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Article published from reletives for justice.
In January 1988 Loyalist paramilitaries received a huge haul of South African weapons. This consisted of 200 AK47 assault rifles, 90 Browning pistols, 500 fragmentation grenades, 30,000 rounds of ammunition and 12 RPG 7 rocket launchers.
The weapons were divided between the UDA, the UVF and Ulster Resistance, the organisation set up by Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and Alan Wright.
In the six yeas before the arrival of the weapons, from January 1982 to December 1987, loyalist paramilitaries killed 71 people of whom 49 were sectarian/political in nature. In the 6 years following, from January 1988 to 1 September 1994, loyalists killed 229 people of whom 207 were sectarian/political in nature.
Brian Nelson, the agent of the British army intelligence and the UDAs chief intelligence officer, was a key personality in this arms transaction. Another was Dick Wright, an employee of the South African arms company Armscor. Wright formerly of Portadown, Co. Armagh was an uncle of Alan Wright, leader of the Ulster Clubs and with Ian Paisley a co-founder of Ulster Resistance.
Wright visited the UDA in Belfast in 1980 and made an offer of arms for cash or missile plans or parts from the Shorts missile factory as an acceptable alternative to cash.
On the instruction of UDA leader John McMichael, Nelson traveled to South Africa in June 1985 to investigate the possibility of a deal. (In February 1992, Private Eye reported that Nelson's visit was cleared not only by an unnamed British government Minister.) A deal was made. The loyalists were to supply South African agents with missile plans or parts and, if possible, a complete shorts missile system in return for a substantial shipment of arms.
Nelson sometime after the South African visit moved to Regensberg in Germany where in 1987 British intelligence military intelligence and MI5 met with him and persuaded/pressed him to returning to Belfast to take up again his role of British intelligence agent. This was well in advance of the final stages of the arms transaction.
The deal was completed and final arrangements were made in December 1987. Nelson informed military intelligence of developments at every stage of the proceedings; he passed on all the details including the method to be used to smuggle in the weapons. No action was taken.
In a jail journal, written by Nelson and obtained by the BBC's Panorama team in 1992 he states:
In 1987 I was discussing with my handler Ronnie the South African operation when he told me that because of the deep suspicion the seizure would have aroused, to protect me it had been decided to let the first shipment into the country untouched.
At the end of December 1987, Joseph Fawzi, a Lebanese intermediary employed by the US arms dealer working for the South Africans, dispatched the hige consignment of arms which were handled without intervention from the British authorities in January 1988.
Many of the weapons were later seized by British authorities, the largest single cache being taken from Davy Payne, the British ex-paratrooper and UDA Brigadier on 8 January 1988. Between a half and a third of the weapons however still remain in the hands of loyalist paramilitaries.
Nelson's central role in the arms transaction and transport meant he, and therefore British intelligence, knew the location of the farmhouse where the weapons would be stored initially after landing. Yet, at the time of Nelson's trial, British intelligence was telling BBC's Inside Ulster that their surveillance of the shipment but never disclosed at what point this is supposed to have happened.
Subsequent attempts by Ulster Resistance to re-negotiate the technology for arms deal with South African government agents resulted in 1989 in the arrests of three Ulster Resistance members and Douglas Bernhardt, a U.S. arms dealer, and a South African diplomat, Daniel Storm in Paris.
While Storm could claim diplomatic immunity the others cannot. No extradition request has been made by the British authorities in relation to Joseph Fawzi, Dick Wright or U.S. arms dealer Douglas Bernhardt.
Ginger Baker
Allegations of collusion between British forces and loyalist paramilitaries have been made since the early 1970s. No independent public inquiry has ever been conducted.
Former British soldier Ginger Baker was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for killing 4 Catholics in the early 70s. Baker has consistently claimed that the RUC members drove weapons through checkpoints, regularly gave RUC files to the UDA and tipped off loyalists to prevent the seizure of their weapons.
On 27 September 1989 the Irish News received a letter from Baker stating that he had been in contact with the Stevens Inquiry. Shortly before this Baker had claimed that an RUC officer was second in command of a UDA battalion in 1972-73. Baker claimed he has vital evidence and can name RUC officers who passed information to loyalist paramilitaries in the early 70s.
In his letter from Long Lartin prison Baker stated:
In a telephone call from this prison on Friday 22 September, I informed a female member of John Stevens investigative team that on returning to Northern Ireland I would name the RUC moles.
Collusion between security forces and loyalist extremists in Northern Ireland has always existed. I can prove this absolutely. However the terrible truth which I can reveal may well result in another cover-up.
A spokesperson for the Stevens Inquiry confirmed that Baker had contacted them. When asked if the inquiry would interview Baker the spokesperson replied: What Mr. Baker has told us is being considered by senior officers and a decision will be made.
Nothing more has been publicly heard of the matter.
Baker was, however, speedily transferred to Ireland. Later he was transferred to England again and released in February 1992 from Frankland Prison.
The Baker era of the early 70s heralded an unbroken chain of events ever since of allegations and proof of British forces collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. This has been documented in court cases, newspaper stories and television documentaries over the past twenty-five years.
However, no comprehensive public independent inquiry has ever taken place
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