Name them and shame them
By Sean Marlow
I wonder who advised Tory MP Andrew Hunter to
back off from naming those supposedly involved in killings and
punishment beatings.
Could it have been some of those with most to lose if known
organisers of violence were named and shamed? Like the Tory and
Unionist governments of 1972 who planned the Bloody Sunday massacre
and who - despite the Saville inquiry - are still trying to cover
their tracks?
Or the RUC thugs who, under the guidance of then Home Affairs
minister, John Taylor (the same one!), beat Samuel Devenney, Francis
McCluskey and John Corry to death, then shot nine year old Patrick
Rooney dead at a time when the IRA's weapons were, unfortunately,
decommissioned?
Or maybe there was a Tory somewhere with enough cop-on to realise
that any information coming from Vincent (Walter Mitty) McKenna would
be so inaccurate (remember Walter's Lower Ormeau ``survey'') that it
would backfire - as happened with former FAIT luminaries in whose
footsteps McKenna is now treading - like sticky kneecapper Henry
Robinson, sticky fingers Nancy Gracey and web surfer Glynn Roberts.
Not surprisingly, Ian Paisley was too oafish to realise this and
dived in to list 20 names that he had been given by his RUC
informants. In the light of such blatant setting up of individuals
for assassination by the Orange Volunteers/ Red Hand Defenders/LVF
(who have begun decommissioning!) in the same way that solicitors
were fingered by Douglas Hogg just before human rights lawyer Pat
Finucane was killed by loyalists controlled by British Intelligence.
Is it any wonder that human rights campaigners want this sectarian
force disbanded?
The fact that such dodgy information can so easily find its way from
security files to wreckers like Paisley and loyalist death squads
shows why no-one should pass any information to the RUC and why
costly collaboration between Gardai and RUC should end and the funds
so misused be directed into paying our nurses a decent wage.
Loyalist killer Michael Stone and UFF/British Army agent Brian Nelson
both admitted that such information, gathered on both sides of the
border, was used to target dozens of innocent Catholics throughout
the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
One intriguing aspect of Paisley's names is the fact that several of
them had close relatives killed by British Forces or loyalist death
squads (or more likely both, given the close collaboration between
these ``counter-insurgency'' forces in County Armagh as claimed by
ex-SAS Captain Fred Holroyd and admitted in a recent book on SAS
Captain Robert Nairac). Was this a crude attempt by the RUC to
``justify'' these killings and the failure to bring any prosecutions?
other organisation which shot itself in the foot during the naming
controversy was the good old loyal BBC. The lame excuse it gave for
broadcasting on their main evening news programme a list to make it
easy for every loyalist headbanger to target families with those
names, was that it was only broadcasting what was put on the record
in Westminister. Funny then how they managed to omit, say, Ken
Livingstone's statements about the activities of Colin Wallace and
his MI5 bosses or MPs' calls for banning plastic bullets.
Will the BBC broadcast the names of the Dublin/ Monaghan bombers if
they were to be revealed in Westminister? Or even in Stormont where
the same privilege rules apply.
Now there's an idea! Why doesn't some bold Assembly member get up in
Stormont and repeat the very plausible allegations made this week by
ex-RUC member John Weir about the involvement of senior RUC officers,
along with UVF killer, Robin (Jackal) Jackson, in the ``Good
Samaritan'' killing of North Antrim shopkeeper, William Strathearn? Or
even read into the record a chapter or two or three of ``The
Committee'' by Sean McPhelimy, who uncovered masses of evidence about
the participation of top RUC special branch officers and VERY
high-ranking Unionist politicians and businessmen in the wholesale
slaughter of totally uninvolved Catholic (and some Protestant)
civilians.
I can't wait to see such an epidemic of naming and shaming on the BBC!
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