BY PAUL DAVIES
LONDON - In a landmark ruling the European Court of Human Rights condemned the killing of three Irish activists by British SAS troops in Gibraltar, a British colony on the southern tip of Spain, in 1988. The Court found that there was no justification for the shooting deaths of Mairead Farrell, Daniel McCann, and Sean Savage. The ruling has added weight to the claim, long made by fighters for Irish freedom, that the British army operated a "shoot-to-kill" policy in the course of its military occupation of Northern Ireland.
The action of the European Court comes after years of struggle by the relatives of the three victims to secure condemnation of the killings and to win compensation. Douglas Hurd, then British Foreign Secretary blocked the relatives from taking the Ministry of Defense to court in Britain. In 1991 a High Court in Belfast refused the relatives a judicial review of the government's decision to block their claim for compensation.
Niall Farrell, brother of Mairead Farrell, welcomed the ruling and said that it was now clear to everyone that the British government "has blood on its hands."
Britain's `dirty war'
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams explained that "this
guilty verdict is only the tip of the iceberg in Britain's
`dirty war' in Ireland; a war in which almost 400 people
have died at the hands of the British state forces.
"There is now a clear need for an independent and internationally based judicial investigation into all disputed killings by British forces," he continued.
Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine denounced the Court's verdict as "ludicrous," while John Major ordered government officials to prepare options for Britain's response. These are expected to include pulling out of the European Convention of Human Rights, and ending the right of British citizens to appeal to the European Court.
Only Turkey has had more claims against it than Britain in the European Court. The court's rulings are not binding and it did not request that the British government pay compensation to the relatives, only their legal costs.
In parliament, Labour Party spokesperson Jack Straw said that the government was bound to observe the decision, provoking a sharp exchange with Heseltine. Mo Mowlam, Labour's Northern Ireland spokesperson later claimed that Heseltine had distorted Labour's position.
Immediately following the killings in Gibraltar, Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, tried to justify the deaths by claiming that army experts had defused a 500 pound bomb found in the victims' car. But government sources were quickly forced to admit that the three were unarmed and that no bombs were found.
Spanish police aided the British government in its attempts to justify the killings.
Mass protest against British action
Several days of mass protests in Belfast followed the
killings in 1988. Tens of thousands took part in the funeral
procession, which was estimated to be the largest since the
funeral march for hunger striker Bobby Sands in 1981.
Three participants in the funerals of Farrell, McCann, and Savage were killed by gunmen at the Milltown Cemetery. The armed assault took place in full view of two British helicopters that hovered overhead.
The European Court ruling has fueled discussion among working people in the United Kingdom about the role of the British army in Northern Ireland. At the factory where this reporter works several workers of Irish descent welcomed the ruling. One of them commented that "this has been going on for years, it's about time Britain was condemned for its violence." Another explained that "the suffering of the Irish has been hidden from people in this country for too long."
Other workers, however, expressed support for the British government. Following a discussion one of the foremen demanded to know what different workers on his section thought of the ruling. One worker from Sri Lanka said that he thought the SAS were correct to shoot Farrell, McCann, and Savage because they were "terrorists," but even he added that Britain was the source of the problems in Ireland, "just like they've messed up other countries that were once British colonies."
The European Court ruling was welcomed by Amnesty International and by the Irish government in Dublin.
The Irish republican newspaper An Phoblacht commented that "not since the court's judgment on torture in internment camps in the Six Counties in the 1970s has Britain been so internationally exposed."
In a further development in the days following the European Court's ruling the British government has been condemned by a British High Court for, "unreasonably and unlawfully" delaying the parole hearings of the five longest serving Irish political prisoners. Each has completed 20- year terms and could only be legally imprisoned if the Parole Board recommended their continuing detention.