STATE KILLINGS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

23 JUNE 1991

Amnesty International has just celebrated its thirtieth birthday. People involved in the campaign for human rights in Northern Ireland are grateful to them for their interest in the protection of citizens of the North from the illegal acts of those in charge of the law. One calls to mind their reports of February 1972 and June 1978 on ill-treatment of those detained under emergency laws in interrogation centres, and reports in 1988 and 1990 on 'Killings by Security Forces in Northern Ireland .' Now, in a new report entitled United Kingdom Human Rights Concerns Amnesty International has condemned British Government secrecy in police and military investigations. It renews its call for an independent judicial inquiry into disputed killings by security forces in Northern Ireland . The report says that Amnesty 'believes that such an inquiry is vital to help prevent future unlawful killings and to ensure that all disputed killings by security forces are promptly investigated and publicly clarified'.

There have been other reports on killings connected with the security forces in Northern Ireland . The British Government conducted a public inquiry under Lord Widgery (April 1972) into the shooting dead of 14 citizens by British Army paratroopers in Derry on 30 January 1972. The Association for Legal Justice conducted two international inquiries into the the use of plastic bullets in August 1981 and October 1982. In 1984 an International Lawyers' Inquiry published its report on the lethal use of firearms by the security forces in Northern Ireland . The British Government ordered an inquiry into the shooting dead of six unarmed men and the wounding of another in County Armagh in 1982; there have been allegations that John Stalker who conducted the first part of the inquiry was deliberately obstructed by senior police officers. In 1989 Cambridge deputy chief constable John Stevens conducted an inquiry into collusion of security forces with loyalist paramilitaries. One feels his report touched only the surface of the iceberg.

The Association for Legal Justice, Fr Denis Faul, the late Fr Brian Brady, and myself, Silent Too Long, the United Campaign against the Use of Plastic Bullets, the Irish National Caucus in Washington and other groups and individuals have for long years campaigned against the corruption of law in Northern Ireland . Harassment, brutality, ill-treatment, torture, internment, severe prison conditions, sanctioned or tolerated by the state, have for twenty years distorted the face of Northern Ireland . Diplock courts, use of verbal statements and supergrasses, blackmail of young persons by security forces, semi-official assassinations, plastic bullets, and official 'shoot-to-kill' policies have eroded confidence in the law.

The argument for this abuse of law is that the end justifies the means. Faced with the atrocities of the IRA and INLA the illegitimacy of the action of the security forces is blurred by public statements and pleading from the RUC, British Army and British Government that such counter-insurgency is justified in a warlike situation.

The forces of the state have been responsible for unjust killings, direct murder and indirect unjust killings and murder by collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. From the deaths of Samuel Devenney and John Gallagher in 1969 at the hands of the RUC to the shooting dead of three IRA men by the SAS in Tyrone on 3 June 1991 one can list some 150 direct administrative killings and scores of indirect killings manipulated by the British Intelligence system. Since the 1982 killings investigated by John Stalker 67 civilians and paramilitaries have been shot dead in 'Shoot-to-Kill operations. Twenty of these were civilians and 47 paramilitaries, of whom only two were loyalists. Mr Ed Moloney's article in The Sunday Tribune 9 June 1991 states:­

"A large proportion of the victims were unarmed when they were killed. Twenty-six, or 39, had no weapon when shot, while four were carrying imitation handguns or rifles. Of the 37 who had access to arms there were claims afterwards that nine were in no position to use the weapons, mostly because they were on their way to arms dumps when killed'.

After the security forces kill people they seize the initiative by gaining a first story in the media. This is very hard to counteract. For example, when the British Army shot dead an innocent young man, Daniel Rooney, in Belfast in September 1972 the Commanding Officer said he was a gunman, that his activities could be traced back over a year, that a couple of weeks previously he was spotted with a gun by security forces, that he was definitely engaged in a shooting incident at the time he was shot, that he got his just desserts. All these assertions were untrue. Children killed by plastic bullets have been described as rioting hooligans. Now there is a clear pattern - when the British Army and RUC execute armed or unarmed IRA men, when they could have arrested them, they issue statements giving lurid potted biographies recounting the notoriety of the dead men and list the number of murders attributable to the weapons found on the scene. The idea is to show that they deserved to die, to divert attention from their own violation of the law, and to intimidate churchmen and politicians from criticising their action of shooting them.

There are four categories of killings carried out by the security forces:­

1. A 'bad' soldier or'bad' policeman who kills from a motive of revenge, hatred, bigotry, racism. He is an embarrassment to the senior people in the army, police and government, but because of the policy not to injure the morale of the forces the crime will be covered up and he will receive protection.

2. Murders and unjust killings by front-line regiments like the marines or paratroopers who do not relish the role of 'peace-keepers'. They are eager for trouble. From the beginning of their tour of duty they harass, abuse, beat and threaten civilians. The senior district policemen do not deter them. On their rota these soldiers usually assure themselves of a kill. Their harassment inevitably ends in tragedy. Knowing that, the Government still retains the paratroopers and marines on the rota tours of duty of British regiments in Northern Ireland . When they kill innocent civilians they are protected by the Government and the police.

3. Civilians executed in error by the SAS, other undercover soldiers or the RUC when they enter an ambush. This is also an embarrassment but it is covered up.

4. Cold-blooded ambushes of republican paramilitaries. No challenge, no arrest contemplated. These murders have the official backing of the British Government. It is administrative policy. The Gibraltar murders are an example of that. The Government will go to great pains to cover up the truth. Prime Ministers and cabinet ministers will lie publicly.

In November 1990 I published a 500-page book on the SAS in Ireland . It may seem a narrow focus, a fraction of the state killings, but I wanted it to be symbolic of all the state killings. The SAS is an assassination squad, like the South American death squads, and it is acting outside the law. They kill persons when they have opportunities of arresting them and they have been known to shoot wounded and incapacitated persons lying helpless on the ground. Such actions are contrary to the moral law, the law of the land and the rules of war.

The families of victims of government killings have had to endure a double suffering, bereavement of course but also the 'big lie', the cover-up of the killers by senior officers, civil servants and judiciary bodies, and elements in the cabinet.

There is no declared war in N. Ireland between recognised insurgents and state forces. The law therefore is eminent and dominant and must be obeyed by everybody including the forces of the law. The SAS are not, therefore, justified in killing civilians or IRA members in planned ambushes.

The state perverts justice by attempting to solve its dilemma following these killings by inquests with limited powers and political decisions not to prosecute members of the security forces for murder. If, for example, all the killings carried out by the SAS, and I list 45 fatal shootings in the book, 1969 to 1989, are examined in a continuous account a pattern of defence on the part of the SAS at inquests emerges:­they intended to make arrests; there was a threat to life and limb; the other party `fired first'. There are cases where forensic and medical evidence, and the evidence of paramilitary and civilian witnesses, do not seem to have prevailed against the word of security forces. The inquest system is inadequate. The Amnesty International report United Kingdom: Human Bights Concerns , June 1991, outlined its concerns on the restrictions on inquests in Northern Ireland , in particular that the coroner's court cannot make the finding of an unlawful killing by a named or an unnamed person as is possible in England and Wales . Are citizens not entitled to fair institutions in matters of law?

What about the prosecution of security forces in matters of murder and unjust killing? Security forces are not subject to the same interrogation procedures as others and impartiality and persistence in cases involving police and army are in doubt. The DPP is not independent and the Attorney-General is on record on restricting justice for reasons of public interest and national security. Are not political considerations and danger to morale of security forces prevailing over legal justice?

In the past twenty years sectarian assassinations of Catholics have been carried out by Protestant paramilitaries and pseudo-gangs tolerated and often directed by the British secret service. The purpose of the 500 murders of the 1970s was to break the nerve and sap the morale of the Catholic population, weaken its powers of resistance and draw off support for the IRA. This included British Intelligence support for the Ulster Workers' strike in May 1974 (which brought down the power-sharing executive government in N. Ireland), the two Dublin bombings, 1 December 1972 and 17 May 1974, and other bombings in the Irish Republic , and cross-border assassinations and kidnappings. So close has been the collusion between the state and one loyalist paramilitary group; the Ulster Defence Association, that it dare not proscribe them, even though this group has murdered more than 500 innocent Catholics, men, women and children.

The Stevens inquiry was set up in 1989 to investigate the collusion of police and army with the loyalist murder gangs. Collusion, however, has gone on for twenty years. The LIDA has been switched on and off as a `third force' and never proscribed. The manipulation was noticeable after the murder of Airey Neave and the Brighton bombing atrocity. It continues in east Tyrone and south Derry in the past two years where 11 Catholics have been murdered and no one made amenable. At political high-points, too, when indications are given that Catholics might have a share in power the loyalist gangs are switched on - as at the present time. How is it that the intelligence system of the RUC is so poor that the murderers can not be arrested and charged? Failure to do so leaves the way open for more murders and counter-murders.

On 1 January 1980 Pope John Paul said:­

'Restoring peace means calling by their proper names acts of violence in all their forms. Murder is murder, political or ideological motives do not change its nature. torture must be called by its proper name. So must all forms of oppression and exploitation of man by man, of man by the state, of one person by another person.'

Murder and torture are wrong for everybody, be they IRA, loyalist paramilitaries, or agents of the state.

Only one British soldier has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a Catholic civilian, Private Ian Thain who murdered a Belfast youth called `Kidso' Reilley. He was released after serving only two years and three months of his sentence. It was revealed that his services had been retained by the British Army during his imprisonment. On release he returned to his regiment, the First Battalion, The Light Infantry. The recent Amnesty Report says :­`There have been 21 prosecutions since 1969 of the security forces for using firearms while on duty in Northern Ireland (not including sectarian killings). Nineteen of these were found not guilty. One was convicted of manslaughter and given a suspended sentence. Just one - a soldier - was convicted of murder and released after serving two years and three months of his sentence and had been reinstated in the Army. A total of 339 people have been killed by the security forces during the same period. Most of those killed were from the Catholic population and many were unarmed; many were killed in disputed circumstances.

One would like to know from those persons who run the High Court why soldiers or RUC men charged with murder or brutality have the good fortune to find such sympathetic judges. The few who are charged are acquitted in circumstances that are weird. It is almost impossible to have a British soldier convicted of murder in the courts of Northern Ireland . In cases where they have shot down unarmed persons the following excuses have been quoted by judges:­

'He ran away and did not stop'

- even if Patrick McElhone of Pomeroy was wearing Wellington boots and would have been running uphill from the firing position.

`He turned and crouched'

-told about young John Boyle of Dunloy, County Antrim .

'He put his hands in his pocket'

- John Pat Cunnningham of Benburb the case did not even go to court.

'The use of force has not been shown to be unreasonable'.

- Eamon Bradley of Derry was shot dead by two soldiers after leaving a pub and while holding one arm in the air.

Catholics despair of getting fair treatment in human rights from the British Government. Its image of keeping the peace between warlike factions is felt to be propaganda. It is beside the point when it comes to the forces of the state doing its share of unjust killing and murder. Catholics do not trust the RUC and the British Army and they regard the UDR as a sectarian force. If the main motive and objective is to save human life it seems fruitless to inform the RUC who themselves pursue a 'Shoot-to-Kill' policy and allow the British Army to take human life with impunity. The anger aroused in people when the security forces of the state engage in ill-treatment or killing outside the law, and then protect themselves by lies, can lead people into using violence, with disastrous results for themselves and the whole community. The Government of the United Kingdom is deaf to pleas for justice and fair-play. In its report of June 1991 Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry which should look into the legislation and regulations governing the use of lethal force, as well as into the procedures used to investigate disputed incidents. The Government of the United Kingdom has constantly refused to do this. What can make it?