Until President Clinton and the 1998 Belfast Treaty, American voices against British Army and police human rights abuses in N. I. were too few and too often met with disbelief and indifference. Then and now Departments of State and Justice ignore the facts of British lawlessness, the McAllister case for example, and dismiss British faults. More than two decades later, Britain is using Brexit to undermine that peace process. How? It will repeal the 1998 N. I. Human Rights Act; absolve the security services killing of civilians in N. I. (Army, MI-5 & police); threaten Ireland’s businesses and dump the “Good Friday Agreement” described by a British Minister as “having outlived its usefulness.” That’s Britain’s way of expressing gratitude for the “special relationship.”
Consider: Over one third of the 3200 killings in N. I. (1969-2002) were never investigated or given a Coroner’s Inquest. That makes the deceased, mostly Catholic civilians, three times victims: the murder, the British smears that followed, and the decades of obstruction of inquiries by the victims’ families. The British Ministry of Defense has spent 20 years issuing ‘pics’(Personal Immunity Certificates) to police and soldiers, invoking ‘national security’ classifications and ordering evidence destruction like the arson attack at the ‘secure’ Sea Park police complex.
The police collusion with loyalist terrorists and Army SAS forces also instructs. One author links the murder of elected Sinn Fein Councillors and party workers with the murders of their family members, friends and even neighbors. It was a sinister attack on democracy based on guilt by association. Sir Jeremy Heywood depicted attorney Finucane’s murder as “worse than anything in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Reports will be spun, some never to be released, but will there ever be truth, justice or accountability from Britain?
Can American’s demand accountability if Trump wants to reward Britain for their own- goal of Brexit? They ignore the United Nations, Amnesty International, the European Convention of Human Rights, the EU, the Irish government, Police Ombudsman etc. and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer just testified that he is in “aggressive negotiations” with the British for a trade deal within 6 months.
The Danube Institute’s Lee Cohen is confident Trump will do the deal. Why? The symbol of the ‘special relationship,’ the Churchill bust, is back in the Oval Office. Possibly placed near his other source of inspiration, the bible. A Pardon My Planet cartoon depicts two businessman sipping martinis next to a table with two young folk in T-shirts sipping coffee. One gentleman says: I feel threatened—not by disease or the falling economy or even stock prices. But by T-shirts. The woman’s T-shirt reads: SEEK TRUTH!
Speaker Pelosi, and Chairmen Neal and Engel have signaled a readiness to do just that. I believe more Americans today are ready to recognize British deceit and misrule. Perhaps a lead off hearing witness might be a representative from BLM which promises “ to intervene when violence was inflicted on black communities by the State and vigilantes.” There is a solidarity statement that would speak truth in volumes to Catholic Nationalists, the ‘blacks’ of Northern Ireland.
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