Republican News · Thursday 14 November 2002

Spies, spooks and Special Branch

BY LAURA FRIEL

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Special Branch strategy is simple enough, writes LAURA FRIEL. Scupper reform by marginalising Sinn Féin politically and by demonising the IRA. Create McCarthy-type hysteria with allegations of republicans under the bed, or in the office of the First and Deputy First Minister, and carry out a witch hunt against Catholic civil servants

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Pinch me if I'm dreaming, but has anyone else noticed that every time the Special Branch comes under public scrutiny it is almost immediately lost in a counter offensive of raids and arrests and scaremongering allegations?

Of course, last month, when the PSNI raided Sinn Féin's party offices in Stormont, so timely as to pluck the then First Minister David Trimble out of the hole that the Ulster Unionist party's ruling council had dug for him, the media frenzy concentrated on the obvious.

With Saving Private Trimble topping the bill, it was all too easy to miss the 'B' movie, or more accurately the Special 'B' movie. It was a movie, in which real horror stories of Special Branch collusion with loyalist death squads and deliberate suppression of evidence, as in the case of Pat Finucane, were forgotten, during a cinematic rerun of the familiar fable of the IRA bogeyman.

"Special Branch corruption is an inevitable outcome in the presence of absolute power - the power over life and death in many cases - and in the absence of effective accountability measures.

"It is in everyone's interest that structures of accountability are created which are unwilling to condone the negative and corrosive influence of Special Branch activities," concluded a detailed document released by Sinn Féin just hours before the raid.

Sinn Féin has been saying this kind of thing for years and let's be honest, it didn't much matter when republicans and northern nationalists remained politically marginalised and socially demonised. But it's quite a different story now.

Sinn Féin is not only the largest nationalist party in the north, with a growing electoral base in the south, but also a party that can wield real influence within governments both at home and abroad.

Significantly Sinn Féin has not been the only voice. The Patten report recognised that "a force within a force" was incompatible with the promise of a "new beginning to policing".

SDLP claims that the Special Branch, post Crompton, will no longer be a "law unto itself", maybe premature but at least the agenda's agreed.

The Police Ombudsman's recent report into the Omagh investigation, which prompted the review by the former British Inspector of Constabulary Dan Compton, was highly critical of the role of Special Branch and called for urgent address.

Tom Constantine, the Commissioner tasked with overseeing the implementation of Patten, criticising the pace of change, or more accurately the lack of it, also paid particular reference to Special Branch.

But while Sinn Féin has not been the only voice, it has been the most persistent and persuasive. And given Irish republicanism's historical, and not so historical, relationship with Special Branch, (originally the Special Irish Branch was set up in 19th century Britain specifically to thwart Irish dissidence) republicans are most likely to bear the brunt of any Special Branch counteroffensive.

The strategy is simple enough. Scupper reform by marginalising Sinn Féin politically and by demonising the IRA. Create McCarthy-type hysteria with allegations of republicans under the bed, or in the office of the First and Deputy First Minister, and carry out a witch hunt against Catholic civil servants. Frighten the British Secretary of State with stories of espionage and get him to sanction further Special Branch meddling.

The ink was barely dry on Compton's recommendations when the PSNI arrested a junior civil servant from West Belfast.

The SDLP's Mark Durkan cautioned against vilification. "The civil servant worked in my private office for a number of months. During that time the only thing that came to my attention was his good work and good manner," said Durkan. "I caution against any rush to judgement in this matter."

Predictably, David Trimble was happier to play along with the Special Branch. After all, their agenda and that of the Unionist leader is inexplicably linked, to resist progressive change and hope to turn back the clock.

It would have major implications for the already troubled peace process, said Trimble. "The consequences are huge," he continued, confirming that the civil servant worked as his diary secretary for a period last year. Of course the diary of the First Minister is neither classified nor secret but Trimble was making hay while the sun shone and was talking up the threat.

Within 24 hours the civil servant had been released without charge and is currently pursuing a case of wrongful arrest against the PSNI. But the frame had already moved swiftly on.

"A major IRA intelligence-gathering operation concentrating on Stormont and Castlereagh Special Branch has now been smashed, according to the PSNI," reported Gerry Moriarty of the Irish Times.

"Police smash provo spy ring" ran the front page of Belfast's Newsletter, "a spy ring which operated from the heart of the IRA has been smashed in one of the biggest police operations in the past ten years".

No journalist stopped to ask why "one of the biggest police operations in the past ten years" had been mounted when even the newly promoted deputy chief constable Alan McQuillan fronting the press conference admitted that there was "no immediate threat".

"I have seen nothing in the information in my possession that indicates there was any intention to use it," admitted McQuillan. And as for more arrests, according to McQuillan the PSNI can only "hope".

d even if McQuillan's wildest dreams are fulfilled, "from the material we have recovered and the documents we have read we are actively investigating a small number of approaches to a small number of people in a small number of offices in government".

So here we have it, 40 PSNI officers working in shifts of 15 for 16 hours a day trawling through 79 computers, 1,000 computer disks and 2,500 evidential exhibits and 19,000 pages of documentation believe they can identify, not actual IRA spies but potential spies which may or may not have been approached by the IRA.

When it comes to discrediting republicans and taking the heat off Special Branch, the dedication of the PSNI is beyond reproach. Northern nationalists will no doubt wonder why the PSNI appear unable to focus as much energy and resources into thwarting loyalist attacks on Catholic neighbourhoods.

Within hours of McQuillan's press conference, the plot was thickening. In a television report it suggested that Special Branch had been "tipped off" about the "spy ring" by one of their agents "deep within the IRA". Furthermore it was claimed, the former NIO messenger, William Mackessy, currently charged and imprisoned, was only a stooge used to cover the tracks of their alleged "agent within the IRA".

Having seemingly gone to such lengths, including the apparent false imprisonment of at least one of the four people facing charges, to provide an agent with cover, it appears incomprehensible that Special Branch decides to tell us all about it - incomprehensible to those unfamiliar with the art of psy-ops or false propaganda. Having brought down the power sharing institutions and flooded the media with IRA scare stories, clearly Special Branch now hopes to sow doubts and suspicions within the IRA.

Outside the media carnival, the core issues remain the same. The Compton Review was not mandated to address or deal with the fundamental issue of the control by Special Branch and MI5 of all aspects of policing in the Six Counties.

Yet this is at the core of the Special Branch's role in relation to Omagh, the very issue to prompt the review. It is also at the heart of the failure to deliver the type of policing promised in the Good Friday Agreement.

"The reality is that the ability of Special Branch, despite being renamed, to control and distort all aspects of policing, working to a political and largely anti peace process agenda remains intact," said Sinn Féin's spokesperson on policing, Gerry Kelly.

"Political policing is unacceptable. It can have no part in our future," said Kelly. "The malign influence of Special Branch and British Military Intelligence, working to their own political and military agenda, works against the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process and must be removed."