decided to leak the dirty details now. DAVID COEN writes.
Weak is the wrong word. In contrast to previous mole stories, the allegations have flooded out, with every spook, asset and 'wannabe' pouring out a torrent of tales of derring-do and conscience to the excited media.
There have been laughable suggestions that it is part of a 'truth and reconciliation' process or that John Stevens' enquiry had blown Steak-knife's cover, or that he was likely to be outed by rogue agents unhappy about their pension arrangements. A much more plausible explanation is that it is the latest British gambit in the political game which is the 'peace process.
The British state wants to send a loud message to those in the IRA who think that because Blair has crashed the Assembly at the behest of the Unionists and, for the moment at least, dashed Sinn Fein's high hopes of displacing the SLP as the main Nationalist party, a little semtex-rattling is called for.
The claim that they have penetrated the IRA at a high level carries the clear threat that the war is not over. There is undoubtedly a large section of the British security establishment that wants a rematch with the IRA. It does not hold the view of the British Army that the IRA could not be defeated militarily.
It believes that in a different political climate, especially with a US government obsessed with defeating 'terrorism', the hands of the army would not be tied by political caution. Its purpose in leaking the story would be to destabilise the IRA, to further the view that the war is over and that it should disband, thereby achieving by psychops what it failed to achieve militarily.
However, the timing of the leaks suggests another motive and one that flows from the kind of war the British were forced to fight
"Ulsterisation", the policy dating from the mid 1970's, was based on two ideas. Firstly, that the front line in the war against terrorism' would be taken by the RUC together
This was politically important - the flow of body bags back to the US had a major impact in forcing that country's withdrawal
Secondly, the continuation of Brigadier Frank Kitson's theory of counter-insurgency war, which required the use of loyalist paramilitaries to terrorise nationalists.
f Britain was to maintain the fiction of
being a neutral peacekeeper in the
North of Ireland, then its support for the loyalist terror campaign had to be totally secret; hence the growth of a huge, hidden military apparatus embracing the loyalist paramilitaries, which went deep into the upper echelons of Unionism and the Tory Party.
Most loyalist paramilitaries believed they were fighting for the British. Unfortunately some of the foot soldiers hatred of 'uppity How much of the IRA's military campaign was being steered by the British state? Stalker was smeared and driven out. Stevens had his offices burned and was obstructed in every possible way. Taigs' got out of control and they killed two solicitors - Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson. The British were forced to hold enquiries to disguise their collusion with the loyalist death squads. At various times when this apparatus was threatened with exposure, firstly by John Stalker and latterly by the Stevens Enquiry, steps were taken to block the investigations. Stalker was smeared and driven out. Stevens had his offices burned and was obstructed in every possible way.
The Patrick's Day 2002 break-in at Castlereagh Barracks was blamed on the IRA, when plainly it was another attempt to conceal or destroy evidence about the extent of the collusion.
Running alongside all of this was the Rooste of the security partisan.
provoke the IRA into retaliation. This took various forms including loyalist provocations, attacks by loyalist paramilitaries on Nationalist areas and, most recently, the farcical Stormont spies' circus in December 2002, when the RUC arrested Sinn Fein admin workers and gave David Trimble yet another chance to walk out and collapse the Executive.
At every stage, the Republicans have been pressed into making ever more concessions by Dublin and London. These are promptly pocketed by the Unionists, who then demand yet more. Trimble can get
A puzzle for Gerry Adams away with this because Sinn Fein clings to the desire to remain in government, deluding themselves that this represents some kind of transition to a united Ireland. They are only prevented from joining the new proposed police force (PSNI) by the wellfounded distrust of the RUC by people in Nationalist areas.
The most interesting thing about Sim Fein's reaction to the steakknife story is the relief that the mole operated in the army rather than in the political leadership. "Relief' because dissident republicans have suggested that a high-ranking republican who was a British agent would have been able to steer the movement towards a solution acceptable to the British. He could have helped eliminate the opposition to the settlement amongst sections of the republican leadership
Steak-knife's handler, while claiming that Freddie Scappaticci is indeed the mole and suggesting in press interviews that the reason he can stay in Belfast is that he knows too much about the Republican leadership, also calls for 'a line to be drawn under the past.. enough is enough'. In other words there is no alternative to the current deal and the current leadership
The Steak-knife affair is partly about distracting public opinion away from the very damaging revelations about the secret war that emerged in the Stevens Report.
Brigadier Gordon Kerr, the head of the Force Research Unit that was at the heart of the killing machine (and now appropriately based in Iraq), is threatened, together with about 20 others, with questioning and possibly prosecution
None of these is going to want to carry the can for what they did, and in court would be likely to reveal unsavoury details about their political masters' involvement.
So the other message is that high profile public enquiries, such as Stevens, cut both ways and that information might emerge from such reports that would be just as damaging to the Republicans as to the British. In a way, the British Security apparatus is getting its retaliation in first and at the same time warning its political masters not to do another Bloody Sunday enquiry.
So expect learned speeches and pompous editorials about the cost of another enquiry and angst about how protecting 'democracy' sometimes requires murderous deeds.
page 11 of the scan
The fight against state racism and socal st resistance June 2003 |