Top Issue 1-2024

11 February 2016

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British military and security services directly blocking progress on legacy

WHEN the conclusions of the Stormont House ‘Fresh Start’ negotiations were published last November without agreement on legacy there was huge disappointment across all sections of Irish society, North and South.

Theresa Villiers’s University of Ulster speech on Thursday has deepened, not lessened, the impasse which is stopping progress on dealing with the past. It will do nothing to relieve that continuing disappointment.

Whilst trailed as a major speech, it said and offered nothing new.

What seems clear is that this British Government does not intend to lift its veto on information disclosure about the actions of state forces and agents during the political conflict.

In her remarks, Theresa Villiers said the current situation is placing a disproportionate focus upon state actions.

That is a bogus claim.

The fact is that the British state has tried to absolve and distance the actions of it forces and agents from having any responsibility for the political conflict in Ireland and the suffering experienced by all sides.

‘National security’ is a smokescreen behind which the British seek to perpetuate a false narrative that the state was some kind of neutral bystander or referee.

That’s another bogus position.

ThatcherBABeret

Margaret Thatcher personally approved and presided over numerous state-sanctioned assassinations. The national security pretext is about trying to keep the focus of information disclosure away from Downing Street and most senior levels of British state decision making.

Theresa Villiers says lifting the state’s veto on information disclosure about the conflict could play into the hands of violent Islamic extremists.

That is also nonsense.

There is no actual or arguable way in which disclosure about the involvement of British soldiers in the Ballymurphy Massacre; the role of unionist paramilitary state agents in the Dublin/Monaghan bombings; or the assassination of Pat Finucane by unionist state agents (this time 27 years ago and about which the commitment to hold a public inquiry has still not been honoured) could undermine British national security in the present-day geopolitical context.

Lifting a block on information about the actions of state forces and agents over 40, 30 or 20 years ago poses no threat to British national security by any definition.

Ballymurphy Massacre commemoration 2015

In 2009, Sinn Féin published our preferred option for the establishment of an International Independent Truth Recovery Commission and process. Others, including the British Government disagreed.

During the Stormont House Agreement in December 2014, Sinn Féin compromised on that preferred option and supported the mechanisms proposed then to deal with the past. These commanded cross-party and governmental support and included the establishment of a Historic Investigations Unit (HIU), an Independent Commission on Information Retrieval, an oral archive project, and an overarching Implementation & Reconciliation Group.

However, during the most recent period of negotiations culminating in the ‘Fresh Start’, the British Government reneged on its previous political commitment to ensure maximum information disclosure by refusing to draft appropriate enabling legislation.

This change in British Government policy is the only reason for the present impasse on legacy. It is directly attributable to an intervention by the British Ministry of Defence and British security and intelligence services.

Once it became clear that political agreement was emerging on a framework to deal with the past and a successful conclusion was achievable, they imposed a dead hand and the British Government then introduced a national security veto.

In a serious attempt to prevent an impasse developing, Sinn Féin brought forward a compromise initiative after consulting widely with victims’ families and campaign groups. This offered the British Government two options to get around its veto and the focus upon national security:-

1) To provide full discretion to the HIU Director with regard to the onward flow of information to families, similar to those conferred on the Police Ombudsman;

2) To establish an independent, international appeals panel to adjudicate on disclosure issues comprised of three judges – one each appointed by the British and Irish governments, and a third international judicial figure jointly appointed by both governments.

We also set out three guiding principles:-

1) That national security should not be used as a reason to withhold information in relation to a criminal offence relating to actual or attempted killing during the conflict;

2) That information should be disclosed to the maximum extent that it does not endanger the life of a person;

3) That information should be disclosed to the maximum extent that its disclosure does not impair the effectiveness of current methods for the prevention of damage to national security.

The British Government has not engaged with Sinn Féin on our latest compromise proposals. That suggests powerful elements within the British Establishment do not want a solution.

Some of the reasons contained in Theresa Villiers’s latest speech to justify this continuing British intransigence are in fact addressed by Sinn Féin’s proposals.

But instead of private engagement or a proper public debate to secure a resolution, Theresa Villiers and her NIO advisors prefer to make speeches which only deepen the distress of families, and make finding a resolution more difficult.

Last week. on the BBC’s Nolan Show, I called out those within the British state system opposed to dealing with the past and challenged them to step out from behind their national security shield and to defend their intransigence.

There has been a shift in this British Government’s approach and it is one due to the primacy of the state’s military and intelligence ‘dark side’.

These significant sections of the British state are still psychologically and politically at war.

They have always been hostile to the Peace Process and their negative influence is exaggerated from the refuge of political shadows. Such elements have always tried to control and slow down the pace of democratic change in the North – that is why they do not now want to deal with the past.

The military and intelligence ‘dark side’ does not want a process to deal with the past because that means having to leave the shadows and become publicly accountable.

These negative influences are a monkey on the back of the Peace Process.

This is the stark reality which goes to the heart of the current stalemate on legacy.

● Top picture: An Phoblacht front cover illustration, July 2015 – Death squads from Downing Street

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