The media publicity concerns long-standing allegations that the British army, secret police, and intelligence services collaborated with rightist death squads in the brutal murder of dozens of Catholics. The revelations have given millions a glimpse into London’s dirty war against the Irish people. The wide publicity given these allegations reflects divisions in the ruling class over how to stabilize British rule in Northern Ireland and tame the unbroken nationalist resistance.

According to the Guardian newspaper, an investigation led by John Stevens, the head of the London Metropolitan police, has "uncovered astonishing levels of collusion between terrorists and the security forces" in Northern Ireland. Stevens concluded, the paper said, that the pro-British thugs--known as loyalists--"were incapable of carrying out targeted assassinations without significant help."

The current investigation by Stevens is his third since the 1980s into the relationship between loyalists and the occupying forces. The first inquiry said there was collusion between loyalists and the police but not the army. The second commission’s findings were kept secret. According to Panorama, Stevens’s view is that "the undercover war in Ireland had to get dirty, ‘but never this dirty.’"  
 
British agent
The current affairs program was broadcast in two segments. It focused on a secret British army intelligence unit then known as the Force Research Unit (FRU) and the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s (RUC) secret police, called the Special Branch. In particular, the program described the activities of Brian Nelson, a former British soldier from Belfast who was recruited as an FRU agent in 1987. His mission was to infiltrate the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), a loyalist death squad.

The British agent’s job inside the UDA, according to Panorama, was, under the guise of saving lives, to "ensure the proper targeting of Provisional IRA members prior to any shooting." The Provisional IRA (the Irish Republican Army) was waging a military campaign at the time to end British military occupation and for a united Ireland.

Nelson’s British Army "handlers" set him up as a cab driver, which enabled him to drive through nationalist areas of Belfast without suspicion. He was able to spy on potential targets on whom he kept card files with photographs and personal details.

British army intelligence helped Nelson update files on Irish Catholics received from the UDA and provided information from intelligence bulletins posted inside army barracks. "RUC sources provided a considerable number of targeting files. Fifty came from an officer in the RUC’s Special Branch," the program noted. In addition, according to Nicholas Benwell, a cop who worked for the Stevens inquiry, Nelson copied his targeting files and circulated them to other loyalist death squads in Northern Ireland.

According to Panorama "at least 80 people listed on Nelson’s targeting files were attacked. Twenty-nine were shot dead." Most in fact were not members of the IRA or connected to its activities. The program said that after Terry McDaid was killed in 1988, Nelson realized he had sent the murderers to the wrong address. His army handlers then lied to him, saying the murdered man had connections with the IRA in order to justify the killing and reassure their agent.

One person whom Nelson deemed a "legitimate" target for assassination was Alex Maskey, who is today a leader of Sinn Fein, the party that leads the struggle for Irish freedom. Maskey was recently elected the first ever nationalist Lord Mayor of Belfast.

In 1988, according to Nicholas Benwell, after seeing Maskey enter a restaurant, the British agent "went around north Belfast trying to recruit an assassination team." A loyalist gang eventually arrived, but Maskey had already left the restaurant. With the full knowledge of his army handlers, Nelson planned to have Maskey murdered the following week had he returned to the restaurant, the cop said.  
 
Murder of lawyer Pat Finucane
Another "legitimate" target was lawyer Pat Finucane. Because of his work to defend republican activists, Finucane was hated by pro-British forces. Members of Finucane’s family had also been involved in the freedom struggle. The lawyer was brutally murdered in 1989 by the UDA who falsely claimed he was an IRA leader.

The Panorama program aired allegations that loyalist thug Kenneth Barrett carried out the killing at the request of an RUC Special Branch officer, who let Barrett and his gang know when the roads around Finucane’s home in Belfast were clear of police and the army. According to Panorama, Nelson provided the killer a photograph of Finucane and the British agent drove the loyalist thug past the lawyer’s house in preparation. The Finucane family--which has not collaborated with the Stevens investigation--is campaigning for a public inquiry. They believe that ultimate responsibility for Finucane’s murder lies with top British officials.

In 1990, Nelson was arrested by police from England working under Stevens and brought to trial in 1992. Under a deal, murder charges were dropped and Nelson pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder. He received a relatively light 10-year jail sentence. The judge said he had taken into account the alleged "mitigating" circumstances that his activity as a British army agent had "saved" lives.

According to Panorama, the main British secret police force, MI5--"supposedly the eyes and ears of Whitehall"--was also complicit in the activities of the loyalist death squads. The program’s reporter said: "MI5 is operated extensively in Northern Ireland. Twelve years ago...MI5 signed statements to say they knew virtually nothing about collusion. That was quite simply untrue.... Because MI5 had direct access to all the army’s damning secret files on a daily basis."  
 
Calls for public inquiry
Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness said the public revelations underlined the case for a full international public inquiry into the killing of Pat Finucane. This call has been backed by a variety of organizations, including the Irish government.

Meanwhile, the Relatives for Justice Group, an organization based among nationalists in west Belfast, also issued a call June 24 for an independent judicial inquiry into more than 100 killings by loyalist paramilitaries.

The British government of Anthony Blair, however, is using delaying tactics to prevent the full truth from coming out. They have appointed a Canadian judge, Peter Cory, to Continued on Page 12investigate not just the Finucane killing but five other cases as well, including killings allegedly carried out by republicans.

The British secretary of state for Northern Ireland said June 24 that any inquiry would have to wait until the judge had completed his work, and an investigation would only take place if Cory recommended it.

Last year London carried out the cosmetic step of renaming the RUC the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), but it remains hated by nationalists. Residents of a nationalist enclave in east Belfast, the Short Strand, have been under siege for several weeks from loyalist thugs. Republican News, the paper that reflects the views of Sinn Fein, said June 20 the community was being subjected to "a nightly invasion...by hundreds of masked loyalists armed with bricks, bottles, and petrol bombs." These attacks involved the "complicity of...the RUC/PSNI and the British Army," the paper reported.

Meanwhile, on June 29 PSNI cops used water cannon against nationalists in the Springfield Road area of west Belfast. The nationalists had been protesting a rightist march that had been allowed to proceed near their community.  
 
 
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