However, in order to maintain a workable day-to-day consensus among those it governs, the British state has always claimed that it observes the highest principles with its legal practices and behaviour, all impartially applied. Consequently, the British government goes to extraordinary lengths to disguise its often blood-soaked misbehaviour. To a certain extent this may be described as hypocrisy but in reality, it is the brutal outworking of class domination through the maintenance of power.
Understandably, some readers may take this report to refer to events in the Six Counties, thinking perhaps it was something leaked by members of the Kenova team. In fact the story concerned SAS operations during night raids in Afghanistan. As the old saying goes, mutatis mutandis little changes when the British state feels the need to project power.
While many of the killings for which the British state was responsible took place in far-flung regions of its dominions, we in Ireland know many have taken place closer to its administrative centre. And, moreover, with the same familiar pattern of official obfuscation, often referred to as the policy of deny, delay, and die.
In other words, the state initially denies any involvement, or if that’s not possible, claims to have acted within the law. If or when outright denial becomes impossible, there follows the process of almost interminable delay utilising each and every apparatus of state to prolong or actually obstruct investigation. This latter stratagem of delay is used on the understanding that with the passage of time, those with direct knowledge of the event or family connection to the victims will become either incapacitated by age or die.
To a large extent the above applies to the recently published Kenova Report. This enquiry was originally established to examine the case of an agent known as Stakeknife. The enquiry subsequently expanded into reviewing several other events and organisations including the activities of a loyalist hit-squad known as the Glenanne gang.
The report established several already well-known facts. It confirmed, for example, that the Glenanne gang contained many members of the locally based crown forces. Still, it was unable (or unwilling) to tell whether the gang had any connection to British Intelligence or other state officials. Something that certainly seems questionable when elsewhere in the report it states that, ‘… everything done in respect of Stakeknife was done with MI5’s knowledge and consent and MI5 had an influential role…’ This surely begs the question why such control over one agent yet no presence within the loyalist group?
Of course, the full facts are never disclosed. Hidden behind a wall that includes the oft-used National Security fall-back that denies access to any material deemed sensitive by the government. Then there is the ubiquitous NCND (neither confirm nor deny) policy preventing identification of all state agents and or assets. The NCND policy thus ensures that those guilty of any offence whatsoever remain beyond accountability and more significantly, guarantees that the British state cannot be made accountable for their agents’ actions.
As a relative of one of the victims asked recently after the British Supreme Court denied access to information to the family of murdered Paul Thompson; what have they got to hide?
What indeed has the British state to hide? In light of history and such deliberate obfuscation, it is difficult to disagree with an assessment made by the Pat Finucane Centre in a study entitled A Case to Answer published in 2004. The centre opined that the British state had been:
… manipulating and directing the nature of the conflict in Northern Ireland for political and military purposes and as part of a counter-insurgency strategy.
As Marx wrote, an organ for the oppression of one class by another. Enough said.
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| Tommy McKearney is a left wing and trade union activist. He is author of The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament. Follow on Twitter @Tommymckearney |
