It was the night the music died: July 31, 1975. Exactly 30 years ago today. By 1975, the North might have imagined it had endured all possible horrors.
International Human Rights Delegation to Probe Collusion Allegations
PFC | 28 May 2004
An international delegation arrived in the North this weekend to probe allegations of collusion highlighted earlier this week in a BBC Spotlight Programme.
Britain stands accused of helping known terrorists to assassinate suspected enemies of the state during the 1980s. A major, two-part Panorama investigation reveals the extent to which some members of the British intelligence services colluded with - and even tried to direct - loyalist death squads...
It’s September 1975. Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative spokesman on the North, Airey Neave, meet with Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, and Northern Secretary, Merlyn Rees. Two weeks earlier, two loyalist ambushes at fake security force checkpoints had resulted in five murders.
Mtg of N Division Local Security Committee (added Sept 2017)
Behind Closed Doors Occasionally the minutes of apparently unimportant meetings offer a fascinating insight. Meetings between unionist delegations (in this case local councillors who were members of the Local Security Committee) and the NIO/RUC and British army, provide a snapshot of the type of lobbying that unionists indulged in when meeting with 'their' local security forces. Described as a 'lively'...
CJ4-3963 Telegram to British Ambassador, Washington from Lord Carrington, S of S for Defence, 4 November 1980
Carrington, in this telegram, is instructing the British Ambassador to the USA on the line to take relating to murders of prominent Republicans in 1980 - Miriam Daly, John Turnly, Ronald Bunting and Noel Little. 'The UDA as an organisation has never admitted to the use of terrorist violence to achieve its aims.' This is very carefully and ambiguously worded.