Mr McIntyre rejected previous republican attempts to deflect from the IRA’s responsibility for the massacre – which last week’s inquest ruled was an “overtly sectarian attack by the IRA”.
He said:
I have heard a prominent Sinn Fein member speculate that the INLA might have been responsible. I regard this as spurious nonsense, designed to deflect.
My view is that truth and reconciliation calls from Sinn Fein are a subterfuge to mask an ongoing strategic thrust against the British and political unionism.
He said this:
reinforces the hierarchy of victims phenomenon by effectively proclaiming that the victims of the British are entitled to the truth but the victims of republicanism are not. It is not logically possible to ethically square that circle.I have said publicly on a number of occasions that Sinn Fein meeting British monarchs cannot be about reconciliation. If Sinn Fein was motivated by authenticity on the issue of reconciliation, it would, at the very least, tell the victims of IRA war crimes such as Kingsmills that the IRA was responsible for them.
The Kingsmills war crime, much like the Disappeared, projects very dark blemishes onto the sanitised narrative of republican armed struggle.
Demands from any quarter for half the truth are transparently insulting and belittle any notion of reconciliation.
Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly said the Kingsmill families “are entitled to truth and justice” in a statement dominated by demands for an end to the UK Legacy Act.
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| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
At some point it will become politically expedient for Sinn Fein to call these actions for what they were. It will most likely be when combatants are dead and they want to take their seats in the Commons.
ReplyDeleteI have heard talk of Sinn Féin taking their seats in Westminster for 25 years. No sign yet.
DeleteIt is a surprise that they haven't taken them yet. It seems the logical outworking of the course they are on.
DeleteIn many ways you are correct and that same argument has been made for 25 years. Their position that they don't want to legitimise British rule by participating in a parliament which rules ireland from England may stay despite a senior member saying it's not a matter of principle.
DeleteA position of principle, a symbolic decision or merely a cosmetic geographical one? That's maybe the discussion. And if it does happen it'll be difficult for people to say I told you it was round the corner as it's been round the corner for 25 years.
"Their position that they don't want to legitimise British rule by participating in a parliament which rules ireland from England may stay despite a senior member saying it's not a matter of principle."
DeleteIsn't that exactly what they are doing now in Stormont? Sinn Fein working together with political Unionism to make Northern Ireland work? The waffle about the power being devolved from the Commons is just that, waffle. Where the money comes from is the real power. I'm actually surprised that the Shinners fell for the Duppers trap in taking the Finance post, there's a massive poisoned chalice right there given the huge cuts in public spending afoot.
Steve R, there are some similarities and some differences so I wouldn't describe the two as being "exactly" the same.
DeletePsychologically participating in ruling Ireland from England would be a blow to a sizeable amount of their supporters but no-one knows exactly how many would stop voting for them if it happened.
Some non-abstentionists did well like Bernadette McAliskey but she thought it a demoralising experience.
Voting for a devolved government was a small act of self-determination albeit not the ultimate act. What's the alternative? Stay out of power until a united ireland comes, if it comes? At least there's accountability and local politicians are ruling locally. Not from England.
The true guff is the talk about the British shilling. Do we criticise councils, public sector workers, people on the dole? The British shilling is the status quo, the real politik.
Then it poses the question what purpose did physical force Republicanism serve? Was it equality in a UK outpost or a socialist Republic once proffered?
DeleteCaveat; I'm happy to see the Shinners and Duppers actually co-operating. Only took two women to sort it out!
We'll never know what alternative histories might have been. That's wandering into speculation. And any such speculation is pure fiction. Maybe loyalism would have continued killing and burning unhindered. Maybe we'd all be fine and dandy in a United Ireland. No matter what you speculate it won't have any truth because the only reality is what happened.
DeleteNobody fought for equality although inequality was certainly a catalyst. What you fight for and what you get are usually different things. Non-state combatants are less likely to achieve their objectives than state actors no matter where in the world they're based for different reasons. States themselves lose conflicts quite a bit too.
Was it worth trying? That's the question. The one party unionist state wasn't conducive to nationalists living peacefully. Discrimination was rife. Maybe a better society here in the North is the achievement. Not what anybody fought for but the loyalist state was a slow moving monolith. All their reformers were ousted. Sunningdale wasn't supported by Republicans but loyalism brought it down.
Nobody planned 40 years of conflict. It developed an almost unstoppable momentum of its own. Nobody is to blame for its longevity despite the long war strategy. No-one is to blame for its failure but people should be thanked for stopping it. No more death, injury or prisoners. Too many innocents died.
Was it worth it? Who knows, bit it's all we've got.
Loyalism tends to be reactionary so I agree it wouldn't have stopped until Physical Force Republicanism did-in the hypothetical of course.
DeleteIts a strange thing these days. Speaking to older Loyalists there is a ready acceptance that sectarianism did occur and was widespread therefore the change was needed. I still point the finger at gobshite and his ilk for whipping the people into a paranoid frenzy albeit one easily fed given the violence of the times.
Was it worth it? Not in my book. Nothing is worth killing or dying over except maybe action against Jihadi Death Cults. But stressful times lead to bad decisions.
What people should be thanked for stopping it though? Was the purely political path taken by Sinn Fein an organic one? Or one cultivated by the Spook establishment via long term counterinsurgency program using Assets and Agents?
If it's the latter I doubt very much MI5 stopped playing the long game at the signing of the GFA. There are many reasons why Amnesty is never seriously pushed, and I suspect any clarity on who had what role in the conflict would lead to extreme difficulties for Downing Street to address along with several high profile Shinners who'd mysteriously disappear overnight were one suddenly announced.
Kingsmill was institutes by Brian Keenan after a UVF sectarian murder campaign.He claimed YOU HAVE TO HIT THE PRODS HARDER or words to that affect.Not very antisectarian considering he réas Marx and Bakunin.Apparently Ray McReesh was involved also.
ReplyDeleteMcCreesh's fingerprints were found on one of the murder weapons which isn't necessarily evidence of any role by him as such weapons passed through many hands.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that Barry. These things move around like water.
DeleteUndoubtedly a war crime. War crimes happen in every war. How they are prevented from happening again and how they are dealt with generally is what counts. Sectarianism is always wrong and war crimes are always despicable. Anathema to all. Owning up to it would bring a little honesty to the table and would help bring a little closure.
ReplyDeleteConsidering 78% of loyalists victims were nakedly sectarianian according to Sutton's 'Index of Death' compared with 8% of Republicanism's victims it is not surprising that events like Kingsmills are highlighted. It stands out as it is the exception rather than the rule. Although this brings no solace to victims.
I agree with Barry. It is easy to throw accusations at those who are dead based on little or no evidence.
Yes, Kingsmill was a war crime. All military activity that deliberately targets civilians constitutes a war crime. Just as the RAF and 'Bomber Harris' committed war crimes so did Irish Republicans. Just as when US forces fire-bombed Tokyo, killing more in those attacks than they did in Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined, they committed war crimes too. As Simon comments above "War crimes happen in every war".
ReplyDeleteAnd just as with Harris, and as with the Yanks in the South Pacific, failure to consider and allow for strategic imperatives, only smudges and diminishes the horrific realities of conflict and war.
In the immediacy of the time, the IRA had a strategic imperative to respond. How they chose to reply was questionable and indeed a war was committed. However, setting events in context, viewing them in the timeline of unfolding events, and drawing yet again on Camus's commentary on the French/Algerian conflict, some of our collective behaviour will manifest inevitably as being both at the same time 'unavoidable and unjustifiable'.
Henry Joy - as ever Camus is so useful on such matters.
DeleteI think that is probably as close as are going to get to a rounded republican perspective. Explain why it happened, acknowledge the wrongfulness of it, and avoid trying to justify it.
But while the big lie still envelops it that some entity other than the IRA might have been responsible, it is worthwhile to penetrate the fog that some continue to prefer remains impenetrable.
Was Kingsmills unavoidable? I doubt it. The IRA for the most part avoided such reactions to sectarian slaughter even at that time.
DeleteDid Kingsmills drive many prominent loyalists to join paramilitary groups? Many have pointed to the incident as being the turning point.
Where there alternatives? Plenty of combatants around at that time.
Even strategically, if loyalist sectarianism drove the IRA to slaughter random Protestants why would anybody think Republican sectarianism wouldn't have the same effect? Specious arguments about a drop in loyalist killings in the area prove nothing.
A war crime is never justifiable. Understanding why it happened doesn't justify or mitigate the wrong.
"The IRA for the most part avoided such reactions to sectarian slaughter even at that time."
DeleteNot in Belfast they didn't. Even Bradley admitted that sectarianism was a problem in Belfast PIRA. I certainly was on the Loyalist side and even Anthony has stated in the past he was.
Seems like insanity now and it was. Couldn't give a solitary fuck about someone's religion now unless they try to use it as justification to interfere in mine or anyone else's life.
The older I get the more insane that time seems.
Viewed through either the legal or moral prism Kingsmill was certainly a war crime. I just want to reiterate that. Yes, it was a horrendous war crime.
DeleteHowever, as Camus despondently alludes and Mearsheimer articulates more directly, there are other considerations besides the binary legal and moral codes.
Alternative perspectives, those articulated by Shakespeare and Nietzsche come to mind. They are aligned more closely to the Realist one and reflect more accurately how the world works rather than how it ought, should, or must.
Though 'Man' sometimes tries to shape it so, the world is not always fair, nor is it always just. Sometimes accepting the 'just is'ness' of the world and the actions of its inhabitants is alas as close to justice as you're going to get.
How the world works is moulded by it's laws and ethics. I take it a major consideration is to win by violating international law? What about child soldiers, slavery, sexual violence as a weapon of war? All happen in reality and if it were not for ethical and legal considerations they would undoubtedly happen more often.
DeleteAll well being a realist but does that mean accepting our lot or working for a better world, a more just reality?
Winning is one thing but at what cost. Kingsmills wasn't only wrong ethically and legally it was wrong strategically as can be seen by things like a drop in nationalist support for physical force and it being a strong recruiting factor for many loyalists.
War crimes happen, that is the reality. No other considerations should be made. Acknowledging things happen and accepting them are two very different things.
We all know the world isn't always fair but working to make it fairer by our actions and laws can be a realist perspective as well.
What I like about your comment Simon is the implicit recognition of the ever-present tension that exists between chaos and order.
DeleteOf course, for humans to best survive and thrive moral & legal codes are required. Ultimately though these codes are aspirational. They are ideals, ideals upon which the idealist erroneously confers an immutable quality, obsequiously attributing the same weight to those codes as a scientist might to the laws of thermodynamics. (Mad or what Ted?)
Returning to the specifics and my original position: there was a strategic imperative for the IRA to respond to the ever-increasing Loyalist assassination campaign. Had they not acted, and not acted decisively, they knew they were in danger of becoming 'a damp squib' of a force.
I have already acknowledged that their response was questionable and several times categorized it as a war crime. We agree on that. With hindsight, we agree also that strategically there were downsides. Hindsight is always 20/20 vision.
Just to say AM, I got the drift of your article.
ReplyDeleteThe insistence of PSF about prosecuting the past while deliberately obfuscating Republican past activities is pretty distasteful.
My comment, which didn't directly address the points of your article, was formulated after listening to a YouTube interview between Piers Morgan and John Mearsheimer. I often find myself largely in agreement with Mearsheimer's promiscuous, though pragmatic geopolitical positioning.
For example in last night's viewing, he proposes (though as an American not advocating for it) that if the Iranians were to achieve greater nuclear military capacity it most likely would have a consequential stabilising result for the greater Middle East region.
Now try that one on for fit!
Mearsheimer is of the Realist perspective: power and security in an anarchic world. He did a very weak interview a while back on Ukraine. But I think he is very robust and incisive.
DeleteHJ, Thats just the standard "nuclear weapons are a mutual deterent" argument. I understand it's a paradox but they're only a deterent if they're going to be used.
DeleteCan we be certain they won't be used?
DeleteMearsheimer proposes a scenario where Putin may allow a limited nuclear strike on Ukraine should things go badly wrong for him. Simon and AM may think differently but I'm of an opinion that Mearsheimer is the better cartographer when it comes to the geopolitical.
"Can we be certain they won't be used?" Of course not but those in favour of nuclear weapons make the paradoxical statement that they're a deterent.
DeleteAs my Grandfather used to say to me as a gasun, "A small man with a stick, is equal to a big man any day"!
DeleteThere is a neutralizing effect when there's an equilibrium of resources.
Why isn't there much noise about the war crimes committed by prison officers in Long Kesh/H-Blocks....?
ReplyDeleteTo me, the only difference between the war crimes that happened in Iraqi prisons and Long Kesh/H-Blocks is a sun tan........
ReplyDeleteStevie, we all know there were sectarian elements as you point out but the statistics show that less than 8% of IRA killings from 1969 to 1993 were sectarian. (Sutton's Index of deaths). So my point stands, sectarian massacres were for the most part avoided. That is why Kingsmills stands out, because it was unusual.
It reminds me to address your earlier point about there being a sectarian element in loyalism. I doubt there was even a non-sectarian element. How does one support loyalist groups with their focus on random Catholics without being sectarian? Loyalism was sectarian by definition. To participate in such groups or support such groups you were sectarian by definition. Again Sutton points out that well over 70% of loyalist killings were sectarian. If you consider loyalist feuds, punishment attacks, etc it doesn't leave much room for anything else.
It was certainly a huge part of it. Unfortunately hatred blinds people. I didn't support any attacks on innocent civilians and found them reprehensible. My allegiance was to my community and the vast majority of them didn't support any violence whatsoever.
Delete"Loyalism was sectarian by definition"
No, Loyalism is concerned with the maintaining of the Political, Cultural and Historical interests with the rest of the UK. While under attack yes indeed sectarianism poisoned the whole lot of us. Nothing to be proud of about that.
And of course the flip side to that is we viewed the IRA's campaign as wholly sectarian against us.
We've gone over this ad nauseum and the best you can say is it was a perception and perception is a powerful force. Just like the moon landings being faked, the earth being flat etc. All perception with no basis.
DeleteHow can a campaign be wholly sectarian against Protestants if many Catholics died in bombings, as members of the security forces or screws? Probably in proportion except for those 7.8% of victims targeted solely for their religion.
Unionism is concerned with the maintaining of the Political, Cultural and Historical interests with the rest of the UK. It's generally accepted that loyalism is violent Unionism. Loyalists used to be proud of the difference now they want loyalism as a term to be synonymous with unionism, probably because of the bad press that came with targeting and slaughtering of random civilians and now peace is being made. Remember yabba dabba do any fenian will do?
What difference does anything make apart from perception?
DeleteSubjective perception isn't everything. It doesn't trump facts.
DeleteYour perception is purely subjective. For example loyalists believed focusing their targeting on civilians was hunky-dorey but most of the world at least frowns upon this or even abhorrs it.
Objectively is what counts. How do we create an objective viewpoint- only with a well informed, non-involved dispassionate mind. And believe me the Objective mind will be considering the facts
I've actually unearthed some stuff about sectarian murders of Protestants after the Provisionals stopped them (76/77).
ReplyDeleteThe INLA did some, and some armed localised units did some. I can't find an overtime sectarian murder by the Provisionals after 1977.
Happy to look into any that people suspect were.
Brandon , One of the reasons the IRA drove the IPLO out of business was because of IPLO sectarian killings. Drugs and antisocial behaviour too.
DeleteIn the 90s an IRA arms dump was misused to kill a random Protestant and the IRA kneecaped the perpetrator.
Apparently Dominic McGlinchey was furious when he heard what happened at Darkley.
Enniskillen?
@ Simon
ReplyDelete"In the 90s an IRA arms dump was misused to kill a random Protestant and the IRA kneecaped the perpetrator."
Can you give more info on this? I'd be keen to look into it.
As far as I can tell, Enniskillen was a murderously incompetent operation against crown forces. Obviously the outcome and status of the casualties suggest sectarian overtones, but I've never read anything that suggested it was intended to be a sectarian massacre. Teebane is closer to that description, but I'd still hesitate before describing it as an overtly sectarian massacre.
Tricky subject to be nuanced about.
@Brandon
DeleteWhen you try to break down the IRA's hoped for outcome at Enniskillen it's unfathomable.
Firstly, the IRA attacking (with a bomb) a specific target (e.g. a British Army patrol) passing at a specific point with anything but a bomb detonated manually by radio or command wire was unusual. Yet at Enniskillen the IRA used a time bomb apparently in the hope of blowing up UDR soldiers as they paraded past at a specific time.
The positioning of the bomb; inside a building set back from the road. All of those killed were bystanders under the shadow of the building's gable wall. How could a small bomb inside a building have harmed UDR men marching some distance away, and not the civilians standing next to it?
There's really no adequate explanation for Enniskillen on the IRA's own terms.
Brandon, I heard about it at the time and news reports tallied with a man being kneecapped and if I'm not mistaken he was arrested shortly after being kneecapped. Something tells me it was a Belfast peaceline issue possibly the Falls or the Springfield. I'm sorry I can't be more definitive
DeleteBleakley, I remember the news of Enniskillen breaking on the radio of a car I was in and I said out loud that I didn't believe it was the IRA who did it directly after the news reader said the IRA was suspected. There was nothing like it for some time before that and Republicans were preaching passionately about non-sectarianism and focusing elsewhere. Maybe to garner support, maybe to avoid the conflict being called a sectarian squabble, maybe they were sincere, I don't know. But it made many outside unionism unhappy
Delete