Terrorism – Slugger O'Toole

Abimael Guzman (1934-2021), Monster of the Peruvian Andes

Dan Payne on September 13, 2021, 1:00 pm

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A brutal military conflict scourged the land in the 1980s and early ’90s, with guerrilla fighters based out in the countryside seeing themselves as freedom fighters rather than terrorists, and a central government often resorting to dubiously legitimate means to combat the insurgents. The scenario straightaway sounds depressingly familiar. Then again, it must be said that a lot about the history of Peru is depressing, as the country this year marks the bicentenary of its declaration of independence. The death …

Johnson blames Labour and Tory predecessors for release of the latest London Bridge bomber

Brian Walker on December 1, 2019, 1:32 pm

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The parochial thought occurs that since the Omagh atrocity of 21 years ago, Northern Ireland has been relatively fortunate in not experiencing more of the dreadful recidivism by released terrorists similar to that which occurred on Friday around London Bridge. Not that recidivism has been entirely absent in the actions of dissident republicans and loyalist mobsters. In both republican and loyalist areas they’ve been schooled and even run by former veterans of the main paramilitary groups. But overall, a negotiated …

Come clean. The chances of compensation of victims of the Libyan connection are vanishingly small and the UK government won’t left a finger to help them

Brian Walker on July 1, 2019, 7:00 am

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I’ve had only the slightest brush personally with the Libyan connection, the notorious gun running relationship between the crazed dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the IRA which finally ended in another of Tony Blair’s diplomatic exercises. In one of the later lulls in the Troubles, in a fit of optimism they re-opened the city gates of Derry after a siege of a quarter of a century. My old family home was in the street at one side of the courthouse right …

Does Political Violence Work? #imaginebelfast

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 7, 2019, 8:30 am

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QUB pro-vice-chancellor Professor Richard English delivered a 40-minute talk on the topic of Does Political Violence Work? during the recent Imagine! Belfast festival, looking at terrorism by non-state and potentially state actors as well as drawing some conclusions about the disjunction between why campaigns start, why people join up, what is achieved and how we post hoc rationalise what happens.

Bloody Sunday prosecutions would ” turn the stomachs of the British people” – Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson

Brian Walker on March 3, 2019, 11:02 am

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Full story from the Sunday Times. Would a retrospective amnesty be legal? Army veterans will be protected from prosecution for alleged historic abuses under plans to introduce a 10-year limit on new cases, The Sunday Times can reveal. Gavin Williamson, the defence secretary, is expected to bring forward the proposed legislation in this year’s Queen’s speech after growing pressure on the government to address the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The disclosure comes amid claims that four army …

Spurred on by the generals, the government now admit they’re considering an amnesty

Brian Walker on September 6, 2018, 1:17 pm

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For the first time the UK government have admitted they’re considering a general amnesty arising out of the Troubles. Although an amnesty is not government policy, the admission came in a Lords debate instigated by the former Chief of General Staff of the Army Lord Dannatt, supported by other former top brass and former secretaries of state. What remains unclear is how this would affect the Legacy package of the Stormont House Agreement, including the proposal for an independent Historical …

RTE’s celebration of John Hume feels like nostalgia for a time that has gone

Brian Walker on August 7, 2018, 8:59 pm

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RTE have just screened a documentary In the Name of Peace; John Hume in America by Maurice Fitzpatrick which the film maker has kindly drawn to my attention. Being in London I cannot access it yet nor have I read his accompanying book. But from the YouTube trail, this is a major celebration of John Hume’s life and work. Anybody who was anybody is in it, led by Clinton and Blair, although Jimmy Carter was not quite so dazzled. As …

Veil of secrecy over Special Branch informer system lifted a chink as the Finucanes make their bid to the Supreme Court

Brian Walker on June 26, 2018, 2:40 pm

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The Guardian lead on the Walker report ( no relation), neatly coincides with the opening of the Finucane family’s bid to the Supreme Court to order a public inquiry into Pat Finucane’s murder. The “secret” report by a former head of MI5 complied in 1980 – nine years before he was murdered – was “the blueprint for making RUC special branch a ‘force within a force’, according to the human rights legal group the Committee on the Administration for Justice …

Where Barra Magrory leads on dealing with the past, others will follow

Brian Walker on May 18, 2018, 8:06 pm

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No longer inhibited by his former office, the ex- DPP Barra Magrory isn’t alone in believing that an independent Historical Investigations Unit will produce few results for victims, survivors and families and could be more divisive than reconciling. The best to be hoped for is that once a renewed effort to bring cases to trial is made over five years, politicians and the public will face up to the issue of a calling halt to prosecutions, combined with a release …

“In Kenova’s sights are also those IRA leaders on the Provisional Army Council who sanctioned the “executions” for spying…”

Pete Baker on January 30, 2018, 7:46 pm

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The BBC reports that Freddie Scappaticci has been arrested in England by the Operation Kenova team and is being questioned “in connection with the investigation into allegations of murder, kidnap and torture”. [Scappaticci is pictured above – bottom left with dark moustache at funeral of Provisional IRA member Larry Marley] The investigation team confirmed that a 72-year-old man had been arrested. The BBC understands the man being questioned is Fred Scappaticci and that he was arrested in England. The investigation …

At the sharpest end of dealing with the past, whatever the arguments, the Haggarty case takes your breath away

Brian Walker on January 29, 2018, 7:49 pm

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A Loyalist “supergrass” who admitted the murders of five people among hundreds of offences has had a 35-year jail term reduced to six-and-a-half years for helping the police. Gary Haggarty, 45, was a former leader of an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) unit in north Belfast. Haggarty was a paid police informer for 11 years The judgment from Belfast Crown Court indicated that the 35-year jail term was reduced by 75% for the assistance given to prosecutors and then a further …

“The truth remains that Adams will only reveal his past if it suits his own agenda.”

Pete Baker on December 31, 2017, 3:44 pm

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We might never know the truth about the suggestion that Gerry Adams was responsible, directly or indirectly, for setting up the Provisional IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade for ambush as they tried to blow up a police station in Loughgall in May 1987. Sinn Féin have dismissed the claims as “utter nonsense”, and some of the usual suspects have busied themselves playing the man – and/or the media. Meanwhile, Ed Moloney provides some useful background, and reproduces the chapter in his book ‘A Secret …

Belfast man sentenced in Germany for 1996 Provisional IRA attack on army barracks

Pete Baker on October 25, 2017, 2:22 pm

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A timely lesson from the German authorities on dealing with Northern Ireland legacy issues… Having successfully extradited 48-year-old James Anthony Oliver Corry from the Republic of Ireland in December last year, the Belfast man has now been convicted and sentenced for his role in the Provisional IRA mortar attack on a British army barracks near Osnabrück, Germany, in June 1996. From the Irish Times report A Northern Ireland man has been convicted in Germany of attempted murder for participating in an IRA attack on a British army barracks in the …

Extradited Suspect Admits Role in 1996 Provisional IRA Mortar Attack in Germany

Pete Baker on July 26, 2017, 3:21 pm

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Unencumbered by the Belfast Agreement, ‘comfort’ letters, or any proposals on legacy issues, German authorities sought and, last year, secured the extradition of a suspect in the Provisional IRA mortar attack on a British army barracks near Osnabrück, Germany, in June 1996. James Anthony Oliver Albert Corry, from north Belfast, had been arrested in Killorglin, Co Kerry, in October 2015, on foot of a European Arrest Warrant issued by German authorities. At the start of his trial today in a court in the city …

Election eve is hardly the time for calm consideration of the future

Brian Walker on June 7, 2017, 9:59 am

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Say what you like about social media but the old fashioned papers are hard to beat to bring you the feel of the last minute election atmosphere. They’re all the more frantic for the polls being all over the place and late tragic dominance of “ keeping us safe.” Later still, the Guardian’s monster montage of the right wing tabloids Later, after Mail on Line posted their attack on Corbyn etc True to form the Daily Mail devotes …

Sadiq Khan saves growing row over police resources from becoming a farce

Brian Walker on June 5, 2017, 5:26 pm

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The row over Theresa May’s police cuts is going Gothic since Trump entered the fray to criticise London Mayor Sadiq Khan and then typically to repeat his attack even though May tactfully corrected him. The London Evening Standard (editor George Osborne, the former chancellor sacked by May) details the developing story. It turns out Corbyn was prompted to call for May’s resignation by an ITV correspondent’s question. He in turn had taken up the resignation call from Steve Hilton, David …

May’s and Corbyn’s descent to bickering over the response to jihadist terrorism shows their mutual mediocrity

Brian Walker on June 5, 2017, 12:54 pm

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Theresa May is under pressure even in her supposed area of expertise. The attacks on her for “police cuts” are election chaff. Her real defence that cuts that seemed sensible in 2010 are less so in the light of recent events doesn’t work in the climax of an election campaign, and Jeremy Corbyn’s call on her to resign is almost laughably hypocritical. Even so she has only herself to blame for misfiring in her reaction to London bridge outside No 10 …

Did PSNI just change the script?

CM Johnston on May 29, 2017, 12:48 pm

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One standout take-away from the Belfast Telegraph’s ‘BelTelBomber’ piece was an unexpected response from police which cut to the very core of how large organisations deal with the media in two interesting ways. Firstly, a recap: the Belfast Telegraph’s story followed up on the Manchester bombing by sending a reporter to visit local tourist attractions, complete with a backpack, to check if he could do so without any checks. The newspaper’s front page was given over to the piece along …

They will have to shed cherished illusions about how to deal with jihadist terrorism. We were different, but we know the feeling

Brian Walker on May 26, 2017, 2:11 pm

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Since the Manchester atrocity a lifetime ago on Monday night, we can hear echoes of the Troubles every day. The elevation of suicide into martyrdom is a common theme but very differently enacted and very differently received; passively- aggressively by hunger strike thirty five years ago and bitterly dividing opinion to this day: aggressively only by the IED of militant jihad today; generally condemned except by their own but probably secretly admired by more than we care to acknowledge. The …

“No single template to condemn, punish, prevent and understand terrorism at the same time…”

Mick Fealty on May 26, 2017, 8:53 am

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Just putting this from Rafael Behr here… Just as there is no one model that explains the terrorist’s motive, there is no single template that enables a society to condemn, punish, prevent and understand terrorism all at the same time. There is no elegant solution to the paradoxes of tolerant societies harbouring enemies of tolerance, and the defence of freedom sometimes demanding illiberal measures. It is because no one person can get it right that we have rival parties in …