.jpg)
Last week Mark McGovern’s ‘Counterinsurgency and Collusion in Northern
Ireland.’ was published. It significantly adds to the body of evidence
already available about Britain’s dirty war in Ireland and its use of unionist death
squads and shoot-to-kill actions.
McGovern’s book is hugely detailed and
provides countless sources for the evidence it produces and the conclusions it
draws. It acknowledges that there is not
a “single cause of such institutional
collusion” but rather a “confluence
of forces.” The book examines the historical and political context for
collusion, including partition and the creation of the Orange State; “The long-term sectarianised character of
state and society in Northern Ireland undoubtedly played an important role.”
Geraldine Finucane speaking at Relatives for Justice Launch of book in St. Mary's
“Counterinsurgency and Collusion in Northern Ireland” details the various phases of organisation, structure and tactics that Britain’s
counterinsurgency strategy and use of collusion went through from the early 70s
until the late 1990s. It examines Britain’s “intelligence-led
attritional strategy that generated a grey zone of official deniability around
the criminal actions of state agents and informers designed to defeat an
intractable enemy.”
The book looks at the history of Britain’s
imperial use of counter-insurgency as it sought to dominate its colonial
possessions and the role of three former British Army officers who promoted the
use of “irregular warfare”; Charles E. Callwell, Charles Gwynn and Frank
Kitson. Callwell is especially
interesting. He was an “Irish Unionist”
who in 1896 wrote ‘Small Wars: Their
principles and Practice’. The British Army’s current Counterinsurgency
field manual acknowledges that this was the start of the formal use of
counter-insurgency strategy by Britain.
For Callwell counterinsurgency was the
strategic use of violence against “lesser
races” and “savage enemies” and
those insurgents who “dog the footsteps
of the pioneers of civilization.” As McGovern states: “Callwell was a stout advocate of a strategy of ‘butcher and bolt’;
raids undertaken to destroy crops, livestock and buildings, to raze whole
villages to the ground and lay waste to conquered areas that ‘fanatics and savages [could be] thoroughly
brought to book and cowed … [so that they would not] rise up again.”
McGovern also looks at how collusion, and the
sharply dividing opinions of how it was used in the North, impacts today on the
“often political divisive debates about
how to deal with the legacy of the past and outstanding issues of truth and
justice left in its wake.”
Fr. Raymond Murray speaking at launch in Dungannon of Counterinsurgency and Collusion
While the primary geographical focus of this
book is East Tyrone and South Derry – Mid Ulster – the book also looks at the
role of the Military Reaction Force (MRF) in sectarian killings in Belfast; the
emergence of the Force Reconnaissance Unit (FRU) which ran Brian Nelson and
other agents, and was responsible for the murder of Pat Finucane; and the
import of weapons from South Africa in 1987 – with the knowledge of British
intelligence. It is worth remembering that the human cost of this
weapons shipment can be found in the numbers killed in sectarian attacks. In
the three years prior to receiving this weapons shipment unionist death squads
had killed 34 people. In the three years after the shipment they killed 224 and
wounded countless scores more.
Ulster Resistance, which was founded by the
DUP in 1986 played “the most critical
part in the operation” to bring the weapons into the North.
Looking at Mid Ulster McGovern states: “Between 1988 and August 1994 86 people were
killed in East Tyrone … many with guns imported as part of the 1987 arms
shipment.” Many of these were IRA Volunteers, Sinn Féin activists or their
family members.
All of this has to be seen in the context of
the objective of the British state and the British Army, especially during the
Thatcher years. In its report on Operation Banner, the name given to the 30
years of Britain’s War in Ireland, it states: “The British government’s main military objective in the 1980s was the
destruction of PIRA, rather than resolving the conflict.”
Collusion involving unionist paramilitaries
was also interconnected to shoot-to-kill operations by British forces. McGovern
states: “…collusion should not be seen in
isolation but rather viewed in relation to broader state counterinsurgency – particularly
evidence of a shoot-to-kill policy, conducted primarily by specialist units of
the RUC and British Army, directed against republicans”.
In East Tyrone between 1983 and 1992 26 IRA
volunteers were assassinated, including at eight at Loughgall, along with one
civilian. McGovern reviews many of these events in detail. He also examines the
circumstances surrounding the killings of Gerard Casey; Liam Ryan and Michael
Ryan in the Battery Bar, Ardboe; Malcolm Nugent, Dwayne O’Donell, John Quinn
and Tomas Armstrong in Cappagh; Sinn Féin Councillors John Davey and Bernard
O’Hagan; Kathleen O’Hagan, Tommy Casey and Patrick Shanaghan and sadly many
more. McGovern’s book begins and ends its examination of individual cases with
the murder of Roseann Mallon exactly 25 years ago on 8 May 1994.
Professor Mark McGovern at Dungannon launch
At the time of the attack on her home it was
under constant surveillance by British Army covert units, who were in “constant, direct contact with an officer at
their base who was overseeing matters”. There were also cameras relaying
images to a nearby base “home to British
Army specialist units such as the Special Air Service (SAS).” At the
inquest it was revealed that evidence “had
not been provided, disappeared, been lost, tampered with or destroyed by the
policy – including suspect interview notes, police officers’ notebooks, and
last but by no means least, the wiped video footage taken from the covert
British post on the day of the killing… Getting
to the truth was also hindered by the refusal of some former policemen,
servants of the law to co-operate with the court and the lengthy, drawn out
battles to overcome official barriers put in the way of disclosure.”
In his conclusion McGovern addresses the
claim of a witch-hunt by former British military personnel and the unionist and
Tory parties and media. He concludes that “the
record rather suggests a long-term de facto immunity and a priori amnesty for
military wrongdoing”. He notes that “only
four British soldiers were convicted for murder in the North of Ireland … in
each case the soldier in question served less than three years in jail before
being released and returned to the ranks of the British Army.”
“Counterinsurgency and Collusion in Northern Ireland” adds significantly to our knowledge of how this British military and
political policy worked. It provides much new sourced detail. It also gives an
important insight into why successive British governments have constantly blocked
progress on legacy issues.
Dungannon launch
Comments