British
hypocrisy and
brutality in Northern Ireland
By
Jonathan
Power
April 9, 2003
LONDON - When Prime Minister Tony Blair met President
George Bush in Belfast earlier this week there was
highfalutin talk on the British side of the hope that
Bush would take home the lesson of Northern Ireland: that
even the most intractable conflicts can be peacefully
resolved. The British, even as they walk in America's
shadow, love to cock a snook at their transatlantic
kissing cousin - whether it is the British soldiers in
Iraq jeering quietly at the American soldiers' affected
wearing of sun-glasses or the boasting of unique skills
the British supposedly possess, after years of counter
insurgency work in Northern Ireland, in dealing with
urban warfare. Or the treatment by U.S. forces of
captured Iraqi fighters.
Much of this is a bowlful of self-serving hypocrisy
dealt out by those with short memories. The initial
decision in 1971 to send into Northern Ireland the
British army, supposedly to protect the Catholic
population under threat from Protestant extremists was an
ill-advised one. Untrained for conflict in its own land,
it was too easily provoked by a newly reconstituted Irish
Republican Army. It didn't take long before the memories
of those early welcoming cups of tea were replaced by
hatred as the army repeatedly overstepped the mark and
became itself a major provocative element.
Later this month John Stevens, London's police
commissioner, will present the results of a long inquiry
into charges of collusion between army intelligence and
Protestant terrorists.
According to Philip Stevens writing in the Financial
Times, who has access to the report's contents, "the
conclusions, and there is no exaggeration here, are
horrifying". Stevens reports that "the undercover Force
Research Unit, which reported directly to the senior
British commander in the province, colluded
systematically with loyalist [Protestant]
terrorists in the murder of Republican [Catholic]
sympathisers‚"They gave loyalists all the
intelligence they needed for their brutal murder
spree."
It has taken a long time for the truth to out. As long
ago as 1976 the European Commission on Human Rights found
the British government guilty of "torture, inhuman and
degrading treatment." From 1972 onwards when Amnesty
International published its path-breaking "Report of an
Enquiry into Allegations of Ill Treatment in Northern
Ireland" the organization has maintained a fairly
continuous drumbeat of revelations and recommendations.
As long ago as the early 1980s it accused the British
government of complicity in political killings of IRA
activists. As a result of a good deal of public protest,
in May 1984 a senior police officer, John Stalker, was
asked to investigate the cover ups. Stalker was later to
allege that he was obstructed from carrying out a full
investigation and that he had discovered evidence of
unlawful killings by police. He was removed from duty.
The inquiry was completed by another police officer and
in 1988 the attorney-general announced that Ulster police
had "attempted or conspired to pervert the course of
justice". However, because of "national security
considerations", no officer was prosecuted.
The outcry did have the effect of the government
deciding to return the main responsibility for covert
operations to the army. Between 1976 and 1992, Amnesty
believes, soldiers from the army's elite regiment, the
Special Air Services, killed 37 reported members of the
IRA. There were no reports of SAS actions against
Protestant paramilitaries. Amnesty said many times over
the years that the British government had evaded its
responsibilities by "hiding behind an array of legal
procedures and secret enquiries which serve to cloud the
issues".
Moreover, the deeply flawed inquests worked to
obstruct the victims' families from obtaining the full
facts. There was the non-disclosure in advance of
forensic and witness statements. Inquests were often
delayed inordinately, eleven years in one case.
Until very recently Amnesty's words fell most of the
time on deaf ears. Only now over thirty years on is the
truth being allowed to emerge. Of course the
torture, brutality and murder dealt out by the British
army and the Ulster police cannot be compared with that
inflicted by their counterparts in, say, Chile and
Guatemala. Nevertheless, by the self-imposed standards of
a long-standing, mature state, governed by the
legislation of freely elected parliamentarians and
enjoying an independent judiciary, it has been a serious
falling short.
Human rights standards are not meant for periods of
harmony in society, but for situations of conflict and
stress in the body politic. Successive British
governments ignored the gospel they regularly preach to
the outside world.
Many of us asked more than once: how could the country
that gave birth to Amnesty International become itself a
state that bent the rules, subverted the law and
undermined the world-wide raising of standards it was
intent on promoting?
If Britain couldn't behave better, why should anyone
else?
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 By
JONATHAN POWER
Follow this
link to read about - and order - Jonathan Power's book
written for the
40th Anniversary of
Amnesty International
"Like
Water on Stone - The Story of Amnesty
International"
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