Photojournalism by Neil Jackson

1. Conflict Five: Ulster

2. ‘ You lying BBC; you’re photographing things that aren’t happening.’ Belfast woman to a BBC cameraman ‘ More than 50% of persons with schizophrenia are not receiving appropriate care.’ World Health Organisation

3. ‘ I’ve had it, Johnty. I’ve seen enough. I have seen them with big boxes of money from their drugs and their racketeering, sharing it out among them,’ he said, ‘There are no soldiers in it, Johnty. It’s all a waste of time,’ he added. Kenneth Barrett, second-in-command to Jim Spence, ‘Brigadier’ of Loyalist paramilitaries 1 Battalion UDA/UFF, offers himself up as a police informer to RUC CID-man Johnston Brown: Into the Dark: Thirty Years in the RUC. Barrett was the man who murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane ‘ In other words, a crack gang works pretty much like the standard capitalist enterprise: you have to be near the top of the pyramid to make a big wage. Notwithstanding the leadership's rhetoric about the family nature of the business, the gang's wages are about as skewed as wages in corporate America. A foot soldier had plenty in common with a McDonald's burger flipper or a Wal-Mart shelf stocker... ‘ You got all these niggers below you who want your job, you dig?’ he said. ‘ So, you know, you try to take care of them, but you know, you also have to show them you the boss. You always have to get yours first, or else you really ain't no leader. If you start taking losses, they see you as weak and shit.’’ The leader of a Chicago crack gang explains to ethnographer Sudhir Venkatesh why his foot soldiers receive paltry wages Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics

4. ‘ Scap would later tell his FRU (Force Research Unit – specialist military intelligence) handlers how he had watched senior Provos in the Republican clubs and pubs playing their roles, throwing their weight around, throwing IRA money around, buying drinks, acting the hard men and expecting to be treated like privileged leaders. And Scap knew that all the money came from collections made in bars and clubs from the hard-pressed, deprived Catholic community… Scap noted that these same men hardly ever put themselves at risk.’ Nicholas Davies, Dead Men Talking According to Davies, Freddie Scappaticci was the British government’s top spy in their war against the IRA, rising from street hooligan to chief torturer in the infamous ‘Nutting Squad’, tasked with interrogating suspected informers – informers like himself. ‘ Although it is not known who shot (campaigning journalist Martin) O'Hagan, he had recently expressed concern after being told that he was possibly under surveillance by members of the splinter loyalist group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). The LVF had harboured a grudge against him for years because he had exposed how they combined a campaign of nakedly sectarian assassinations against Catholics with a large illegal drugs distribution network.’ Obituary, guardian.co.uk , October 1, 2001

5. ‘ For howbeit the Irish might do very good Service, being a People removed from the Scottish, as well in Affectations as Religion; yet it is not safe to train them up more than needs must in the military Way.’ Thomas Wentworth, letter to King Charles 1, 1638 ‘ The fools, the fools, the fools! – they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.’ Easter-rising leader Patrick Pearse giving a eulogy at the funeral of O’Donovan Rossa. Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, August 1, 1915

6. ‘ Many in this audience employ Catholics, but I have not one about my place. Catholics are out to destroy Ulster...If we in Ulster allow Roman Catholics to work on our farms we are traitors to Ulster... I would appeal to loyalists, therefore, wherever possible, to employ good Protestant lads and lassies.’ The then Minister for Agriculture Basil Brooke MP and later Prime Minister of Northern Ireland for 20 years, speaking at an Orange Institution rally, July 12, 1933 (Next): The Republican Memorial in Milltown Cemetery, Andersonstown district of West Belfast, scene of the Michael Stone shooting which killed three and left four others seriously injured in 1988. Released as part of the Good Friday deal, he was again convicted for violence: attempted murder during a November 2006 attack at the Stormont parliament buildings

9. ‘ IT’S IRA WHO SHOOT TO KILL Undercover troops shot dead three men robbing a betting shop in West Belfast. The robbers were brandishing replica guns indistinguishable from the real thing. Whining do-gooders joined by Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA – immediately jumped on the left-wing bandwagon, and demanded to know whether our forces are operating a shoot to kill policy. The three villains – all with records as long as your arm – were dressed in IRA ‘uniform’ of black balaclavas and black woollen gloves. The Army must not waste time on a ridiculous inquiry into these absurd allegations. Anyone who tries to commit robbery in Northern Ireland carrying weapons – or lifelike replicas – can hardly expect to be welcomed with tea and scones. And do people have to be reminded: it is the IRA who STARTED the shoot-to-kill policy.’ ‘ WE WANT THE FACTS No one is above the law. And that includes the security forces in the North. Last Saturday in Belfast they shot dead three raiders outside a betting shop in what can only be described as strange circumstances. Taoiseach Charles Haughey rightly said that his Government had ‘serious disquiet and misgivings’ about the incident. But yesterday in the House of Commons Ulster supremo, Peter Brooke, refused demands from MPs to hold an independent inquiry. Not good enough, Mr Brooke. Surely you cannot dismiss so lightly reports of eye-witnesses who said that even after the raiders had stopped, further shots were fired into their bodies. The Government here must not let the matter rest. They must insist that all the facts are brought fully into the open. Nothing else will satisfy decent people.’ Source: UK Press Gazette, January 29, 1990. Spotter: David Miller, Don’t Mention the War (London edition, Daily Star) (Dublin edition, Daily Star) The press were also in two minds about the situation in Ulster. Following are two reports in the same newspaper, but from different editions: London and Dublin

11. ‘‘ You’re welcome here today. It’s not often that we see you protecting us.’ Her casual remark lingered in my mind, and I was to ponder on it long afterwards.’ RUC chief constable Sir John Hermon recalls the comment of a young Catholic waitress in 1953, after the police thwarting of a Protestant flute band’s attempt to march through the village of Dungiven in County Londonderry, Holding the Line ‘ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.’ George Orwell, Nineteen-Eightyfour

12. ‘ What was this alleged bigger picture? I really would like to have known. No matter. The decisions were made and no-one dared to question them. Such was the absolute power of the Special Branch. They had taken this self-confessed killer, a man hated and feared by his own community, had dressed him up in some intelligence ‘glad rags’ and had convinced our most senior police that he was something holy, something good, something vital to their operational strategy. Was he? Even if he was, did this really warrant maintaining his credibility? They had argued vehemently that it did. The force within a force had moved to protect him and God knows how many of his co-conspirators.’ Johnston Brown, Into the Dark Falls Road area, West Belfast, Autumn 1999. People live in these terraced houses, and the building overlooking their homes is a police station. For decades, Belfast CID Detective Sergeant Johnston Brown faced continual obstruction by sinister elements within RUC Special Branch and almost no support from his CID superiors whenever they were alerted to potentially fatal malpractice

14. ‘ (From thread) ChrisyBhoy Apr 4 2004, 11:30 AM Can anyone help me with the lyrics to this song? I dunno which is the proper name for it as I've seen it called both, but the chorus goes... Give me the Irish Republican Army Give me the Green, White and Gold every time. Give me the Three-Leafed Shamrock of Ireland. A land that I love so divine. Send the English back where they came from (TO HELL!) Make our land ours once again. Give me the Irish Republican Army. To make our land a nation once again. Southsider’ celtic-lyrics.com ‘ My mind wandered on through the years to the Fenians and one man stuck out in my mind, not a Fenian, but a man called Francis Meagher who brought the flag that we all love, our Tricolour. He said, ‘I have brought this flag from the barricades of France and I am presenting it to the Irish nation. Green represents the Catholic, the Orange the Protestant and the white the truce between them.’ I hope that one day the hand of Protestant and Catholic will be united and respect that flag.’ Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, An Irish Eye Next frame: a fortified police station

17. ‘ You have sold Ulster to buy off the fiendish republican scum. You will learn in a bitter school that all appeasement of these monsters is self-destructive.’ Reverend Ian Paisley, ordained in 1946, quoted in The Independent, December 16, 1993 ‘ If anyone says, “I love God”, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.’ Bible , 1 John, 4:20

18. On that June day, Paisley’s Ulster Protestant Volunteers paraded through the Catholic Cromac Square area of Belfast, initiating violent protest from the Catholic community. Right: Shankill Road area,West Belfast, 1993. These children are standing on concrete blocks, used to hinder vehicle-borne gunmen ‘ If there was any time at which the rising threat of Paisleyism might have been halted, it was, I believe, following that evening of 6 June 1966. By 1968, the divisions within the traditional Unionist Government, the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement, and the capacity of the IRA to infiltrate it, made conflict inevitable.’ Sir John Hermon, Holding the Line

21. ‘ Education is a treasure, and culture never dies.’ The Roman writer Petronius (1 st Century), Satyricon, sec 47 ‘ Martin McGuinness, Mid Ulster Born 23 May, 1950; Educated Christian Brothers’ Technical College… Special Interests ; South Africa Recreations ; cooking, walking, reading, fly-fishing.’ DOD’s Parliamentary Companion 2001 … and writing poetry: ‘ Purple-heathered hillsides clothe the peaty bogs, leaching streams of water, swimming pools for frogs.’ Martin McGuinness

22. ‘ Martin McGuinness also came down for the night with a few of his cronies, and they just about wrecked the hotel we were staying in. They sprayed water all over every bedroom and smashed the floorboards on the landing and stairs. There was about £5,000 worth of damage altogether, which was quietly paid out of IRA funds. The boys also nicked thousands of pounds of gear from a fishing tackle shop. We all piled in there, and while I and a few of the others were buying hooks and bait, Stud McGinty, Sean McArdle and Paddy Lawler sneaked out of the door with four or five fishing rods each. I couldn’t believe my eyes. If any kid had tried it, he’d have been knee-capped, but here were the top Derry IRA men claiming to be upholders of the law, hooding with impunity. The owner sensed something was going on, but was probably too scared to say anything.’ RUC agent Raymond Gilmour, who now lives in hiding outside Northern Ireland, in Dead Ground Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness MP was Education Minister on the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1998 until 2007

24. ‘ I conclude there was collusion in both murders (of Pat Finucane and mistakenly targeted protestant student Brian Lambert) and the circumstances surrounding them. Collusion is evidenced in many ways. This ranges from the wilful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence, through to the extreme of agents being involved in murder.’ Sir John Stevens, Stevens Enquiry Three, Chapter 4, section 4.7 Lawyer Pat Finucane’s name was selected for his 1989 murder by Brian Nelson who was handled by the British Army’s Force Research Unit, a shadowy group of Intelligence Corps agent handlers. Loyalist paramilitaries The Red Hand Defenders claimed to have carried out the 1999 murder of fellow solicitor Rosemary Nelson. How far up this collusion went is not open to debate – the British government are refusing to allow an independent public inquiry, choosing instead to keep any inquiry ‘in-house’. Whether the FRU were inept with their record-keeping, as they claimed to the Stephens Inquiry – or whether they ordered the murders – is the million-dollar question. A question which might now be asked…

25. ‘ The UK Government is quite clear that an inquiry under the Inquiries Act would provide a full, effective and independent examination of the circumstances of Mr Finucane’s death, whilst taking into account the legitimate need to protect national security and the safety of individuals. It is the UK Government’s view that inquiries under the Inquiries Act are perfectly capable of meeting all international human rights obligations.’ UK government submission to the UN Committee on Human Rights, July 2008

26. ‘ UN Human Rights Committee recommendation, July 2008: 9. The Committee remains concerned that, a considerable time after murders (including of human rights defenders) in Northern Ireland have occurred, several inquiries into these murders have still not been established or concluded, and that those responsible for these deaths have not yet been prosecuted. Even where inquiries have been established, the Committee is concerned that instead of being under the control of an independent judge, several of these inquiries are conducted under the Inquiries Act 2005 which allows the Government minister who is responsible for establishing an inquiry to control important aspects of that inquiry. (art.6)’ Others disagree…

27. including the most powerful man in the world. As a Senator, President Obama’s advisers responded to a questionnaire from the pressure group Irish American Unity Conference thus : ‘ Senator Obama believes there should be an independent, public inquiry as Judge Cory recommended.’ (Retired Canadian judge Peter Cory examined allegations of security force collusion in eight of the most controversial killings of the Troubles.) Perhaps the attention of President Obama, himself a former civil rights attorney (lawyer), will help expose the extent of collusion in Northern Ireland. Then, hopefully, the people of the Province will have conclusion, and be able to move on Others disagree… Next: Crumlin Road, West Belfast, Autumn 1999

31. As well as the Army’s Force Research Unit undercover agent handlers, commanded by Brigadier (then Colonel) Gordon Kerr, the Stevens Inquiries found evidence of collusion by rogue elements within RUC Special Branch, discrediting an otherwise excellent, mostly impartial police force. The RUC had borne the brunt of political violence and murders for three decades, yet they were disbanded, brought down because they had shut their eyes to the truth. By taking a side, the bigots undermined the entire police force, allowing the sectarian terrorists to point a reproaching finger and thus recruit more to their blood-spattered colours. In its place, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, deemed more acceptable to both sides of the fractured population. The cancer of sectarianism, fed by poverty and indoctrination, seems subdued. For now. The schoolchildren of Ulster are still mostly segregated, and the gable ends still glorify the paramilitaries. Many of who’s heroes are now making a nice living as drug-pushers. Because, for the most-part, that is all the gunmen ever amounted to. Green, white and gold? Gold is where it’s at This has been an extract from Conflict . Click here to visit Conflict