The human cost of collusion

Brendan Curran, Michelle Gildernew and Alex Maskey

"Sheena was shot dead at 6pm on a Friday evening in the York Hotel in Belfast while she was sitting having a discussion with some of her lecturers.

"No member of her family — myself, her son, who at that stage was eleven years of age, her parents or any member of her family - we were never informed by the authorities that Sheena had been killed.

"I heard on the 7pm news of a shooting at the university - that's the first I knew of it".

So said Brendan Curran from Lurgan in County Armagh, whose partner, Sheena Campbell, was assassinated in 1992. He was addressing members of the Troops Out Movement and many others at a public meeting titled 'The British Government and Collusion in Ireland: Time for Truth' on Wednesday evening, 12 May, in the Grand Committee Room of the House of Commons in London.

Other speakers included Fermanagh/South Tyrone MP Michelle Gildernew and South Belfast MLA Alex Maskey.

Brendan represented An Fírinne (The Truth), a group of relatives of those killed as a result of collusion, and he explained how, as the first Sinn Féin councillor to be elected to Craigavon Council, he was targeted by unionist paramilitaries on three occasions, leaving him permanently disabled. He was told on a number of occasions by members of the British Army, the UDR and the RUC that he would be executed, or "taken out of it".

Brendan talked about his partner, Sheena Campbell, a member of Sinn Féin who had just started her second year as a law student at Queen's University when she was executed by agents of the British State.

He told the audience how Sheena, along with Dodie McGuinness, "was instrumental in developing the electoral strategy that has brought Sinn Féin so much success" adding, "and she was so good at that type of work that they decided to remove her".

Brendan said that the RUC never came to the house to inform the family of Sheena's death. Indeed, the only time the RUC did call to the house, which was quite a few days later, it was to "basically interrogate us about what Sheena was doing in Belfast even though they knew full well.

"It subsequently transpired that the weapon used to murder Sheena was uncovered in Botanic Avenue, close to the scene. It was found in a car where two leading loyalists were found talking. None of them were charged with her murder, or even in connection with her murder. And that information only came out as a result of a slip at the inquest."

Other worrying aspects of the case included the fact that none of the witnesses were asked about the gunmen or how the shooting itself actually happened. Also, Sheena and himself were 'demonised' to the witnesses by the RUC and the RUC attempted to make the witnesses believe "that they were safer to keep their mouths shut about anything they saw".

"And they succeeded" said Brendan. "So much so that people remained silent for almost ten years, afraid to speak — they got such a frightening from the RUC — and said themselves that basically, what they were being told was "Shut up, keep quiet and say nothing".

Brendan wants the British State to admit it was responsible for killing its own citizens. "That's what we are asking for," he said. "We are asking for that acknowledgement from the British Government, because it is dangerous if we don't get that. If we don't get that, then the possibility still exists that more people will be killed in exactly the same way by the same minds, using whatever apparatus the State has."