Suffering at the hands of an oppressive state
Lurgan - a microcosm of the nationalist experience in the Six
Counties
By Laura Friel
Eight-year-old Caitriona Duffy is singing carols with a school
friend in the kitchen as her mother, Susan, prepares the evening
meal. Her father, Colin, gently rocks baby Sinéad to sleep.
The house is cosy and quiet. Apart from a copy of the
Proclamation in the hallway and a Celtic cross and harp in the
living room, there is nothing to distinguish this house from any
other family home in the run-up to Christmas.
Yet for the last five years the Duffy family have been the focus
of unrelenting crown force intimidation. Their story encompasses
the full spectrum of harassment experenced by nationalists in the
Six Counties, from petty stop-and-search harassment to arbitary
arrest and detention, from verbal and physical abuse to
collusion.
The Duffys live in one of three small nationalist estates in
Lurgan, County Armagh. Lurgan sits on the edge of what became
known in the 1970s as the murder triangle. Less than ten minutes
drive from Portadown, it is a small market town with a population
of around 25,000, almost a third of which are nationalist.
In the last twelve months the nationalist communities in the area
have endured intense RUC and British army activity. ``They're a
law unto themsleves,'' says Colin, ``The level of harassment and
Crown force activity is unprecedented, it's greater now than
before the IRA ceasefire.''
After three years of imprisonment, Colin Duffy was released in
September 1996 when a conviction for murder was quashed by the
Appeal Court. The prosecution case collapsed when it was
revealled that their key witness, screened from view during the
trial, was a loyalist gunrunner.
``When I was released in `96, I noticed a quite striking
escalation of Crown Force activity compared to `93 prior to my
arrest.'' Colin Duffy and his family have been targeted for
constant harassment by the British Army and RUC. ``I can't walk to
the local shops without being stopped and searched,'' says Duffy,
``I can be stopped three or four times on a day. I am often held
for over half an hour.''
On the Kilwilkie estate the year began much as it was to close.
It was 4.30 on a cold February morning when over a thousand
members of the RUC, RIR and British army moved into the estate.
``There's only about 700 houses in Kilwilkie,'' says Colin, ``The
area was sealed off and remained curfewed for three days.'' Twelve
homes were raided, with one left uninhabitable. ``They told us
they would teach us a lesson and they certainly tried,'' said one
resident at the time.
During the raids, RIR soldiers threatened nationalists and said
they would give their personal details to loyalist gangs. Malachy
Toman returned home from his father's funeral to find his home
being raided. ``We can do what we like,'' said an RUC raider.
Constant Crown force harassment of her family is taking its toll
on eight-year-old Caitriona Duffy. ``She has stopped going out
with me,'' says Colin, ``and has become very anxious and fearful
for my safety.'' Caitriona continually asks, ``Are they going to
take you back to jail daddy?''
In July this year Colin Duffy was arrested and charged with
murder yet again. This time he was charged with killing two RUC
officers. In a blatant example of arbitrary arrest and detention,
the RUC deliberately ignored evidence which established Colin's
innocence. ``There were about a dozen witnesses who could place me
in the Kilwilkie estate, more than a mile away, at the time of
the shooting.'' Colin was held for almost three months before the
charges were dropped.
escalation of harassment against young nationalists in the
Lurgan area reflects the experience of nationalist communities
throughout the Six Counties. In April 13-year-old Gavin McKenna
was almost blinded when he was shot in the face with a plastic
bullet fired by a British soldier. Gavin was to be one of the
first nationalists to be seriously injured in a year in which the
RUC fired thousands of plastic bullets at the nationalist
community. In one Sunday in Derry over 1,000 plastic bullets were
fired, resulting in hundreds of injuries, forty serious injuries.
In the aftermath of the Orange march through Garvaghy Road, 2,500
plastic bullets were fired, seriously injurying 30 people and
leaving 14-year-old Gary Lawlor in a coma for over a week.
Rosemary Nelson is a solicitor working in the Lurgan area. In one
month alone, this year, she recorded over 30 complaints against
crown force personnel, including serious assaults. ``Where's
fucking Rosemary Nelson now?'' yelled one RIR soldiers as he
dragged Christine McCauley from her car.
In the Six Counties of Ireland, defending the rights of the
nationalist community is a dangerous business. Rosemary Nelson is
Colin Duffy's solicitor. After representing the family of Robert
Hamill, kicked to death by a loyalist mob after the RUC failed to
intervene, Rosemary has been targeted for harassment.
In November, Colin Duffy was again targeted for a brutal
orchestrated attack by the RUC. It was the night of his new
daughter, Sinéad's christening. ``The RUC were waiting for me,''
says Colin, ``I was travelling in a car with friends but we were
stopped as we drove out of the pub carpark.''
Colin was punched by an RUC officer as he sat in the back of the
car. Within moments two carloads of baton-wielding RUC arrived at
the scene. Colin and his five companions were attacked and
beaten. ``One girl was bruised head to toe, she was covered in
baton and boot marks,'' says Colin,'' a second girl needed four
stitches to a wound in her arm.'' Following the attack, Colin was
arrested and remanded in custody on a charge of Grevious Bodily
Harm.
``It's sinister,'' he says, ``unlike an assault charge, a magistrate
can't grant bail for a charge of GBH.'' Colin was imprisoned until
a High Court hearing granted bail. ``The RUC knew that the High
Court would impose restrictions,'' says Colin, ``forcing me to sign
bail at Lurgan's RUC barracks.''
Colin Duffy has good reason to suspect the RUC's motives. In
1990, Colin Duffy was signing bail with Sam Marshall who was
murdered by the UVF. Crown force collusion in the killing has
always been suspected. A known loyalist has already been sighted
in suspicious circumstances on a night Colin should have been
signing bail.
Crown force collusion, long suspected by the nationalst
community, became a matter of public record during the trial of
British agent Brian Nelson. To date over 2,000 nationalists have
been informed by the RUC that their personal files have been
passed into the hands of loyalist death squads. In one week in
November, twenty nationalists informed Sinn Fein that the RUC had
warned them that their lives were in danger.
``This community is sick and tired of crown force harassment,''
says Duffy, ``people are asking, `where is the peace dividened?',
since the IRA ceasefire things have got worse. The British can't
be serious about peace.''
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