Jim Dee
28 April 2002
Boston Herald
BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Colombia and Castlereagh.
Together they dangle like two ropes, which, when pulled, will either strangle the Irish peace process, or unravel an intricate web of British intelligence subterfuge aimed at crippling the political aspirations of Irish republicans.
Last week in Washington, the U.S. House Committee on International Relations held a hearing on claims that the Irish Republican Army gave bomb-making lessons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, whom the United States accuses of trafficking drugs to America.
Last August, Colombian soldiers arrested three Irish republicans with false passports as they were leaving FARC's safe zone, an area the size of Switzerland. They have been charged with training FARC guerrillas. However, despite numerous news leaks hinting that the U.S. Congress would hear testimony of damning proof of years of IRA involvement in Colombia, concrete evidence didn't materialize.
In fact, U.S. Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), who pushed for the hearing over the objections of many Irish-Americans, said the IRA- FARC report prepared by committee staffers was "short on facts and replete with surmise and opinions."
Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams claimed vindication. He had declined to attend the hearing for fear that his appearance might compromise the Irish trio's chance for a fair trial in Colombia.
He says he accepts the men's claim that they were only studying the Colombian peace process.
But the pro-British head of the North's government, Ulster Unionist Party chief David Trimble, doesn't agree. He's panned the IRA's repeated denials of involvement.
Furthermore, he, like the North's police, believes the IRA carried out the March 17 break-in at Belfast's top-security Castlereagh police station, in which highly sensitive intelligence material was stolen.
Though Britain's Northern Ireland secretary and the North's chief of police both say they don't believe the IRA is preparing to end its July 1997 cease-fire, Trimble warned Adams the North's government can't be "sustained" unless the IRA "comes clean" over Colombia and Castlereagh.
Republicans deny any involvement in Castlereagh, and say the fact that the burgled office had been relocated a week before the break- in points to an inside job. They also cite reports that one of the three burglars had an English accent and that all flashed British Army IDs to get into the complex. They say this indicates British military intelligence had a hand in it.
Sinn Fein claims British spooks who've been smoldering about the party's electoral advances during the peace process want to smear Sinn Fein in hopes of severely damaging its prospects in the Irish Republic's May 17 general election.
War is a dirty business. And for many who think nothing of exploding a car bomb or shooting an unarmed civilian in the back, spreading a bit of disinformation would spark little moral compunction.
British intelligence "dirty tricks" allegations have long been commonplace. One famous case involved two brothers, Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn. They were English criminals recruited by MI6, Britain's foreign spy agency, in the early 1970s to carry out bombings and robberies in the Irish Republic, in order to trigger a government crackdown on republicans.
But when they were eventually arrested for a bank robbery, they were disowned by their spy masters, so the Littlejohns spilled the beans.
The early 1970s saw the creation of the British army's secretive Information Policy Unit, which specialized in psychological operations - black propaganda.
Fake statements leaflets, and fabricated stories were circulated to discredit paramilitaries on both sides, but primarily the IRA.
Colin Wallace, a member of the unit, eventually exposed its activities in the 1980s after becoming disillusioned because the range of targets had broadened to include politicians considered too soft on terrorism. He claims such plotting targeted even the 1974 Labor Party government in Britain.
The full Castlereagh and Colombia stories won't be known for some time yet.
Nonetheless, both already have highlighted, yet again, a key reality of the conflict here: It is a murky war fought by shadowy forces using any and all means, regardless of the cost in truth or in lives.
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