Collusion report - The truth has finally come out

THE bloody saga of police collusion with death squads in the murder of Catholics in Northern Ireland, an atrocity exposed by Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan, is redolent more of a South American dictatorship than the United Kingdom.

Nothing could be more damaging to Britain’s image as the defender of justice and fair play than the devastating evidence in every line of this damning report.

The revelations prove that RUC officers at the highest level colluded with the systematic assassination of nationalists at the hands of UVF murder gangs in North Belfast.

Particularly frightening is that these events, which began in 1993, were still going on in 2002. Clearly, the fundamental rules of law and order which protect people elsewhere in Britain did not apply in parts of the North.

Nor is there any reason to believe such collusion was isolated. By inference, members of the RUC right across the province were secretly colluding with loyalist death squads.

In the chilling words of Ms O’Loan, the murders just went on and on and on. And the chain of responsibility went right to the top of the RUC.

One obvious implication is that the Stalker and Stevens reports, which singularly failed to plumb the depths of police activities in the North, were predicated on the assumption that ground rules for the rest of Britain did not apply there.

As Northern Secretary Peter Hain put it, the report shines a light on a very dark corner of Northern Ireland’s policing and law enforcement.

With distant echoes of the cover-up seen during Ireland’s case of ‘hooding’ torture against Britain, the report exposes a murky world where evidence went missing and obstacles were placed in the path of investigators to stop them getting at the truth.

Thanks to the independence of the Police Ombudsman and the dogged persistence of Raymond McCord, whose murdered son was a victim of police collusion, the truth has come out. The nation owes them both a huge debt of gratitude.

The timing of this publication is highly significant as it coincides with the Sinn Féin leadership’s attempt to get republicans to endorse the PSNI. Adding credence to Sinn Féin claims that senior police were involved in collusion, the report complains that several superintendents refused to co-operate with the investigation.

Most have since retired and cannot be pursued. However, if the PSNI is to retain credibility, any officer still in the service after refusing to co-operate with the Ombudsman, should be named, shamed and booted out of the force.

According to Ms O’Loan, several officers told blatant lies, displaying contempt for the law they were supposed to uphold. Notes of meetings with informants were either not kept or went missing.

Vital information and intelligence, including the names of murder suspects, were withheld by police. Evidence was systematically destroyed or swept aside.

By comparison, some will argue that the findings of the Morris Tribunal on the appalling behaviour of some gardaí in Donegal pales into insignificance. But the principles are the same.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has aptly described the Ombudsman’s report as a chronicle of lives lost and lives shattered. Expressing his profound regret, the British prime minister has consigned it to the past, saying it could not happen today. Let’s hope he is right.

In her most damning finding, Ms O’Loan concluded that junior police officers could not have operated as they did without the knowledge and assistance of senior officers of the RUC and PSNI.

Wherever the spectre of State terrorism prevails, be it in South America or Northern Ireland, individual rights are ultimately suppressed, democracy is undermined and life becomes cheap.