Derek Wilford Archives - Village Magazine

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Vilifying the victims: two of the most vile British Intelligence smear campaigns of the Troubles blamed innocent murder victims for their own demise. By David Burke.

by admin 4 September, 2022 0 Comments

The Information Research Department (IRD) of Britain’s Foreign Office sought to smear the victims of Bloody Sunday and the McGurks bar bomb atrocity. They even went so far as to attack a group of British politicians by linking them to a campaign for justice for the victims of Bloody Sunday. To the IRD, any association with the campaign for justice for the victims of Bloody Sunday was a shameful act. On 30 January 1972, British paratroopers murdered 13 unarmed civilians in Derry, none of whom posed any sort of a threat to the military – unless, that is, you consider the waving of a white piece of cloth in the air a potentially lethal act. Within minutes Britain’s black propaganda machine swung into action. The head of the Army’s PsyOps department, Col Maurice Tugwell, who had joined the British Army in Derry, was among them. Upfront, Col Derek Wilford, the cowardly commander of 1 Para (cowardly because he has sacrificed his own men by lying about the orders he gave them to save his own skin) spewed out a torrent of lies about an imaginary attack on his troops by the IRA. Later, the Information Research Department (IRD) of the Foreign Office took over the smear campaign against the Bloody Sunday campaigners. A man with deep Irish roots – Hugh Mooney – led the IRD charge. Mooney was a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. He had once worked for the Irish Times. As an IRD officer, Mooney was complicit in a multiplicity of MI6-IRD smear campaigns. An indication of his mindset can be gleaned from the fact that when he later tried to smear leading members of the British Labour Party, he felt the best way to bring them into disrepute was to link them to the families of the victims of Bloody Sunday. (This episode, and a forged document the IRD created to further it, are described more fully later in this article.) Mooney had assets in the British press. One of them was a Tory guru called Tom Utley. Ultley was a British intelligence ‘agent of influence’ or in modern parlance, an ‘influencer’. At the time of the Bloody Sunday massacre, Utley was working for the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, both pro-Tory papers popular with middle and upper class Britain. Mooney and Utley discussed the Bloody Sunday problem together. It was ultimately resolved that Utley would write a paperback about it. According to a confidential letter dated 24 March 1972, the FCO reported to the MoD that Utley hoped to ‘complete the writing in about six weeks, though this may be a little over-ambitious’. According to the letter, he was ‘obviously’ going to ‘need a certain amount of help from Army PR, particularly on the propaganda aspect’. While Utley failed to produce the book, in 1975 he published the rather grandiosely titled ‘Lessons of Ulster’ which took a broader look at Northern Ireland and a litany of developments that had occurred in the meantime. An indication of his mind-set can be gauged from the fact that he objected to the use of the phrase ‘Bloody Sunday’, something he described as ‘slavish obedience to IRA mythology’. He argued that some of those killed were ‘fresh-faced boys who might otherwise have lived to swell the ranks of patriotic militancy’. In other words, they probably would have joined the IRA if they had not been shot. An indication of his mind-set can be gauged from the fact that he objected to the use of the phrase ‘Bloody Sunday’, something he described as ‘slavish obedience to IRA mythology’. He argued that some of those killed were ‘fresh-faced boys who might otherwise have lived to swell the ranks of patriotic militancy’. In other words, they probably would have joined the IRA if they had not been shot. The IRD demonised the families of the victims of Bloody Sunday and those who supported them. Clearly, they believed they had turned them into political untouchables. Hence, they felt they could undermine British Labour Party MPs by associating them with the Bloody Sunday quest for justice. Towards this end, the IRD forged a pamphlet based on a genuine Bloody Sunday campaign leaflet. The original is reproduced hereunder: Merlyn Rees, who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (and later as Home Secretary) was undermined – at least in the eyes of Mooney and his IRD colleagues – by linking him to the Bloody Sunday campaign. His name was added to the IRD forgery which appears under this paragraph. (See the bottom of the left hand column). A man called Stan Newens appears on the authentic pamphlet. He was supplanted by Stan Orme MP on the fabricated version. In a similar fashion, Tony Smythe became Tony Benn. David Owen MP was added to the list too. Owen, however, had the last laugh: when he became Foreign Secretary later in the 1970s, he abolished the IRD. Mooney deployed a similar tactic to smear Charles Haughey TD of Fianna Fail, i.e., he took an original document produced in Ireland and doctored it to include smears about Haughey before printing his own version in London. Mooney was also responsible for the smear campaign against the victims of the McGurks bar bomb atrocity. 15 innocent people were murdered when the UVF attack McGurks bar in Belfast in December 1971. The black propagandists issued a statement insinuating that at least some of the victims of the attack were responsible for their own demise. The propagandists alleged that the bomb had been brought inside the pub by an IRA unit and had exploded prematurely – a so-called ‘own goal’. The campaign was furthered by statements by politicians. See Alleged disappearance of UVF Bomb Massacre Files: MoD excuse for destruction of Brigadier Kitson’s logs is far from convincing. By David Burke. Despite the best efforts of David Owen, the black propagandists found other avenues through which they managed to smear their victims including Charles Haughey. David Burke is the author of

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Lord Widgery, the judge who covered-up the murders of Bloody Sunday. How and why he did it.

by admin 21 April, 2022 0 Comments

By David Burke. This article was first published on 2 July 2021. It is republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lord Widgery’s infamous report which defamed the victims of Bloody Sunday and exculpated those who murdered them. 1. Brigadier Frank Kitson subverts the law. Brigadier Frank Kitson of the British Army was a so-called counterinsurgency guru. He was sent to Northern Ireland in 1970 to tackle the IRA. The following year his astonishingly indiscreet book, ‘Low Intensity Operations’ was published. In it he explained that there were two ways of administering the law during a counterinsurgency, the first one being that: the law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal, and in this case it becomes little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public. For this to happen efficiently, the activities of the legal services have to be tied into the war effort in as discreet a way as possible … The other alternative is that the law should remain impartial and administer the laws of the country without any direction from the government. [Kitson (1971), p. 69.] The first tribunal investigating the events of Bloody Sunday – Widgery – is a good example of how the law was used as “just another weapon in the government’s arsenal”. On Monday 31 January 1972, Tory Home Secretary Reginald Maudling announced in the House of Commons that there would be a judicial inquiry into the Derry massacre. That evening British Prime Minister Ted Heath and Hailsham, his Lord Chancellor, asked Lord Chief Justice Widgery to chair it. Widgery had been a surprise appointment as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales by the Tories the previous year. He was not viewed as a jurist of the first rank by his peers. His career was one which would ultimately descend into bedlam. Private Eye magazine would report that “he sits hunched and scowling, squinting into his books from a range of three inches, his wig awry. He keeps up a muttered commentary of bad-tempered and irrelevant questions – ‘What d’you say?’, ‘Speak up’, ‘Don’t shout’, ‘Whipper-snapper’, etc”. [Private Eye Issue 436, 1 September 1978.] These comments were published two years before he stepped down from the bench. The view expressed by the Eye is reflective of Widgery’s reputation for having been ‘difficult’ by members of the Bar in Britain. ‘Difficult’ in this context is a polite euphemism. Widgery was despised by the legal profession which viewed him as a second rate political appointee who strove to conceal his shortcomings in the traditional manner of the lower tier judge: by hectoring, pelting and bullying. 2. Judicial compromise The night before Heath asked Widgery to conduct an inquiry, he had expressed his belief to Taoiseach Jack Lynch that Kitson’s paratroopers had behaved properly in Derry. If Heath truly believed what he had said to Lynch, he had an unusual way of showing it. He chose Widgery – a safe pair of hands – and left him in no doubt that he was to pervert the course of justice. At the meeting on 31 January Heath told Widgery that it “had to be remembered that we were in Northern Ireland fighting not only a military war but a propaganda war”. It is hard to conceive of a more compromising comment made by a British prime minister to a senior member of the judiciary, let alone the man at its pinnacle. No matter what way one looks at it, the comment demonstrates a breath-taking lack of esteem on the part of Heath for the independence of the judiciary. Yet Widgery did not rise to his feet and leave the room in protest. Instead, he did what his master bid him to do. 3. An Allegedly Independent Judge pre-judges the Murder Victims by Attending a Meeting at which they were referred to as ‘the other side’ At the same meeting at which Heath had given Widgery his riding orders, the parties to the discussion had also referred to the victims as the ‘other side’. [Para (viii) of minute of meeting of 31 January 1972.] Moreover, according to confidential notes by a Widgery associate, the “LCJ” [Lord Chief Justice] could be counted on to “pile up the case against the deceased” even though the evidence provided “a large benefit of the doubt to the deceased.” [‘Hidden Truths’ (1998), p. 95. 4. Threats to Muzzle the Ever Compliant British Media In the days after the massacre, the journalist Murray Sayle and his colleagues completed a report which was submitted to the Sunday Times. There was internal opposition to its conclusion, namely that Colonel Derek Wilford, who had led 1 Para in Derry on Bloody Sunday, had set out to provoke the IRA into coming out into the open so his troops could wipe them out. Harold Evans, the editor of the paper, decided to ring Widgery. “I said we had done a great deal of interviewing and proposed to publish this Sunday. We also had compelling photographs. I told him I presumed contempt would not apply since nobody had yet been accused. It would be an exaggeration to say he was aghast, but he made it very clear it would be ‘unhelpful’ to publish anything and yes, he would apply the rules of contempt. .. I withheld the article, but that week I took the chance of publishing the shocking photographs by Gilles Peress of unarmed men being shot”. [Harold Evans, ‘My Paper Chase, True Stories of Vanished Times’ (Little, Brown and Co, New York, 2009), p 474.] On Sunday 6 February, the paper reported that, “The law is that until the Lord Chief Justice completes his enquiry nobody may offer to the British public any consecutive account of the events in Derry last weekend”. [Sunday Times 6 February 1972.] Heath’s press office rowed in declaring that anything which anticipated the Tribunal’s findings would amount to contempt. This was a highly contentious assertion without

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The covert plan to smash the IRA in Derry on Bloody Sunday by David Burke

by admin 17 December, 2021 0 Comments

Introduction. The 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre falls next month. The official position of the British Government is based on the 2010 report of Lord Saville of Newdigate, i.e., that a group of paratroopers engaged in the massacre of thirteen innocent people in Derry with a fourteenth dying later, for no reason. Unfortunately, Saville ignored or discounted much evidence that indicates that the soldiers were acting on orders. He paid scant attention to the crucial role played by a deceitful agent run by Military Intelligence and MI5 called ‘Observer B’. He was unduly harsh on Byron Lewis, a paratrooper who blew the whistle on his colleagues. The two companies of paratroopers of 1 Para that went to Derry on Bloody Sunday were meant to be on the same mission, following the same orders. Yet, they behaved as if they were on different operations. The orders followed by Support Company, also known as ‘Kitson’s Private Army’, indicates that a secret mission was assigned to them, or some designated number of them. The ‘Kitson’ referred to here was Brigadier Frank Kitson, the counter-insurgency specialist who ran Belfast and its environs. 1. Chain of Command The senior British officers present in Derry on Bloody Sunday and mentioned in this article in order of their seniority were: General Robert Ford, Commander Land Forces Northern Ireland. Brigadier Patrick MacLellan of 8 Brigade, which ran Derry. Colonel Derek Wilford, who commanded 1 Para. Major Edward Loden who commanded Support Company of 1 Para. No criticism is made of Brigadier MacLellan in this article. If there was a hidden plan that unfolded on Bloody Sunday, it was conceived and executed behind his back. 2. General Ford foists 1 Para on Brigadier MacLellan In the run up to Bloody Sunday, the Brigadier of 8 Brigade in Derry, Patrick MacLellan, was ordered by his immediate superior, General Robert Ford, to make preparations to prevent a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) march from reaching the Guildhall in Derry on 30 January 1972. Ford was based at HQNI at Lisburn. MacLellan was lent troops from 1 Para to assist him on Bloody Sunday, or so he was led to believe. 1 Para was based at Palace Barracks, Hollywood, outside Belfast. They normally conducted their operations in that city. 3. ‘Corking the bottle’ Ostensibly, the plan for 30 January was to prevent the NICRA march from reaching the Guildhall and, if appropriate, arrest likely rioters. The rioters were to be caught by putting “a cork in the bottle”, as Captain (later General Sir) Michael Jackson of 1 Para has described it. This meant encircling and trapping the rioters before arresting them. This operation was to take place at the end of William Street. Please look at the map which accompanies this article. The rioters were to be captured between Barrier 14 (shaded yellow) and the junction of Little James Street and William Street. The Support Company troops who were meant to be behind Barrier 12 (shaded red) could have swung around from Little James Street (red arrow) and blocked an escape route back along William Street or up Rossville Street. The peaceful NICRA marchers followed the line shaded in purple from William Street to Rossville Street. A group of rioters did present on the day. 4. Two Companies which were meant to – but didn’t – perform the same task Two different companies from 1 Para were sent to Derry on Bloody Sunday: C Company and Support Company. In theory, they fell under the temporary command of Brig. MacLellan. (Their brigadier in Belfast was Brigadier Frank Kitson). Although both groups were allegedly assigned the same task by their commander, Col Wilford, Support Company behaved in a completely different manner to C Company. C Company was put behind Barrier 14. Support Company was sent to a yard at a Presbyterian Church on Great James Street which was much further away from the area where the rioting was expected to take place. 5. Differences in preparation and deployment There were a number of differences in the deployment of the two companies [C company and Support Company], which include the following: Location of Forming Up Points (FUPs) Use of rifles instead of batons; Application of war paint; Use of vehicles; Discharge of shots. {i} Location of Forming Up Points (FUPs) C Company’s FUP was behind Barrier 14 which is shown on the map that accompanies this article. This makes sense in terms of MacLellan’s plan. They were well positioned to block the march should an attempt have been made to break through to the Guildhall. It also left them strategically placed to rush forward and encircle any potential rioters. Support Company would have been well advised to have formed up as close to the junction between William Street and Little James Street as possible. Barrier 12 should have been moved up much closer to the junction. They should have been behind it in light clothes ready to swing around to ‘cork the bottle’. The two companies could have infiltrated the side roads as well and thereby blocked any attempts to escape through them. Yet, Support Company – based at the churchyard – were not within running distance from the likely rioters whom the army termed the ‘DYH’ [the Derry Young Hooligans]. There was little chance that Support Company could ‘cork the bottle’ from a starting point at the Presbyterian Church on Great James Street. The rioters would have seen soldiers running at them from Little James Street in plenty of time to make an escape by sprinting up Rossville Street. The deployment of Support Company at the church was guaranteed to defeat the purpose of MacLellan’s arrest plan. {ii} Primary use of rifles instead of batons; C Company wielded batons or kept their arms free to grab, wrestle and tackle the rioters when they went into action. Some may have used the butts of rifles strapped over their shoulders to strike the rioters. Crucially, they did not deploy with fingers on

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Politics

Soldier F’s Bloody Sunday secrets. David Cleary knows enough to blackmail the British government.

by admin 6 November, 2021 0 Comments

By David Burke, author of ‘Kitson’s Irish War: Mastermind of the Dirty War in Ireland’. 1. Kitson’s Private Army. Lance Corporal David Cleary was a member of the elite Support Company of the 1st Parachute Regiment which was commanded by Colonel Derek Wilford. Wilford reported upwards to Brigadier Frank Kitson. All were assigned to 39 Brigade area which operated in Belfast and its environs. Support Company of 1 Para was known as ‘Kitson’s Private Army’ and was infamous for its brutal behaviour in Belfast. Kitson reported upwards to General Ford at British Army HQNI at Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn. Lance Corporal Cleary was ‘gazetted’ or ‘mentioned in dispatches’ for his “gallant” behaviour during the internment swoops of August 1971. Cleary could not have received that minor honour without the full support of his superiors. Clearly, he was one of the more important soldiers in Kitson’s Private Army. 2. Kitson’s Private Army is sent ‘on loan’ to Derry. Brigadier Patrick MacLellan of 8 Brigade in Derry also reported to General Ford. 1 Para was sent on loan to Brigadier MacLellan to assist him block a NICRA march from reaching the centre of Derry city on 30 January 1972. The troops of 1 Para were merely meant to man a few barriers and be on standby to conduct a possible snatch and arrest operation if rioting by youths got out of hand. On the afternoon of 30 January 1972, Cleary perpetrated his infamous murder spree. There are a number of indications that his behaviour was part of a ruthless counter-insurgency strategy formulated in Belfast behind the back of 8 Brigade. The plan was to wipe out the IRA in the Bogside and Creggan and put an end to the ‘no-go’ area that had become known around the world as “Free Derry”. The official British narrative is that of Lord Saville. His inquiry concluded in 2010 that Cleary and his colleagues span out of control at the same time, disobeyed orders in unison and murdered unarmed civilians as a pack for some utterly inexplicable reason. 3. Military Intelligence and MI5. A clue as to what happened on Bloody Sunday can be gleaned from the fact British military intelligence and MI5 were in receipt of information that 40 Republican gunmen were going to be present in the vicinity of the Rossville Flats (shown on the map below). The information, however, was fallacious. What is crucial to appreciate is that the spy’s handlers believed the information was true. On Bloody Sunday the troops of Support Company raced up Rossville Street in a convoy of military personnel carriers (‘pigs’) which fanned out into an attack formation as if to confront a salvo of bullets from IRA gunmen. Instead, they encountered the harmless occupants of a nearby barricade and then proceeded to murder them before killing other unarmed civilians in the vicinity. The overwhelming majority of their victime were male and young. Typical, IRA volunteers were young men. Cleary was one of the most violent of the killers. He shot a number of people in the back. One of them was lying on the ground. He aimed at his anus so the bullet would travel up and demolish his spine. He blew apart the skull of another man who was walking towards a fallen victim while waving a piece of cloth. 4. Secret Orders. Aside from two or three Official IRA members who fired a few shots on Bloody Sunday, there were no armed and active Republicans in the Bogside. The Official IRA discharges did not spark the massacre. The Provisional IRA did not take up any arms at all that day. Support Company ended up murdering unarmed civilians, none of whom presented them with any danger. Shortly before the massacre, Cleary (Soldier F) received a visit from his commander, Colonel Derek Wilford at the yard which the company was using as its temporary HQ beside a church. As Cleary let slip in a statement he made nearly 50 years ago to the Widgery tribunal, the visit was an ‘unusual’ development. For the avoidance of any doubt the word he – Cleary – used in that statement was ‘unusual’. Cleary and his Widgery tribunal minders must have included the reference to Wilford’s visit in the statement as there were multiple witnesses to it. Furthermore, Wilford was scheduled to testify at the Widgery tribunal where he was likely to describe his movements anyway. Cleary, however, did not reveal what orders Wilford gave him during their discussion. Soldier G, another of the Bloody Sunday killers, was present for the meeting. Wilford probably gave them orders – or confirmed earlier instructions – to open fire as soon as they got out of their ‘pig’ at the 40 IRA gunmen the dubious intelligence source has said would be waiting for them. 5. C Company, the fig leaf for the assassins of Support Company. Wilford had taken C Company and Support Company to Derry. The soldiers of C Company dressed in the type of outfits they wore when arresting rioters in Belfast. Their clothing was light. They were unencumbered by equipment. All of this enabled them to run at speed to catch fleeing rioters. They formed up behind Barrier 14 (which can be seen on the left of the illustration with this article). MacLellan’s plan was to divert the NICRA march around the corner between William Street and Rossville Street up towards the Rossville Flats. Officially, C Company was under the command of Brigadier MacLellan of Derry’s 8 Brigade for the day. He had instructed all of the troops of 1 Para to remain on foot and confine their actions to the vicinity of William Street where the rioting was expected to take place. Unlike Support Company which disregarded most of MacLellan’s orders, C Company paid them some heed. 6. General Ford. Bloody Sunday would not have happened if C Company and Support Company had not been ordered into action. MacLellan had not wanted to release them but was told so to

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General

Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it?

by admin 6 August, 2021 0 Comments

By David Burke. 1. Where was the ‘EFGH’ Unit of Support Company of 1 Para during the Ballymurphy Massacre? Next week marks the 50th anniversary of the introduction of internment. It began on 9 August 1971. By the 11th, ten people had been murdered by paratroopers in Ballymurphy. Earlier this year, the coroner who oversaw the inquest for the victims of the Ballymurphy massacre confirmed that none of them had been involved in violence . Put simply, they were killed in cold blood by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and others working alongside them. One of the victims was a mother who was shot in the head while out looking for her children. It has also emerged that Lance Corporal David James Cleary – better known as Soldier F – was involved in activity deemed “gallantry” by his superiors on 9-11 August. He was ‘mentioned in despatches’ as a result. Those in command of Cleary included Major Edward Loden, Colonel Derek Wilford and Brigadier Frank Kitson. At a minimum, this means Cleary was involved in some sort of military action, probably an operation involving the discharge of his weapon. Bearing in mind the appalling murders he perpetrated in Derry the following January, it is legitimate to ask what he and others in the Support Company of the 1st Parachute Regiment (1 Para) were doing during the various shootings, incidents that are collectively referred to as the Ballymurphy massacre? During the Ballymurphy massacre innocent unarmed civilians were shot dead. They posed no threat to the paratroopers. Some were shot in the back. None had paramilitary connections. This is exactly the type of murderous behaviour in which Cleary engaged when he went to Derry a few months later. The conduct of the paratroopers in Ballymurphy was callous. Joan Connolly was forty years old. She was shot at 7:15 p.m. on 9 August while she scoured the streets for her children. She came across another victim, Noel Phillips, who was lying on the ground. She went to help him. The first bullet threw her to the ground. According to witnesses, after she was hit, she managed to get up again only to be struck by a second round, this one penetrating her head. She had eight children ranging between three and twenty-two. When she was found, half of her skull was missing. Bullets had also penetrated her shoulder, hand and thigh. Her children were taken to Waterford in the Republic of Ireland. They missed her funeral which they saw reported on the television. The victims of the massacre were vilified as rioters and paramilitaries. Cleary was not the only paratrooper ‘mentioned in despatches’ for gallantry in Belfast during 9-11 August who subsequently went to Derry on Bloody Sunday. 2. Support Company Death Squads. 1 and 2 Para had various ‘companies’ including those called ‘support companies’. In normal warfare they carried mortars and provided ‘support’ for the actions of their colleagues. Clearly, there was no need for mortars and the like in Belfast or Derry. Soldiers attached to 1 Para were deployed in Belfast during the August 1971 internment sweeps. 2 Para was also active. It is clear that Support Company of 2 Para was involved in some of the murders in Ballymurphy. Did paratroopers from 2 Para’s Support Company ever transfer to 1 Para or visa versa? If Cleary and the likes of soldiers E, G and H (as they were designated at the Bloody Sunday tribunals) did not transfer from 2 Para to 1 Para, it means that ruthless and callous murderers were assigned to both support companies. Overall, it is probable that Kitson assigned his most ruthless paratroopers to the various support companies under his command, the men willing to shoot unarmed civilians if so ordered. The fact that harmless people were shot in the back, head and whilst crawling along the ground in both Ballymurphy and the Bogside cannot have happened out of the blue. Cleary and his comrades must have been dehumanised and conditioned to do this. That process may have begun in places such as Kenya, Malaya and Aden where the locals were seen as vermin by the troops. If Kitson and his commanders did not order, permit or somehow encourage these elite troops to murder civilians on the street during the Ballymurphy massacre; and they proceeded to do so on their own volition, why did those in command not stop their murderous escapades? Why did the top brass allow them to continue to serve in the ranks? Kitson in particular was a stickler for discipline. One did not step out of line on his watch. Instead, Cleary and his ilk went to the Bogside and Bloody Sunday took place. The Support Company killers active during the Ballymurphy massacre were probably acting on orders from their superiors to provoke the IRA in the hope they would engage in open street fighting with them. The usual tactic of the IRA was to snipe at troops from the shadows and disappear. In addition, the terror unleashed by Kitson’s paratroopers has all the appearance of a punishment administered to the general Nationalist community for harbouring – as Kitson perceived it – the Official and Provisional IRA in their midst. The latter motive was in line with the sinister – albeit orthodox – counterinsurgency methodology of the time. Indeed, Kitson outlined the tactic in his book, ‘Low Intensity Operations’ (1971). See Brigadier Kitson’s motive for murdering unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy. 3. Brigadier Kitson’s direct personal involvement in the vilification of civilians killed by his troops in Belfast. An equally important question is: who instigated the vilification process of the Ballymurphy murder victims? The overwhelming odds are that it was Brigadier Frank Kitson. Simon Winchester, then a young Guardian journalist, has revealed how Kitson manipulated the media. In a Guardian article in May 2001 he described how, after shooting incidents in Belfast, he would often call Kitson who was his “principal contact at army headquarters”. Frank and I liked each

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A Foul Unfinished Business. The shortcomings of, and plots against, Saville’s Bloody Sunday Inquiry.

by admin 24 July, 2021 0 Comments

By David Burke. 1. 50-year Concerted Cover-up. The British government’s determination to absolve all British soldiers involved in killings during the Troubles means that there are now precious few opportunities to get to the bottom of what really happened during the Ballymurphy massacre and on Bloody Sunday. The Bloody Sunday cover-up went into high gear in April 1972 with the report by the duplicitous Freemason and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Widgery. See: Mission accomplished. The unscrupulous judge who covered-up the Bloody Sunday murders. Soldier F and other paratroopers have been protected by the British State for five decades. None of them now face prosecution. This perversion of justice began with the connivance of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, John Widgery, a former British Army brigadier, Freemason and oath-breaker. 2. A stab in the back: the Ministry of Defence’s charade of sympathy while waging a secret black propaganda campaign of vilification. Widgery’s report was condemned as a whitewash around the globe, something that forced the grey-suited gnomes in Whitehall to plot a course correction within two years of its publication. This involved a pretence at sympathy for the relatives of the 14 murder victims of Bloody Sunday. The charade manifested itself in December 1974 when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced that it was going to pay out £41,500 to the families of those killed in Derry as a gesture of “conciliation and goodwill”. Slyly, while this was taking place, a cohort of black propagandists were vilifying the victims of the massacre. The smear campaign was led by Hugh Mooney, T. E. Utley, Brian Crozier and the smearmeisters of the sinister Information Research Department (IRD) of the Foreign Office. The money spent on the various smear campaigns was probably a multiple of the cynical token gesture afforded to the families. The policy of carrot and smear was not a success and the issue remained an open wound. The relatives’ families pressed ahead with a campaign for justice assisted by an array of activists, artists, lawyers, politicians, authors and journalists. Finally, in January 1998, Tony Blair announced a fresh inquiry to be led by Lord Saville of Newdigate. Blair stated that Widgery had rushed his work, had failed to take evidence from the wounded and had not read the eyewitness accounts personally. 3. A cynical prediction about the likely outcome of the Saville Inquiry. Tom Hayden, a Californian State Senator and former anti-war movement leader, who has studied state-sponsored cover-ups, predicted in 1998 that: “The more cynical analysis of the new Bloody Sunday inquiry under Lord Saville is that it will become another exercise in damage control, with perhaps some new drops of truth leaking out. In this scenario, the innocence of the victims will be reaffirmed once more and responsibility for the shooting lodged with an isolated “rogue” element of the army. Any inference of knowledge, complicity, or accountability at higher echelons will be rejected. A further apology will be offered, compensation paid, and perhaps a memorial constructed. As American cover-up and damage-control specialists would say, “let us bottom this up and get it behind us”. [1] 4. The MoD plots to deny Saville access to witnesses. The Ministry of Defence plotted to thwart Saville from the start. Author Anthony Verrier submitted a statement to Saville warning him that: “I know several members of the Parachute Regiment. One particular member of the Battalion in question who was present in Derry on Bloody Sunday was a mature student on one of my courses. I discussed Bloody Sunday with him. My understanding from him was that the soldiers had been instructed not to assist the Inquiry. This student told me that he had received a letter from the MoD which said he would be provided with legal advice should he wish to make a statement to the Inquiry but he was advised not to. He did not want to be involved in the Inquiry and did not want to give evidence. I am not sure if he has made a statement to the Inquiry“. [2] 5. Murder as material for comedy. Soldier Cleary, also known as “Soldier F” shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock while he was on the ground crawling away from him. As he lay crying out in pain, Barney McGuigan stepped forward with a white handkerchief looking to help Doherty. Cleary dropped to one knee, aimed his rifle and shot McGuigan in the head. All of the victims of Bloody Sunday were shot in cold blood. None of them posed any sort of a threat to the elite soldiers of Support Company of 1 Para who slaughtered them. Behind closed door, the civil servants at the MoD had little more than disdain for the victims. They gave the game away when, in 1999, Saville asked them about the whereabouts of the rifles which had been discharged on Bloody Sunday, i.e. the murder weapons which had extinguished the lives of 14 people. This sparked an internal email stating: “The Bloody Sunday Inquiry are after records (if any) of what happened to the Bloody Sunday weapons .. On Tuesday the Battle of Hastings Inquiry will want to find the longbow which put Harold’s eye out!”. [3] An email of such depravity could hardly have been circulated as a joke if the employees at the MoD had an ounce of respect or sympathy for the 14 victims, the many wounded, their distraught relatives and the people of Derry. 6. The MoD secures the anonymity of the Bloody Sunday trigger men Saville made his introductory statement at Derry Guildhall on 3 April 1999. Oral hearings began on 27 March 2000, with an opening speech by Christopher Clarke QC, counsel to the Inquiry. The first witness took the stand on 28 November 2000. The tribunal ruled in December 1998 that the soldiers of 1 Para would be named, save in exceptional cases. The Ministry of Defence appealed this ruling to the Court of Appeal which

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Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Bloody Sunday with the actions of paratroopers in Belfast in August 1971. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy.

by admin 17 July, 2021 0 Comments

By David Burke. 1. “No other perpetrator involved would be given anonymity, for some reason Soldier F is a protected species”. In the last week, Colum Eastwood MP, the Leader of the SDLP, named ‘Soldier F’, in the House of Commons, under privilege. ‘Soldier F’ had faced murder charges for his actions on Bloody Sunday which had been dropped. The world now knows that former Lance Corporal Cleary is ‘Soldier F’. He is a small man who joined the Parachute Regiment in 1966. Eastwood said that, “For 50 years he has been granted anonymity and now the government want to grant him an amnesty. No one involved in murder during the Troubles should be granted an amnesty.” After his speech, Eastwood told BBC NI that: “Over the past couple of weeks his name has been plastered on Free Derry Corner, it has gone viral on social media. The people of Derry know his name. There is no reason for him to be granted anonymity. No other perpetrator involved would be given anonymity, for some reason Soldier F is a protected species.” The Speaker of the Commons has confirmed that Eastwood did not abuse parliamentary privilege in naming Cleary. 2. David Cleary’s Killing Spree. On Bloody Sunday in January 1972 Cleary was conveyed into the Bogside at speed in a Saracen vehicle or “pig”. He and his colleagues leapt out of it and took up positions behind a low wall adjacent to a ramp on Kells Walk from where they shot Michael Kelly. Kelly was unarmed and standing at a nearby rubble barricade, a threat to no one. Cleary and three of his colleagues, Corporal E, Private G, Private H, [the EFGH unit] moved into Glenfada Park North, where their killing spree continued. The Saville Inquiry found that Cleary or Private H shot William McKinney dead; also that this unit was responsible for the shot that wounded Joe Mahon, and that either Cleary or Private G fired the shot that wounded Joe Friel. Saville opined that the EFGH unit also murdered William Wray, injured Joe McMahon, Joe Friel, Michael Quinn and Patrick O’Donnell, and possibly injured Daniel Gillespie. There was no excuse for their behaviour. According to Saville: “In our view none of the soldiers fired in the belief that he might have identified a person in possession of or using or about to use bombs or firearms.” Saville also found that: “The last gunfire casualties were Bernard McGuigan, Patrick Doherty, Patrick Campbell and Daniel McGowan, all shot in the area to the south of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats within a very short time of each other. We are sure that Lance Corporal F [i.e. Cleary] fired at and shot Bernard McGuigan and Patrick Doherty, and it is highly probable that he was also responsible for shooting the other two casualties. This soldier fired across Rossville Street from the Rossville Street entrance way into Glenfada North”. Cleary was a cruel, cynical and clinical killer. He shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock while he was on the ground crawling away from him. As Doherty lay crying out in pain, his life draining away from him, Barney McGuigan, an exceptionally brave and humane man, stepped forward with a white handkerchief looking to help Doherty. Cleary dropped to one knee, aimed his rifle and shot McGuigan in the head. Cleary was a cruel, cynical and clinical killer. He shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock while he was on the ground crawling away from him. As Doherty lay crying out in pain, his life draining away from him, Barney McGuigan, an exceptionally brave and humane man, stepped forward with a white handkerchief looking to help Doherty. Cleary dropped to one knee, aimed his rifle and shot McGuigan in the head. 3. A Pat on the Back: mentioned in despatches. Cleary was “mentioned in dispatches” for confronting the enemies of the Queen in the London Gazette in February 1972. This was a few weeks after Bloody Sunday. The citation was for his alleged courage in Belfast the previous August 1971. The odds are astronomically high that Cleary was one of those involved in the shooting of unarmed and innocent civilians in what became known as the Ballymurphy massacre. It is now beginning to look like Cleary and a group of paratroopers attached to the Support Company of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment (1 Para) were identified, recruited and groomed to carry out the extermination of civilians in any circumstance, including on occasions when they posed no threat to the British Army. The man in charge of Cleary and his comrades was Colonel Derek Wilford. He is on record as having said that all Catholics support the IRA. Thus, to kill a Catholic was tantamount to killing a supporter or member of the IRA. That attitude was undoubtedly shared by Cleary and others in 1 Para. The contempt and disdain they had for Catholics became grotesquely manifest in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday. Wilford reported to Brigadier (later General) Frank Kitson. Of the pair, Kitson is the far more significant. First, he was the superior officer. Second, Wilford did not take over command of 1 Para until July 1971 by which time the soldiers of 1 Para had been engaged in countless violent confrontations with civilians in Belfast. (The murderous violence of 1 Para did, however, gather momentum after Wilford’s appointment.) Third, Kitson had disclosed the technique of terrorising a community which harboured insurgents in his infamous book ‘Low Intensity Operations’. An analysis which makes sense of what took place in Ballymurphy from a British Army counterinsurgency perspective – and which is based on the content of ‘Low Intensity Operations’ – can be found at: Brigadier Kitson’s motive for murdering unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy. From the standpoint of the British Army, Kitson’s book should never have been published. However, the author was entitled to 50% of the royalties of the sale thereof and this may account for the indiscretion of publishing

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Mentioned in Despatches. Brigadier Kitson and Soldier F were honoured in the London Gazette for their gallantry in the face of the enemy during the internment swoops of August 1971.

by admin 10 July, 2021 0 Comments

By David Burke. Internment – arrest and detention without trial – was introduced by the Stormont Government of Northern Ireland in August 1971. Hundreds of Nationalists were rounded up and detained. Members of the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando were not targeted for arrest. The swoops were carried out by British troops including the Parachute Regiment. Loyalist gangs exploited the chaos that erupted to attack Catholic estates. It was against this background that members of the Parachute Regiment perpetrated the Ballymurphy massacre. Officially, it is now recognised by the British state that the Ballymurphy victims had not posed any sort of a threat to the military. At the time of these atrocities Col. Derek Wilford was in command of 1 Para. He reported directly to his superior, Brigadier Frank Kitson, the British Army’s counterinsurgency guru who ran Belfast. Kitson was praised by General Michael Carver for his efforts during the internment swoops in Belfast in the latter’s 1989 memoirs. Kitson was also ‘mentioned in despatches’ in the weekly London Gazette for his efforts. Soldier F, one of the central figures in the Bloody Sunday massacre that took place the following January in Derry, was also ‘mentioned in despatches’ for his gallantry in Belfast in August 1971. A soldier is mentioned in despatches for gallant or meritorious action in the face of the enemy. This happens after an official report is written by a superior officer and submitted to the high command. This means that someone such as Maj. Edward Loden, Col. Wilford or Kitson furnished a report about the gallantry of Soldier F during the internment swoops to General Ford and General Tuzo in HQNI at Lisburn. In turn, they would have passed it to Carver in London. If Kitson was not the instigator and author of the report praising Soldier F, he most certainly approved one passed to him by Wilford or another of his superior officers. Soldier F’s ‘mention in despatches’ was published a few weeks after Bloody Sunday. Presumably, he knew all about the official report praising his gallantry before he went to Derry and became a key figure in the shootings that followed. Indisputably, Soldier F was highly valued by both Wilford and Kitson. Soldier F, who had joined 1 Para in 1966, was a key member of the elite ‘Support Company’ of 1 Para, the group which carried out the Bloody Sunday massacre. Soldiers mentioned in despatches are often seen as leaders of men with a bright military future ahead of them. Wilford and Kitson were obviously earmarking him for the future. While the role of Soldier F in Belfast in August 1971 is not clear, what he did in Derry is now a matter of history: he was accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney and of the attempted murders of Patrick O’Donnell, Joseph Friel, Joe Mahon and Michael Quinn on Bloody Sunday. He faced a seventh charge of the attempted murder of a person or persons unknown. In his testimony to the Saville Inquiry in 2003, Soldier F admitted to firing 13 rounds on Bloody Sunday The killings and attempted murders for which Soldier F was to have been tried occurred in the Glenfada Park North and Abbey Park north areas of Derry. He has also been linked to other shootings on the day including a sequence at a rubble barricade adjacent to the Rossville flats where six unarmed civilians were slaughtered. One of his bullets was found in one of these victims. Last week, charges against him for murder on Bloody Sunday were dropped. That decision is now being challenged by way of a judicial review. Also honoured by being mentioned in the London Gazette were the following paratroopers: Corporal Patrick Butler; Private Ronald Cook; Sergeant Paul Copson; Lance Corporal Joseph Hill; Staff Sergeant Denis Gilbert Poynter; Second Lieutenant John Pullinger. Village would like to hear from anyone who knows anything about the gallantry and meritorious actions of the soldiers listed above in Belfast in August 1971. David Burke is the author of ‘Kitson’s Irish War’. It can be purchased here: https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/kitson-s-irish-war/ OTHER STORIES ABOUT BLOODY SUNDAY, THE BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE, BRIGADIER FRANK KITSON AND COLONEL DEREK WILFORD ON THIS WEBSITE: The covert plan to smash the IRA in Derry on Bloody Sunday by David Burke Soldier F’s Bloody Sunday secrets. David Cleary knows enough to blackmail the British government. Learning to kill Colin Wallace: Bloody Sunday, a very personal perspective Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? Another bloody mess. Frank Kitson’s contribution to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 300,000 have died in Afghanistan since 1979. Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? A Foul Unfinished Business. The shortcomings of, and plots against, Saville’s Bloody Sunday Inquiry. Kitson’s Private Army: the thugs, killers and racists who terrorised Belfast and Derry. Soldier F was one of their number. Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Ballymurphy with Bloody Sunday. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy. Mentioned in Despatches. Brigadier Kitson and Soldier F were honoured in the London Gazette for their gallantry in the face of the enemy during the internment swoops of August 1971. Soldier F, the heartless Bloody Sunday killer, is named. Mission accomplished. The unscrupulous judge who covered-up the Bloody Sunday murders. Soldier F and other paratroopers have been protected by the British State for five decades. None of them now face prosecution. This perversion of justice began with the connivance of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, John Widgery, a former British Army brigadier, Freemason and oath-breaker. Counterinsurgency war

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Brigadier Kitson’s motive for murdering unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy.

by admin 12 May, 2021 0 Comments

By David Burke. Brigadier (later General) Frank Edward Kitson is alive and well and living in Devon. He is the individual responsible for the Ballymurphy massacre. He was the Brigadier of 39 Brigade – that is to say he was the officer in charge of all British soldiers in Belfast during the Ballymurphy massacre. His accomplice was Colonel Derek Wilford, the former commander of 1 Para who is alive, alert and living in Belgium. Kitson joined the Rifle Brigade in January 1945. He would rise to become General Sir Frank Kitson, GBE, KCB, MC & Bar, DL and serve as Commander-in-Chief UK Land Forces from 1982 to 1985, and as aide-de-camp to Elizabeth II from 1983 to 1985. Along the way, he fought the Mau-Mau in Kenya for which he was awarded the Military Cross. He then took on communist rebels in Malaya and helped suppress a revolt in Oman. While fighting in the colonies, he formulated a horrifying counterinsurgency policy which he outlined in his notorious book ‘Low Intensity Operations’. In attempting to counter subversion it is necessary to take account of three separate elements. The first two constitute the target proper, that is to say the Party or Front and its cells and committees on the one hand, and the armed groups who are supporting them and being supported by them on the other. They may be said to constitute the head and body of a fish. The third element is the population and this represents the water in which the fish swims. Fish vary from place to place in accordance with the sort of water in which they are designed to live, and the same can be said of subversive organisations. If a fish has got to be destroyed it can be attacked directly by rod or net, providing it is in the sort of position which gives these methods a chance of success. But if rod and net cannot succeed by themselves it may be necessary to do something to the water which will force the fish into a position where it can be caught. Conceivably it might be necessary to kill the fish by polluting the water, but this is unlikely to be a desirable course of action. (page 49.) The Ballymurphy atrocity makes perfect sense in the context of this tactic. The IRA were the ‘fish’ he sought to eradicate. The streets and estates of Belfast were the ‘water’ in which they swam. The now confirmed FACT that the Ballymurphy murder victims were not in the IRA, had no connection to the IRA and were not any sort of a threat to the British Army mattered not a jot to Kitson or Derek Wilford, the commander of 1 Para. The Ballymurphy massacre makes perfect sense if it was part of a plan by Kitson to unleash his brutes in the hope of terrorising Ballymurphy generally so the locals would turn against the Official and Provisional IRA. Why else would separate groups of soldiers have targeted unarmed and peaceful civilians and murdered them in cold blood? One of them was a mother out looking for her children. Why else would separate groups of soldiers have targeted unarmed and peaceful civilians and murdered them in cold blood? One of them was a mother out looking for her children. Wilford’s defence is that he never became aware of the deaths. Kitson failed to recall the events either, when he appeared at the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. Both men are liars. They cannot dare tell the truth for it would destroy their reputations and that of other luminaries in the Ministry of Defence and British Army. Wilford went on to perpetrate the Bloody Sunday massacre the following January. Kitson’s dark role in that affair has yet to come to light. Kitson should now be stripped of his many awards as should Wilford. They should then face a rigorous interrogation about their activities on the days during which the murder spree took place. Mike Jackson, a captain with 1 Para, should also be stripped of his honours for vilifying the Ballymurphy murder victims as gunmen and terrorists. He also rose to become Commander-in-Chief UK Land Forces. David Burke is the author of ‘Kitson’s Irish War’. It can be purchased here: https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/kitson-s-irish-war/ OTHER STORIES ABOUT BLOODY SUNDAY, THE BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE, BRIGADIER FRANK KITSON AND COLONEL DEREK WILFORD ON THIS WEBSITE: The covert plan to smash the IRA in Derry on Bloody Sunday by David Burke Soldier F’s Bloody Sunday secrets. David Cleary knows enough to blackmail the British government. Learning to kill Colin Wallace: Bloody Sunday, a very personal perspective Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? Another bloody mess. Frank Kitson’s contribution to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 300,000 have died in Afghanistan since 1979. Lying like a trooper. Internment, murder and vilification. Did Brigadier Kitson instigate the Ballymurphy massacre smear campaign? Where was Soldier F and his ‘gallant’ death squad during it? A Foul Unfinished Business. The shortcomings of, and plots against, Saville’s Bloody Sunday Inquiry. Kitson’s Private Army: the thugs, killers and racists who terrorised Belfast and Derry. Soldier F was one of their number. Soldier F and Brigadier Kitson’s elite ‘EFGH’ death squad: a murderous dirty-tricks pattern is emerging which links Ballymurphy with Bloody Sunday. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy. Mentioned in Despatches. Brigadier Kitson and Soldier F were honoured in the London Gazette for their gallantry in the face of the enemy during the internment swoops of August 1971. Soldier F, the heartless Bloody Sunday killer, is named. Mission accomplished. The unscrupulous judge who covered-up the Bloody Sunday murders. Soldier F and other paratroopers have been protected by the British State for five decades. None of them now face prosecution. This perversion of justice began with the connivance of