their
loved ones:

Kate Nash sister of William murdered by the British Army on Bloody
Sunday, Janet Donnelly daughter of Joseph Murphy murdered by the British
Army in the Ballymurphy massacre and Shauna Moreland daughter of
Caroline Moreland murdered by the IRA, under the direction of British
agent, ‘Stakeknife’.

Chair:Eamonn McCann. Venue: Pilots Row

2.30pm: Out of the Shadows – Panel Discussion

A discussion exploring the state’s coercive methods of control through
its police, army and secret organisations: Is Britain using strategies
developed in the north against Black and Asian communities in English
inner cites? Looking south, ‘political policing’ by the Garda is overtly
used to suppress anti-water charges protests. Is this to be the new
norm?

Speakers are:

Prof. Mark McGovern, (Sociology) of Edge Hill University Liverpool his
research is in human rights, state violence and transitional justice;

Suresh Grover, Director and cofounder of London based ‘Monitoring
Group’, who works supporting those experiencing racial prejudice and
violence;

Aidan Ferguson, Greater Ardoyne Residents Collective (GARC) work to
oppose: sectarian marches, militarised curfews and advocate on behalf of
the community;

Helen Steel, one of seven women who sued English police after being
deceived into relationships with undercover policemen infiltrating
environmental and social justice movements and

Clare Daly, TD for North Dublin, founding member of the United Left
Alliance who has been recently instrumental in exposing malpractice
within the south’s Garda Siochana

Venue: Pilots Row

7.30pm: The Hard Stop – Film and Discussion

The Irish Premier of George Amponsah’s new film exploring the life and
death of Mark Duggan. Shot by armed police in London, on 4th Aug 2011,
his death sparked riots in London and other English cities. George
Amponsah and the film’s two main protagonists Marcus Knox-Hooke and
Curtis Henville will attend the post screening Q & A.

Venue: Nerve Centre Admission 3 pounds

More details of events are available online at: BloodySundayMarch.org

Lunch will be available In Pilot’s Row on the Saturday

Sun 31 Jan 2016

2.30pm: The March and Rally

Writer, journalist and political activist Eamonn McCann will be the main
speaker addressing the rally at this year’s Bloody Sunday March For
Justice.

Venue: Creggan Shops to Guildhall Square