Marks family seeks truth and justice
By Pádraig MacDabhaid
On Wednesday 10 April 1991 29-year-old Colum Marks, an IRA Volunteer of the South Down Brigade, was shot three times, once in the head, in an RUC shoot-to-kill operation in Downpatrick. He was unarmed. Marks was handcuffed and held at the side of an empty house for around 20 minutes before he died.
Speaking to An Phoblacht, Rosemary Rooney, his sister, explained the circumstances surrounding his killing as well as the family's fight for justice, which has resulted in her becoming one of the founder members of Survivors And Victims for Equality (SAVE), a new relatives group for the families of those murdered at the hands of the RUC, the British Army, or as a result of collusion.
Rosemary began by explaining Colum's activity on the night he was shot dead. ``Colum was an IRA Volunteer,'' she began. ``He was on active service at the time of his murder but he was unarmed. A mortar was found 200 yards away from where he was killed, but forensics showed that he had not been in contact with it.
``He was walking across a field which was often used by locals as a shortcut when the sky was lit up by flares and RUC officers with torches attached to their guns murdered Colum. With all that light, they would have seen he was unarmed. Eyewitnesses said no warnings were given.
``The RUC then handcuffed him and dragged him to a nearby empty house where they left him for 20 minutes. No medical attention was called, even though the hospital was only about one minute away. An eyewitness at the time said that he saw Marks being trailed behind an empty house. He heard one RUC man say `that bastard's still kicking'.
``At the inquest, we heard that the RUC had prior notification of Colum's movements that night. They sealed off all escape routes from the area and lay in wait for him. The RUC have said that they were confronted by three `terrorists' and that they shot one and arrested another. However, as far as we have been made aware Colum was alone that night and nobody else was arrested.
``Our family wants to know the truth. Why did the RUC choose to kill an unarmed man rather than arrest him?''
Asked about her own personal choice to become involved with SAVE, she explained: ``Many similar groups have sprung up lately and everybody is giving them a chance to tell their stories. We believe that we also have a right to tell our stories and, so, over the past two weeks we got together. There is more than one side to the grief here. RUC members and British soldiers were not the only ones to die here.
``People try to deny us our grief and our claim that injustices were done, but Colum was a product of the conflict here. The British make their rules and then break them themselves - they claim to try to arrest people first and then they carry out a shoot-to-kill operation against Colum.
``We intend to campaign to find out who was responsible for the death of our loved ones, who fired the shots that killed our loved ones, who ordered the killings and who failed to investigate these murders thoroughly. We have already begun to send applications to Brice Dickson at the new Six-County Human Rights Commission to look into our cases.
``We feel that Chris Patten didn't take our concerns on board. Patten heard the feelings of those who had lost loved ones, people broke down and cried while telling him their stories, but he just appears to have ignored them - inaccuracies in the Patten Report appear to justify our concerns on this issue. It is our belief that only the disbanding of the RUC can alleviate our fears.
``Our hope is that other families will join us, because we are stronger as a group and can share our experiences. This, however, will not be an easy task, as many people still cannot talk about their experiences.''
The campaign can be contacted at:
SAVE,
c/o Relatives for Justice,
235A Falls Rd,
Belfast BT12 4TE
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