Outlook Overt violence of the RUC was coupled with coor deals with loyalist paramilitaries The Committee: Political Assassination in Northern Ireland Rhinehart (Colorado) 1999. Reviewed by David Coen THE ALLEGATIONS in McPhilemy's book are not new. An Amnesty International report of June 1988 on the shooting dead of six unarmed poople towards the end of 1982 condemned the RUC for falsifying and concealing crucial information. In 1984, the then Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester, John Stalker, attempted to investigate the killings but was obstructed at every turn and eventually forced to resign in the face of a farcical attempied frame-up for alleged criminal connec Despite Amnesty and United Nations pressure, the British Government refused (in 1987) to prosecute those responsible, or publish the findings of the Stalker/Sampson enquiry on the •grounds of "national security" and "public interest" considerations.
At the centre of these allegations were the RUC Headquarters Mobile Support Units (HMSU) which operated under the control of the RUC Special Brunch and alongside MIS. McPhilemy's book, based on his 1991 Channel 4 documentary, claims to have detailed information on those who politically guided the killings of two notorious loyalist killers, Robin Jackson and Billy Wright. The connection between the Committee, (or the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee, to give it its full title), made up IRA. Six Counties. the killings. turn nationalists against them to the negotiating table;" doubt this was terrorism of between 50 and 60 prominent Umionists and the RUC was the so-called Inner Force, a group of disgruntled RUC officers who favoured a stepping up of thie war against the According to McPhilemy, the Inner Force comprised about one third of the RUC and was organised in every division across the Helping hand There had been lots of evidence of RUC and the British Army passing information to Loyalist killers, McPhilemy goes turtler and claims that the Commitice and the Inner Force actively targeted Republicans -and assisted the Loyalists in carrying out The strategy of the Inner Circle was, in the words of a senior RUC officer, to "kill the fish and poison the water", that is kill Republican "hawks" like Alex Maskey and Martin McGuinness while attempting to by killing some in retaliation for every IRA killing:
Nor were the Loyalists over-concerned about their targets: if finding an IkA member was a tad difficult then any Nationalists or Catholics would do. In fact, the "any Taig will do approach might even be better in generating terror among nationalists.
The roots of this policy were to be found in the Foreign and Northern Ireland Offices who, according to the same source, "desperately wanted to bring the doves of Sinn Fein If terrorism is latterly defined as the use of nationalists. violence for political ends then without Murder The fact that the British, not for the first contributor. time in Ireland (or indeed elsewhere) delibcrately fostered sectarian murder for their own ends should make those "socialists"
who believe in the civilising/peacekeeping role of the British State pause for thought.
In 1989 the British government set up yet another enquiry into collusion between Loy.
alists and the "Security Forces" under John Stevens, which again the RUC attempted to However Stevens did arrest Brian Nelson, a double agent for British intelligence son admitted to helping Loyalists to kill Nationalists, but Stevens could not use his evidence at the time of the enquiry apparently because it was sub-judice. Steven's report was that despite some individual cases of collusion, the RUC was impartial Nationalists viewed the report as yet another whitewash and the period since is littered with evidence of the large number of files on Republicans and Nationalists which have been passed to the Loyalisis.
RUC threats
But the RUC did not just operate behind Road?
the scenes of Loyalist terror. Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane was repeatedly threatened by the RUC before he was killed. John Stalker in his book records an RUC man telling him "the solicitor (Pat Finucane) is an IRA man - any man who represents IRA men is worse The pattern of RUC threats was repcated before the killing of Rosemary Nelson though unlike Pat Finucane, she did not have a Tory Minister (Douglas 11058) 8C1 OP in inc source commons and clamn tha "here are. in the province, a number of solicitors who are unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA". The use of the legal process as a gag is common to McPhilemy's book (which cannot be distributed in Britain), Brian Nelson's evidence to John Stevens and more recently to an interview given by a Loyalist gunman William Stobie to Ed Moloney of the Dublin Sunday Tribune regarding the killing of Pat Finucane. Stobie said he provided the weapon, and forewarned his Special Branch, handlers of the attack on Finucane. The intelligence for the attack was provided by Brian Nelson.
Transcript
The RUC attempted to get Moloney jailed for refusing to hand over the transcript of the interview, which they claimed to need in order to investigate Stobie's claims. This was exactly the same procedure used against McPhilemy, even though at that stage revealing the identity of his source would have resulted in the source being killed.
The threat of injunction and long legal proceedings effectively stifled discussions of the issues raised, namely the overwhelming evidence that the British government was running death squads in Ireland and generally conducting a campaign of terror against The degree to which this was successful in forcing the Republicans to call a crase-fire and participate in the "peace" process is difficult to judge, but it was undoubtedly a Their implications for future British strategy are also not clear. The British have scored some modest successes. They have drawn Sinn Fein into running the state they hitherto were attempting to smash, and got them to accept in practice the Six County statelet in return for vague promises on "equality agenda" and reform of the RUC rather than its disbandment.
Traditions"
More importantly, by accepting the sectarian headcount which is the basis of the "power-sharing Executive", Republicans are explicitly accepting the British claim that the problem in Ireland is the conflict between two "traditions" rather than Britain's historic attempt to control the whole isiand In the end the future of the Stormont Agreement will come down to fairly practical questions. Are Nationalists willing to surrender their weapons and entrust their security to the RUC? How will Sinn Fein react if Tony Blair delivers his apparent promise to the Orange.
men and requests that the ROC, it necessary, smash a path for them down the Garraghy inte was when the answer from Sinn tel would have been obvious. That margin of creeping doubt is the degree to which the British have succeed. The Nationalists and Republicans on the Garvaghy and Ormeau Roads will have other ideas.