Conference tallis::celt

388.0. "U.S. Press & N.I." by DPDMAI::OREILLY (Wolfhounds Unite!!) Wed Jun 01 1988 14:49

    
    
    This is from Thursday's (5-26-88) Wall Street Journal, page 25 in
    the editorial section.  It's quite long so I suggest that you print
    it out and read it.                                            

    It's about time that an article like this appeared in a major U.S.
    Newspaper.  I'm going to send a copy of it to my local papers -
    I suggest others do the same.
                                                                       
    Viewpoint:                                                     
                                                                   
    "U.S. Press Goes Easy on 'Death Squads' in Nothern Ireland"    
                                                                   
    by Alexander Cockburn                                          
                                                                   
    Say the words "death squad" in Ireland and people won't automatically
    conjure up Central America.  Chances are they will think about Northern
    Ireland and Mrs. Thathcer and what her governemnt has been sanctioning
    and condoning.  Writing as one who grew up in County Cork, I don't
    think there has been many moments in my lifetime, certainly not
    since Bloody Sunday 1972, when troops shot unarmed ppeople in the
    streets of Derry, that the British state has been held in lower
    esteem by Irish people.                                        
                                                                   
    Why is Britain so unpopular?  Three words - Stalker, Birmingham,
    and Gibraltar - gesture to the reasons.  First, the British policeman
    John Stalker has said that the inquiry bearing his name turned up
    evidence that a policy of state-sanctioned muder - death squads
    in fact - was operating in Northern Ireland, in which suspects were
    being gunned down without benefit of arrest, interrogation or trial.
    A British government official conceded to Parliament the disturbing
    implications of the inquiry but proclaimed that "national security"
    compelled it to be closed off.                                 
                                                                   
    No less infuriating to Irish people was the refusal by Britain's
    judicial system to acknowledge that men and women in all likelihood
    innocent - the Birmingham Six - remain in prison.  They were arrested
    after a bomb explosion had killed 21 people in London.  Subsequent
    investigation has shown that confessions were consequent upon beatings,
    that forensic evidence was dubious, that the guilty parties are
    at large.  But a British judge rejected convincing indications of
    a terrible miscarriage of justice.  The B. Six remain behind bars
    and many Irish people think "national security" is the decisive
    factor in their continued incarceration.                       
                                                                   
    The killings in Gibraltar are freshest in mind.  THree members of
    the IRA, two men and a woman, were shot to death by British security
    forces, who claimed their victims were about to detonate a terrorist
    bomb.  But the British government's account turned out to be false.
    A British TV network aired - over fierce pressure from Mrs. Thatcher
    and her forces - eyewitness accounts indicating that the unarmed
    trio were murdered, and the BBC, increasingly gagged and servile
    in the Thatcher years, has come up with similarly disturbing accounts.
                                                                   
    The fury in Ireland is echoed by Irish Americans, who are baffled
    by the extraordinarily genteel way these episodes have been handled
    by the press here.  Now the role of the U.S. press is of great 
    importance, as the British well understand.  An alert press means
    an alerted public, hence responsive politicians and ultimately pressure
    on the British government to clean up its act.  Any equitable political
    solution in Northern Ireland depends in part upon the confidence
    of all parties - Catholic as well as Protestant - in the lawfulness
    and impartiality of government.  As the foregoing material suggests,
    no such confidence now exists; nor will it till the British Government
    stops flouting elementary justice, whether with a shoot-first  
    ask-questions-afterward policy, or with its Diplok courts where
    people in Northern Ireland can be bundled into prison virtually
    without due process.                                           
                                                                   
    Well aware of the importance of the U.S. Press, the British run
    an efficient public-relations campaign, blessed with great cooperation
    on the part of American journalists, as a remarkable account by
    Jo Thomas in the May/June issue of the Columbian Journalism Review
    (and reprinted in the June issue of the more widely circulated Irish
    America) underlines.                                           
                                                                   
    Ms. Thomas, now teaching at a juornalism school in Illinois, was
    previously a correspondent for the New York Times and a journalist
    for 18 years.  From 1984 to early 1986 she was based in Time's London
    bureau, making forays to Northern Ireland.  Ms. Thomas narrates
    how she she begann investigating the involvement of police and British
    undercover units in what she calls "questionable shootings".  She
    completed two stories before, as she says, "I was abruptly odered
    home".  By her count, between 1982 and 1987 there were at least
    47 suspicious shootings by police or undercover units.  At least
    21 of the victims were unarmed and the rest, in Ms. Thomas's opinion,
    were probably given no opportunity to surrender before being killed.
                                                                   
    Why was she suddenly recalled?  Ms. Thomas says a senior editor
    told her it was because she had been paying too much attention to
    N.I., and she sets this charge in context.  It is easy, she writes,
    for American journalists in London to feel important and well informed.
    They get their weekly confidential briefing at 10 Downing Street.
    They are invited to dinner at the best places: "No one understands
    hierarchies better than the British, and they are careful to make
    close personal friendships with members of important American news
    organizations.  It makes us reluctant to offend, especially to bring
    up the touchy subject of the war, which they refuse to call a war,
    in Northern Ireland".                                          
                                                                   
    Anyone following U.S. reporting from Britain will recognize the
    accuracy of this.  Anthony Lewis, a former New York Times bureau
    chief in London, still visits Glyndebourne every year and remits
    to his readers paeans to the British Way of Life of a sentimentality
    unrivaled since Rupert Brroks World War I poem "Grantchester".  A
    subsequent bureau chief, R.W. Apple, Jr., seemed as determined as
    Mr. Lewis to savor an England perfumed with fine claret and the
    values of an 18th-century squire.  When American journalists meet
    British bobbies ("smiling and unarmed", of course, though the opposite
    is usually true) or members of the upper classes, their backbones
    and prose turn to the neuro-physiological equivalent of a British
    nursery pudding staple, junket.    
                                       
    Ms. Thomas says that the good favor of her colleagues and hosts
    subsided abruptly as she embarked upon her inquiries in Northern
    Ireland: "A senior editor, who kept a home in London as well as
    New York....began telling me to stay out of Northern Ireland.  A
    high ranking British official, who in the past had close ties to
    the intelligence community in Northern Ireland, took me to lunch
    and suggested that I drop my investigation in exchange for a lot
    of access to the secretary of state for Northern Ireland".  Her mail
    arrived opened.  Finally she was recalled.                                      
                                                             
    Reflecting upon her experience, Ms. Thomas analyzes acutely the
    biases afflicting most American reporting on N.I., from the political
    reverberations of using "Ulster" to denote six counties, to the
    way in which a crime by British security forces is often described
    not as such, but as a "propoganda victory" for Sinn Fein.  It is
    rare for a mainstream journalist to be so forthright, and perhaps
    it will have an effect.  "If a police force of the United Kingdom
    could, in cold blood, kill a 17 year old youth with no terorist
    of criminal convictions, and then plot to hide the evidence from
    a senior policeman deputed to investigate it, then a shame belonged
    to us all", former Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker writes. 
    "This is the act of a Central American Assassination squad - truly
    a police force out-of-control".  Mr. Stalker took his responsibilities
    seriously and so, too, should the U.S. press.  It would make a difference. 
                                       
                                       
    End of article.                    
                                       

    John Stalker was on Channel 2 10 O'Clock News (Boston Public
    Television) the other day.  He was quite articulate in his meeting.
    
    He implied that although Britain gave NO direct orders for
    shoot-to-kill policies, policeman in the 6 counties, in fact,
    have followed and continue to follow a shoot-to-kill policy,
    and without great fear of being prosecuted or admonished.
    Furthermore, he indicated that the British government would
    often cover up the shoot-to-kill policy.
    
    He did make a subtle distinction with the Gilbralter incident,
    stating that it was a slightly different situation, because the
    SAS was involved.  Since the SAS are trained only to KILL, their
    actions weren't suprising.  But what is surprising is the general
    acceptance by Northern Ireland common policeman of the "unofficial"
    shoot-to-kill policy.
    
    And would I by no means call Mr. Stalker pro-IRA.  He is totally
    against any terrorism by any sides.  His contention is that (and
    I'm in agreement with him) that any country which calls itself a
    democracy must operate within the limits of the law.  And Britain
    by not prosecuting the security forces for their shoot-to-kill policy
    has not operated within the limits of the law.  Their actions give
    Britain the image of a Banana Republic where law and order reside
    with the government in power and not in the courts of the land.
    
    George

    
    
    I have to agree with 385.0 who said that this conference is too
    quiet!!!
    
    I thought for sure this note would draw some comments!!
    
    JO'R

    SO BASICALLY WHAT WE ARE SAYING IS THAT MOST OF THE AMERICAN
    JOURNALISTIC PROFESSION CAN BE BOUGHT OF WITH A STEAK AND A TITLE.
    
    THE MOVING GOALPOST SYNDROME IS SO NOTICABLE OVER HERE THAT THEY'R
    THINKING OF PUTTING CASTORS ON THEM 8-)
    
    
    EAMON

    
    RE: .0
    
    If the bomb went off in London, why are they called the 'Birmingham
    Six' ?
    
    

    RE .4
    DIFFERENT BOMBING

Re. .4 

>    No less infuriating to Irish people was the refusal by Britain's
>    judicial system to acknowledge that men and women in all likelihood
>    innocent - the Birmingham Six - remain in prison.  They were arrested
>    after a bomb explosion had killed 21 people in London.  
            
Don, you're ignorant and naive.   Tut, tut.

EVERYBODY, especially Irish-American patriots and half-wit drip-fed
terrorist-loving cocaine-snorting journos, knows that London is a suburb 
of Birmingham.

This isn't EURO_FORUM, Don.   Please show some respect for the mentally
dead.

Shane