THE comprehensive and detailed report by the north’s Police Ombudsman into the Loughinisland massacre is a vindication for the families who have been campaigning for over 20 years for justice for their loved ones and for respect for those bereaved.
Last Saturday marked the 22nd anniversary of the atrocity which plunged the families into a never-ending emotional nightmare.
The report is a considerable achievement for Niall Murphy, the families’ solicitor, who used his considerable legal expertise to help the families arrive at this very important juncture in their crusade for truth.
The report is also a vindication for Relatives for Justice whose expertise and experience was crucial to the families.
The Loughinisland families asked the Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, to investigate collusion; the quality of the investigation into the killings; the treatment of the bereaved and the failure of the State to discharge its duties as required by Article 2 of the European Court of Human Rights.
On the crucial issue of collusion between the British Crown forces and the loyalist killers the Ombudsman’s findings could not be more pointed.
He said: “I have no hesitation in unambiguously determining that collusion is a significant feature of the Loughinisland murders.”
And in relation to the initial investigation he said it was characterised “in too many instances by incompetence, indifference and neglect.”
There is a very definite relationship between the collusion the Ombudsman uncovers and publishes and the attitude of the RUC officers who carried out the investigation.
For the RUC to show such contempt for an investigation into a massacre on this scale says a lot for their attitude to the killers, those killed and those bereaved.
The Ombudsman described as ‘catastrophic’ the failure to arrest early on suspects who were known to the RUC; on one occasion suspects were warned by an RUC officer they were to be arrested.
The getaway car was destroyed by the RUC. It is clear that the RUC Special Branch were more concerned to protect informers than to protect life and prevent crime.
And of course the guns used in the massacre were imported by loyalists with the assistance of Britain’s intelligence services.
There is not much distance to travel in the mind between collusion with loyalists and being ‘indifferent’ to the consequences of such collusion, in this instance the investigation into the murder of six people.
This, according to the Ombudsman, amounts to collusion through “omission”, which was made easier in an atmosphere of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.”
The report shows many of the police officers involved in the circumstances leading up to the massacre and the period after it, that the collusion ‘mindset’ governed all their actions and outlook.
Dr Maguire does make the point that there were some police officers trying to assist the investigation and arrest and charge those involved but they were swimming against a tide polluted by the colluders – a tide which had engulfed not just the hamlet of Loughinisland but was all-pervasive across the north including south Down.
A tide of collusion which was systemic, institutional and all-embracing and involved Britain’s armed forces - the British Army, MI5 and the RUC – colluding in concert as they manipulated and directed loyalists in the UDA, the UVF and Ulster Resistance.
And while the focus of this report and many others (Stevens, Cory, de Silva, O’Loan, reports by Relatives for Justice and the Anne Cadwallader book ‘Lethal Allies’) is into collusion by Britain’s armed forces, intelligence agencies and loyalists, there is little doubt that political collusion with the British government and its armed forces was an integral part of this policy aimed as it was at the IRA and the nationalist and Catholic people. Its purpose was as simple as it was deadly: to defeat the IRA.
From the outset of the conflict collusion was an essential part of the British government’s counter-insurgency strategy.
This report, like all the others before it, provides all the arguments that are needed for a truth process involving all the armed combatants to the conflict.
The British government is blocking such a process claiming ‘national security’ interests.
But despite their stance the demand for truth remains as strong as ever.
And that strength will eventually overcome the British government’s obstinacy.
