The campaign for the truth about the infamous McGurk’s bar bombing has uncovered the existence of a covert intrigue hatched by the British Army’s counter-insurgency (i.e., dirty tricks) guru, Brigadier Frank Kitson, and the RUC, to conceal the truth about the UVF’s bomb attack massacre at McGurk’s bar fifty years ago. Kitson and the RUC conspired to blame the attack on the IRA. The explosion caused the building to collapse, killing fifteen Catholic civilians—including two children—and wounding seventeen more. It was the deadliest attack in Belfast during the Troubles. The Ministry of Defence has told the campaign that it has no record of the scheme to switch blame from the UVF to the IRA. The PSNI (as successor to the RUC), is being non-committal. They undoubtedly know full well that (a) there was a secret arrangement and (b) precisely what it entailed, but don’t want to admit the deeply shameful truth. The reason for believing the PSNI knows what happened is because the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has details of the secret compact. It is not prepared to provide them to the families of the deceased, at least not at this stage. What are the MoD and PSNI/RUC trying to hide? What is so controverdial that it merits a cover-up 50 plus years after the event? What are the MoD and PSNI/RUC trying to hide? What is so controverdial that it merits a cover-up 50 plus years after the event? The British Army was deployed in Northern Ireland in 1969 to protect Nationalists from organised Loyalist attacks involving attempts to burn them out of their homes. The Army was sent to their rescue. The soldiers were welcomed by the Nationalist/Catholic community. Their arrival ushered in a ‘honeymoon’ period during which relations between the Army and Catholics were harmonious, if not warm. At the time, the threat to the Army and police emanated from Loyalists. In October 1969 Loyalists rioted and murdered Victor Arbuckle, the first police officer to die during the Troubles. The honeymoon period began to peter out as 1970 dragged on. The reasons for its decline are complex, multifaceted and controversial. What is crystal clear, however, is that Brigadier (later General Sir) Frank Kitson, who had been sent to Belfast in September 1970, chose to abandon peacekeeping and go on the offensive instead. He decided he did not want to take on both Nationalist and Loyalists and opted to attack the IRA (then consisting of the Officials and Provisionals). He used ancient dirty trick tactics which he had brought up to date in colonies such as Kenya and Malaya. In a nut shell, he used Loyalist terror gangs as proxy assassins to kill IRA members. I set out the evidence that Kitson and elements within the RUC were using the UDA assassination squad commanded by Tommy Herron of the UDA’s Inner Council as proxy assassins in my recent book on Kitson. It includes a chapter on Herron and one of his top killers, Albert ‘Ginger’ Baker. If the UVF attack on McGurk’s had sparked the internment of the UVF, it was likely that figures in the UDA such as Herron and Baker would have become targets too. When internment was introduced in August 1971, Kitson’s Loyalist cats’-paws were not interned. The McGurk’s bar bomb atrocity of December 1971 – four months later – threatened to change this set of affairs. Had the truth about the bomb attack emerged, i.e. that the UVF was responsible for the bomb in the bar – not the IRA, it would have amplified calls to intern members of the UVF and UDA. Who would carry out Kitson’s assassination programme if the Army and RUC were ordered to intern Loyalist gunmen? At the time, Kitson and the SAS were also training a secret army, the MRF. Its personnel were drawn from the Army. The MRF had an assassination wing. When the MRF was deployed on shoot to kill missions in 1972, they wore civilian clothing thereby inviting the public to conclude they were Loyalist terrorists when the circumstances so demanded. If Loyalists were to be interned in a widespread and effective manner, it had the potential to strip the MRF assassins of their cover i.e., the public perception that MRF hits were the work of the UVF and UDA. Overall, the McGurk bar bombing was a threat to Kitson’s various lethal strategies. Hence, the McGurk attack was portrayed as an IRA ‘own goal’. Kitson, a black propaganda expert, saw to it that the attack was blamed on a non-existent IRA unit which was meant to have carried the bomb into the pub en route to its final destination, but that it exploded prematurely. Kitson knew that this was a lie. Kitson’s template for the exploitation and manipulation of Loyalist gangs as proxy assassins was pursued for three decades by MI5, the MRF, RUC Special Branch, the FRU and a host of other secret departments. The UVF was deeply involved in these clandestine programmes. Robin ‘the Jackal’ Jackson of the UVF featured prominently in collusive murders during the 1970s and 1980s. The newly discovered Kitson-RUC arrangement by the McGurk’s bar bomb campaign for justice threatens to reveal some of the early roots of this practice. UPDATE 2 May 2022: The following information is from a press release from the campaign for the truth about the McGurk’s bar massscre Chief Constable Snubs Massacre Families and Withholds Evidence The Chief Constable of Police Service Northern Ireland has yet again snubbed the families of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre despite a protest at the Policing Board to mark the 50th anniversary of the atrocity and an official request to meet with him. Instead, a police representative of the Chief Constable has informed the families that PSNI is withholding critical evidence of the police and British Army cover-up of the massacre. On 2nd December 2021, families of those killed and injured in the McGurk’s Bar Massacre were left out in the cold at the Policing Board when Chief Constable Simon
