HIDDEN HISTORIES THE POISONED LEGACY OF COLONIALISM divide & rule MI5 burnt crops gangs & counter-gangs sir kenneth newman cruel britannia poisoned wells Waterboarding Lethal Allies In-depth interrogation frank kitson Dhofar THE POISONOUS LEGACY five techniques hooding white noise Kenya Q patrols torture pseudo- gangs MRF ADEN Amritsar Massacre Cyprus castration sleep deprivation OF COLONIALISM propaganda UDR secret wars BRUNEI SAS DECAPITATION india McGurks Bar imperial policing BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE Colonel “The United Kingdom is one of the few countries in the European Gordon Kerr collusion 14th intelligence company ELECTRIC SHOCKS Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history.” Low Intensity Operations partition racism glenanne gang Inspector Douglas Duff rape genocide historical amnesia imperialism Liam Fox MP, former Conservative Defence Minister MALAYA Force Research Unit house demolitions ARAB REVOLT FOUR SQUARE LAUNDRY Brigadier General John Nicholson black & tans Qissa Khwani “You don’t really teach colonial history in your schools. Massacre Major General Henry Tudor native people slave trade ECHR There’s no awareness of the atrocities… Children doing ORDE WINGATE British Guyana the nakba CONCENTRATION CAMPS SPECIAL NIGHT SQUADS MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES GWYNN Boxer A-levels don’t learn a line of colonial history.” Rebellion STATES OF EMERGENCY sexual exploitation colonel maurice Indian politician and author Shashi Tharoor. tugwell Afghanistan the history thieves Iraq INTERNMENT PAKISTAN BALLYKELLY ARMY CAMP COUNTER-iNSURGENCY WINSTON CHURCHILL “The violence of the British Empire has long been forgotten. We need BATANG KALI MASSACRE BRITAIN’S GULAG RAF CARPET BOMBING to face up to this history and education is crucial if we are to do so.” apartheid firqats BENGAL FAMINE EAST INDIA COMPANY bloody sunday Dr Esme Cleall, lecturer in the history of the inglorious empire A STATE IN DENIAL IMPUNITY Special Branch British Empire, University of Sheffield. Al-Bassa Massacre & Royal Ulster Rifles CHAGOS ISLANDERS general harry tuzo Detention water & food deprivation Cecil Rhodes castlereagh AN GORTA MOR MI6 REPRISALS ‘mad mitch’ Palestine RUC Balfour Declaration DUBLIN & MONAGHAN BOMBINGS DIEGO GARCIA assassination BLACK HOLES information policy unit plastic & rubber bullets PAT INTERACTIVE VERSION AVAILABLE AT FINUCANE WWW.PATFINUCANECENTRE.ORG CENTRE WWW.PATFINUCANECENTRE.ORG Justice for the Forgotten INTRODUCTION Why would a northern that had been tried and tested. The ‘present’ during interrogations at the European Convention on Human infamous Fort Morbat interrogation MILITARY REACTION FORCE (MRF) THE ‘FIVE TECHNIQUES’ Irish based human Rights cut little ice in military circles. centre in Aden in the mid-60s. Fort rights NGO produce an Kitson created undercover units (the Morbut had a fearsome reputation The Military Reaction Force (MRF) was a covert counter- The ‘Five Techniques’ of torture were used on the MRF) whose aim was to provoke as a British torture centre during this insurgency unit established in Northern Ireland by Sir ‘Hooded Men’ in Ballykelly in 1971 by the RUC under exhibition on the legacy sectarian conflict. Similar units had time. And Fort Morbut was closer to Frank Kitson in 1971. It had two elements – soldiers the tutelage of the British Army’s Joint Service School been set up in Cyprus (Q Patrols) and Ballykelly and Castlereagh than many seconded from their own regiments and young of Intelligence in Ashford, Kent. The techniques were of colonialism? Oman (firqats). It is striking that every of us knew. republicans whom the British Army had succeeded previously employed by the British Army in various single General Officer Commanding The ten year war in Oman/Dhofar which in ‘turning’. Its activities were at their height in 1972. colonial conflicts: The answer is to be found in the ongoing the British Army in the north in the saw the SAS hired out as mercenaries They killed at least two civilians and injured several • Sleep deprivation impact of British military policies and 1970s had seen military service in the to the Sultan may have been cloaked more. The unit had a short lifespan and was disbanded • White noise practices in the north of Ireland in the ‘colonies’. in exceptional secrecy but the human after the debacle of the Four Square Laundry (a bogus • Hooding early 1970s. Policies and practices that Prior colonial service was not limited rights abuses that occurred elsewhere laundry service) affair in October 1972. It was replaced • Wall-standing/ stress positions were to leave a disastrous legacy, in to the ranks of the military. Two RUC hardly received the attention that by the more disciplined and centralised Special • Deprivation of food and drink particular on working class nationalist/ Chief Constables in the 1970s had they should have back in Britain. To Reconnaissance Unit (SRU). The ‘Hooded Men’ also describe a 6th technique- republican communities. Unarmed served as colonial police. Arthur Young this day there is little mention of the extreme beating! civilians were shot dead by British served in Malaya and Kenya though dark side of the empire in the school troops with impunity. Daily harassment it should be noted that Young was curriculum, in parliament, or in the and repression was the norm and even apparently appalled by the atrocities media. The Imperial War Museum now new evidence is emerging of being carried out in Kenya by British tells a fascinating story but the torture, INTERNMENT horrendous cases of torture including forces and left after less than eight massacres and repression that were WATERBOARDING Internment without trial was introduced in Northern the use of waterboarding and electric months. a hallmark of empire is conspicuous Ireland on 9 August 1971 and ended in December 1975. “Waterboarding” is when a person’s face is tipped back shocks. Kenneth Newman’s stint in Palestine as by its absence from the exhibitions. It had been several months in planning. A decision was and water poured into their mouth and nose, filling their Relatives of those who were killed (and a young officer coincided with a reign of Little wonder that the same violations taken that only Catholics should be interned at the airways and giving them a strong sensation of imminent were then labelled terrorists, gunmen terror led by Major General Henry Tudor have recurred more recently in Iraq outset. It was a complete disaster – it led to a massive drowning. and bombers) continue to seek truth of the Mandate Police Force. Tudor had and Afghanistan. The then Attorney escalation in violence and swelled the ranks of the IRA. PFC has uncovered contemporaneous evidence that and acknowledgement. Many of the form. He had created and commanded General, in evidence to the European Loyalists began to be interned in February 1973 after this technique, although not called ‘waterboarding’ at victims of torture are still with us. the Infamous Black and Tans during Commission of Human Rights on 8 an outcry about a sectarian murder. This, however, was the time, was employed by the British Army in Northern And crucially, the military policies the Irish War of Independence and February 1977, made a solemn promise nothing more than a cosmetic exercise and, by the time Ireland during the 1970s. and practices that defined Operation succeeded in bringing many of his that the Five Techniques would never internment ended, of 1,981 persons detained, only 107 Banner, the military name for former Tan comrades with him to again be permitted. Not long after the (5.4%) were Protestants. deployment in the North from 1969 to Palestine. Between 75% and 95% of Iraq invasion British army units began 2007, did not begin nor did they end on the gendarmerie that he commanded interrogating prisoners using the Five the island of Ireland. were former ‘Tans’. Techniques. Internment, mass screening of In 1971 allegations of torture began civilians, the use of the five torture to emerge from interrogation centres We all pay the price for the collective techniques, waterboarding and in the north. This led to the Irish failure to face up to the poisonous electric shocks, states of emergency, Government taking a case to the legacy of empire. massacres by troops and the use European Commission of Human “If South Armagh were a of undercover secret units had long Rights, followed by the European Court For further information about the province in Malaya many of been standard practice in the counter- of Human Rights. The location of the ‘Legacy of Colonialism’ project, insurgency wars fought during the most egregious torture, including the including further reading, sources and its Catholic inhabitants would retreat from empire. use of the ‘Five Techniques’, has only copyright information relating to the have had their homes burned Troops who stepped off boats in Derry recently been revealed. Declassified images used, please visit our website and Belfast in 1969 were often fresh documents found by the Pat Finucane www.patfinucancecentre.org down and have been either from other brutalising conflicts as the Centre confirmed that a selected group forcibly resettled in heavily sun began to set on the empire. That of men were tortured at Ballykelly units such as the Parachute Regiment army camp near Derry. policed ‘new villages’ or would go on to commit massacres The same documents contain the deported across the border.” (Bloody Sunday, Ballymurphy, name of a senior officer, an expert in Springhill) or use waterboarding on interrogation