Northern Ireland - new material (40)
01 March 2001
Review: Unfinished business: state killings and the quest for the truth, Bill Rolston with Mairead Gilmartin. Beyond the Pale 2000, pp336, £12.99 [ISBN 1-900960-09-5].
This substantial volume was inspired by an event at the West Belfast Festival devoted to the “forgotten victims” of the conflict in the North of Ireland - “the people who had lost friends and relatives at the hands of the British state during the previous three decades...” It is built around accounts of 23 instances of state involvement in killings ranging from Bloody Sunday in January 1972 to the fatal beating of Robert Hamill in May 1997. In his introduction Rolston estimates that just over 10 per cent of the deaths in the conflict (357 people) can be attributed to the state, with over 50 per cent of these victims being civilians. He describes six categories of state killing, i. shoot-to-kill operations, ii. excessive use of force in public order situations, iii. individual actions by an armed member of the state forces, iv. collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in advance of the death, v. actions by loyalists but with security force cover-up after the event, and vi. other reasons (such as dereliction of duty, as in the case of Robert Hamill). However, the strength of this powerful book can be found in the accounts given by the friends and relatives of those who died. Their stories tell not only of the killings, but of how they were “ignored, marginalised, vilified and harassed by the same state forces which had killed their loved ones”. In the words of the South African poet Antje Krog, speaking of the testimony of victims and survivors to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission; “Each word is exhaled from the heart, each syllable vibrates with a lifetime of sorrow.” Available from BTP Publications, Unit 2.1.2 Conway Mill, 5-7 Conway Street, Belfast BT13 2DE.
They killed my father, Michael Finucane. Guardian 13.2.01.
Pat Finucane was a civil rights lawyer who was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries, allegedly with the involvement of a covert wing of the British army - the Force Reconnaissance Unit - in February 1989. Their agent in the unit was UDA intelligence officer and police informer Brian Nelson who was eventually arrested and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment (he served four and a half years) on 23 charges ranging from conspiracy to murder to collecting information for terrorist purposes. Pat Finucane's murder was not among the charges brought against him. Finucane's son concludes his article by asking the salient question: “The state machinery that murdered Patrick Finucane was not established to kill one man. Others died too, and the question that has to be answered is, how many?” The Pat Finucane Centre, which has called for an independent inquiry into the lawyer's murder, can be contacted at The Pat Finucane Centre, 1 West End Park, Bogside, Derry.
A new beginning on policing? Gerry Kelly. Left Republican Review Number 2 (September/October) 2001, pp4-7.
Article by the Sinn Fein spokesman which describes the “new beginning” of policing in the North of Ireland, as envisaged in Chris Patten's report, as “an indispensable and absolutely minimum requirement if there is to be any possibility of a successful conflict resolution process.” Sinn Fein's criticisms of the Bill that is being considered by the British parliament is also succinctly summarised: “Of the original 175 recommendations contained in Patten's report, the legislation subverts 89 of those, lacks clarity on a further 75, and only ensures the implementation of 11.” Available from Subscriptions Department, LRR, 13c Grainne House, New Lodge Road, Belfast BT15 2EH.
Bloody Sunday Inquiry. Just News vol 16 no 1 (January) 2001, pp8.
This is a special edition dedicated to the “Bloody Sunday” inquiry into the killing of 14 people, participating in a civil rights march in Derry in January 1972, by the British army. The tribunal, which is in its third year, is<