The protest was the opening step in a campaign to force out the truth about the deaths of Catholics at the hands of the loyalist squads over the course of the Troubles—the three decades of heightened resistance to British rule and stepped-up repression by London and its local allies.

Some 20 banners were painted with “Collusion=State murder,” or similar slogans. Most participants arrived in feeder marches from West Belfast—the largest—as well as Ardoyne in North Belfast and Short Strand in the east of the city.

This reporter joined the Ardoyne march as it assembled by a mural in honor of the ten people murdered there between 1988 and 1994. The loyalist squads responsible used weapons imported by the British government from South Africa—purchases overseen by British agent Brian Nelson, who was the head of intelligence in the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

As the march made its way to the city center, marchers described landmarks on the way. We passed through the Cliftonville area, where in the mid-1970s at least 19 people were murdered by a loyalist terror gang known as the Shankill Butchers. Next was New Lodge Road, where British forces killed six unarmed men in 1973—an event marked by a banner reading, “New Lodge Six massacre: time for truth.”

Next we passed the scene of the 1971 loyalist bombing of the McGurks bar, in which 15 people were killed.

Overlooking this part of North Belfast are eight 20-story residential tower blocks, at the top of which fly Irish tricolour flags. Below them, in 10-foot high lettering, are the names of the Irish prisoners who died in a 1981 hunger strike in the H-Block wing of Northern Ireland’s Maze prison—the protest that spearheaded the inmates’ victorious fight to be treated as political prisoners. The last time this reporter was here, in 1997, these tower blocks were topped by British army fortresses with spy cameras able to survey every street corner and house in the district.

Most demonstrators said this has been a quiet summer, in comparison with previous years in which the pro-British marches of the Orange Order have provided a channel for attacks on Catholics.

The local papers report almost daily assaults, however, and I was still struck by the segregation between nationalist and pro-British areas.  
 
Lurking British army vehicles
As the march neared the city center a long line of British Army vehicles came into view—a reminder of how quickly they could be on the scene. Some 14,000 British troops remain to enforce London’s rule in Northern Ireland today.

The pro-Sinn Fein An Phoblacht newspaper reported August 14 that on the West Belfast leg of the march, cops from the Police Service of Northern Ireland videotaped marchers while other cops called out names of protesters for police records.

The feeder marches flowed together at the city center. Speaking at the rally there, Adams noted that an April 17 report by London Police Commissioner John Stevens was the British government’s first official acknowledgement of its involvement in the killings. The report centers on the 1989 killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane by the UDA. Stevens says that British army intelligence and the police were complicit in Finucane’s murder.

“For a long time,” said Adams, the reign of terror “was presented as being spontaneous, a few bad apples, something that was a wee bit out of control. But we had an actual strategy of state-sponsored murder. It was cleared at the very highest level.

“What happened?” continued the Sinn Fein leader. “Was there an immediate inquiry? Did governments fall? Were politicians, former prime ministers called to book? Were those running the services called to account? No.”

Robert McClenaghan of An Fhirinne (The Truth), the newly launched campaign to uncover the truth about the killings, spoke to the Militant after the rally. “We have 472 families signed up to this new campaign,” he said, adding that activists will take a photo exhibition throughout the north and into the rest of Ireland and England.

The showings will be combined with meetings in local areas to map out plans for the campaign.

“We’re also pressing for the Irish government to do a report into this as they did on the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre” of 14 people in Londonderry by British troops, McClenaghan said. He rejected the proposal raised in the media of a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “That would just let Britain off the hook, as though we could ‘put it all behind us’ when the structures that did these killings are still in place,” he said.

Caroline Bellamy contributed to this article.  
 
 
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