State Violence, Collusion and the Troubles: Counter Insurgency, Government Deviance and Northern Ireland

State Violence, Collusion and the Troubles

First published 2012 by Pluto Press

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by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,

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Copyright © Maurice Punch 2012

The right of Maurice Punch to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 3143 0 Hardback

ISBN 978 0 7453 3147 8 Paperback

ISBN 978 1 8496 4638 3 Epub

ISBN 978 1 8496 4639 0 Kindle

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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

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For all who have suffered, and continue to suffer, as a result of the Troubles.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Paramilitary Groups

Abbreviations and Irish Gaelic Terms

Timeline

Main Non-Irish Insurgent Terrorist Groups

1. State Crime: ‘Bloody Sunday’ and the Troubles

2. State Terror and Insurgent Terrorism

3. Roots of the Troubles: Emergency Context: Conspiracy?

4. Security Units: Firearms Policy: Rough Justice

5. Dirty Tricks: Intelligence, Informants and Collusion

6. Investigations, Courts, Inquiries and Whistle-blowing

7. End Game: State Deviance: Learning from the Past

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

Since I started this book a few years ago many people have been generous with their time and have aided me in various ways, by discussing the topic, commenting on drafts and/or by suggesting research material. They include some highly supportive colleagues in London at LSE and King’s but especially Ben Bowling, David Downes, Janet Foster, Penny Green, Tim Newburn, Paddy Rawlinson, Robert Reiner and Paul Rock. There were academic colleagues elsewhere, as well as some ‘reflective practitioners’ in policing or the military, who assisted me in diverse ways including Alexis Aronowitz, Piet Deelman, Auke van Dijk, Julian Dixon, Stan Gilmour, Jim Gobert, Bob Hoogenboom, Graham Smith, Kees van der Vijver, Geert de Vries, Jim Waddington, Ron Weitzer, Hans Werdmölder and Merrick Willis, while I received sage advice from Michael Clarke. In Amsterdam I’ve gained much from many stimulating conversations with Derek Phillips, while he has kindly passed on The New York Review of Books since the late 1970s. This has been essential reading but in recent years it has carried excellent articles on the ‘war on terror’, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I am most grateful to them all. I have long drawn on the operational experience and insights on police leadership, command and control and use of force of Geoffrey Markham (former Assistant Chief Constable, Essex Police); and on the operational background in policing and expertise in Human Rights of Ralph Crawshaw (former Chief Superintendent, Essex Police). A special word of thanks has to go to them for the many valuable discussions in attractive locations throughout Essex and Suffolk. I also appreciate the professional advice and patience of Anne Beech, Will Viney and the team at Pluto. Finally, I have as ever received encouragement and affection from my dear wife Cornelia; also support from Julio, Maria, George and grandson Jimmy and from my extended family in the Netherlands, Ireland, UK and US. This network of colleagues, friends and family has been essential in the completion of this work.

Amstelveen, The Netherlands

October 2011

Paramilitary Groups

NATIONALIST/REPUBLICAN PARAMILITARY GROUPS

•  The original Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Ireland, or Old IRA, comprised the Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Brotherhood of the 1916 Easter Rising, and fought the British in the War of Independence (1919–21) as the Army of Ireland

•  Those who resisted the 1921 Treaty with Britain fought and lost to the new Irish government in the Civil War (1922–23), called themselves the IRA and from 1922 to 1969 opposed the governments in the South and North with periodic violence to realise an independent, united (32 county) Ireland as a socialist republic

•  In late 1969 a split took the new Provisional IRA (PIRA or ‘Provos’) out of what became known as the Official IRA, OIRA. At times there were armed clashes in feuds between PIRA and OIRA. OIRA abandoned violence in 1972. By the early 1990s PIRA was estimated to have a core of some 300 activists with about 450 in support roles (Bishop & Mallie 1988)

•  Provisional Sinn Fein was ostensibly the political wing of PIRA, but it is assumed that it was intimately linked with PIRA; several IRA commanders probably also held leading roles within Sinn Fein (Moloney 2007, 2010)

•  The Continuity IRA (CIRA) broke from PIRA in 1986 when PIRA recognised the authority of the Dublin government

•  In 1997 the Real IRA (RIRA) split off from PIRA because RIRA was opposed to the peace process

•  The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) was the military wing of a Trotskyite splinter group, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, that had broken with OIRA

•  The Irish People’s Liberation Organization (IPLO) split from the INLA after a dispute. IPLO feuded with the INLA, and the IRA attacked the IPLO and disbanded it.

There were other splinter groups that might also be names used as cover for a sub-unit acting autonomously, including Republican Reaction Force, Irish Freedom Fighters, Catholic Reaction Force and South Armagh Republican Action Force.

LOYALIST PARAMILITARY GROUPS

•  Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF): split from UVF in 1996 (and feuded with it)

•  Ulster Defence Association (UDA): was set up in 1977 and was legal until 1992 after which it was proscribed for providing cover for paramilitaries

•  Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF): emerged in 1965 (an earlier UVF had been launched in 1913); in the mid-1970s the UVF had around 1,500 members, with 400–500 activists that were later reduced to a core of about 80

•  Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF): split from UVF in 1996 and at times feuded with it

•  Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF): with a core of about 60 members.

The Red Hand Commandos, Red Hand Defenders, Ulster Protestant Action and Protestant Action Force were supposedly splinter groups but more often these were cover names for a sub-unit mounting an operation without authorisation.

Abbreviations and Irish Gaelic Terms

Irish Gaelic terms:

Timeline

Main Non-Irish Insurgent Terrorist Groups

1

State Crime: ‘Bloody Sunday’ and the Troubles

Ultimately, the struggle between democracy and terrorism is one for legitimacy and maintaining the latter is strategically more important for democratic governments than winning short-term victories through tactical ‘quick fixes’ which might seem effective but turn democracies into something that begins to mirror the terrorist opponent. (Schmid 1992:14)

STATE CRIME

This book recounts how the British state dramatically failed and in so doing committed crimes. In Northern Ireland it shot its own citizens, lied about it and blamed the victims. But then, states frequently misbehave when threatened, rashly choose ‘quick fixes’ and readily take the path of repression. This may only foster an escalation which proves counter-productive and leads the state, as Schmid intimates above, to resemble the opponent it reviles. For if insurgent terrorism provides a natural experiment in how the democratic state responds to a significant threat, with a sort of Milgram¹ for the mighty, then the British state demonstrably abandoned its expressed principles and broke the law during the 30 years of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland (1968–98).² Of interest is what this specific case conveys about state deviance more generally.

Here I shall outline the context of that bitter conflict within the UK and shall expand on the intricate strands and major incidents later. This context is necessary for readers from other societies who perhaps vaguely recall specific incidents but are unfamiliar with the background; but also for a new domestic generation for whom the Troubles are but diminishing history. And it is particularly important to use the distance since the end of hostilities with the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998 to stand back and emphasise the key role of the state. Why did a part of the UK slide into 30 years of strife with much suffering and destruction; why was the state seemingly impotent to halt this process and find a political solution; and, crucially, in what ways did the state itself play a dubious if not illicit role in the conflict? The criminological importance of this analysis is that it provides a case study of state crime as defined by Green and Ward (2004:2) as ‘state organisational deviance involving the violation of human rights’, and in which the British state is in the dock.

The fundamental starting point is that in its principles, values and institutions the democratic state promises legality, justice, accountability, redress for citizens, limitations to its use of force and access to power by fair means. It is precisely the blatant absence of these within a number of despotic states that sparked the current rash of rebellious insurgency in Arabic societies in North Africa and the Middle East. For decades dictatorial regimes have employed secret police, brutal incarceration, torture, execution without trial, pervasive surveillance and a constant barrage of propaganda to impose their will on the people. In early 2011, starting in Tunisia but spreading rapidly to neighbouring countries and the Middle East, mass demonstrations suddenly took to the streets demanding basic democratic rights. The initial conditioned response of such repressive regimes has been for the security forces to shoot indiscriminately at demonstrators and to use gross violence against its own citizens. Television and internet viewers have been horrified by this wanton violence as the new media afford us instant, frontline images of the carnage; and world leaders have lined up to condemn the killings by state-led forces.

Yet for many people that is effectively what happened on Sunday 30 January 1972 in Derry³ in Northern Ireland at what became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’⁴, with the British state employing illegitimate violence against its own citizens.

BLOODY SUNDAY

On that day the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) planned a peaceful demonstration to protest against the imposition a year before of internment without trial which had disproportionately affected ‘nationalists’ rather than ‘loyalists’.⁵ Those organising the march were not expecting any trouble although demonstrations had often turned violent in the past. The two ‘republican’ paramilitary organisations, the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA) and Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), had previously not mounted operations during demonstrations to avoid alienating public support if civilian casualties were attributed to them. But both would typically be present at demonstrations and be armed as ‘protection’.⁶ There was also no doubt that Northern Ireland was a dangerous environment for the ‘security forces’; since