The refusal of the PPS to bring Soldiers B and F to face their day in court leaves families of the victims of state-sponsored murder at a grave loss. There are two facts in the majority of killings by British forces in Ireland. Those being, the victims were almost certainly innocent and the soldiers carrying out the killings will not face the full rigours of their own justice system for carrying out murder.
The UK has always claimed it has the best-trained soldiers in the world. They call them ‘professional soldiers’ who, in a hostile but non wartime operation are trained to PID targets and only fire if theirs or the lives of civilians are endangered. Yet they didn’t exactly follow that doctrine in the North, did they? The soldiers serving in the North were let ‘off the leash’ to kill whoever they wanted with the assurance that they would either get away with murder or they would spend two or three years in prison for murdering an innocent person. This refusal to allow British soldiers to face trial and the cover ups that ensued, not to mention the secret operations carried out by British forces in this part of Ireland is what has led to the huge mistrust of the British judicial system and the way in which criminal elements within the British forces and indeed the RUC and Special Branch are treated.
The way in which British forces acted and got away with murder in Ireland carries a striking resemblance to British operations as other colonial hotspots such as Jallianwala Bagh. On April 13th, 1919, hundreds of unarmed men, women and children were gunned down by British troops at Jallianwala Bagh, a walled garden in Amritsar, following unrest in the northern Indian city. The British government, which ruled India at the time, put the death toll at 379, while Indian freedom fighters and other civilians put the death toll at almost 1,000. No one was ever arrested or charged. The Mau Mau uprising is another example. The Mau Mau were both a political organization and a paramilitary group which rose in revolt during the 1940s, eventually breaking into open warfare with the British and other Imperial troops in 1952. The majority of the Mau Mau revolutionaries were Kikuyu.
After declaring an emergency when they could no longer control the population through the ruse of being protectors, the British pursued a policy of divide and conquer. Civil liberties were suspended. Kikuyu were rounded up into “work camps.” One and a half million people were held in camps or villages surrounded and fortified by British troops. The camps bore signs which read, “Labor and Freedom.” Torture and mass executions were common, including men being anally raped with bottles and other devices by guards. Some Kiyuku were dragged by military vehicles until their bodies broke into pieces. Others were mauled by guard dogs before being executed. How many died in the British camps is unknown because the Colonial Office and Foreign Office connived to destroy the documentation. Officially released British records indicated that there were only 80,000 Kikuyu and other tribesmen incarcerated in the camps during the Mau Mau uprising, but recently discovered documents and other records indicate that nearly the entire civilian population was placed in the camps. Again, no one was ever put on trial or imprisoned.
While the North didn’t suffer the same massive internment as the Mau Mau and Kikuyu or the mass slaughter of Jallianwala Bagh, the tactics used to suppress a population were the same. Divide and conquer, indiscriminate killings of innocent people, also known as murder, brutal torture and the destruction of documents to hide the brutal truth of what actually happened to the native population of this part of Ireland at the hands of British forces. British forces who served Queen and country in this part of Ireland cannot be permitted to get away with murder. There can be no time frame in which a guilty party can get away with murdering an innocent person simply because they are a member or ex-member of crown or state forces. The same set of rules used to let British soldiers away with murder don’t seem to work for ex-IRA volunteers who are regularly sought for extradition to the North or UK to stand trial for killings they carried out whether they suffer from dementia or not…perhaps they should develop dementia. It’s a disgusting betrayal of trust for a population coming out of one of the longest conflicts in history and once again it is Britain who is making an extremely fragile situation worse.
Over time, many of the countries controlled by the British exhibited displeasure with British Colonial rule. Rebellions, uprisings, and outright revolution against British authority took place throughout the life of the British empire, and with the outstanding exception of the thirteen American colonies were put down harshly. During many of these revolts the British dealt with natives in terms which were often unbelievably cruel, rivalling the worst atrocities of the Romans and the Nazis. In 2012 the British Foreign Office admitted that thousands of records documenting atrocities committed by the British Army and colonial service were deliberately destroyed, and the records which remained were illegally kept hidden from the eyes of the media and the public. Sound familiar?
Britain and the PPS are setting a dangerous precedent. They are saying to the families of British state murder victims that if you wait long enough you can get away with murder. IRA volunteers spent decades in gaol for carrying out killings. Some IRA men spent 20 years in gaol simply for being in possession of firearms without even firing a shot, yet soldiers who killed and injured innocent people like Soldier F will spend no time at all in jail and indeed will not even stand trial.
Ballymurphy Massacre, Belfast – 11 killed by British forces, all proven innocent.
Bloody Sunday, Derry – 14 killed by British forces, all proven innocent.
Majella O’Hare, 12 years old and Aiden McAnespie 23 – Both shot in the back by British soldiers who used the same excuse – accidental discharge of their weapons due to wet hands. Neither Majella nor Aiden were threats.
Francis McGuigan, 23 months old – Died after inhaling CS gas which was fired into houses in Ballymurphy on April 7th, 1970. The British army denied the gas killed the child though a coroner confirmed it did.
Martin Corr, 12 – Found dead in his bed on March 30, 1973 after being arrested and badly beaten by the British army.
During Operation Banner the British army killed 160 unarmed civilians, 61 of those were children and the most any British soldier has spent in jail for murder was 3 years.
Lest WE forget!
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