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The murders of more than 100 Catholics during the Troubles in Northern Ireland involved members of the security forces, according to a new book that draws on recently declassified official documents.
The book, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, concludes that systematic collusion existed between the security forces and loyalist assassins during the 1970s.
It describes a number of documented cases where police and local soldiers took part in shootings and bombings which claimed the lives of Catholics. In other cases, murders by loyalists were “inexplicably” not properly investigated.
The author, Anne Cadwallader, is a veteran journalist and researcher at the Pat Finucane Centre, an organisation heavily critical of behaviour by the security forces.
She drew on the centre’s access to dozens of detailed reports given to families by the Historical Enquiries Team, a “cold case” unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
In one damning passage, police investigators urge “honest disclosure about these shocking, shameful and disgraceful crimes”, declaring that “families have received no justice to date”.
The Pat Finucane Centre said an analysis of the status of targeted victims found that “in all but one case they were ‘upwardly-mobile’ Catholics who were — either through their own enterprise or hard work — lifting their economic and political aspirations”.
In its conclusion, the Historical Enquiries Team says: “It is difficult to believe that such widespread evidence of collusion was not a significant concern at the highest levels of the security forces and government. It may be that there was apprehension about confirming the suspicions of collusion and involvement, particularly of [Royal Ulster Constabulary] personnel.”
One internal military document quoted estimates that between 5 and 15 per cent of members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, a locally recruited force under army control, were also members of loyalist groups, some of which were involved in many murders.
Allegations of collusion in rural areas where both the Irish Republican Army and loyalists were active were often made in the 1970s, most notably by the crusading Catholic priest Father Denis Faul, but his claims were largely officially denied. The book substantiates many of his claims.
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Image: The Independent
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