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The Mcgurk's Bar Bombing: Post-Script

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The Mcgurk's Bar Bombing: Post-Script CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 3 THE BOOK: THE McGURK’S BAR BOMBING 4 THE KITSON EXPERIMENT 5 RUNNING BATTLES 6 CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS 7 INFORMATION WAR 8 NEW EVIDENCE 8-18 SEAT OF THE EXPLOSION 9 TARGET: GEM BAR 10 OPERATION CLOSED DOOR 11 BRITISH ARMY OBSERVATION POSTS 12 UNMASKED: COVERT BRITISH MILITARY OP 13 SUSPECT CARS AND A NEW WITNESS 14-15 ‘MISSING’ FILE SURRENDERS ITS SECRET 15 MoD WITHHOLDING EVIDENCE TODAY 16 WHO LIED? 17 GENERAL SIR FRANK KITSON 18 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 19 McGurk’s Bar Bombing Post-Script Post-Script will: This booklet regards our battles with organs 1. Discuss what I have discovered since of the British state including the Ministry of then, buried deep in dusty archives. Defence, the Royal Ulster Constabulary/ Police Service Northern Ireland and the Office 2. Publish new evidence of on-going British of the Police Ombudsman since the state cover-up and collusion – nearly publication of my book, The McGurk’s Bar half a century after it buried the truth. Bombing, in 2012. 3. Name the person whose dirty fingerprints The McGurk's Bar cover-up and collusion are all over the heinous McGurk’s Bar lie. continues to this day. 2 Introduction y name is escape in a car. All of the MCiarán MacAirt. evidence proved that too. I am the grandson of John But, before we even buried our and Kathleen Irvine who were loved ones, the British state two of the many victims of the buried the truth. Before we McGurk’s Bar Massacre of 4th December 1971. In a massive disinformation even buried My grandmother was one campaign involving Stormont our loved of fifteen civilians murdered and British governments, the that night. Two children were British Army and Intelligence ones, the among the dead. Service and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the British British state My grandfather John was state conspired to blame the badly injured but rescuers buried the McGurk’s Bar Massacre on pulled him from the rubble the innocent civilians in the truth.” alive along with over a dozen bar that night, criminalizing other civilians including each and every single one, several more children. including my grandparents. At that time in the north of THE VICTIMS Ireland, the McGurk’s Bar The British state allowed the Massacre was the single real perpetrators to escape 15 civilians murdered, greatest loss of civilian life in and these extremists killed including 2 children. any murderous attack since many more civilians in the the Nazi Blitz of Belfast a years afterwards. generation before. 13 civilians, including So, the moment the bomb more children, lucky Pro-state British extremists exploded, our campaign for bombed the bar and family to escape with their truth started. Our families lives from the rubble; home. are still fighting for a fair and A young newspaper boy saw just investigation after and 3 injured outside. them do it and saw them nearly half a century. PAPER TRAIL 3 THE BOOK: THE McGURK’S BAR BOMBING n my book, The The police chiefs lied that McGurk’s Bar Bombing, two of the victims were Ireleased in late 2012, I members of the Irish published a raft of critical Republican Army (IRA) new evidence from British and that a bomb they archives, which proved the were carrying exploded innocence of the victims prematurely. and tracked the flow of disinformation back to the This was a heinous lie, Royal Ulster Constabulary which attempted to (RUC). criminalize civilians and blame innocent victims. I proved that the then Chief Constable and Head But I also proved that of RUC Special Branch a British Army bomb deliberately lied to - and expert had informed the misled - the governments same General Officer of Northern Ireland and Commanding, Lieutenant Britain, and the General General Sir Harry Tuzo, Officer Commanding the within 12 hours of the British Army in the north. attack that the bomb had been placed outside. "A bomb believed So, the British state and to have been its Armed Forces knew planted outside fine rightly that our loved the pub…” ones were innocent, they had no evidence to Director of Operations Brief substantiate their lies 8am, 5th December 1971 and still do not. 4 THE KITSON EXPERIMENT examined how and why the British state would manufacture such horrific Ilies about our families. This resulted in an examination of British counter-insurgency policy and one General Sir Frank Kitson (right), British military strategist of repute and Brigadier in charge of the British Army in Belfast at the time of the atrocity. Former British Army Chief of General Staff, General Sir Michael Jackson, described Kitson as "the sun around which the planets revolved... and he very much set of British information policy; and the development of the tone for the operational style’ the Military Reaction Force (MRF) – a covert, extra- of the British Army in Belfast. legal Special Force unit which conducted undercover surveillance, gathered intelligence, ran Kitson is a hero to some and a agents and murdered civilians. director of terrorism to others. A direct link in secret British archives from Kitson and In simple terms, the basic tenets the MRF to the McGurk’s Bar atrocity was elusive by of Kitson’s counter-insurgency the time of the book’s publication. I knew where I policies are (1) Information and (2) could find that information, but MoD and historic Contact. investigation units denied me access to it. I even tracked down a surviving commander of the MRF Information: the collection and – [ex] Brigadier James Alistair McGregor – to his home development of information in Kent and workplace in London. and intelligence; I asked him to engage with me and answer questions Contact: how to take advantage but, of course, he did not want to help either. of this information to eliminate I thought it was important to lay down a marker, though, or control the enemy. as this was the direction my research was leading me. Our families also long believed that the British Army had Therefore, I published new evidence foreknowledge of the attack and could have prevented of the formation of information it. units during Kitson’s tenure, which controlled the British I believe we proved collusion after the fact but collusion Army’s PR, propaganda, prior to the explosion was always going to be difficult. psychological operations Again, I know where information confirming or (PSYOPS) and disinformation denying that will be, but I was denied access to it by campaigns under the umbrella the British state. PAPER TRAIL 5 RUNNING BATTLES n 2011, the Office of the Police Ombudsman had disagreed. IIt found investigative bias against the police but stopped short of collusion. In doing so, the Police Ombudsman moved his own goalposts regarding what amounted to collusion. A few months before, he ruled collusion in the case of the Claudy atrocity between the RUC and Catholic Church citing: “The essence of collusion requires that a number of elements be present. Usually, but not always, “The definition of conniving may it involves an agreement between two or more be particularly relevant, meaning parties. There is an additional requirement that to deliberately ignore; overlook; a sufficiency of evidence exists to establish, on condone; disregard; to look the balance, that the act or omission complained other way; to be indulgent, tolerant, of was deliberate and not merely negligent or secretly in favour or sympathetic; inadvertent.” [8: 66] co-operate secretly; or fail to take action against a known “In this instance, there is no evidence, which wrongdoing or misbehaviour, indicates that any of the investigative failures by usually the violation of the law” the police, including the release of assessments of the circumstances of the bombing, which entered “In the absence of explanation, the public domain, resulted from the actions of senior RUC officers, agreements entered into with others.” [8:69] in seeking and accepting the Government assistance in dealing with the problem of Father This was absolute nonsense even then and a glaring Chesney’s alleged wrong-doing, example of how the Office of the Police Ombudsman was by definition a collusive act.” discriminated in its investigation of two bomb [Serials 6: 16 -17] massacres - one an IRA bomb; the other, UVF. As you will read, I have since produced even more Despite the mountains of evidence evidence, including a secret and sordid agreement we provided regarding omission, between the police and the British Army. commission, lies and disinformation This critical evidence overturns the conclusions of of the British Armed Forces and the each historic investigation of the McGurk's Bar McGurk’s Bar Massacre, the Police Massacre. Ombudsman somehow then decided that “conniving” was not Either these investigations failed to find this evidence important as he left this whole serial or they found it and buried it again. Either way they out and instead wrote: failed and we are yet to receive a proper investigation. 6 CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS ven worse, within hours of the Police Ombudsman’s Epublication, the then Chief Constable of PSNI, Matt Baggott, denied even this watery finding of police investigative bias. This caused, in our opinion, a constitutional crisis as the head of police denied the central finding of the organisation set up to hold police past and present to account. His successor had to roll over and accept this finding during one of our many court battles against the police and we have been in court continually since then trying to access information and seek a proper investigation. We had to judicially review Niall Ó Murchú and Ciarán MacAirt the police to get access to the Historical Enquiry Team’s (HET) report into McGurk’s as they would not hand it over – no doubt as they were under pressure from Her ° All of these failed historic ° All of the failed Majesty’s Inspectorate of investigations have yet to investigations sought to Constabulary which slated the answer our simple requests excuse the botched police HET, and families like ours who for information and each investigation even though I demanded they account for failed ignored a mountain of new proved that the police investigations.
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