State Violence

by Raymond Murray

  In May 1984, John Stalker, Deputy Chief Constable of the Manchester police force, was appointed by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) to investigate three incidents in 1982 when 6 unarmed people were killed by undercover policemen. This did not result in the uncovering of the full facts surrounding these murders. The administrative cover-up became known as the Stalker Affair. Stalker was digging too deep, discovering damaging new evidence. He was suspended from the police on trumped up charges and removed from the case. The Stalker Affair clearly indicated that the authorities have something sinister to hide.

  In 1989 Cambridge Deputy Chief Constable John Stevens conducted an inquiry into collusion of security forces with loyalist paramilitaries. His report touched only the surface of the iceberg. Its scope was deliberately limited.

  Abuse of Law

  Harassment, brutality, ill-treatment, torture, internment, severe prison conditions sanctioned or tolerated by the state have for 20 years distorted the face of Northern Ireland. The non-jury Diplock Courts, the acceptance by these courts of fictitious verbal statements, the use of supergrasses, the blackmailing of young people by the security forces, semi-official assassinations, the widespread and deadly use of plastic bullets and official shoot-to-kill policies have eroded confidence in 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.

  Unjust Killings

  From the deaths of Samuel Devenney and John Gallagher in 1969 at the hands of the RUC to the shooting dead of Peter Mc Bride in Belfast by the British army in 1992, one can list some 150 direct administrative killings, many unjust killings and scores of indirect killings manipulated by the British Intelligence system.

  In August 1992 the death-toll in Northern Ireland officially reached 3,000. Other compilations gave the figure as 3,022. I would regard the following killings in 1991–92 as unjust:– Colm Marks shot dead by the RUC in Downpatrick; Pete Ryan, Tony Doris and Lawrence McNally ambushed and shot dead by the SAS at Coagh, County Tyrone; Kevin McGovern shot dead by the RUC in Cookstown; Gerald Maginn shot dead by RUC in Belfast; Kevin Barry O’Donnell, Seán O’Farrell, Peter Clancy and Patrick Vincent ambushed and shot dead by the British army at Clonoe, County Tyrone; Peter Mc Bride shot dead by the British army in Belfast.

  The forces of the state have been responsible for unjust killings, direct murder and indirect unjust killings and murder by collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. Mr Ed Moloney in an article in the Sunday Tribune, 9 June 1991, stated that since the 1982 killings investigated by John Stalker 67 civilians and paramilitaries had been shot dead in ‘Shoot-to-Kill’ operations. Twenty of these were civilians and 47 paramilitaries, of whom only two were loyalists. He wrote then :

  ‘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’.

  Black Propaganda

  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 he was engaged in a shooting incident at the time he was shot, that he got his just deserts. All these assertions were untrue. Even children killed by plastic bullets have been slandered. Now there is a distinct pattern – when the British army and RUC execute armed or unarmed IRA men, when they could have arrested them, they issue statements giving unsubstantiated and 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.

  Four Categories of Killings

  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 can prove to be 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 most often than not protected by the authorities.

  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. The Prime Minister and cabinet ministers will lie publicly.

  SAS Death Squads

  In November 1990 I published 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 are well known for shooting 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. There is no declared war in Northern Ireland between recognised insurgents and state forces. The law therefore is eminent and dominant and must be obeyed by every body including the forces of the law. The SAS are not therefore justified in killing civilians or IRA members in planned ambushes.

  Justice Perverted

  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, 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 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 Rights Concerns, June 1991, outlined its worries 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. The unfairness of the inquest system is outlined in a pamphlet Inquests and Disputed Killings in Northern Ireland issued by the Committee on the Administration of Justice in January 1992. 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 restric
ting justice for reasons of public interest and national security. Are not political considerations and danger to morale of security forces prevailing over legal justice?

  License to Kill

  The Amnesty Report of 1991 noted:

  ‘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.’

  In the past decade 10 ‘joyriders’ have been killed by the British army in west Belfast. On 31 July 1991 six members of the parachute Regiment were charged with the fatal shooting of two teenagers and the wounding of a third in west Belfast in 1990. The charges followed a BBC Panorama programme on ‘Shoot-to-Kill’ which highlighted this shooting. It is highly unlikely that any soldier would have been charged with the murder of Fergal Caraher and the wounding of his brother on 30 December 1990 by marines if the Cullyhanna people had not organised an unofficial international inquiry to shame the British government into action.

  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 that 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. This is in direct contrast with the inordinate judicial revenge in the form of wholesale doubtful convictions against some forty people for the murder of two undercover British soldiers in Casement Park.

  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 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.

  Sectarian Murder – Secret Service Role

  In the past 20 years sectarian assassinations of Catholics have been carried out by loyalist 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 Northern 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 took twenty years to 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 UDA has been switched on and off as a ‘third force’. The Nelson Affair gave the public a glimpse of this underground murder campaign on the part of the British secret service. The manipulation was noticeable after the murder of Airey Neave and the Brighton bombing atrocity. It continues in east Tyrone and south Derry where in the past two years 19 Catholics have been murdered and no one made amenable. At political high-points, too, when indications are that Catholics might have a share in power the loyalist gangs are switched on. The ‘taking out’ of Sinn Féin councillors and members is systematic. In October 1991 a combination of loyalists groups, UVF and UDA, conducted an assassination campaign which resulted in the murder of 8 Catholics. The campaign was believed to be aimed at forcing Britain to adopt a more conciliatory attitude towards unionism in the pre-election period.

  There are three main areas where the killing of Catholics takes place – north Belfast, south Derry/east Tyrone, and the Craigavon area extending into Lisburn. Murders of Catholics in these three areas have taken place in the past few years. Let us take the Derry/Tyrone area as an example. Since January 1989 21 Catholics have been murdered there by loyalist paramilitaries and security forces. The UDA under its cover name UFF shot dead Danny Cassidy a Sinn Féin election worker on 2 April 1992. He was hit seven times in the day time. His widow claimed that he had been constantly harassed by the DMSU – the District Mobile Support Unit of the RUC. At his funeral Mass Bishop Edward Daly said that a factor in his killing was the ‘undue attention paid to him by some units of police’. The bishop told the congregation that Mr Cassidy had suffered constant cruel and public harassment from some members of the RUC. ‘In a society such as ours,’ he said, ‘with more than its share of sectarian murders, it is unjust, irresponsible and wrong for police officers to pick out and highlight individuals in this public manner, thus putting their lives in mortal danger. This activity is wrong and unjust and it must stop.’ Bishop Daly said that a week before Danny Cassidy was murdered a complaint was made by a local representative to a senior RUC officer about the way he was mistreated.

  Prosecutions for these crimes are nil. There have been few arrests. Only one person has been prosecuted for indirect involvement. This must be the worst record for any police force in the world. Catholics believe there is collusion between the RUC, the UDR and the loyalist paramilitaries. They come from the same background and are politically hostile to nationalists. The feeling of the people of south Derry is stronger than the words of Bishop Daly. They think that the RUC through collusion were responsible for Danny Cassidy’s murder.

  The same pattern occurs in many of these killings. There is a presence of security forces before the shooting, then they disappear, the loyalist gunmen carry out the shooting, the UDR appear on the roads laughing and mock and harass Catholics. The RUC in most cases do not inform the relatives of the shooting or they do so in a cruel callous manner (like a phone call to Mrs Mc Govern in the early hours of the morning – ‘Your son is in the morgue’). They rarely take statements from the relatives as to recent events in the life of the deceased and his movements on the day of the shooting. It is almost impossible for relatives to have an interview with the investigating detectives.

  Here is a list of the Derry/Tyrone killings of Catholics since January 1989. Unless otherwise stated these killings were carried out by the UVF:–

  14 February 1989. John Joe Davey, Sinn Féin Councillor. Car ambushed near home.

  29 November 1989. Liam Ryan and Michael Devlin. Shot dead in public house, Ardboe.

  26 October 1990. Tommy Casey. Member of Sinn Féin. Shot dead at house, Cookstown.

  3 March 1991. John Quinn, Dwayne O’Donnell, Malcolm Nugent, Thomas Armstrong. Shot outside pub in Cappagh.

  3 June 1991. Three IRA men, Pete Ryan, Tony Doris, Lawrence McNally, ambushed by SAS at Coagh.

  12 August 1991. Pádraig Ó Seanacháin. M
ember of Sinn Féin. Van ambushed.

  16 August 1991. Thomas Donaghy. Kilrea. Shot outside work.

  16 September 1991. Bernard O’Hagan. Member of Sinn Féin. Shot outside work at Magherafelt.

  29 September 1991. Kevin McGovern shot by RUC in Cookstown.

  25 October 1991. Seán Anderson shot outside his home in Pomeroy.

  3 January 1992. Kevin McKearney shot dead in the family butcher shop, Moy. His uncle Jack McKearney wounded in the shooting died some months later.

  6 September 1992 Charlie and Theresa Fox were shot dead near the Moy.

  In revenge for loyalist killings in this area and in the absence of RUC detection of the killers the IRA on 17 January 1992 murdered by a landmine seven Protestant workers at Teebane near Cookstown with the ‘excuse’ that they worked for the security forces – William Bleeks, David Harkness, James Caldwell, Robert Dunseith, John McConnell, Nigel McKee, Robert Irons. An eighth man – Oswald Gilchrist died on 21 January 1992 from injuries. There was a further repercussion to this slaughter when the UDA murdered five Catholics in a betting shop in Belfast on 5 February 1992 – James Kennedy, Peter Magee, Christy Doherty, William McManus, Jack Duffin.

  As regards the shooting dead of Thomas Donaghy on 16 August 1991 as he arrived for work at Portna Eel Fishery, an area covered by the Ballymoney UDR, there is some background information which leads relatives and friends to suspect collusion. Thomas Donaghy was an ex-prisoner who left the IRA several years before his release from prison and did not become re-involved. The RUC harassed and tormented him non-stop from the three years from his release to his death.