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“Non-Recognition of the Law Does Not Invalidate It”: The Status of BLA and Provisional IRA Prisoners

2022; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10999949.2022.2104602

1548-3843

Ward Churchill,

Asian American and Pacific Histories

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeKeywords: imperialisminternational lawIrelandIrish Republican Army (IRA)Mutulu Shakurprisoner of warRepublic of New Afrikaresistance Additional informationNotes on contributorsWard ChurchillWard Churchill is an activist/scholar who served for over thirty years on the leadership council of the Colorado Chapter of the American Indian Movement. A former professor of American Indian studies and chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado, he has published more than twenty books and one hundred articles on American Indian history and the suppression of political dissent in the United States.Notes1 Specifically, they were charged with/convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. 1961, 1962(c), 1962(d), 2113(a), 2113(d), and 2113(e). See U.S. v. Mutulu Shakur, a/k/a “Doc,” a/k/a “Jerel Wayne Williams,” and Marilyn Jean Buck, a/k/a “Carol Durant,” a/k/a “Nina Lewis,” a/k/a “Diana Campbell,” a/k/a “Norma Miller” (88 F.2d 234 (October 20, 1989)).2 The motion was filed “on November 2, 1987, just before jury selection began.” U.S. v. Marilyn Buck, U.S. v. Mutulu Shakur (Nos. 84 Cr. 220-CSH, SSS 82 212-CSH, SDNY), Memorandum Opinion and Order, July 6, 1988 (590 F. Supp 1291 (1988)) p. 1392. Hereafter cited as July 6 Memorandum.3 For background, see Akinyele Umoja’s “Straight Ahead: The Life of Resistance of Dr. Mutulu Shakur,” herein. For a distillation of popular reportage, see John Castellucci, The Big Dance (New York: Dodd, Meade, 1986).4 For background on the RNA, see Umoja, “Straight Ahead.” Also see Chokwe Lumumba’s affidavit, dated October 31, 1987, https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC513_scans/Mutulu_Shakur/513.mutulu.shakur.vs.us.supreme.district.court.10.31.1987.pdf (accessed 11 September 2022)5 For background, see Natsu Taylor Saito, “Who Is a Prisoner of War?,” herein. The question arises as to why Buck, too, did not claim PoW status. After all, she’d escaped from prison in 1977 after being convicted four years earlier of procuring arms for the BLA, was frequently described in the media as its “only white member,” and was (mis)characterized by the FBI as its “quartermaster.” Buck was a member of the Revolutionary Armed Task (RATF) a clandestine alliance of New Afrikan revolutionaries and white anti-imperialists. She also participated in other acts of anti-imperialist solidarity with the Black Liberation and Puerto Rican independence movements. See, e.g., Margalit Fox, “Marilyn Buck, Imprisoned for Brink’s Holdup, Dies at 62,” New York Times (August 5, 2010; available at https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/nyregion/06buck.html).6 Oral arguments were heard on November 25, 1987, and the “further written exposition” submitted by Shakur on November 26 concerned the political offense exception.7 The prosecutors simply “characterized Shakur’s motion as frivolous, submitted no brief, and stood mute at oral argument.” July 6 Memorandum, p. 1294.8 Of particular relevance in the context at hand, see Jordan J. Paust, “The Human Right to Participate in Armed Revolution and Related Forms of Social Violence: Testing the Limits of Permissibility,” Emory Law Journal 30 (1983): 545–81; Jordan J. Paust, “Aggression Against Authority: The Crime of Oppression, Politicide, and Other Crimes Against Human Rights,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 18, no. 2 (1986): 283–306.9 Assistant U.S. Attorney Kerri L. Martin, Affidavit and Attachment, U.S. v. Mutulu Shakur (SSS 82 Cr. 312 (CSH) and U.S. v. Marilyn Buck (84 Cr. 220), March 23, 1988. Attached is the 36-page response—hereafter cited as “Exhibit A”—prepared by Abraham D. Sofaer, Legal Advisor to the U.S. Department of State; Michael J, Matheson, Deputy Legal Advisor; Edward R. Cummings, Assistant Legal Advisor for Politico-Military Affairs; W. Hays Parks, Chief of the Judge Advocate General’s International Law Branch, Department of the Army; and Albert H. Dyson, Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Department of Defense.10 “Exhibit A,” p. 2.11 At issue in this regard was the Supplementary Convention to the 1972 U.S./British Extradition Treaty (28 U.S.T. 227, T.I.A.S. No. 8468), signed on June 25, 1985, “effectively eliminat[ing] the political offense exemption” therein. Abraham D. Sofaer, the lead author of “Exhibit A,” had also been the principle State Department advocate of the Supplementary Convention when testifying before Congress in 1985. See Christopher L. Blakesley, “The Evisceration of the Political Offense Exception to Extradition,” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 15, no. 1 (1986-1987): 105–24.12 A highly relevant example is that of the FBI’s domestic counterintelligence (COINTELPRO) operations designed to “disrupt, discredit and destroy” the Black Panther Party and other elements of the Black Liberation Movement from 1967 to 1972. Although a Senate investigating committee officially concluded in 1976 that COINTELPRO as a whole was illegal and that myriad criminal offenses had been perpetrated in its implementation, no FBI agent was ever charged or prosecuted—much less imprisoned—as a result. See “COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Covert Action Programs Against American Citizens” and “The FBI’s Covert Action Program to Destroy the Black Panther Party,” both in U.S. Senate, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (Washington, DC: 94th Cong., 2d Sess., 1976), pp. 1–69, 185–224. Also see Ward Churchill, “‘To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy’: The FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party,” in Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy, ed. Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas (New York: Routledge, 2001), 78–117.13 “Exhibit A,” p. 15. Shakur had cited Article 4 of the 1949 Convention on PoWs (6 U.S.T. 3318, T.I.A.S. No. 3364).14 UN General Assembly Resolution 3103, Basic principles of the legal status of the combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and alien régimes, December 12, 1973 (A/Res/3103, available at https://www.refworld.org/docid/3b00f1c955.html). Hereafter cited as UNGA Res. 3103.15 See Saito, “Who Is a Prisoner of War?”16 As the respondents mention in passing, “Protocol I…provides in Article I [4] that [anticolonial/antiracist] conflicts be deemed to be international.” “Exhibit A,” p. 31.17 Ibid., p. 17. This assertion was categorically false. The U.S. most certainly was “a party to” several “international armed conflicts” at the time, notably in Nicaragua and Afghanistan. See generally, Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Boston: South End Press, 1988) and George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).18 “Exhibit A,” pp. 17–18.19 Quoted in “Exhibit A” at p. 8.20 “Exhibit A,” p. 10.21 Ibid. On p. 7, the respondents observed that on January 29, 1987, President Ronald Reagan informed the Senate that he would not submit Protocol I for ratification, despite the U.S. having been among the original signatories, because his administration viewed the law as “fundamentally and irreconcilably flawed” with respect to the standing accorded to combatants engaged in wars of national liberation. See U.S. Senate, Message from the President of the United States Transmitting The Protocol II Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, and Relating to the Victims of Noninternational Armed Conflicts, Concluded at Geneva on June 10, 1977 (Washington, DC: 100th Cong., 1st Sess., January 29, 1987).22 “Exhibit A,” p. 11. In fact, Article 1 (2) of the Protocol states that customary international law governs matters involving armed conflict not already addressed in the Geneva Conventions and elsewhere. This can be/has been interpreted as indicating that its purpose was to address such matters, thereby codifying customary law. See, e.g., Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 6–7.23 “Exhibit A,” p. 11; quoting U.S. Navy, Law of Naval Warfare (NWIP 10-2, Sept. 1955), pp. 2–3.24 “Exhibit A,” p. 12.25 Ibid.26 Judge Haight appears to have been sufficiently uncomfortable with the government’s position, that he wondered how many countries had ratified Protocol I. Unfortunately, his curiosity extended no further than to check a law review article published in 1981. This put the number at only 15—as of October 1980—a tally Haight saw as a “slight acceptance,” falling far short of any “general assent in international law.” Had he bothered to call across town to the UN headquarters for current information, however, he’d have found that by 1988 the number had climbed to 72 and was growing steadily (a further 13 countries ratified Protocol I in 1989). Today, of the 193 UN member-states, 172—including every NATO country except the U.S. and Turkey—have done so. See July 6 Memorandum, p. 1302. Also see Treaties, Ratifications and Commentaries: Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977 (Available at https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/States.xsp?xp_viewStates=XPages_NORMStatesParties&xp_treatySelected=470#topTable).27 In a footnote on p. 18 of “Exhibit A,” the respondents pointed to a pro forma directive issued in 1968 by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), to the effect that prisoners should be treated as PoWs until such time as a “competent tribunal” composed of “not less than three officers” had met to determine their proper status. Suffice it to say that this almost never happened, partly because prisoners taken by U.S. forces were typically turned over to the South Vietnamese army almost immediately, partly because U.S. troops routinely ignored—or were never informed of—the directive. For a glimpse of how prisoners were actually treated by U.S. forces, as well as the Judge Advocate General’s conspicuous failure to prosecute known offenders, see Deborah Nelson, The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth About U.S. War Crimes (New York: Basic Books, 2008), esp. the official summaries appended thereto.28 There were actually two IRAs during the early ’70s, and others emerged later in the conflict. The Provos split off from the Dublin-headquartered “Official” IRA in 1969, because of the latter’s reluctance to support armed struggle in Northern Ireland. In 1974, a second group, calling itself the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), also split off from the Official IRA for much the same reason. On the initial split, see Peter Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein (London: Bloomsbury, 1998), 66–7; on INLA, see Henry McDonald and Jack Holland, I.N.L.A.: Deadly Divisions (Dublin: Poolbeg Books, [3rd ed.] 2010), 33–40.29 For background, see Lumumba affidavit. Also see Gerald Horne, The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2018).30 See Cyril Falls, Elizabeth’s Irish Wars (London: Methuen, 1950); Nicholas Canny, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: A Pattern Established, 1565-1576 (Dublin: Harvester Press, 1976); M. E. Collins, Conquest and Colonization: The History of Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1969).31 There is a copious literature, both popular and purportedly scientific, characterizing the Irish as “white chimpanzees,” “bestial” and “ape-like,” much closer to Cro-Magnons than to fully evolved humans. In his 1862 Races of Britain, John Beddoe, future president of the British Anthropological Institute, pronounced them to be “Africanoid” and included Celts more generally in the book’s “Index of Negrescence.” See generally, L. Perry Curtis Jr., Anglo-Saxons and Celts: Anti-Irish Prejudice in Victorian England (Bridgeport, CT: University of Bridgeport Press, 1968) and Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1971).32 A prime example is that during Oliver Cromwell’s drive to complete the pacification of Ireland during the 1650s, 10,000 or more Irish insurgents, dissidents, and other “undesirables” were sentenced to serve terms of 10 years or more performing forced labor in the cane fields of Barbados. There, they worked side-by-side with and under the same conditions as the growing number of enslaved Africans. See Hilary Beckles, White Servitude and Black Slavery in Barbados, 1627-1715 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987) esp. p. 6; Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800 (London: Verso, 1997), esp. p. 241; Nini Rogers, Ireland, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 1612-1865 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), esp. pp. 37–38.33 See generally, Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British, 1580-1650 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001); Sean Cahill, “The Politics of the Irish Language Under the English and British Governments,” Proceedings of the Barra Ó Donnabháin Symposium 2007 (available at https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/irelandHouse/documents/0111-0126_PoliticsOfTheIrishLanguage.pdf); Hans Pawlisch, Sir John Davies and the Conquest of Ireland: A Study in Legal Imperialism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).34 From the Elizabethan era onward, Crown policy in Ireland was to confiscate land owned by Catholics, awarding it mainly to English nobles and their Protestant Scottish counterparts. By 1870, over half the country—including virtually all the prime farmland—was in the hands of fewer than 750 families. The Irish themselves were largely left destitute, reduced to renting a windowless single-room dwelling on a 10-acre plot upon which they depended for subsistence, or, worse, to become “cottiers” providing labor to a renter in exchange for a “conacre” (essentially a garden plot). During the early 19th century, over 3 million of the island’s 5.7 million people were living on a diet consisting almost entirely of potatoes; male life expectancy was barely 40 years. While an exodus of “Paddys” seeking to escape these conditions was already pronounced, it became a torrent during the “Great Hunger” of 1845–52 (also known as the “Potato Famine”), when annual potato crops were destroyed by a blight. At least a million people died of starvation and linked diseases in those years, while upwards of 2 million immigrated. By 1900, Ireland’s population, which reached 8 million in 1841, had fallen to 4.4 million, a loss from which it has never recovered. See Cathal Póirtéir, The Great Famine (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1995), esp. pp. 19–20; James S. Donnelly Jr., The Great Irish Potato Famine (Thrupp, Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2001), esp. p. 181; David Ross, Ireland: History of a Nation (New Lanark, UK: Geddis and Grosset, 2005), esp. p. 226. Also see generally, Michael J. Winstanley, Ireland and the Land Question, 1800-1922 (London: Routledge, 1994); Donald Akenson, The Irish Diaspora: A Primer (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1993); Tim Pat Coogan, The Famine Plot: England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012).35 See Gerald Horne, The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of American Fascism (New York: International, 2022), 51–2; Bruce Nelson, Irish Nationalists and the Making of the Irish Race (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013), 80–1; Lee Jenkins, “Beyond the Pale: Frederick Douglass in Cork,” Irish Review no. 24 (Autumn 1999): 80–95. Kristine Kinealy, ed., Frederick Douglass and Ireland in His Own Words, Vol. II (New York: Routledge, 2018), esp. pp. 67, 72.36 Grassroots resistance in various forms was continuous. Major upsurges of armed struggle occurred from 164 to 153, as well as 1798, 1803, 1848, and 1867. See generally, John Gibney, The Shadow of a Year: The 1641 Rebellion in Irish History and Memory (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013); Thomas Packenham, The Year of Liberty: The Great Irish Rebellion of 1798 (New York: Penguin Random House, 1972); Christine Kinealy, Repeal and Revolution: 1848 in Ireland (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009).37 See Alan Ward, The Easter Rising: Revolution and Irish Nationalism (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003); Charles Townsend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London: Allen Lane, 2005).38 Cyril Briggs, “Heroic Ireland,” The Crusader (February 1921), p. 5. That Briggs, a professed “Bolshevist,” would offer this assessment so soon after the Bolsheviks’ own October Revolution in Russia speaks volumes. On the relationship between the ABB and the IRB, and the ABB being viewed as “Black Fenians,” see Nelson, Irish Nationalists, 201–2; Judith Stein, The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986), 53.39 See Nelson, Irish Nationalists, 193–99; Matthew Pratt Guteri, “The Irish Rebellion That Resonated in Harlem: Black Intellectuals Expressed Solidarity with the Easter Rising Revolt against British Rule,” New Republic (March 25, 2016; available at https://newrepublic.com/article/132042/irish-rebellion-resonated-harlem); Maurice J. Casey, “Claude McKay and the Irish Revolution” (April 17, 2018; available at https://mauricejcasey.com/2018/04/17/claude-mckay-and-the-irish-revolution/).40 See Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2002); Joseph McKenna, Guerrilla Warfare in the Irish War of Independence, 1919-1921 (Jefferson, NC: McFarlan, 2011); Jason K. Knirck, “The Dominion of Ireland: The Anglo-Irish Treaty in an Imperial Context,” Éire-Ireland 42, no. 1 (2007): 229–55.41 As IRA strategist cum negotiator Michael Collins put it, the treaty did not free Ireland, but afforded it “the freedom to achieve freedom.” See Matthew Heintz, “The Freedom to Achieve Freedom: Negotiating the Anglo-Irish Treaty,” Intersections Online 10, no. 1 (Winter 2009): 431–51 (available at https://depts.washington.edu/chid/intersections_Winter_2009/Matthew_Heintz_Anglo-Irish_Treaty.pdf).42 The Free State’s entry into the Commonwealth as an “autonomous Community of the British Empire” followed from the Balfour Declaration issued at the conclusion of the British Imperial Conference in London in December 1926. See Sir Peter Marshall, “The Balfour Formula and the Evolution of the Commonwealth,” The Round Table 90, no. 361 (September 2001): 541–53.43 From the outset, the plan in Ulster was to drive the predominantly Catholic Irish off the land altogether, replacing them with Protestant settlers, some English but mainly Scottish Presbyterians. By 1720, the latter were an absolute majority of Ulster’s population. See Jonathan Bardon, The Plantation of Ulster: The British Colonization of the North of Ireland in the 17th Century (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2011); Liam Kennedy, Ulster Since 1600: Politics, Economy, and Society (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013), esp. p. 143.44 “Northern Ireland” and its border were established by Britain in its Government of Ireland Act of 1920. The Anglo-Irish Treaty provided for a Border Commission to adjust the boundary in accordance with the preferences expressed by majorities residing in each locale, and Republicans thus anticipated that non-Protestant areas like south Armagh, south Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Derry would opt to merge with the Free State. No genuine referenda were conducted, however. Instead, militarized police units were formed to enforce settler control over the entire area. See generally, Robert Lynch, The Partition of Ireland, 1918-1925 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Michael Farrell, Arming the Protestants: The Formation of the Ulster Special Constabulary and Royal Ulster Constabulary (London: Pluto Press, 1983).45 The anti-treaty IRA forces are estimated to have outnumbered those accepting the Free State, 12,000 to 8,000 when the fighting began. See Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1988), 127; on the IRA campaign in Ulster, see pp. 83–6. Also see Robert Lynch, The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition, 1920-1922 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006); Calton Younger, Ireland’s Civil War (London: Frederick Muller, 1968).46 The British Crown was left unmentioned in the 1937 Constitution, while Article 2 stated that the “national territory” consisted of “the whole island of Ireland, its islands and territorial seas” and Article 3 that the county’s jurisdiction extended over the same area. Crown authority within Éire was formally abolished by the Executive Powers Act of 1937, although the 1936 External Relations Act, under which the country’s foreign affairs were handled by the Crown, was left unchanged. The latter was repealed by the Republic of Ireland Act in 1948, severing the final vestige of British control. As is stated in Article 2 of the 1948 Act, the term “Republic of Ireland” simply defines what is meant by Éire, which, constitutionally enshrined, remains the Republic’s name. See Mary E. Daly, “The Irish Free State/Éire/Republic of Ireland/Ireland: ‘A Country by Any Other Name?,’” Journal of British Studies 46, no. 1 (January 2007): 72–90.47 It should be noted that a secret report commissioned by the British prime minister and distributed to his cabinet in January 1949 concluded that it was “a matter of first-class strategic importance that the North continue to form part of His Majesty’s dominions” and, hence, it was “unlikely that Great Britain would ever be able to agree to [Ulster’s secession] even if the people of Northern Ireland desired it.” The Act was shaped accordingly, as was subsequent British policy. The document is Secret Cabinet Paper (49) 4; 7 January 1949—“Ireland: Report of Working Party”—Memorandum by the Prime Minister.48 See Bishop and Mallie, Provisional IRA, 37. Also see J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA (New York: Routledge, [3rd ed., rev.] 2017), 239–54.49 “Operation Harvest,” as the campaign was code-named, began in December 1956, and, while it was not officially terminated until February 1962, had fizzled by early 1958. See Bishop and Mallie, Provisional IRA, pp. 35–45; Bell, Secret Army, 255–326. Also see Richard English, Armed Struggle: A History of the IRA (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003), 71–7.50 J. Bowyer Bell, The Gun in Irish Politics: An Analysis of Irish Political Conflict, 1916-86 (New York: Routledge, 1987), 107.51 Northern Ireland’s population in 1922 consisted of roughly 800,000 Protestant settlers—the largest denomination being Presbyterian Scots, followed by English Anglicans—and 400,000 Irish Catholics. By 1960, the population had grown by about 200,000, with the 2:1 religious ratio remaining constant. As of 2011, the population had reached 1.8 million while the proportion of Catholics had reached 40%. See generally, James Anderson and Ian Shuttleworth, “Sectarian demography, territoriality and political development in Northern Ireland,” Political Geography 17, no. 2 (February 1998): 187–208; Eric Kauffman, “Demographic Change and Conflict in Northern Ireland: Reconciling Qualitative and Quantitative Evidence,” Ethnopolitics 10, nos. 3-4 (September 2011): 369–89.52 Indeed, as even so hardline a Protestant enforcer as career member of the “B-Specials” summed up his own and his colleagues’ thuggish defense of the status quo, “it had little or nothing to do with religious beliefs…. The place where a man hung his hat on Sunday had little or nothing to do with [our] attitude.” See Constantine FitzGibbon, Red Hand: The Ulster Colony (New York: Warner Paperback Library, 1973), 384–85.53 See David J. Smith and Gerald Chambers, Inequality in Northern Ireland (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991); on the structural basis of oppression, see esp. p. 368. For further analysis, see John Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990).54 “Taig” is a derogatory term for Irish Catholics, serving essentially the same function as the N-word in white supremacist U.S. discourse. “Fenian” is a bit more complex. Derived from the warrior bands known in Gaelic legend as Fianna, “Fenian” was adopted as an umbrella term encompassing the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB, founded in 1858) and its U.S. offshoot, the Fenian Brotherhood, both secret societies devoted to Ireland’s independence. See David Brundage, Irish Nationalists in America: The Politics of Exile, 1798-1998 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016); John Dorney, “The Fenians: An Overview,” The Irish Story (available at https://www.theirishstory.com/2017/03/07/the-fenians-an-overview/#.Yn7gypPMLUA).55 As stated in the 1969 Cameron Report on disturbances in Northern Ireland, the B-Specials in particular functioned as “a partisan and paramilitary force recruited exclusively from Protestants.” Quoted in Michael Farrell, Northern Ireland: The Orange State (London: Pluto Press, 1976), 265.56 To offer just one example among many, there was conclusive evidence that elements of the police doubled as members of the UPV. See the “Cameron Report,” officially titled Disturbances in Northern Ireland: Report of the Commission Appointed by the Governor of Northern Ireland (Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1969) item 220.57 For an in-depth study of how the RUC Special Branch enabled a range of crimes by the UVF—including at least 15 murders—during the 1990s, see Nuala O’Loan, Statement of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland on her investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Raymond McCord Junior and related matters (Belfast: Office of the Police Ombudsman, 2007), esp. pp. 132–37. Most recently, a comparable study revealed the same pattern of Special Branch collusion with the UDA/UFF. See Marie Anderson, Investigation into Police Handling of Certain Loyalist Paramilitary Murders and Attempted Murders in the Northwest of Northern Ireland during the Period 1989-1993 (Belfast: Office of the Police Ombudsman, 2022).58 See generally, Farrell, Northern Ireland; Steve Bruce, Red Hand: Protestant Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006).59 In 1970, the police forces of the 300 largest U.S. cities were 96% white, while 100% was normative in rural areas. Cops doubling as Klansmen was common, especially—but not exclusively—in the Deep South, while their membership in other “whites only” patriotic, civic, and social organizations was all but universal. See David A. Sklansky, “Not Your Father’s Police Department: Making Sense of the New Demographics of Law Enforcement,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 94, no. 3 (Spring 2006): 1214; Charles E. Cobb, Jr., This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible (New York: Basic Books, 2019), esp. pp. 9, 19; William Spivey, “The Cops, the Klan, and the Pulpit,” AfroSapiophile (June 19, 2021; available at https://medium.com/afrosapiophile/the-cops-the-klan-and-the-pulpit-47dd318bace1).60 Before it shifted to civil disobedience the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, as it called itself, was ineffectual at best. See Bob Purdie, Politics in the Streets: The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1990), 133.61 See Peter Taylor, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein (London: Bloomsbury, 1998), 48–54. For further background, see Fionbarra O’Dochartaig, Ulster’s White Negroes: From Civil Rights to Insurrection (Edinburgh: AK Press, 1990); Niall O’Dochartaig, From Civil Rights to Armalites: Derry and the Birth of the Irish Troubles (Cork: Cork University Press, 1997).62 Bell, The Gun in Irish Politics, 138. Also see Russell Stetler, The Battle of Bogside: The Politics of Violence in Northern Ireland (London: Sheed and Ward, 1970), esp. Chapter 3.63 The Shorland was configured to the RUC’s specifications, including a ring mount to accommodate the machine gun, a weapon explicitly designed for military usage. Ten were deployed in Belfast. A half-century after the fact, it was officially acknowledged that “the use of Browning machine guns…[in] a densely populated area…created a severe, disproportionate and unjustified risk of death.” See Marie Anderson, Statutory Report: The Circumstances of the Deaths of Patrick Rooney, Hugh McCabe, Samuel McLarnon and Michael Lynch in Belfast on August 15, 1969 (Belfast: Office of the Police Ombudsman, 5 May 2021), 115.64 In the face of such official violence, so many people fled to Éire that the Irish Defense Force set up several refugee camps along the border, with at least 6,000 in just one of them. See Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal and the Search for Peace (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 91, 106; Robert William White, Provisional Irish Republicans: An Oral and Interpretive History (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993), 75.65 Aside from Belfast and Derry, the other towns were Dungannon, Coalisland, Armagh, Newry, Strabane, and Dungiven. In Armagh, the B-Specials killed one protester and wounded two others. See generally the so-called Scarman Report, Violence and Disturbances in Northern Ireland in 1969 (Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1971), esp. Chapters 14, 15, 16, 29. (Hereafter cited as “Scarman Report.”)66 See Coogan, The Troubles, 101–2; Robin Evelegh, Peacekeeping in a Democratic Society: The Lessons of Northern Ireland (London: C. Hurst, 1978), 6–8.67 This is not to say that the bodycount in Belfast wasn’t far lower than those marking its earlier counterparts in the U.S.; as many as 250 Black people were killed in East St. Louis and an estimated 300 in Tulsa. See Coogan, The Troubles, 91; Charles L. Lumpkins, American Progrom: The East St. Louis