Republican News · Thursday 16 January 2002

Warlords in trouble

BY JIM GIBNEY

Adair and Lowry are central figures in the 'dirty war' waged by the RUC Special Branch and British intelligence agencies against the nationalist people and the IRA over the last 30 years

It doesn't happen very often, so when it does one has to guard against the tendency to enjoy the discomfort, not only because such events make exciting reading, but because those who think they are untouchable get their comeuppance.

Two men who serve the same purpose but from different ends of the political and military spectrum found themselves in trouble last week.

They had fallen foul of the same bosses they had served diligently and their friends might say with 'distinction' over the last 30 years of conflict.

Johnny Adair, 'Supreme Commander' of the UDA in his head, was back in prison and senior Special Branch officer, Bill Lowry, 'Supreme Commander' of the RUC in his head, was courting the media with a tale of being 'dumped upon' from a great height.

Both men may well be victims of a power struggle going on inside the British intelligence agencies for control of the north's military forces and their future direction.

Both men are central figures in the 'dirty war' waged by the RUC Special Branch and British intelligence agencies against the nationalist people and the IRA over the last 30 years.

Lowry used the power, authority and resources of the British state apparatus for his purposes and covered them in dubious legitimacy when called upon to do so, whereas Adair was used by the same people Lowry worked for to prosecute a sectarian war against the nationalist and Catholic people.

In last Saturday's 'Irish Times', Adair, in an interview with the journalist Gerry Moriarty, declined to deny reports that he was responsible for killing 20 Catholics. He said, "that's something you would need to check with the PSNI".

In his perverted view of the world and that of the intelligence agencies, killing Catholics was taking the 'war' to the IRA and his 'C' company in Belfast's Lower Shankill was, he said, the 'cutting edge' of loyalism.

As yet, no one has calculated the human cost in terms of lost lives due to feuds and personal vendettas and the impact of drug peddling on the unionist people for which 'C' company and other loyalists are responsible.

d while Adair's return to prison will be well received in many circles, not least from within his own community, extreme caution is required. He is imprisoned on the word of the intelligence services. This is not evidence. I listened to journalists reading out the allegations against Adair which led to his re-imprisonment.

It reminded me of the time when I was 19 years old, interned and before a commissioner who was deciding whether I should be released. He listened to a member of the RUC rhyming off a list of activities that I was allegedly involved in. They were lies. I couldn't defend myself because it was not a court of law and I was sent back to prison.

Whereas we watched Adair regularly over the years down the lens of a TV camera and read his unimpressive words in print, the opposite is the case with Lowry. He has burst onto our screens over the last few months but in particular over the last week.

Much has been written about Adair and the world of loyalism that he inhabits and most of it, like last Saturday's interview in the 'Times', is on the record or at least can be sourced and traced.

Much has been written about the RUC Special Branch, which Lowry was a senior member of for years, and other Crown force agencies but little of what has been written has had a face or could be sourced or traced back to its authors.

So it is all the more revealing to watch and listen to Lowry's view of the world. If you closed your eyes you would think you were listening to a member of the Democratic Unionist Party. The conspiracy theory was there. The unionist language of IRA/Sinn Féin featured prominently, as did Lowry's opposition to any changes to the RUC.

Lowry positions himself as a defender of that wonderful force, the RUC. As a result, he is jointly targeted by MI5 and, wait for it, Sinn Féin. He paints a picture of a conspiracy at the highest levels of the PSNI and MI5 to thwart his gallant efforts at finding out the truth about the raid on Castlereagh RUC barracks.

But he meets a conspiracy involving Sinn Féin. He said his 'scalp' was a 'gift' from MI5 to republicans to prevent the peace process from collapsing.

Through Adair we have a window into the sordid and sinister world of loyalist paramilitaries, particularly those in the UDA and LVF. It is not a particularly wholesome sight. But it is there for all to see. It is there for all to criticise. It is there for people to judge its moral value or political worth.

d while Bill Lowry provides us with a face and views that belong to the securocrats who have been using all sorts of methods to wreck the peace process, we are skimming the surface of the intelligence world.

Lowry was a powerful individual. He was a member of an organisation, the Special Branch, who took life and death decisions - decisions which no one has ever been made accountable for before a court of justice.

So there is more than a touch of poetic justice about these comments from him last week. He said, "I felt humiliated, degraded, embarrassed and betrayed."

There's an old saying in Belfast, 'What goes around, comes around'.

Many of the relatives of those who were killed by Special Branch diktat will watch with interest at this twist in a tale which is set to run a bit yet inside prison with Adair and outside with Lowry.