Issue 029, Saoirse : Irish Freedom (September, 1989)

              issn 0791 - 0002 irish freedom uimh 29 mean f(5mhair - september 1989 25p usa 18 per year uam lynch commemoration sunday september 24 knockmealdown mountains assemble at mountain car-park 3pm goatenbridge co tipperary squads forces the recent disclosures of british crown forces collusion with loyalist death squads in the assassi nation of nationalists in the six counties is only the latest in a well i established pattern of official and unofficial british terrorists work ing hand-in-hand in ireland as far back as the 1920s at least the killing of loughlin maginn by the uff in rathfriland co down on august 25 the record of crown forces harass ment produced by his solicitor in the wake of his killing and the showing of ruc special branch files that named him as an ira suspect by his killers to a | journalist reveals the classic operation of a right-wing death squad newspaper and media reports have given the impression that this was the first time such collusion has been revealed in fact only the previous week ken liv ingstone the british labour mp went public with information from albert ginger baker former east belfast uda member about the assistance they received from the british crown forces in the 1970s supplied weapons and information baker in prison for the murder of james mccartan and three other catholics in the infamous romper room torture case revealed to ken livingstone how the ruc supplied weapons and information for sectarian assassinations ruc mem bers drove weapons through army check points on behalf of the uda tipped off members about house raids and hid wea pons for them to baker's knowledge at least one man was executed after being identified from files and photographs loyalist gangs and the british army working together to maintain british rule in ireland handed over by an ruc officer loughlin maginn's dossier of harass ment went back 1 8 months and contains details of incidents in which he was told by ruc officers that he would be shot the message for nationalists in the pub lic showing of ruc files is that the death squads are all-powerful and that they are at one with the british forces of occupa tion - if the official terrorists don't deal with you the unofficial ones will both have the same objective of maintaining british rule in the six counties the legacy of right-wing death squads and their overlap with official british forces in ireland goes back at least to the murder of tomas maccurtain lord mayor of cork by plainclothes ric men led by district inspector swanzy on march 20 1920 in belfast the special reprisal unit led by district inspector john w dixon carried out the infamous macmahon murders in the falls area and other atrocities in the spring and summer of 1922 dixon was later rewarded with an mbe and was an mp at stormont for many years in the present campaign the miami showband massacre on july 3 1 , 1 975 was carried out at a udr roadblock between banbridge and newry a local chemist in ahoghill co antrim was shot by an ruc constable in the same year as were two gaa fans at a bogus ruc roadblock in co down adrian carroll was shot dead in armagh i city on november 8 1983 by plain clothes udr men who drove away inf their army jeep these are of course only the well-known cases where the killers i were subsequently convicted familiar pattern the pattern of death squad operations i is familiar wherever wars of liberation are fought in the world from the assassina tion of archbishop romero in el salvador in 1980 to the activities of the colons in algeria 1955-62 from israeli-occupied | palestine to latin america official unionist ken mcguinness has i pinpointed what spurs the loyalist death squads to action — when they feel that the british forces are not doing enough to i break the people's resistance they strike the prime examples are during the three republican truces this century in 1921 1972 and 1975 when the unofficial terror gangs did all they could to break the negotiations mcguinness theory of the few bad apples in the british crown forces does not hold water when the re 1 cord is examined however fr denis faul's answer to the right-l wing death squads is to extend the hills-i borough secretariat to local level with three to four highly paid catholic law yers in each county with access to all se curity information this scheme will not stop the leaks to the loyalists and the collusion between them and the british crown forces the object of the right-wing death i squads is to strike fear into the nation alist population of the six counties and terrorise them into submission it is the same weapon in use by tyrannies world wide and can and will be countered by the nationalist people defending them selves and their communities