W ho should be counted victims of British state killings? Criminal responsibility for unlawful killings does not stop at the one who pulled the trigger. Must we stop at British claims their state was only responsible for 10 per cent of Troubles’ killings?
Patrick Murphy’s insights on James Brokenshire’s blinkered view of British crown killings (February 4) makes such questions inevitable. We may indeed never know the whole truth. However, decades of campaigns, legal fights, inquests, investigations by newspaper and television journalists, have unearthed hard-won truths about British collusion that were buried when British state victims were first counted at 10 per cent.
Surely it is time to count all British state victims, including those murdered jointly with loyalists before questioning how many crown force members would face prosecutions.
The list begins with those hundreds of killings by British state forces admitted by crown officials. They may deny that shooting down unarmed victims at Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday, or children with plastic bullets were crimes, but even Brokenshire admits British state responsibility for this 10 per cent.
The Military Reaction Force (MRF), as Patrick Murphy described, used British troopers wearing “civilian clothes to kill IRA members and civilians in no-warning shootings, mainly to inflame sectarian conflict”. They are suspected of organising the McGurk’s Bar bombing. Why not add victims of undercover British troopers to state victims?
The British Army’s Field Reconnaissance Unit (FRU) and other crown forces, hired agents who carried out their murders.
How can the state avoid responsibility for murders by its hirelings?
How many hundreds of loyalist murders were carried out by British agents and informers? Include victims the Steaknife probe will add to Britain’s 10 per cent.
These murders were carried out with weapons the British wholesaled to loyalists through Brian Nelson, sieved through UDR barracks, and even made special deliveries through agents like William Stobie to kill Pat Finucane. The Dublin-Monaghan bombs took crown expertise. Add Glenanne Gang or East Tyrone murders by off-duty UDR. Add intelligence, targeting, supervision, plus restrictive notices removing patrols that might block planned murder routes.
British law counts those who pay for, direct, plan, provide weapons, identify targets, conspire, cover-up or otherwise collude in murders as jointly criminally responsible for murder. How many of more than 1,000 loyalist murder victims should, legally, be counted jointly as British state collusion victims?
It is time to rewrite the British fairy tale narrative of the past, where state killings amounted to only 10 per cent. Give hard-won truth to their victims’ families.
MARTIN GALVIN
New York
Invest NI investments ‘did not cost £15 million’
The article ‘Failed investments by Invest NI cost north £15m’ (February 20) is based on assumptions drawn from a Freedom of Information (FOI) response and is erroneous and misleading on two points:
The FOI asked how many offers had been subject to a clawback process and how much had been recovered against those offers. Based on our response, the article concluded that £15m is still due to Invest NI.
To clarify, of the original £19.2m invoiced there is an outstanding balance of £8.5m from 85 companies – not £15m as stated in the article. This includes balances on which Invest NI is actively seeking repayment as well as balances that have arisen due to what we call ‘technical default’. For example, the £8.5m includes £3.5m to a hotel which is in technical default due to a change in ownership. The hotel is still running, supporting jobs and providing economic benefit.
The article inferred that £15M has been ‘lost’ to the Northern Ireland economy.
Just because a company goes into liquidation, or fails to deliver on a project, does not mean that there hasn’t been economic benefit or that our support was misguided in the first place. No business sets out to fail, but unfortunately some do.
As pointed out in our FOI response it can take three to five years, or longer, for repayments to be made. To state it is ‘lost’ or that the investments were ‘failed’ is misguided at best and certainly inflammatory.
In the last five years we issued clawback invoices to 197 companies that did not fulfil the conditions on which we provided our support. To put that into context, we supported nearly 5,400 businesses in the same period with offers totalling over £440m. This support has generated nearly £3.1bn of investment in our economy.
The article cites CVS as an example of a company that closed after receiving over £500,000 of support from Invest NI but fails to inform readers that CVS settled our clawback claim in full.
The article also makes reference to support provided to Balcas, which is totally irrelevant to the article, and attempts to link it to the RHI scheme to which we have no connection.
It seems a poor attempt to further sensationalise.
ALASTAIR HAMILTON
CEO Invest NI
Putting with The Donald
There’s a load of objections from the tender and the easily oppressed because Rory McIlroy played golf with President Trump.
It’s a mad world we now inhabit when a golfer is held up to ridicule because of whom he plays a round with.
I have no doubt that there are folk crying into their muesli what with Brexit and now our Rory having a day off to have fun with the top man in the US.
‘No free speech for bigots’ we’ll hear them cry when the anti-Rory bandwagon gets the legs they believe Rory’s golf so richly deserves and I can already hear it being built as the clamour for his head will drown out the rational senses.
“He didn’t play for Ireland in the Olympics” is a tweet I read on RTE website which obviously clears everything up if we are having any doubts between this and putting with The Donald.
The gentle ‘democratic liberals’ who are in continuous trauma caused by their own loving but hateful view of the world’s people that they ordain to be cast into the darkness, are so frustrated it is only a matter of time before they begin using naughty four-letter words like ordinary mortals and who could blame them?
What next – a self-imposed ban on themselves cycling three/four abreast on the public roads in protest?
I’m all in agreement with this suggestion I humbly make and hope they pick up on it.
ROBERT SULLIVAN
Bantry, Co Cork
Creating a society fit for purpose
I believe it is fair to assume that the electorate of Northern Ireland generally vote for those politicians who hold a bias for a green/orange policy.
On top of this our local press plays its part to influence the public to get the result that they wish to happen.
Unfortunately the result of this attitude does nothing to attain a fair and just system of government.
So I challenge our local media to the assist Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs by letting us know the following:
How many special advisers (commonly know as Spads) can each politician call upon?
What qualifications do these Spads hold on the subject where help is required by their politician?
What relationship, if any, does a special adviser have with their politician?
What is their present salary and is this appointment pensionable?
Is the job of special adviser advertised for anyone to apply for? If not why is that so?
Perhaps if this information was openly available to the public there may be a better chance of creating a society fit for purpose, for it certainly is not fit for purpose at the present time.
HARRY STEPHENSON
Kircubbin, Co Down
Animal cruelty
As a civilised people we are expected to extend religious tolerance to all, but should that tolerance excuse the cruel slaughter of stressed animals without first stunning before their throats are cut? We allow a practice that we ourselves would be prosecuted for and rightly so. Why are the long fought for proper slaughtering regulations disregarded to satisfy this cruel practice?
JOHN PATRICK BELL
Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim
