Collusion at the heart of British occupation

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday June 28, 2002 18:10 by DON LOPER

It was an emotionally charged occasion. Beneath the crystal chandeliers in the oak panelled Grand Ball Room in one of Belfast's most prestigious hotel venues some of the most marginalized and silenced people gathered to meet the press and present a detailed account of the British state's collusion in the death of their relatives.

Calling for a fully independent international public inquiry, the
families of 200 people killed by loyalists dismissed the notion
that Crown force collusion in the deaths of so many could be
explained away as the actions of 'renegade' individuals.

"The history of collusion demonstrates the institutionalised
nature of collusion as a policy objective on the part of
successive British governments," said Relatives for Justice
spokesperson Mark Thompson, "Crown force collusion was not only
allowed to take place, it was also supported at the highest
levels of government."

"Relatives for Justice, represented here today by many of the
families affected by collusion, demands that the gravity of this
situation should not be dealt with by internal police
investigations nor by investigative television documentaries drip
feeding information," said Mark.

The collusion controversy could only be addressed "by a full
independent international judicial inquiry into the arming,
controlling and directing of loyalist death squads by the British
government."

Calling for the current and previous two reports by John Stevens
to be made public, Mark said he was confident that the findings
would add weight to the relatives' case.

Dismissing the notion that collusion arose from 'rogue' or
'renegade' agents or units, RFJ argues that as a counter
insurgency option, collusion had been employed in the interests
of British occupation "from the very beginning".

British army Brigadier Frank Kitson was posted to the North of
Ireland in 1970. Prior to his posting in Ireland Kitson had been
a military Intelligence Officer in Kenya in the early 1950's, a
Company Commander in Malaya in 1957 and Second in Command of a
Battalion in Cyprus in the early 1960's.

In each of these conflicts Kitson had been deeply involved in
counter insurgency actions and in his manual "Army Land
Operations" he openly advocated British army collusion with
"friendly guerrilla forces" against a "common enemy" as an
effective strategy "to defeat subversion and insurgency".

"Kitson's role here led to the setting up of the Military
Reaction Force, mostly made up of serving members of the British
army who infiltrated loyalist paramilitaries and recruited
agents. The MRF was directly responsible for numerous actions
which included abduction and torture, shootings and bombings."

The document identifies the MRF as a forerunner to the Force
Research Unit established by Brigadier Gordon Kerr in the late
1980's. Through agents, like Brian Nelson, the FRU rearmed,
reorganised and re directed loyalist death squads.

In 1987 Brian Nelson travelled to South Africa and met
representatives of the arms manufacturer Armscore in order to
procure weapons for the loyalists. "Nelson had the full authority
of the FRU for this trip and its purpose."

The weapons known to have been procured and imported by Nelson
during his tenure as a British agent included 200 AK47 automatic
rifles, 90 Browning 9mm pistols, 500 fragmentation grenades,
30,000 rounds of ammunition and 12 RPG7 rocket launchers. These
weapons have led directly to the deaths of at least 102 people.

In addition it is estimated that almost 3,000 Crown force
'security' files were handed to loyalists between 1986-2001. "The
distribution of these weapons and files has allowed loyalists a
capacity to kill in an unprecedented and unparalleled way," said
Mark, "and those weapons and files are still being used today."

Drawing upon Kerr's own statements made during the trail of FRU
agent Brian Nelson, RFJ identifies the chain of command. As the
unit's commanding officer Kerr gave evidence under the pseudonym
of Colonel 'J'.

According to the document, the FRU is answerable to the Task
Coordinating Group, which is comprised of the Heads of Special
Branch, the RUC/PSNI Chief Constable and various British
intelligence services. The TCG has responsibility for deploying
the SAS and other covert operatives.

In turn the TCG is answerable to the Joint Security Committee in
London. The JSC is comprised of senior political figures and
military attaches and is directly accountable to the Joint
Intelligence Committee.

The JIC is comprised of members of the British Cabinet and senior
military figures and is directly answerable to the British Prime
Minister. During the 1980's Margaret Thatcher chaired the JIC.

"Collusion has existed as long as the conflict itself," said Mark
Thompson, "it is not the act of renegades or a few bad apples. It
has been an integral element in the armoury of the British
military, financed and endorsed by successive British governments
and was under political as much as military control."

By highlighting the pattern of loyalist-attributed killings and
its relationship to the shifts and turns of political initiatives
by successive British government, the RFJ argue that through
collusion British Crown forces could turn loyalist violence on
and off and did so to meet the imperatives of their political
masters.

For example in the mid to late 1970's, to enable the British
government Ulsterization strategy to succeed, loyalist violence
had to be de-escalated. In 1976 killing attributed to loyalists
numbered 114. The following year the figure dropped to 19 and
remained low for several years.

And again negotiations between the British and Irish government
leading to the Anglo Irish Agreement in the mid 1980's were
augmented by a de-escalation of loyalist violence.

In 1994 an Amnesty International report into Crown force
collusion criticised the British government. A European Court
ruling in 2001 also criticised the mechanisms used by the British
state to 'investigate' the cases of people killed as a result of
alleged collusion.

"Amnesty International has not been convinced that the government
has taken adequate steps to halt collusion, to investigate
thoroughly and make known the full truth about political killings
of suspected government opponents to bring to justice the
perpetrators and dismantle 'pro state' organisations dedicated to
political violence or to otherwise deter such killings."

Citing Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights which
obliges a state to protect the right to life "whenever and
wherever it is or may be at risk within its own jurisdiction" the
Court criticised "not only the failure of the British government
to adhere to this, but also the British government has actively
plotted assassinations and directed loyalists to take the lives
of its own citizens.".