Not as vicious as the Dirty War waged from 1976-83 by the Argentine military junta, the British state nevertheless when asked to show its hands to the world, wore every type of glove imaginable to conceal its grime stained palms and fingers. When British military figures complain that they were never allowed to take their gloves of during the conflict, Richard O'Rawe in his introduction to the world of Murder Incorporated helps us more readily understand why.
Stakeknife's Dirty War introduces to the public one of the key figures relied upon by the British State to wage that war and in so doing achieves what Operation Kenova fails to - he firmly identifies the former head of the IRA's Internal Security Unit Freddie Scappaticci as the agent Stakeknife.
Why Kenova failed to confirm what everybody knows is an indication of how little the public can expect from its report. While I never thought from the outset that any prosecutions would result, I became unflinchingly convinced of that belief once the Kenova team charged Scappaticci with possession of animal porn. There seemed only one reason for that. Given what the state had swept under the carpet, the comparatively minor offence of possessing extreme pornography, could as easily have been buried in the files marked 'murder' It is not that there was a shortage of them within which to conceal a picture of Freddie and his favourite donkey, dog or duck. There seemed one glaring reason for porn prosecution - to ensure that Scap would have been discredited as a witness should he ever turn up in a court to face his British army handlers. That was a signpost from Kenova emblazoned with 'cul-de-sac.' So despite this week's press conference and the flashing bulbs from cameras, Kenova emitted more heat than light.
The book sets out as it intends to go on - a compromised IRA operation which led to the commander, interviewed by the author, to assume that the hidden hand of the informer was at play. An omnipresent in the history of armed republican rebellion the type has become reviled for the damage it has wreaked in republican ranks. The ostensible task of the informer is to disrupt. If the state and its shills are to be believed then the state was the fisher of men and what it caught in its net, the saver of lives. That tall tale has been cut down to size, O'Rawe, and this week Kenova, firmly putting the myth to bed. Informers, with the approval of their State handlers, were often causing more deaths than they were preventing.
Even if the ethics of agent handler is cast aside in a realpolitik trade-off where success is measured in terms of fewer graves, the whole exercise has proved redundant. Stakeknife, unlike one of the IRA army council figures who kept him in position, was not into the business of secret graves. His undertaking trade is quantifiable and the balance sheet is not a healthy one. Agents were merchants of death, and often the parachutes they were given failed to open because they were designed not to. Most of them were rescued only after they had died.
Richard O'Rawe set himself the unenviable task of putting a face on the monster that was Stakeknife. He did not set out to polish a turd as the late British general John Wilsey did. The reader can figuratively smell the stench of decomposition wafting from the pages.
Freddie Scappaticci's early life emerges to see the light of day. No one else has painted such a detailed picture of one of Britain's knives that were plunged into the heart of not only the Provisional IRA and its victims, but also eviscerated the rule of law. In short there was no rule of law, merely the rule of law enforcement. O'Rawe makes it clear that Steak was not the only type of knife brandished. The solicitor for many of the families said this week that there were many knives manufactured for cutting up the IRA's war effort. Given the desire of the British - aided by Sinn Fein leaders and agents of influence - to cover up for its abominations, the war generation will most likely not live long enough to discover those other knives: pork knives, fish knives, boning knives, bangers knives, paring knives. A catalogue of them could be put together, stamped made in Britain for sale in Ireland.
O'Rawe describes Scappaticci as 'a hugely important historical figure'. A claim hard to disagree with considering his presence in the media for almost three decades, firstly with the years of suspicion about who this top mole in the IRA might be and, then, even more pronounced after he was outed twenty years ago.
O'Rawe spoke to a range of former IRA volunteers for the work. He clearly managed to get on the inside track. Given the state security services' determination to monopolise the narrative and its penchant for pursuing those who refuse to allow it to do so by offering their own, it is understandable why O'Rawe's voices should chose anonymity. Those of us familiar with the terrain are savvy enough to grasp the authenticity behind the screen. Some of those with a Derry accent posed huge questions about the trustworthiness of former IRA chief of staff Martin McGuinness. O'Rawe declines to pass judgement on the matter but by the sheer act of allowing misgivings to be aired, he has invited the question: did McGuinness do what it said on his tin or was there something more sinister at play? It is a can Sinn Fein will want kicked down the road for some time to come.
The author makes a point about the noncombatants who also spoke to him. They too wanted to conceal their identity such was the 'power and fear' that Scap had exercised over the nationalist community.
Former IRA volunteers who agreed to cooperate with the book made a valuable contribution to a venture that was very much 'not a feel-good story.' When the reader is confronted with the brutal torture that the Internal Security Unit meted out to a man it had in its custody for a time, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib leap to mind. Had he not held out Kenova would this week be reporting to his family. There comes with this account a grim realisation often pointed out by Denis Faul during his sermons to the blanket protestors in the H Blocks that man's worst fate is to fall into the hands of man.
O'Rawe, never a shrinking violet, when it comes to putting matters on the record, has done both republican historiography and public understanding an immense service. When many others preferred silence over candour he came up to the plate. Unfortunately, it is a sad reflection of the nature of truth recovery that people will feel they have obtained more from reading this book than they have from perusing the Kenova Report.
Read it and weep.
Richard O'Rawe, 2023, Stakeknife's Dirty War: The Inside Story of Scappaticci, the IRA's Nutting Squad and the British Spooks Who Ran the War. Merrion Press. ISBN-13: 978-1785374470.
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It's astonishing that the leadership of the IRA, who recognised the risk of penetration enough to re-organise into individual cells in the late 1970s, made such fundamental errors in their handling of the accompanying Internal Security Unit.
ReplyDeleteMany commentators have raised the point that the ISU's personnel wasn't regularly shaken up but instead the same personalities were allowed oversee its activities for fifteen years. The ISU were given open access to every area of IRA operations seriously undermining the principle of compartmentalisation.
The PIRA were often described as the world's most sophisticated terrorist organisation yet the sordid story of the ISU makes its leadership seem like total eejits.
I have thought of writing an article about how the ascension of the Northern leadership in the late 1970s in some ways marked the beginning of a more sustained and serious penetration of the IRA. For example, the American arms network fell apart when the new Belfast group tried to take direct control.
Not eejits Bleakley, it's becoming very obvious that MMG was at the least compromised or at the worst completely turned and working as an Agent for MI5. Question is, was he alone in this?
DeleteSteve, I left that angle unspoken but you'd have to wonder. Although I'm personally not convinced.
DeleteO'Rawe's book details the increasing interference from the highest levels of the IRA over day-to-day operational affairs and this is a persistent theme of the Long War era leadership. For example, Adams and McGuinness both installed their younger brothers in the 1980s as leaders of the Belfast and Derry brigades respectively.
Even in the famous WW2-based play/movie "Stalag 17" the informer turns out to be their own security officer.
DeleteAnd everyone in the leadership pretending they didn't know he was a paedophile as well as tout. Doesn't say much about the so-called leadership when this fecker was able to run rings around them, making them look like idiots. They either knew, are were the most incompetent feckers on the planet. They can't have it both ways.
ReplyDeleteBowyer Bell's movie certainly left MMG vulnerable and quite likely subject to manipulation. Gerry Adam's paedophilic family history similarly left him exposed. Still all speculative. No definitive proof ... yet.
ReplyDeleteSTAKEKNIFE, THE IRA's NUTTING SQUAD & MORE| Interview with ex-IRA member & author Richard O' Rawe
ReplyDeleteOPERATION KENOVA | STAKEKNIFE, The IRA's Internal Security Unit & Boucher's Report| Ricky O' Rawe