Soldiers from an undercover unit used by the British army in Northern Ireland killed unarmed civilians, former members have told BBC One’s Panorama.
Speaking publicly for the first time, the ex-members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF), which was disbanded in 1973, said they had been tasked with “hunting down” IRA members in Belfast.
The former soldiers said they believed the unit had saved many lives. The Ministry of Defence said it had referred the disclosures to police.
The details have emerged a day after Northern Ireland’s attorney general, John Larkin, suggested ending any prosecutions over Troubles-related killings that took place before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
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Banana / November 21, 2013
MR’s glass house comment has become reality at warp speed.
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Ben Hurling / November 21, 2013
Cameron’s gigantic Glass Hosue is well documented here by CH4.
Look here they explains how British politics/Camerons/Millibands/Harpers function:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E70BwA7xgU
If LTTE Die-ass-pora pressure groups employ similar methods as used by the Israel lobby in Britan, Sri Lanka can count on serious problems in the future.
Cameron’s Grand Standing at CHOGM and behaviour of Milliband brothers are direct results of LTTE Die-ass-pora influence on corrupt British politicians, including Cameron.
Of course well supported & compunded by dumb politics of corrupt Rajapassa clan.
While Sri Lanka’s lethargic Ministry of Foreign Affairs is deep asleep. It is very busy appointing talentless, unpatriotic, corrupt & self serving officials to its ranks.
Sri Lanka has a massive task ahead, if we are to keep the country united.
Cheers!
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vishvajith / November 21, 2013
Ben, your last line says it all.
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IOSalli / November 21, 2013
But I support British. I never let there will be any allegations against them or a resolution.
Sri Lanka should know who they are.
I bless you :D
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Katmai / November 21, 2013
What pro-gov. commenters would not admit to is the fact that it is the BBC that has reported this allegation; something no local media outlet is allowed talk about Sri Lanka without risking of being set on fire, torture and murdered.
If it unpatriotic to convict a soldier for raping women or other war crimes, then isn’t it the current regime that is most unpatriotic for already having convicted some members of the armed forces for rape cases? C4 only demanded that the allegations be investigated and they are being pained as daemons. Then how demonic is Mahinda Rajapaksa for convicting and punishing those members of the heroic armed forces for raping women?
I don’t know if this logic even registers with the sheeple who are ready to prop up this regime in the foolish belief that their present relative success in life is completely dependent on this regime being in power.
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chuti / November 21, 2013
Very True… Cameron must setup a time line for his own inquiry now..
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Native Vedda / November 22, 2013
chuti
“Cameron must setup a time line for his own inquiry now..”
Not to worry, the British journalist/media will force him to have one as you know they don’t owe a thing to their Prime Minister.
If they don’t then lets send our eminent journalist to help the Brits.
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hela / November 22, 2013
NV,
Can we have an independent internation investigation into British actions in occupied Northern Ireland?
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Native Vedda / November 23, 2013
hela
“Can we have an independent internation investigation into British actions in occupied Northern Ireland?”
Of course you can.
Send MR to Britain and ask him to make a public speech on the steps of Northern Ireland Assembly demanding an Independent Investigation into not only Northern Ireland but also rest of the world.
Go with him.
If you can get me UK visa I will be right behind you. I am sure you can, even Karuna got one a few years ago.
Be a man.
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chuti / November 23, 2013
Let’s see….when they collect money for next election, we all can see who is going to fund them?? Diaspora LTTE.. At least you must agree for this..
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Athula / November 22, 2013
Ingalanthe, Ingalanthe!!
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Banana / November 21, 2013
1. MR should go to Belfast with a planeload of Sri Lankan journalists,
2. speak to the victims’ families,
3. then go to London, hold talks with DC calling for an independent investigation,
4. hold a press conference in London, answer queries raised only from Sri Lankan Journalists,
5. threaten DC that unless he conducts an independent investigation before March 2014, he (MR) would support an international investigation into the Belfast war crimes.
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Fathima Fukushima / November 21, 2013
Why not Kandahar? Why not Tripoli?
Where British soldiers killed tens of thousands of unarmed Muslim civilians including women and children?
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IOSalli / November 21, 2013
Dear Fathima Fukushima
I love muslim women. Unlike butt inside denim it’s so beautiful to see flesh jiggle inside loose dresses of Muslim women as they walk.
Thanks for wearing them.
I ll definitely bless you
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JimSofty / November 21, 2013
A pervert is trying to be some one.
I think, once you finished it muslim woman may be asking did you do that ?
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Raja / November 21, 2013
This is what most want..everyone will be up for a inquiry. But not the Last few months.. This war started 30 years ago.. Should not the entire period be investigated.. Which also includes Cross border assistance to Terrorist from around the world. The Networks that kept the flames of terrorism, The Fighting methods of the Terrorist and the army.. From 83-2009.. We know the last years of the war the was fought in many fronts in different areas. Yet why only focus on the last month?? After all it has to be justice over the years and not months.. And the Conduct of the INT NGO’s which made the LTTE the state and all those who opposed them criminals, They did not implement any conditions on the LTTE such as give up suicide attacks on civilians..before they met and shook their hands.. All these areas must also be looked at.
what is a gurilla organisation it is a organisation that acts from within a civilian pouplation, you are the civilian population you cant distinguuish between the 2 thay are the same.
This what these so called Rights groups Avoid.. why??
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sarojini / November 21, 2013
How appropriate . Well said .
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Max Silva / November 22, 2013
Banana you said it all.David is taking the bloody defeated Tamil terrorist idiots for a ride.Thats all.
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kris / November 21, 2013
Here we go
That is why his excellency Mahinda Rajapakse said don’t throw stones ,who lives in glass hoses
Now war crime against David Cameron, if he don’t start the internal investigation, We are going to go for international investigation
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kumar / November 21, 2013
Now only the BBC news is reliable?? and totally free from LTTE finance??
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Peacelover / November 21, 2013
dont talk like a donkey kris,all these days you were blasting BBC as LTTE media and now your going by what thy say hahaahahahaahaah
read the news item fully the UK defence ministry has refered the case to the police for further action,can it ever happen in sri lanka?
now dont think the brits will think its the work of sinhala diaspora in uk and BBC is payroll of sinhala die-ass pora !!
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kris / November 22, 2013
dont talk like a donkey kris,all these days you were blasting BBC as LTTE media and now your going by what thy say
Donkey peace
Recently BBC sacked the LTTE symperthysers
They refer but how long will take for action,
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Peacelover / November 22, 2013
pls update your knowledge on how the system works just this month a royal marine was sentenced for murdering an afghan and the process took less than an year
btw BBC is more or less British media as to how LAKEHOUSE is to SL
can lakehouse ever match them and expose such things? hahahahah
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hela / November 22, 2013
PL,
In fact identified serious cases in SL are with the attorney general. So it happens in SL.
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Rajash / November 21, 2013
The difference between UK and Sri Lanka is that in the UK these crimes will be discussed openly and freely by all poiticians and if there is a crime punishment will be handed out.
As was in the recent case a British soldier was sent to life imprisonment for killing an unarmed taliban in Afgahnistan
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hela / November 22, 2013
Rajash,
Hope you are not blind & deaf. For the last one month, all what we heard in Sri Lanka was so called crimes committed by SL. Nothing else.
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ram / November 21, 2013
Harrison’s book and Macrae’s film awaited with bated breath (both long overdue)
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Banda / November 21, 2013
I remember very well in the early 1970s that plain-clothes detachments of the British army killing unarmed civilians were a much spoken and a known fact among Irish community in Britain.
Its only the other day seven soldiers said “We were there to act like a terror group. We had our own rules, but I don’t recall being involved in the shooting of an innocent person” appearing in Panorama of the BBC1. One soldier explained: “If you had a player who was a well-known shooter who carried out quite a lot of assassinations …it would have been very simple – he had to be taken out.” All the soldiers, however, denied that they were part of a “death” or “assassination squad”.
On the night of 12 May 1972, an MRF patrol shot dead Patrick McVeigh, a father of six children and a member of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Club whose members had been manning barricades in Belfast. The soldiers involved in that shooting made statements to the Royal Military Police saying they had been shot at and returned fire. However, the programme, made by the production company twenty2vision for Panorama, says there is no evidence that McVeigh or anyone beside him were members of the IRA. Those hit tested negative when swabbed by the police for firearms deposits, the programme says. In September that year, another MRF patrol, the BBC programme says, shot dead 18-year-old Daniel Rooney in West Belfast. An MRF sergeant was acquitted of attempted murder following a trial in 1973.
After 18 months’ duty, the MRF was dissolved in late 1972 following army concerns about the adequacy of its command and control structures. But not before 497 people were killed in 1972, Guardian reported.
Sri Lanka Ambassador in UNHRC should be ready for a no hold bar fight with the British in next March in Geneva. Our man should shine ‘British Army killings in Belfast’ and demand an International ‘war crimes’ inquiry. And that is in addition to shinning on the delays of the Chilcott report on Iraq.
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Native Vedda / November 23, 2013
Banda
“Our man should shine ‘British Army killings in Belfast’ and demand an International ‘war crimes’ inquiry.”
Please press for an International Investigation. I will support you and be right behind you.
However you have missed an opportunity to charge Cameron when he arrogantly presented himself in my ancestral island.
Go get him.
Be a man.
By the way have you finished reading Prof Gunawardana’s papers?
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Fathima Fukushima / November 21, 2013
Rajafucksa has bought over the BBC for 3 million pounds wasting taxpayer money.
Now both BBC and BBS work for Rajafucksa.
It is OK to kill Tamils but it is not OK to kill the Irish. They have not done anything wrong to SL.
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Sam / November 21, 2013
I pity some of the commentators in this forum. They do not realise that it was BBC, a British media that exposed British soldiers’ deeds, not journalists from a different country!The comments wrongly assume that the British public and politicians KNEW what was going on and did not object to it and actively covered it, just like what is happening in Sri Lanka.
This is where the biggest distinction is. If the westerners knew that will full wrongdoing happened, they will not rest until justice is served. This is their present culture where as ours (Asians) does not encourage honesty. We are too proud to accept that we made a mistake; too narrow minded to seek atonement; too cruel to allow it to continue.
I kindly ask the Sinhalese people to do some soul searching. They know very well as to what happened during the final phase of the war and what is happening now.
We have to save the nation, not the ‘polpots’ who claim that they saved the nation only to ensure the nation and the collective conscience of its people are forever under their grip.
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Wickramasiri / November 21, 2013
Fully agree with you Sam. Rajpal or Malinda will never expose wrongdoing. Our parliamentarians too will look the other way.
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Banda / November 21, 2013
I forgot about this.
On the morning of Sunday 30 January 1972, around ten thousand people gathered in Londonderry in protest against the British policy of internment of suspected Irish nationalists (IRA). The British Army had sealed off the original route. Riots began. Then paratroopers were ordered to move in and arrest the rioters. Within minutes they opened fire on the crowd, killing thirteen men and injuring 13 others, one died later(all Catholics). This event became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
The British, took 20 years to release their report on ‘Bloody Sunday’. Now Cameron tells MR to produce a report before next March or else. What a hypocrite.
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Wickramasiri / November 21, 2013
Banda, you are right too. This is the sad state of the world to this day.
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Native Vedda / November 22, 2013
Banda
Have you finish reading those research papers?
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hela / November 22, 2013
NV,
Has your backside got iritating again? Wash the amude….
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Native Vedda / November 22, 2013
hela
“Has your backside got iritating again? Wash the amude….”
How much do you charge for a piece?
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Vedda cousin / November 23, 2013
hela, You must excuse my cousin, he use few leaf for his amude.
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Peacelover / November 21, 2013
the intelliegence level of our sinhala patriots are cleary shown by the comments
i)they dont realise BBC is the BRITISH MEDIA who exposed their own soldiers crimes ,can LAKE HOUSE with that cheapskate RAJPAL ever do that?
ii)UK is taking action against the perpetrators,can the SL GOVT do the same?
iii)even this month they (BRITS) sentenced a soldeir for killing an unarmed combatant in Afghanistan,can SL ever match that?
over the booruwas of CT (LEELA alias K A Sumansekera ,Jim,Fathima and the rest to keep us entertained
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hela / November 22, 2013
Yeah…yeah…
UK is having trials and then acquit the accused. SL can do the same.
What is the verdict on Bloody Sunday?
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Voice of Justise / November 21, 2013
In Sri Lanka,the Government soldiers have started killings Tamils from 70s and continue.The crimes committed by British soldiers cannot justify the mass killing committed by Sori Lankan soldiers.All soldiers who committed killings of unarmed civilians must be punished after a true investigation and trial irrespective of their countries.You cannot trust MARA who is always take wrong examples to protect himself from all crimes including war crimes committed by the Sinhala soldiers on the instruction of his beloved brother GOTA.By the way that it is revealed that MR. Gota has gone to a tiny country that surrounded by Italy to deposit his billions of illicit money for safety in secret Banks.Will MARA investigate this?
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ram / November 21, 2013
Cameron’s bufoonery at CHOGM does not square with happenings that have come to light in his own country. They are NOT allegations but confessions from the horses’ mouth as it were. Calculated, planned, organised killings of unarmed civilians cannot be compared with allegations of civilian deaths in the heat of battle.
We have to await Harrison’s tome and Macrae’s film(s)and Miller’s investigations, but I guess we’d be waiting a long time.
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Snowdon Asange / November 21, 2013
Now Cameron and his ilk can Duck a Sick, thankx to die ass pora…MR seems to be touching Gold…. his statement on, Glass house occupants comes so true so early… woah. wonder if he has a knack for crystal ball reading… Cameron and his BRITISH scum got to run for cover Including Tony Blair, the lap dog of GW bush
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M.Sivananthan / November 22, 2013
LTTE did the same. Killing Tamil civilians was the brain child of the British technology.The Balasingams are the employees of the same corrupt Brits. Tamil/Sinhala slaves still think Brits can do everything. That era has gone forever.
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Burning_Issue / November 22, 2013
Your brain needs serious attention; please do go to a doctor and get it seen to otherwise it will play havoc on you!
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I am no muslim / November 23, 2013
Seems, you still like to wash white arse.
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Stewart Sloan / November 22, 2013
OMG! We should call for an international inquiry!
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Dr.Rajasingham Narendran / November 22, 2013
The free media at work! That is what we need urgently. This is the main lesson we have to learn. The other of course is to look at our own deeds and misdeeds as peoples, with an intent to wash our sins away. Unless we identify where our sins lie, we cannot wash them away adequately. Others need not have to tell us this. We- all communities in Sri Lanka- have to do it ourselves.
It is not only a glass house we live in, but also a divided one. A divided house invites others to intervene and interfere. If it is also a glass house, there will be many peepers, including those who also live in other glass houses.
Let us unite to build a human value-based and cultured ( refined) Sri Lanka. It is yet not too late.
Dr.Rajasingham Narendran.
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Snowdon Asange / November 23, 2013
well said… The WEST is and has been trying to drive a wedge between all communities in SL. We need a Home grown solution to our internal problems. WE also cannot sweep matters under the carpet…ALL issues regarding ALL races and Religions need to be sorted out… IF we could have lived in SL for so many years we can still live as bretheren in the country of OUR BIRTH… than migrate to some country where we are considered as Transplants or aliens..
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Douglas / November 23, 2013
Sri Lanka must now bring forward a Resolution against UK at the forthcoming meeting of the UNHRC without directing media accusations over Cameron’s comments when he visited to attend the CHOGM.
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