State Violence (20 page)
Authors: Raymond Murray
Tags: #Europe, #Ireland, #General, #History, #Political Science, #Human Rights, #Political Freedom & Security, #british intelligence, #Political prisoners, #Civil Rights, #Politics and government, #collusion, #IRA, #State Violence, #Great Britain, #paramilitaries, #Northern Ireland, #British Security forces, #loyalist, #Political persecution, #1969-1994
Teachers have to face a death culture which is the opposite of the living imaginative culture they are called to promote and enjoy in others. Teachers watch their children grow and express themselves in art forms, life, joy and liberty. That should be the way, but they face the death culture â like the Ballymurphy slogan, âIs there a life before death?' It is the state, who should be the upholder of law, who is promoting the death culture as well as the âoutlaws'. Take a look at west Belfast. On one side of the M1 lies Boucher Road with its splendid factories and on the school side of the M1 is colossal unemployment. The Milltown and City cemeteries are more than symbolic. Teachers of west Belfast are faced with a death society.
The pro-life constitutional amendment in the Republic of Ireland is current news. The Church supports it because the Church regards human life as sacred from the first moment of conception. The Church has also been very clear in its condemnation of murder, but the intensity and directness has sometimes appeared to vary with the social importance of the person murdered. Can it be said that the reaction to some murders, and I mention here the fourteen rubber and plastic bullet deaths, and the slaying of Danny Barrett, aged fifteen years, suggests that the Church is strong with the weak and weak with the strong? Carol Ann Kelly, Julie Livingstone and Danny Barrett have been largely forgotten by the people who took responsibility for them when they passed outside the family home, namely the schools and the Church. The ghosts of these children are knocking at the doors of the people who said, âWe will be responsible for moulding you and upholding your potential and your talents'. The ghosts of these children are asking, âYou people who took responsibility for our growth, why are you not speaking publicly and effectively about the way in which the growth of our young lives was cut off?' The motto of the Christian Church should be, âDon't take me for granted'. The day that the state, the government, the army, the media can smugly predict that the Church will react within the ambit of their power will be a day of death for the Church. The Church must always be ready to do the unexpected, to take the path of greatest loss to defend the âlittle ones'.
Jesus told a parable about children: âSee that you don't despise any of these little ones. Their angels in heaven, I tell you, are always in the presence of my Father in heaven. What do you think? What will a man do who has one hundred sheep and one of them gets lost? He will leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go to look for the lost sheep. When he finds it, I tell you, he feels far happier over this than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost. In just the same way your Father in heaven does not want any of these little ones to be lost.'
Mr Kevin Boyle, Professor of Law, Galway University, will be bringing the cases of the deaths by plastic bullets here to the European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Association for Legal Justice, Fr Denis Faul and myself appreciate the support in this action from the Organisation of Concerned Teachers. Young people often say that they cannot see a way to justice except by violence, that the violent only yield to force and violence. The Church's call to a peaceful political way to justice is just hollow words unless it provides the practical alternative. It must be seen to identify and work with the unemployed, the poverty line, the plastic bullets' victims, to leave the ninety-nine grazing and go after the âlittle one' that is lost.
Killings by British Security Forces, 1969â76
The second man to die in the Northern Ireland âtroubles' was John Gallagher, a young married man from my own parish of Armagh, the night of 14 August 1969. I live in rooms three storeys up and I had been watching a loyalist crowd massing in the street outside the City Hall where a civil rights' meeting was taking place. The leaders of the meeting, sensing the build-up outside and the heavy concentration of police, told the crowd to leave and disperse to their homes quietly. The crowd were directed to the left by the police when they went outside. A short distance away the street had a left turning. Some of the crowd who turned down this street, Cathedral Road, were met by a party of B Special police who fired killing John Gallagher and wounding some others. The Scarman Tribunal into Violence and Civil Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969 was satisfied that the police did fire and that one of them did kill Mr Gallagher while others wounded Mr McParland and Mr Moore. After making allowances for the strange, difficult and frightening situation in which the police found themselves, the report said that there was no justification for firing into the crowd. The tribunal placed a measure of responsibility on a police inspector who put an untrained party of police from a country area into an alarming town riot without briefing or leadership. No RUC man has yet been charged with the murder of John Gallagher. On 22 August 1974 I wrote to Mr Merlyn Rees, the Secretary of State, âOn 14 August, 1969, John Gallagher, one of our parishioners, was shot dead in Armagh. Are police investigations still continuing into this fatal shooting?' The reply was that investigations had closed but would be re-opened if fresh evidence was obtainable.
The Scarman Report also found unjustified the killing of Patrick Rooney, a boy of 9 years, by the police in Belfast. The report states, âWe are unable to justify the shooting from the Browning machine-gun which was responsible for the death of Patrick Rooney'. On 19 April 1969 police entered the home of Samuel Devenney on a day of rioting in Derry and beat him up in front of his children. He died in hospital in Belfast on 17 July 1969. He was 42 years old. Following an inquiry conducted by Scotland Yard detectives on the instigation of Sir Arthur Young, Chief Constable, Sir Arthur made a statement. He attributed lack of evidence to a âconspiracy of silence'.
I mention these deaths at the beginning of the present crisis because it is there the rot set in. You could be shot dead on your own street by the British army or the police and nobody would be made amenable for the killing. Since that time some 60 innocent people have been killed in an unjustifiable manner by British government forces â 14 in Derry on 30 January 1972, 6 on the New Lodge Road, Belfast, 3 February 1973, and so on.
On Saturday 15 June 1974, a 22 year-old man, John Pat Cunningham from my parish, really a retarded boy who had the mentality of a 10 year-old child was shot dead by the British army. He was afraid of the soldiers, having been beaten up by them on a previous occasion. The army said they called on him to halt before they fired. There was no independent inquiry into his death. He was shot at 120 yards. The officer said he had his hand in his pocket. If he was a gunman, what use would a pistol be at that distance?
Fr Faul and I documented the cases of Leo Norney aged 17 years gunned down by the Black Watch Regiment 13 September 1975, Majella O'Hare aged 12 years gunned down by the Third Parachute Regiment 14 August 1976 on her way to church, Brian Stewart killed by a rubber bullet October 1976.
By their actions in killing 60 innocent civilians, the British army have violated human rights spelled out in
The Universal Declaration of Human Right
s and
The International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights:
âEveryone has the right to life, liberty and the security of the person' (Article 3 of
The Universal Declaration
).
âEvery human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life' (Article 6 (1) of the Covenant).
Not only were these innocents â people like Patrick McElhone, Pomeroy, County Tyrone, taken out and gunned down in the field in front of his aged parents' house and Brian Smith gunned down by the paratroopers while he stood chatting to friends in Ardoyne â deprived of their lives, but they were slandered by malicious lies promulgated by dishonourable officers that they were gunmen.
Why can agents of the British government kill people manifestly innocent in very suspicious circumstances and never pay any penalty? Are they really operating under the law if they are never effectively made amenable to law? Are they above the law? Is there a conspiracy to make them immune from effective prosecution?
On 7 January 1976, the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced the use of the SAS, the Special Air Service Regiment, in Northern Ireland plainclothes irregular units. What the real motive of the British authorities was can only be guessed at but the general idea seems to have been to terrorise the people by assassination, by highly unorthodox and criminal methods contrary to Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions. Fr Faul and I chronicled the shooting of Peter Cleary taken out from the house of his girlfriend and her relatives and killed in a nearby field. So far in the past year the SAS have gunned down 8 people in cold blood â Colm McNutt and Denis Heaney in Derry, Paul Duffy in Cookstown, John Boyle in County Antrim, Jim Mulvenna, Dennis Brown, William John Mailey and a Protestant, William Hanna, in Belfast. This is known as the âkill, don't question' security policy and is a massive breach of the rule of law.
This is part of a speech delivered by me to Congressmen in Washington DC, 3 October 1978, and to the Ad Hoc Committee for Human Rights in Northern Ireland, Philadelphia, 7 October 1978.
On 7 August 1974 Patrick McElhone spent the whole day from early morning working with his tractor in a field of his farm at Limehill near Pomeroy, County Tyrone. He was disturbed at his work before five o' clock by a soldier with blackened face, armed with an SLR rifle and pistol, who asked him his name. There was some cross-difficulty due to the accents of the men. But Patrick gave his name and when asked about some man in the area he said he did not see him. Patrick McElhone himself aroused no suspicion. He was just an ordinary farm labourer going about his ordinary work, dressed in old farm clothes, a pair of wellington boots and old hat. The soldier who had left his section and come into the field was Lance Corporal Roy Alun Jones.
Roy Alun Jones had been ten years a soldier. He had been two and a half years at an infantry junior leaders' establishment, had gone to Hong Kong with the South Wales Borderers, then served in Kent and in Aden in 1967 where he carried out service in an urban guerrilla war situation. Lance Corporal Jones first came to the north of Ireland in 1969. He served on the Falls Road and about a year later served again there. His final tour in Ireland was a long one of more than eight months.
On 6 August, Major C. B. Jones of the Royal Regiment of Wales, stationed in the Pomeroy area, detailed operations to a platoon to operate there. He had in his possession the information folders from the previous regiment there, the Life Guards. He instructed Sergeant Harrye to search out-buildings and farms and to talk to local people regarding information they might have regarding âterrorist' activity. As guide lines, they were given a briefing by Major Jones on previous âterrorist' activity, a list of names provided by the Life Guards of âterrorists' in the area and of those wanted for criminal charges by the RUC. There was no information at all on the McElhone family. Patrick McElhone was above suspicion. This was the first time the platoon operated in a country area.
At 3.40pm the day before the killing of Patrick McElhone, the operation in the countryside began. Sergeant William Harrye was in charge of the platoon. He briefed the platoon sections. He explained to them the area they were to cover. He told them that within this area they were to search cars and vehicles, do spot checks on people and on out-buildings but not to enter dwelling houses. He had a folder with a history of activities in the area.
On 7 August, Lance Corporal Jones was in a section under the command of Corporal Bridgeman. After he had questioned Patrick McElhone, his section moved to join the other section who had been at another farm. The two sections formed into one platoon and proceeded to the McElhone farm. That was in the late afternoon. Three people lived on the farm, the aged couple, Peter McElhone and his wife Margaret and their son Patrick. Corporal Wood and his section went to the road junction below the farm, while Jones' section remained in the vicinity of the farm. The NCOs deployed the private soldiers. They themselves, along with one or two of the members, continued to search the farmyard area and the out-buildings. Sergeant Harrye was in command. Corporal Bridgeman was second-in-command. Lance Corporal Jones acted as a senior soldier. Sergeant Harrye asked Mr Peter McElhone's permission to look around the out-buildings of the farm. He agreed to the request. There was no disagreement with the elderly McElhones.
Mrs Margaret McElhone, mother of Patrick, had lived on the farm since her marriage. She had two sons. Michael was in England. Patrick worked on the farm at home and looked after his old parents. It was a mountain farm. The family was not well off. Patrick's interest was playing Irish music.
Mrs McElhone remembers the soldiers arriving at the farm with blackened faces. She was in the house with her husband when they came to ask permission to search. At 6.10pm, Patrick came in. He was very hungry after working all day. He was anxious to get his tea and go out again to finish his work. His mother was in the kitchen, the middle room, when he came in. He sat down at the table in a gesture to hurry her up. She put on the kettle to boil while he was waiting. The kettle was just coming to the boil, the kitchen door lay wide open, she looked out. Two soldiers came to the door. A soldier waved his finger at Paddy. He got up at once and went out.
The soldiers closed the door when they got Patrick on the steps. Father and mother were left in the house. Mrs McElhone went down to the lower room. The top part of the window was open. She looked out. She saw the soldiers with Paddy on the road at the gap of the house. Two took him out on the road and began to question him. Paddy was standing in the middle. The soldier on the right was shaking him. She never heard his voice. She thought Paddy must not have answered him. She heard a soldier say that he was not helping the British army very much. With that they ran up the road out of her sight.