British commander in the Iraq war, claimed that soldiers torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners 'are not fit to wear the uniform'. Keeping a straight face can't have been easy only weeks after the publication of the Cory report on British death squads in Ireland. PIERS MOSTYN lifts the lid a little.
The three decades of 'The Troubles' was a history of kilings, torture,
internment without trial, abuse, harassment, raids, censorship and lies from the British state in the North of Ireland. In 2001 Canadian Judge Peter Cory was asked by the Dublin and London governments to investigate allegations of British state collusion in murder - the tip of this particularly nasty iceberg.
General Jackson himself has some personal knowledge of some of the iceberg's murkier depths. He was Adjutant of the Ist Battalion of the Parachute Regiment at Palace Barracks, County Down in 1971, a focal point for the torture of internees, leading Britain to be condemned in the European Court of Human Rights.
On Bloody Sunday in 1972 when soldiers murdered 14 civilians, an army press statement claimed the victims were on the wanted list or carrying weapons - smears since accepted as without foundation. Unit press officer in Derry that day was none other than General Jackson. Amnesia
Promoted to the top job for this good work, his claims that wanton brutality has no place in British military conduct sit uneasily with his being called as a witness at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry only last year. Over thirty years has passed, the truth of which has yet to be officially acknowledged and here he is suffering from the same amnesia and tunnel vision in Iraq.
The problem for the state is that many in the nationalist community - on the receiving end of this conduct in the North of Ireland for not bowing to bigotry and British rule -do not suffer from these memory problems. Genie in the bottle
As in Iraq, imposing imperial stability requires this particular genie to be put back in the bottle. So the present stabilisation plan, the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), poses Britain as a neutral arbiter between 'warring communities' and seeks to draw them into political and security apparatuses.
This in turn involves eradicating the burning memory of these injustices by persuading nationalists that this catalogue of British atrocities never happened or, if it did, that wounds have healed. One more push, it is hoped, and republicans will feel able to back the police. Hence the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and the Cory report. The Cory Report
Cory looked at six cases of alleged state collusion with murder, but its remit was limited and designed to distort the issues. The central cases concern three nationalists murdered by loyalists under the control or with the encouragement of British forces (Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson and Robert Hammill). The other three - a judge and his wife, two RUC officers and the Loyalist Volunteer Force prisoner Billy Wright involved alleged collusion between the Dublin or London controlled security forces and republicans. Collusion?
Few observers of Irish politics, of any political persuasion, seriously believe that collusion of the latter type played any role in 'the troubles, let alone a significant one. Their inclusion was to blunt the political impact. The message: that the 'conflict' was messy and unfathomable and that all sides have dirt on their hands
Cory was not asked to find out what happened - only to consider whether inquiries should be held. And he had no power to subpoena and cross-examine witnesses.
Even this managed to take two years. The British government then dragged publication of the report out a further six months, 'for security reasons'. This translates as getting the Hutton Inquiry out of the way and engaging in diversionary tactics like the so-called Independent Monitoring Commission' Report into 'paramilitary violence' and kite flying about a 'Truth Commission'. Manoeuvering
The IMC, set up at the request of Unionist leaders Trimble and anything but independent concluded that the republican moveengaging paramilitary violence. There is a recent history of allegations being floated for political reasons before being quietly dropped. Three Sinn Fein members accused of training FARC guerillas in Columbia in 2001 were acquitted this April. Another three Sinn Fein members charged over a supposed 'spy ring' scandal in October 2002 had their cases quietly dropped this February. But the allegations and the accompanying televised raids on Sinn Fein offices nevertheless provided the pretext for the winding up of the power-sharing administration set up under the GA 18 months ago.
Blair has conceded Cory's recommendation for public inquiries into the Nelson and Hamill murders. Though welcome, these decisions could have made five years ago given the high profile international concern. That he had to be dragged to this point tells us all we need to know about Blair's commitment to human rights and the moral integrity of the state Whitewash
But the report wasn't published on April Fools' day for nothing. Secretary of State Paul Murphy's parliamentary statement on it begins and ends with 'unequivocal' eulogies to the 'professional and steadfast work of the police, army, prison service' without which 'we would not have achieved the progress we have'.
On the single most scandalous episode Cory was asked to look into - the pumping of 12 bullets from a British army gun into Finucane as he had dinner with his family, with the prior knowledge of British state agents- there is merely the promise that 'we will set out the way ahead' after pending prosecutions. No timetable and no promise British troops in Ireland have neve been reluctant to get heavy with nationalist campaigners and protestors to set up an inquiry - despite a prior goverr ment commitment to implement Cory recommendations.
Understandably the Finucane family outraged. They have been given the ru around for fifteen years, through three sep rate inquiries by Metropolitan Police bos John Stevens, the last of which was so heavil censored as to amount to a wall of silence.
The Dublin and Washington government broke with Blair in joining the call for a immediate inquiry. Such a falling out is rare Bertie Ahern and George Bush don't want t be left carrying the can for British misde Lies Exposed
But despite all the limitations placed o Cory he has further extended what is in th public domain, particularly on the Finucan murder. For example that:
MI5 knew of three 'real and imminent threats to Finucane's life (the first of these a far back as 1981, eight years before his mur der) but stayed silent.
Three entirely separate branches of th state - RUC special branch, military intell gence and MI5 were aware of the threa and did nothing. This squashes the notion "rogue units" put about after the Stever inquiry
The failure to distinguish 'law abidin solicitors and their clients went right to th top of the police and included two ex-chie constables. This radically undermine Stevens' claim that Tory Minister Dougla Hogg was misled by a rogue Special Branc officer when he fingered Finucane Parliament before the murder:
This dirt can't be swept under the carpe As with the stream of scandals over civilia genocide and the torture, murder and abus of prisoners in Iraq - the truth behind th benign image in which imperialism tries t cloak itself will be exposed
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Trevor Phillips, current Head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), was CATIONAL FRONT soclalist resistance May 2004 21
But attacks on asylum seekers and refugees, the war on terror and the privatisation of knowledge undercut the development of critical thinking that was at least partly developed with that model
There have always been political divisions