By DAVID MCKITTRICK
The troubles may have subsided since the days when lives were taken at a rate of more than one a day, but Northern Ireland is still paying a price in human terms. The killing rate is down to one a month but families are still being bereaved and the steady drip of death goes on, almost 10 years after the first IRA and loyalist ceasefires of 1994.
Statistically the situation is much improved, but lives are still being shattered by the persistence of paramilitarism. Thirty-six killings took place in the three years from 2001 to 2003. Three-quarters of those were carried out by loyalist groups. Political and media attention focuses on the IRA, but that organisation is suspected of involvement in just three.
Last month, the Government cut Assembly funding to Sinn Fein as a penalty for continuing IRA violence. This followed a report by the Independent Monitoring Commission accusing the IRA of "punishment" attacks, cigarette smuggling and other illegalities.
However, the statistics indicate that the IRA, although involved in a range of paramilitary activities, has sharply reduced its involvement in actual murder.
The statistics have been assembled for a new edition of the book Lost Lives, which chronicles the story of each of the 3700 killed since 1966. A study of the deaths since April 2001 shows the IRA is suspected of three killings. In two, the victims were involved in drug-dealing. The third death is that of Gareth O'Connor, who has been missing since May last year. Republicans other than the IRA were responsible for six killings. Two were the work of the Real IRA, while in another an IRA member was killed in a dispute.
The fact that Protestant extremists were responsible for 26 killings illustrates that paramilitarism is deeply entrenched in loyalist ghettos, especially in Belfast and parts of County Armagh. Sizeable groups remain highly active, including the Ulster Defence Association, Ulster Volunteer Force and Loyalist Volunteer Force.
The UDA was by far the most lethal of the loyalist organisations, killing 18 people. Ironically, given that the group traditionally targets Catholics, only five of these victims were Catholic. Eight were killed in internal feuding, including some UDA members.
A further two UDA members died when their bombs exploded prematurely, and one former member was shot as an informer. In two cases, the UDA killed Protestants in the mistaken belief that they were Catholics.
It has been argued that the killings should not be regarded as being troubles-related in any political or sectarian sense. Many have sprung from internal disputes and sometimes from fallings-out, particularly over who controls loyalist areas. In many, drugs, racketeering and turf wars have been the motives.
But the brutality is the same. On June 23, 2001, John Henry McCormick was killed by two loyalists who walked into the house he shared with his Protestant girlfriend and shot him in front of his two sons, aged 4 and 6. A niece and nephew also witnessed the killing.
His partner, who was six months pregnant with the couple's third child, said, "They told me to get down on my knees. I said, 'No, don't be doing this in front of my wee ones', but they just fired shots into his stomach and his head." McCormick was due to appear as a witness in a loyalist court-case.
On July 29, 2001, Gavin Brett, an 18-year-old Protestant student, was shot by loyalists who assumed he was Catholic. A friend who was injured in the attack sent a message to his mother saying: "Tell Gavin's mummy that I'm sorry. Tell her that I'm sorry that he died and I didn't."
Gavin's father, a paramedic, ran to the scene but could not resuscitate his son. More than 100 of his father's colleagues were at the funeral in their ambulance service uniforms.
In December 2001, William Stobie was shot in West Belfast. The former UDA member, who disclosed that he was once a police informer, was shot by a UDA gunman after leaving his flat. He was killed two weeks after he was cleared of murdering the solicitor Pat Finucane.
Stobie admitted supplying the guns for the solicitor's killing, but maintained he had provided information that could have saved Finucane's life or led to the capture of his killers if the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) had acted on it.
On January 12, 2002, Daniel McColgan, a 20-year-old Catholic was shot by two UDA gunmen as he arrived for work at a Post Office sorting office. His mother later said, "We have his voice on the answering machine. It cheers us up because he laughs before he says, 'Leave your name and number'."
She said, "Ultimately, Danny's death will be like all the other murders. People will not even remember who he was, or even his name."
In May 2002, the headstone on his grave was destroyed. His girlfriend said, "Daniel is dead. What more do these people want?"
May 11, 2003: Gareth O'Connor, went missing in the south Armagh area and is presumed to have been killed by republicans. His family has kept up a media campaign, first appealing for information and later asking for the return of his body. The family, and the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, Hugh Orde, blamed the IRA, although there were claims O'Connor was involved with dissident republicans.
March 12, 2003: Keith Rogers, shot in County Armagh during an incident in the south Armagh village of Cullaville. The IRA said he was a member but was unarmed and not "on active service". The exact causes of the incident were unclear. At his funeral, the leading IRA figure Brian Keenan said he had been killed by criminals masquerading as republicans and described the attack as "treachery carried out by a band of vermin". Rogers was 15 when the IRA declared its ceasefire in 1994.
A leading loyalist, John Gregg, was shot dead on February 2 last year by allies of the UDA leader Johnny Adair. He was ambushed in the Belfast docks on his way home after watching a Rangers football match in Glasgow.
In 1984, Gregg had almost killed the Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams in a gun attack and was sentenced to 18 years for attempted murder. Released in 1993, he said his only regret was that he had failed to kill Adams.
His UDA unit was held responsible for many murders. In the wake of the Gregg killing, the Adair faction was expelled from the Shankill Rd district of Belfast and fled to Scotland and England.
Danny McGurk, a Catholic father of six, was shot by the Real IRA on August 17, 2003. His 73-year-old mother Mary said he was beaten with hatchets and hammers a week earlier after standing up to local paramilitaries.
She went on, "They're just cowards. He was a big strong fella - he didn't need a weapon, he just needed his hands. They are nothing but the Devil's disciples and drug dealers."
It emerged that the dead man was convicted of manslaughter arising from a 1997 incident when a man died after being stabbed and beaten.
In February, the dissident republican Bobby Tohill, who had denied any link with the McGurk killing, was involved in an incident near the centre of Belfast and was badly injured. Several men were charged. The police said they had interrupted an IRA attack.
- INDEPENDENT
Killing without end in Northern Ireland
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