Terrorism, counterterrorism and ‘the rule of law’: state repression and ‘shoot-to-kill’ in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

Authors have argued that counterterrorism must be consistent with ‘the rule of law.’ Often associated with this approach is the assumption that plural political structures limit the state’s response to terrorism and that state agents will be held accountable if their response is excessive. Scholars who focus on social movements reject this assumption. We examine the state’s response to anti-state violence in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1994. In 1982, Sinn Féin did much better than expected in an election to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Following the election, it is alleged that state agents followed a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy and shot dead Irish republican paramilitaries instead of arresting them. We find evidence suggesting such a policy and consider the implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Terrorism
• state repression
• provisional Irish Republican Army
• liberal democracies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We recognize that viewing Northern Ireland as a ‘liberal democracy’ is disputed in some quarters. For our purposes, under the Act of Union (1800), and the Government of Ireland Act (1920), the geographic area that is Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and it is the ‘sovereign right of Westminster’ to legislate on any matter (Cunningham, 2001, p. 1). Northern Irish citizens vote in United Kingdom elections and (at least in theory) their fundamental rights are guaranteed. We prefer the more neutral ‘political violence’ to ‘terrorism’ but use the latter to be consistent with the literature addressed and we follow Tilly’s definition of political violence—‘any observable interaction in the course of which persons or objects are seized or physically damaged in spite of resistance’ (Tilly, 1978, p. 176). Repression is defined as ‘efforts to repress either contentious acts or groups and organizations responsible for them’ (McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001, p. 69).

2 The Ulster Defence Regiment was responsible for 8 fatalities; McKittrick et al. do not disaggregate them. Non-Northern Irish security organizations killed six people (Van Der Bijl, 2017; Matchett, 2016, pp. 198–200). Different counts of fatalities offer very similar but not identical counts (e.g. Sutton 1993; see also Morgan & Smith, 2016). McKittrick et al.’s Table 18 is misleading. They include members of Cumann na mBan and Na Fianna Éireann as members of the Provisional IRA (see Maura Meehan and Dorothy Maguire, #149 and #150, pp. 107-108). McKittrick et al. (2004) identify Daniel Burke (p. 436, #1064) as a civilian while Tírghrá identifies Burke as an ‘Oglach’ (soldier); we include his killing in our count. Eamon McCormick (p. 141, #236) was shot on Halloween night 1971 and passed away January 16, 1972; we treat this incident as if McCormick was killed on the day he was shot. John Patrick Mullen and Hugh Heron (killed 16 October 1972) are claimed by the Provisionals and the Official IRA (McKittrick et al., 2004, pp. 282–83). We include them with the Provisional IRA (Tírghrá, 2019, pp. 90–91).

3 We do not address the morality of actions by either state authorities or paramilitaries (Shanahan, 2009). Our focus is the alleged existence of a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland.

4 We also draw on Tirghra: Ireland’s Patriot Dead (2002) and Londáin Republican (2018), http://londainrepub.blogspot.com/2010/01/roll-of-honour-part-ii.html (retrieved 15 August 2018).

5 Our count of 140 fatalities is based on information contained in McKittrick et al. (2004) and Tírghrá (2019; see also notes 3 and 17). Numbers in parentheses refer to case numbers of McKittrick et al. (2004). Paddy Mulvenna (#933, pp. 389-90) and James Bryson (#941, p. 393) were shot in the same incident but died three weeks apart; we treat this as one incident on 31 August 1973. In Models 1–4 (below) we include the incident involving civilian Michael Tighe (#2487, p. 926, 24 November 1982) as the RUC believed he and the other person involved were paramilitaries collecting weapons (see also Matchett, 2016, p. 24). We include as separate (single death) incidents the killing of John Dougal (#444, p. 215), a member of the Provisional IRA’s Na Fianna Éireann, and David McCafferty (#448, p. 217), a member of the Official IRA’s Na Fianna Éireann, who were killed on 9 July 1972, in a series of incidents, under the assumption that each was acting as an individual activist. Because McCafferty was killed going to the aid of another person who was also killed, we reanalyzed Models 3 and 4 with this coded as a multiple death event. The results were substantively unchanged. We do not include incidents involving Gerald Donaghy (#253, pp. 148-49), a member of Na Fianna Éireann killed on Bloody Sunday, and Hugh Coney (#1221, p. 488), shot while trying to escape from Long Kesh. We exclude an incident in which three criminals were shot dead by soldiers while robbing a Belfast bookmaker (13 January 1990; #3089, p. 1191). The soldiers claimed that they believed they were members of the Provisional IRA, but there is a strong suggestion that they were known criminals under surveillance. We include an incident involving Seamus Bradley, who McKittrick (#515, p. 240) records was killed by an ‘accidental discharge’ but Tírghrá (2019, p. 73) and Sutton (1994) record as being shot by British soldiers. We also include an incident in which IRA member Jim Gallagher (#1692, p. 647) was shot while seated on a bus as it passed a British army base. Shots had been fired at the base and the soldier returned fire, killing Gallagher (who six days previously was released from prison) and wounding two others (Tírghrá, 2019, p. 193). As a check, we excluded the Bradley and Gallagher incidents, re-analyzed Models 1 and 2, and achieved the same substantive results.

6 Probably the closest anyone in authority came to acknowledging a shoot-to-kill policy is found in notes from a 1986 meeting on security which have Sir John Herman, the Chief Constable of the RUC, commenting that ‘important’ members of the IRA ‘had to be targetted (sic) and eliminated if any real improvement was to be made in the security situation’ and ‘terrorism could only be defeated by removing those who planned and organised violence.’ PRONI (Public Record Office Northern Ireland, CENT/1/15/40A Note of a meeting to discuss Cross-Border Security Co-Operation held in London on 31 October 1986), p. 4 (CAIN Web Service, http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/proni/1986/proni_CENT-1-15-40A_1986-10-31.pdf, retrieved 25 July 2018).

7 The RUC’s Special Branch was active from the beginning of the conflict. Until 1976, the army was in charge of security and intelligence efforts were relatively disorganized. Over time the British approach became more sophisticated. The RUC’s E4A Special Support Unit developed out of their Special Branch (Matchett, 2016, p. 182; 221-22; see also Morgan & Smith, 2016). The Special Air Service (SAS) was sent to Northern Ireland in 1970 and initially played a support role. In 1976, it is reported, SAS units were sent to South Armagh and became directly involved in counterterrorism (Murray, 1990, pp. 29–30).

8 This measure is conservative. If the security forces’ goal was to kill all republican paramilitaries involved in any given event, then events where one paramilitary was killed but others escaped would not be considered a ‘shoot to kill’ incident. We exclude incidents involving loyalist paramilitaries and criminals plus four incidents when civilians were killed in covert operations (McKittrick et al., 2004 identification number follows each: John Boyle, #2038, 11 July 1978; James Taylor, #2056, 30 September 1978; Frederick Jackson, #2657, 19 October 1984; and, Kenneth Stronge, #2946, 4 July 1988). Jackson and Stronge were killed in exchanges of shots between the security forces and the Provisional IRA. Boyle and Taylor evidently were shot because they were suspected paramilitaries. We included the Boyle (#2038) and Taylor (#2056) incidents and re-analyzed Models 1-4; the results were substantively identical to those found in Table 2.

9 Unfortunately, we cannot construct a ratio variable of the number killed by those arrested and/or a ratio of the number killed by the total number of paramilitaries involved in any given incident. Such variables are impossible to construct given the clandestine nature of the incidents and the fact that in some events paramilitaries involved left the scene undetected while others were in the relative background, e.g., in ‘scout’ cars.

10 In counting deaths between incidents, we exclude those killed in the specific incident. Between 10 February 1975 and 22 September 1975, there was a bilateral British-IRA Truce. We include the final incident prior to the truce (McKittrick et al., 2004, #1294, 512) but exclude an incident on 5 June 1975 in which an IRA member was shot after a sectarian attack (#1389, pp. 545-46). For the independent variables, we do not count fatalities during the truce and re-start our count from 22 September 1975.

11 The incident on Gibraltar is coded as an urban incident. Alleged informers are identified in McKittrick et al. (2004), Matchett (2016, pp. 47-59) and other sources.

12 Table 3 is calculated with data from Malcom Sutton (1994); CAIN Web Service, https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/.

13 In contrast to the brigade, battalion, and company structure that was in place previously, the Provisional IRA reorganization into cells probably decreased the average number of activists involved in any given operation. Not every republican paramilitary shot dead by the security forces was on an operation.

14 We considered the possibility that a shoot-to-kill policy was adopted earlier, after the IRA killed 18 British soldiers and assassinated Lord Mountbatten (August 1979). Moloney (2007, pp. 175-78) states that these two events on the same day signaled the arrival of a revitalized IRA.

The data suggest that if there was a shoot-to-kill policy, it was not implemented in 1979 or 1980, but after the Assembly election. In the thirty-seven months between September 1979 and October 1982, there were five incidents in which republican paramilitaries were shot dead (one incident every 7.5 months), but there was only one covert incident (with multiple fatalities). On 28 May 1981, two republican paramilitaries were killed in Derry city by the 14th Intelligence Company; that is, there was one shoot-to-kill-type incident over 37 months. See also Bew (2014).

15 We draw on the Sutton (1994) data (via the CAIN Web Service, https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/sutton/) to compare paramilitary deaths and civilian deaths by the security forces. The 145 republican paramilitaries killed as enumerated by Sutton (1994) differs from our count of 140 because of decisions we made (see Notes 2 and 5). Sutton, for example, includes Gerald Donaghy, who was killed on Bloody Sunday (see Note 5) and Tobias Molloy (killed by a rubber bullet during street disturbances, 16 July 1972) while we exclude these deaths. Comparing McKittrick et al.’s (Table 3, p. 1476) annual count of total security force fatalities (less our count of paramilitaries (140) and civilians (3) shot dead in 106 incidents) with our count of paramilitaries and civilians killed yields essentially identical results.

16 In acquitting the officers, Gibson stated that he regarded them as ‘blameless’, adding they brought ‘the three deceased men to justice, in this case the final court of justice.’ The remarks were interpreted as an endorsement of shoot to kill, which Justice Gibson denied (Magee, 2011, p. 3490; McKittrick et al., 2004, pp. 1077-1080; Murray, 1990, pp. 380-83; and, Urban, 1992, pp. 227-37).

17 We considered the possibility that the alleged shoot-to-kill a policy ended because of increased security force-loyalist collusion; that with more loyalist assassinations of Irish republicans there was less need for direct security force involvement (see Cadwallader, 2013). Between the Assembly election in 1982 and the first Provisional IRA ceasefire in 1994, there were 22 incidents in which 24 Irish republicans (including Sinn Féin members) were killed by loyalist paramilitaries. From 1 January 1990 to the ceasefire there were 14 such incidents (with 16 fatalities). However, after the final alleged shoot to kill incident (November 1992), there was no substantial increase in loyalist assassinations of republicans (see Tíghrá 2002 and Londáin Republican). Loyalist assassination was not a substitute for shoot-to-kill operations. In fact, alleged shoot-to-kill incidents and loyalist assassinations of republicans ended more than a year before the August 1994 ceasefire. Political sensitivities associated with behind the scenes peace negotiations may have led the security forces to stop providing information to loyalist paramilitaries.

18 We cannot determine the influence of an alleged shoot-to-kill policy on republican paramilitary capabilities or the Provisional IRA’s ceasefire. The losses associated with such incidents, the ongoing violent campaign waged by loyalists that killed republican paramilitaries and nationalist civilians, and fatigue (in the republican leadership and its base), all contributed to the ceasefire decision (see White, 2017, pp. 257-307).