Those
who write about the criminal underworld have often
portrayed members of the police and security services
who have responsibility for running informers
and agents of influence within criminal or revolutionary
organizations as being engaged in some sort of
art form. 'If only', one is tempted to chime,
for of late there has been an increasing amount
of factual information on this subject coming
into the public domain, and it is difficult not
to conclude that if running informers is an art
form, it is on the avant guard wing of artistic
endeavors, and certainly not the carefully structured
work of portrait painting, landscapes or orchestral
music. Indeed, if we can describe running informers
in artistic terms, Andy Warhol's 'Factory' springs
to mind, with its collection of misfits and egotistical
weirdoes, all willing to dance to ringmaster Warhol's
imbecilic demands.
Far
from the handlers of informants controlling their
source and gleaning information from them diligently
to keep them on side, it is becoming increasingly
clear far too many of those who have held this
responsibility have ended up colluding with their
informants in criminality, up to and including
murder. The unsavory enterprise of running informers
appears in many cases to be more like a business
partnership, albeit a corrupt one; insider trading
with a sawn off comes to mind. From gangsters
to international narcotics traffickers through
to Irish paramilitaries there have been countless
examples of informers either being give carte-blanche
to commit crimes by those who employ them on behalf
of the state, or, when these crimes have come
to light, the handlers have displayed a willingness
to not only pull strings so that their informer
will quickly return to the streets, but they have
also been known to perjure themselves before the
courts in the hope of their tout gaining a 'not
guilty' verdict or a lighter sentence.
It
is no longer possible to see such criminal behavior
when running informers as an aberration, but an
essential part of the territory. BBC Radio 4's
'File on Four' recently looked at members of Turkish
crime families who had settled in north London,
often at the behest of the UK Customs and Immigration
services who facilitated their UK citizenship
and gave them immunity to commit crimes whilst
registered as informers for the Metropolitan Police
and UK Customs Service. The reasoning behind this
was to allow the informants to build their cover
within the Turkish underworld in north London.
The outcome was somewhat different, as it gave
these State approved criminals carte-blanche to
eliminate with their touting any potential rivals
in the illegal drugs trade, thus allowing them
to rise to the top of this particular criminal
enterprise without opposition from within the
criminal fraternity and free from fear of arrest.
It
seems, using police parlance, 'the result' was
all that mattered. If an informer can send fellow
members of the criminal fraternity down the steps,
any collateral damage, whilst unfortunate, goes
with the territory and is filed away in a draw
marked 'never to be opened'. That this type of
policing was first imported from the USA will
be no surprise to anyone who is au-fait with how
the FBI has historically operated. Indeed the
2007 Oscar winning movie, 'The Departed,' which
won Best Director at this year's Oscars ceremony,
was loosely based on the exploits of the Boston
Irish gangster Whitey Bulger, who robbed maimed
and murdered his way across south Boston whilst
being run as an informer by the FBI. Bulger was
especially useful to the Feds, not only due to
his criminal connections within the Boston underworld,
but also being an Irish-American, he was able
to build strong contacts within the PIRA, from
whom he could glean information about that organization's
activities, personnel and links in the USA and
pass it on to the FBI, whom undoubtedly traded
this with the British security services.
It
is however in the six counties of the north east
of Ireland which are still under UK jurisdiction,
where the reckless, criminal and murderous use
of informers have recently come to light in all
its true horror and criminality. During the PIRA
'long war', both Loyalist and Republican para-militaries
were heavily infiltrated by the UK security forces.
British Army Intel, MI5 and the RUC Special Branch
all ran informers and agents of influence within
these organizations (Philip Agee's book 'Inside
the Company' reveals and explains the role an
'agent of influence' plays within an organization
they have been infiltrated into), not only, as
was once suggested by the media, within the lower
ranks of these para-military organizations. We
now know that the PIRA had been infiltrated with
informers at all levels of the organization, right
up to the most senior ranks. As to the loyalist
para-military organizations the UDA and UVF, it
would be far easier to say who was not an informer
or British agent. It is possible to judge the
extent of this infiltration if one considers that
that both the UDA and PIRA security departments
were infiltrated at the highest levels by informers:
the reality of this is that those who were tasked
to hunt out and kill informers within these two
organizations were themselves informers or British
agents. (Freddie Scappiticci, deputy head of
PIRA Security Dept., was an informer and Brian
Nelson, head of UDA Intelligence Dept. had been
placed there by the British Army Intellegence
Regiment's unit the FRU.)
Since
this information came into the public arena and
due to the fact that the UK State has absolutely
no interest in washing its dirty war linen in
public, this responsibility has part fallen to
the Northern Ireland Police Ombudswoman, Nuala
O'Loan, who has turned out to be a tenacious Public
Guardian and courageous seeker of the truth. She
has been requested by a number of the families
whose loved ones were murdered by members of para-militaries,
to look into whether any collusion took place
between those who committed the murders and the
RUC Special Branch who had part responsibility
for running informers within the PIRA/UDA/UVF.
Mrs
O'Loan, at the request of the victim's father,
recently produced an explosive report into the
murder of Raymond McCord by members of the Mount
Vernon unit of the UVF. In this report she lifted
a small corner of the blanket which encases the
dirty war that took place in the six counties
and by so doing she revealed a world of State
collusion in criminality, between the RUC Special
Branch and the Ulster Volunteer Force. On reading
her report, few who have inside knowledge of this
situation doubt the same level of collusion existed
throughout the six counties between MI5 operatives,
British Army Intel [FRU] and the RUC's Special
Branch and leading para-militaries from within
both communities.
The
true level of the collusion between British security
forces and leading para-militaries during the
years of the 'troubles' is unknown, but the official
response to Mrs O'Loans report into the murder
of Raymond McCord has not been encouraging. The
Police Federation for Northern Ireland has severed
all links with Mrs O'Loan's Office and the attitude
of the British government and the main political
parties in NI and at Westminister has been little
better. It is clear that none of them wish to
see a Public Enquiry into the use of informers
by the security forces and State collusion in
criminality (let alone what is really needed,
an Independent Truth and Justice Commission).
The
Blair government was clearly hoping to put this
matter to bed with a backstage deal with SF, which
would allow PIRA 'On the Runs' to return home
without charge or sanction. On the loyalist side
this would have been accompanied with a sizable
donation to the Loyalist paramilitary leadership;
how much of this would filter down to the foot-solders
would have presumable been left to a leadership
which has had in the past notoriously sticky fingers.
Thankfully
the SDLP put the block on this when they exposed
such a deal as the nauseating sham it undoubtedly
would have been. Although without a doubt some
such deal will re-materialize some time in the
future. Like the British State, the SF leadership
are equally keen to stop any public enquiry for
fear of what might be revealed about the level
of British infiltration within their own organization.
We know in the past the UK State has had informers/agents
of influence operating within the upper echelons
of the Provisional Republican Movement —
the last thing Mr Adams wants publicly revealed
is that one or more of these informers is still
operating within the SF leadership of today. The
last informer to be revealed within the SF leadership
was Denis Donaldson, who ran the SF Office within
Stormont, and prior to that was used by Mr Adams
as his un-official point-man in the USA. (That
Donaldson gained legal access to the US should
alone have set alarm bells ringing within the
RM, but apparently not.)
How
any NI politician can look their constituents
squarely in the eye whilst denying them a public
enquiry into the criminal collusion of the UK
State within the six counties beggars belief.
The more so as the Unionist politicos, especially
the DUP, have built their careers on the back
of the rule of law, and the Republican politicians
have countless constituents and former comrades
amongst the families of the victims of any UK
State collusion that has taken place.
If there had been the level of collusion that
has been partially revealed in the McCord Report
in any other part of the United Kingdom, the airwaves
would be full of politicians and organizations
such as Liberty demanding a public enquiry. That
this is not occurring, just goes to show how NI
is regarded as a political pariah by the rest
of the nations within the UK where anything goes.
Future generations need to understand how within
a Democratic State such as the UK, criminal collusion
can became second nature for those who are tasked
with that Nation's security. Even within the best
of democratic societies mistakes happen, governments
and their representatives fall below the bar set
by the people through the law, often believing
they are doing so for the best of reasons. But
the difference between a Democratic State and
a Dictatorship is that in the former, those who
govern us are accountable, and not only at the
bar of history but also under the law. It is time
for the call to go out for an Independent Truth
and Justice Commission which takes into account
amongst other things the UK State collusion in
criminality within NI during the period of the
'long war'.
