THE IRISH OBSERVER: Royal Ulster Constabulary, RUC, Good Friday Agreement

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Royal Ulster Constabulary, RUC, Good Friday Agreement

Rhetorical Question: “Will you tell us why you believe the actions of The RUC 1998-2000 in particular saved the ‘peace process’ and The Good Friday Agreement?” “Yes, I will do a short Blog Post and explain exactly what I know”.

By 1994 many of us had already worked hard for a long period on what would become known as the ‘peace process’. It is fair to say that many who now claim credit for the ‘peace process’ had absolutely nothing to do with it back then and they certainly did not help develop The Good Friday Agreement over many years.

The Plan was simple, Hume/Adams would try to develop a set of conditions that would allow everyone to stand down without losing face. This was not a complicated process, it was conversations, exploratory talks, a few notes taken and in the background people such as myself working with John Hume and Richard and others worked with Gerry.

Martin McGuinness was never part of this process, McGuinness’s relationship with MI6 Officer Oatley was one of Handler and Agent, it did not start out like that, but that is how it ended.

In the end Gerry Adams brought McGuinness back into the fold and all of the above was presented as one project, it was not.

In 1994, there was the added complication of those who remembered the 1975 Sinn Fein/PIRA cease-fire, and how that was used as an opportunity for the PIRA to restructure, rearm and become a more efficient killing machine.

There were those who also remembered that in 1975 MI6 Officer Oatley and The PIRA Leadership were talking about British disengagement, this caused fear and distrust among Unionists and Loyalists and there was a sectarian onslaught as a result.

This is a Communication from MI6 Officer, Michael Oatley to MI6 Informer, Martin McGuinness

As 1998 approached, there were real prospects of a break through on an agreed settlement, at this time, October 1997, The Sinn Fein/PIRA Army Council held a Convention in Donegal to vote on the Adams proposal to push forward with a ‘peace strategy’. The majority of some 80 delegates voted in favour of Adams, as we now know, many of them were Informers, Touts and Agents.

Some at The Convention did not support Adams, they under the Leadership of Michael McKevitt would form the Real IRA and would be tactically armed by Kevin McKenna, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy and Martin McGuinness. The Real IRA were to be used, wittingly or unwittingly as Proxies to bomb Unionists into a power-sharing Executive with Sinn Fein/PIRA who were presenting themselves as ‘Doves’.

I have already stated in other posts how I exposed this Duplicity by the Sinn Fein/PIRA Leadership, but it is fair to say that as the ‘peace gravy train’ pulled into Station Stormont, with promises of big salaries, big expense accounts and Ministerial positions that could satisfy even the most inflated egos, people fell silent.

Suddenly, people who had contributed nothing to years of hard work, jumped into first class compartments and ignored the screams of the mud-larks in the back streets of Belfast who continued to be brutalised, raped and murdered.

People such as Tony Blair who was trying desperately to put distance between himself and the scandal of £1 Million donation from Bernie Ecclestone, Berty Ahern who was running from corruption allegations and Bill Clinton taking shelter from all sorts, used the ‘peace process’ for a public relations onslaught.

While all the Grandstanding was going on at Stormont, behind the scenes there were serious problems, both within Sinn Fein/PIRA and within ‘Loyalism’.

The UDA was tearing itself apart, The UVF Leadership were trying to be Progressive, the single biggest threat from loyalist paramilitaries was ‘The Orange Volunteers’ which had now become an umbrella for a variety of dissenting voices with loyalism. The Orange Volunteers ran smear campaigns against The UDP and The PUP.

Following the Murder of Billy Wright by The INLA and their helpers, in December 1997, the LVF graduated towards the Orange Volunteers. The Orange Volunteers were building a kill capacity both in terms of weaponry and personnel that would only previously have been equaled by the UDA/UFF under Johnny Adair.

It was therefore important, for the sake of a fledgling ‘peace process’ that The Orange Volunteers be dismantled, they had a kill list of Sinn Fein/PIRA members that when executed would send The PIRA on the warpath and throw the ‘peace process’ into disarray. They had intended planting no-warning bombs in The Republic and they knew where they were going.

The RUC, could easily have stood back and taken no action against what was building up into a serious killing machine. The RUC were not happy to see those who had Murdered and maimed hundreds of their colleagues be rewarded with high office while still retaining the ability to go back to a full-scale Racist Campaign of Ethnic Cleansing.

The RUC, whatever flaws they may have had over the years with rogue officers, stepped up and in a very short period of time, dismantled The Orange Volunteers, this culminated in the arrest and imprisonment of their Leader Clifford Peeples.

It is worth noting, Peeples and those around him, who choose the name ‘Orange Volunteers’ done a great disservice to The Orange Order. Media from around the world were camped in Belfast for long periods of time, and Sinn Fein/PIRA were able to claim that the Murderous activity of The Orange Volunteers was being supported and financed by The Orange Order. Again Sinn Fein/PIRA were able to tell an international audience that they, Sinn Fein/PIRA, were the long-suffering victims.

While Sinn Fein/PIRA were using The Real IRA as Proxies and had no real concerns about Real IRA or Continuity IRA activity, Sinn Fein/PIRA viewed such activity as helpful, as it presented Sinn Fein/PIRA as the ‘Doves’ the ‘peace makers’, there were some personal conflicts. These personal conflicts, were an issue.

In Sinn Fein/PIRA heartlands such as Belfast and Derry, McGuinness and Adams were facing serious criticism from groups such as the IRSP/INLA in Belfast and Republican Sinn Fein/CIRA in Derry. As a result of these political critiques of the Adams/McGuinness Project, The Sinn Fein/PIRA Leadership in Belfast sanctioned two attacks, one on a leading member of Republican Sinn Fein in Derry, Michael Donnelly and in Belfast, Kevin McQuillan of The IRSP was seriously assaulted.

Following these two serious assaults by Sinn Fein/PIRA, and in particular the attack on Michael Donnelly in Derry, the decision was taken by Joe O’Neill and others in Donegal to send a no-warning bomb to Connolly House in west Belfast. The bomb was to be blamed on ‘loyalists’, as ‘loyalists’ had previously hit Connolly House with a smaller bomb. The bomb was stopped, and in order to protect an Agent the media was told the bomb was on its way to a commercial target, it was not.

The third major threat to the ‘peace process’ and Good Friday Agreement which was halted by The RUC, was the Planned Murder of The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. This planned bombing was intended to simply wipe out any hope of ‘peace’, it had no political ambition, it had no strategy, it was to be a brutal slaying of many innocent people, to massage the egos of those who disagreed with Adams and McGuinness.

Again, The RUC stepped up to the plate and stopped the bomb in its tracks on the MI in 2000.

Those within Sinn Fein/PIRA who wish to discredit The RUC though vile propaganda and misinformation, should remember what has been set out above, many leading lights in Sinn Fein/PIRA in 2020 are alive because of the actions of The RUC.

The ‘peace process’ with all its flaws and failings is alive because of the actions of The RUC, The Good Friday Agreement is alive because of the actions of The RUC, many ordinary decent people on these Islands are alive and well, or lived out full lives because of the heroism of The RUC.

It was because of this work by The RUC between 1998-2000 that I spoke in favour of The RUC at a rally in The Ulster Hall, I make no apology for that, I knew who the real heroes of the 'peace process' were, and it was not, the duplicitous Sinn Fein/PIRA Leadership.