Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Donaldson: a simple execution
The London Independent’s Ireland correspondent is in no doubt, that this was a quinntessential killing of an informer in the time honoured, if ghastly, way.
There is no mystery about why he was killed, since the IRA makes no secret of its hatred and contempt for informers and agents in its ranks. Republican organisations have killed many over the centuries, including scores in recent decades. But the question is exactly who killed him and whether his assassination was sanctioned by the IRA leadership. The answer will determine the immediate political future of Northern Ireland.
The killing sent major tremors coursing through the Irish peace process, since if the IRA is judged to have been responsible this phase of the process will come to a halt. The IRA declared last night that it had “no involvement whatsoever” in the killing, an assertion which will now be thoroughly tested by police on both sides of the border.
He spoke to the Sunday World journalist who interviewed Donaldson a few weeks back:
The journalist Hugh Jordan, who found Donaldson in Donegal, said last night that he did not think the informer believed his life was in danger. He said: “He looked like a hunted animal. He was extremely depressed. The nerves in his eyes were trembling. He seemed like a man who didn’t think he would come to any harm. He did not see his life to be in any danger, but felt the only future he had was where he was, living in that dreadfully squalid situation.
Mick Fealty @ 12:39 AM
Mick, is this sentence not the crucial one?
“Many in its ranks harboured feelings of betrayal and hatred but everyone knew that his assassination would set back, probably for years, Sinn Fein’s hopes of getting back into government.”
I’m not saying it is. I dunno. Seems an own goal for the shinners.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 12:50 AMI’m off to bed now, but I should have a fuller blog on this on the Guardian site tomorrow.
After the usual caveats, etc.. The politically minded in the party certainly won’t be thankful for this turn of events, whoever did it.
But then again, there is not going to be any government without Sinn Fein. As they used to say in pre Thatcher Britain: one out, all out!
Night.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 01:04 AMHugh Jordan descibes DD as looking “like a hunted animal”, “extremely depressed”, and a man whose “nerves in his eyes were trembling”. Sounds to me like someone who knew that the big tout was out to get him, to cover his own tracks.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 01:39 AMI know we all speculate on this site but should we not expect more from McKittrick than this. I always like his reports but, unless he has information he is not reporting, this is either spinning the government line or useless speculation.
I hope I am not accused of “playing the man” but I expect better from Dave McKittrick.
The way I look at all the possible perpetrators they are
The IRA –they have form
I can’t agree that they have motive. If they did this it kills the peace process.The “Securocrats”—they also have form.
The motive could be to prevent DD blaming them for stormontgate/ identifying other spies/ torturing him to find out what he debriefed to SF. Some want to derail the peace process.Dissident republicans –they definitely have form
The motive could be to get an informer without army council approval and win over republicans disgusted with DD and not supporting Adams et al. They may also want to see the peace process destroyed.Loyalists. The have form
They have a motive to kill any fenian. They would also like to end the PP. However they are so stoned and infiltrated that they could not organize a piss up in a brewery without being run by the Brits. If it is them then I will blame securocrats.Some local thugs
They could have been trying to harass DD and had a gun pulled on them. That could have resulted in a struggle and the killing of DD. This might explain the “severed arm” and the reported spent shells. (wouldn’t trained killers take their brass with them?) If this is the case McDowell might delay announcing any arrests to hit SF-hence McKittrick’s possible spinning.I don’t know anything but speculation belongs on a site like this not a national daily. David, if you want to speculate, give all rumors
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 02:10 AMa few hours later!
what does our reaction to this say about us?
my first though was “it’s the brits that did it”
others on this site reacted “it must be the IRA”
none of us know anything and I would ‘nt be suprised if it turned out to be some local lads who saw him in the paper and decided to rough him up.
perhaps we just need to “chill out” now and again and enjoy a beer or two before we shoot of on the web.
no matter what we think of donaldson remember that he was someone’s father and someone’s husband. Think what they are going through.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 06:16 AMThis beating around the bush as to who is responsible for Donaldson’s murder is pathetic.
The British are responsible as they were the ones who outed him as their spy, resulting in any one of a number of parties actually killing him - dissident republicans, unionists of all varieties, securocrats who want to keep covered up their previous dirty operations involving him, etc.
By far the least likely culprits are Sinn Fein and the IRA, as it only hurts their causes. And it is pathetic to act as if they did by the way in which he was killed as everyone knows how they killed informers in the past.
And I say this as no supporter of SF or the Provisionals but one of the peace process - what London is increasingly undermining by its outing of its alleged touts - ‘StakeKnife’, Scap, and Donaldson - what have led to the killing of Joe O’Connor, Gerard Devlin and now Donaldson himself.
It is barbaric governance.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 06:53 AMTrow you are full of it!LOL
For anyone interested in McGuinness’ outlook and would like to ask him themselves he will he here on sunday nite.
http://www.clonard.com/lenten2006/lentem_talks_2006.htm
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 07:44 AMI agree with heck. Whatever we rumour dogs think/thought about the man, there are people grieving today.
And this helps neither the peace process nor society here in any way. The clock was turned back yesterday morning.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 08:10 AM“Seems an own goal for the shinners.” This depends entirely on what game you think they are playing. The majority seem to believe that they are playing (albeit very badly) by the rules of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.
I have said several times, that the SF/IRA leadership are far celever than this. Having achieved all the concessions from that agreement, they are now trying work in a way that would make a Stormont Assembly and a power sharing executive (which they worked to destroy and prevent for decades) impossiblle.
Whether it be the delay in decommissioning, continued criminatlity or brutal murders like those of Robert McCartney or Dennis Donaldson, it is clear that SF/IRA have a long way to go before becoming a fully democratic party.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 08:27 AMThe scenario of a IRA team infiltrated by the M15 carrying out this murder sounds like fantasy but we in NI have seen it all before…
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 09:54 AMAs he was tortured, it would appear whoever did it now has information, and any spies remaining within SF will be worried that they are next.
On a point of principle, he was guilty, and paid the price.
It’s par for the course for the IRA.
I don’t think anyone ought to be suprised by this. Loyalists would understand and agree.
Nobody loves a traitor, and he was a Judas as he betrayed SF for money.
The implications for the peace process, well we’ll see. SF’s priority will be to find out who are the reamining spies, this has been achieved.
Expect more trouble, specially if the reports that suggest there are more spies in SF.Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 10:07 AMIntelligence Insider - do you actually need intelligence to get inside. Somehow - I doubt it!
Let’s see - top tout in Rep Movement says let us jeopardise fifteen years work by killing an outed informer living in the backend of nowhere posing no danger to the movement as a whole cos, cos, cos - I just think we should.
Rest of the movement might just question why top tout might be insisting on this drastic course of action, might just bring unwelcome attention on top tout. He mustn’tbe too smart.
Maybe Insiders like our Intelligent Insider are trying to flog that old horse of a tout higher up the SF/IRA food chain than DD just to cause more suspicion and dissension in the ranks.
You don’t need to read Jane’s to figure that one out.
Tell me Intelligence, is your first name Walter?
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 10:10 AMthe word around here is that DAAD did it...direct action against donaldson
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 11:33 AMDanny Morrisson is asking questions of the establishment (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/danny_morrison/2006/04/who_killed_denis_donaldson.html). He says:
‘Why would British involvement, rogue or otherwise, seem so fantastical? We know that members of British intelligence and the Special Branch ran loyalist murder squads; that as far back as the 1970s the Garda Siochana were infiltrated by the British; that during the conflict they allowed their agents in the IRA - such as “Stakeknife” - to kill. They allowed other agents to kill soldiers and policemen in order to establish and maintain their subversive credentials. In a desperate attempt to thwart Sir John Stevens’ inquiry they even burned down his offices! It was certainly a dirty war.’
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 01:44 PM“As he was tortured,"---spirit level
was he?
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 02:05 PMThe start of this tread was the articles and editorial in the Independent. They are making a lot of allegations and stating them as facts including who killed DD and about his roll in stormontgate.
Does this appear to anyone other that me that someone is spinning this story and using the independent and Mckittrick as one vehicle?
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 03:14 PMTrowbridge H. Ford -
“The British are responsible as they were the ones who outed him as their spy, resulting in any one of a number of parties actually killing him - dissident republicans, unionists of all varieties, “
What utter barking-mad drivel.
“Unionists of all varieties”? Aye, your average middle-class UUP voter would be really interested in buying a gun and traipsing off to the wilds of Donegal to shoot a washed-up provo-turned-MI5-agent. Come to think of it, your average DUP voter, floating unionist voter or non-voting unionist man or woman on the street is really likely to involve himself or herself in the same scenario, aren’t they?
Is their any chance of people not coming off with outlandish crap simply because they can?
Or indeed people who describe themselves as ‘former handlers’ coming off with blatant drivel in order to give themselves some sort of air of know-it-all mystery?
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 03:21 PMWith any murder, the starting point is to look at means, motive and opportunity.
Seems like dissident republicans and rogue elements within the security forces both had all three, whereas peace process republicans clearly fail the motive test. (As Tony Blair has already indicated.)
Of these two prime suspects, one can only speculate on the degree of the means, motive and opportunity. As to means, this was a simple shotgun shooting carried out in an isolated farmhouse with neither electricity nor running water. (I’m presuming it didn’t have a phone line either.) Getting in and out of Glenties isn’t ideal certainly the killers could have been across the border within the hour, or to a safe house anywhere in Donegal/Sligo/Derry/Tyrone/Fermanagh. At such an isolated location the killers won’t have had any difficulty spotting a Garda presence a mile off. So clearly the means of carrying out this killing won’t have presented a difficulty to anyone.
Motive? Here, the security forces have a much stronger impulse. Dissident republicans can’t be ruled out - for kudos, as a warning against informers in their own, reputedly riddled ranks - but these seem like fairly generic reasons. Possible, certainly, but these are clearly less compelling reasons than the security forces - about whom there can be no doubt Donaldson knew an awful of potentially compromising information. There is also the suggestion that elements within the security aparatus remain opposed to the peace process - at the peak of the Troubles the security budget here ran into billions per annum, so it would be naive to think there aren’t some elements who look back at that dark period as the “good old days” - and with Blair and Ahern’s latest big push due tomorrow, the timing would certainly be fortuitous for such elements.
The dissidents might have had pull factor reasons to kill Donaldson but the security forces, or at least elements within, might have had a push factor. It’s the difference between doing something for profit and doing something for self-preservation. Neither can be ruled out but in terms of the imperative, which is stronger?
As for opportunity, to whom does Donaldson’s death afford an opportunity? The Provos? Clearly nothing could be more damaging to the peace strategy they have been pursuing for perhaps two decades. The dissidents? Hmmm, hard to see what opportunity this event creates for them, but then dissident thinking has always tended to be pretty deranged.
Rogue elements within the security forces? Perhaps those opposed to the peace process? In the same week the PMs are due to meet and unveil their grand strategy for restoration of the GFA? Clearly this murder is manna for such elements and provides an opportunity to stall progress for perhaps years to come.
(I haven’t considered the possibility that loyalists were involved. Why? Well, firstly I think they have more to gain from Donaldson being alive. Secondly I don’t think they would have the capability of carrying out an assassination on the far side of Donegal. (And yes, this is despite my earlier having stressed that carrying out such a murder wouldn’t exactly have been rocket science.) Thirdly, if the murder was indeed carried out by a loyalist gunman (a possibility) it would most likely have simply been a case of security agents outsourcing the job. The culprit would still be within the security aparatus, even if the shooter was Ivan from Tiger’s Bay.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 04:30 PMKeith M
“I have said several times, that the SF/IRA leadership are far celever than this. Having achieved all the concessions from that agreement, they are now trying work in a way that would make a Stormont Assembly and a power sharing executive (which they worked to destroy and prevent for decades) impossiblle.”
Why though? Please elaborate.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 04:39 PM“With any murder, the starting point is to look at means, motive and opportunity.
Seems like dissident republicans and rogue elements within the security forces both had all three, whereas peace process republicans clearly fail the motive test.”
Erm, feel like I’m pointing out the obvious here...revenge??
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 04:55 PMBilly -
-----------------------
Keith M“I have said several times, that the SF/IRA leadership are far celever than this. Having achieved all the concessions from that agreement, they are now trying work in a way that would make a Stormont Assembly and a power sharing executive (which they worked to destroy and prevent for decades) impossiblle.”
Why though? Please elaborate.
-----------------------Don;t want to speak for Keith here, but off the top of my head, because publicly at least they claim to believe joint authority could be on its way in the absence of devolution, and they plan to be in government in the Republic. (and haven’t republican commentators’ like Danny Morrison said in recent times that republicans aren’t really that bothered about an Assembly and Executive anyway compared to the ‘other elements of the GFA’)
They have a massive ‘all-Ireland agenda’ which they hope will pave the way to a united Ireland (and handily get round the consent principle) - the sticky problem is that under the Good Friday Agreement, they ned Assembly aprroval and therefore unionist consent before setting up any more North-South bodies. But with no devolution, a Dublin government with SF among its ranks simply has to persuade the British government on further ‘North-South co-operation’ until an all-Ireland polity is there is all but name anyway.
Just a thought, like…
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 05:05 PMMike
“Erm, feel like I’m pointing out the obvious here...revenge??”
Hmm, perhaps, but that’s not the whole story. Certainly there will have been a lot of Provos who would have wanted Donaldson dead, but the sheer COST of such a murder would have been regarded as so prohibitive that Adams and McGuinness themselves felt moved to guarantee his safety from PIRA. Donaldson himself seems to have been sufficiently comforted that he did not leave the country, which must be a first for an outed informer or spy.
With such a devastating downside, I don’t think revenge alone amounts to a motive. The two PMs have tentatively indicated that that’s the way they see it too.
(Indeed peace process republicans probably had more to gain from Donaldson being alive, as a living symbol of the IRA’s changed mode, where spies are merely ostracised rather than murdered.)
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 05:06 PMBilly -
“Hmm, perhaps, but that’s not the whole story. Certainly there will have been a lot of Provos who would have wanted Donaldson dead, but the sheer COST of such a murder would have been regarded as so prohibitive that Adams and McGuinness themselves felt moved to guarantee his safety from PIRA. Donaldson himself seems to have been sufficiently comforted that he did not leave the country, which must be a first for an outed informer or spy.
With such a devastating downside, I don’t think revenge alone amounts to a motive.”
I’m not so sure. Individual provisional repuiblicans, or even leaders could simply decide to bump Donaldson off then deny, deny, deny. It’s worked well for them in the past. All SF has to do essentially is say “nothing to do with us squire” then sit tight and eventually it all blows over.
Then of course there’s Keith’s scenario which I’ve added to a bit above, for those who like their conspiracy theories…
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 05:24 PMLet’s review.
We have a dearth of hard evidence beyond the body and two spent shotgun shells, a few non-forensic descriptions of the state of the body and a great deal of speculation. Most have picked the perpetrator who fits best with their political beliefs, with a few flights of fancy, a few reservations for more fact and scant little holding fire.
A great deal has been made regarding the near severing of D.D.’s hand, “at the wrist,” with comments ranging from the Mafia-esque to allusions to the Red Hand of Ulster. However, seeing as Donaldson was allegedly shot from the front with a shotgun, in the absence of better data, it is not unreasonable to posit that D.D. threw his arms up defensively prior to the first shot. Assuming a 12 gauge bore and double-ought buckshot, that’s nine .32 caliber projectiles per shot, of which it would only take 2-3 striking the wrist to “nearly sever” the appendage. That there was two shells only really tells us he was shot at twice, although extraction or ejection marks on the brass could inform us as to the nature of the weapon used (double barrel, pump or semi-automatic). That the shells were there at all suggests this was amateur hour, since the shells could be the source of several useful pieces of evidence.
The short form: We *KNOW* less than squat. We can infer, guess, speculate and smear our favorite bogeymen, but we don’t *KNOW* anything more than the above and are certain of less.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 05:30 PMMike, you masy not want to speak for me but you’ve done a damn fine job. For several years I have questioned and subsequently doubted SF/IRA commitment to an assembly in N.I.
The reason as you have also deduced is that they see some form of joint authority as a much better bet. A combination of a UK government which has no real commitment to keeping the union with NI and wants to be seen as being balanced between nationalists and unionists combined with an Irish government which is clearly on the side of nationalists would be such a lethal cocktail for unionists that they would subsequently roll over and fall into the “all Ireland” trap.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2006 @ 05:36 PM
