UDR COLLUSION EXPOSED

Posted By: March 29, 2013

IRISH NATIONAL CAUCUS PRESS RELEASE

CAPITOL HILL. WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2006 —“We have been saying it on Capitol Hill for over 30 years. And it is important to stress that it was not only the Brits who covered-up”.
That is how Fr. Sean Mc Manus, president of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus, reacted to the dramatic reporting of the Irish News on the how the Ulster Defense Regiment (UDR) — a locally recruited regiment of the British Army — colluded with loyalist paramilitaries, helping them to assassinate Catholics.
Fr. Mc Manus said: “The Irish News has done a great service to the truth by its expose of UDR collusion, and on how the British Government knew all about it”.
In its ongoing expose the Irish News reveals : “The ‘Subversion in the UDR’ document was written in August 1973 by military intelligence and Ministry of Defense officials … The document is a summary of a meeting where the prime minister at the time, Harold Wilson, and his secretary of state for Northern Ireland Merlyn Rees, brief the leader of the opposition, Margaret Thatcher, on political and security matters … a key section on the security situation confirms that Downing Street was aware of the UDR subversion and reveals additional concerns over the RUC… Unfortunately there were certain elements in the police who were very close to the UVF and who were prepared to hand over information, for example, to Mr. Paisley…” (Files confirm suspicions .Collusion: Subversion in the UDR Reports: Steven McCaffery s.mccaffery@irishnews.com IRISH NEWS. WEDNESDAY, MAY 3, 2006)

In recounting his efforts over the years to expose collusion by the security forces, Fr. Mc Manus explained: ” In 1977, I met with Tip O’ Neill, House Speaker from 1977 to 1987, and briefed him on collusion by security forces. He said he had checked it out with the Irish and British embassies and that both denied there was any truth in it.( O’Neill as Speaker absolutely forbade all Congressional Hearings on human rights violations in Northern Ireland — a policy strongly backed by both Embassies).
In 1975 I met for the first time a journalist( now dead) who later on became well known on both sides of the Atlantic. He had a special interest in Loyalist paramilitaries. When I told him the UDR was complicit in the killing of Catholics he erupted in real bitterness and accused me of fronting for the IRA.

In 1979 I briefed a very prominent writer for the New York Times about RUC/UDR collusion yet his front-page story was about false accusations that the Irish National Caucus was linked to the IRA.I tried to get the famed liberal journalist Mary Mc Crory to write on the UDR. She said she had checked it out with Sean Donlon — Irish Ambassador to the US, 1978 to 1981 — and she wouldn’t write about it.
Even John Hume never publicly raised the issue when he visited the US, certainly never before the IRA cease-fire in 1994. That is one of the major criticisms I’ve had of Hume.”

In one of its articles, the Irish News gives the following report : “NATIONALIST communities who believed security forces were conspiring with loyalists demanded that their elected politicians raise the alarm.
But now two sets of documents reveal – for the first time – how questions on paramilitary crime inspired ‘sterile’ political answers.
Frank McManus was elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in 1970, having successfully stood as a nationalist ‘unity’ candidate.
In August 1972 he asked a parliamentary question of the minister for defense, and a written record has emergedŠ Mr. McManus, who still works as a solicitor in Fermanagh, said he asked his question against a background of concerns over the UDR.
Surprised to hear of the file’s existence, he said it was clear that important information had been kept from him.
“Everyone knew that there was collusion and of course the government was always at pains to cover up,” he said yesterday.
“A number of very close friends of mine were killed and it was common knowledge that it was men in uniform who did it.”
He added: “Technically the answer I received is, in some respects, correct but the real point is that they were concealing the essential parts. They wanted to conceal it.” (Politicians kept in the dark Collusion: Subversion in the UDR Reports: Steven McCaffery May 3, 2006)

The Frank Mc Manus mentioned here by the Irish News is a brother of Fr. Mc Manus. Said Fr. Mc Manus, ” Is it any wonder I’ve been constantly going on to Dr. Reiss, Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, about collusion by the police and security forces in Northern Ireland, and how the British government covered it up — just like how the FBI colluded in the KKK’s attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King and the Black Freedom Struggle”.