British Paratrooper Lee Clegg in Afghanistan

uploaded by ThomasGraham August 14, 2008 at 03:18 am
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British Paratrooper Lee Clegg in Afghanistan by ThomasGraham

British paratrooper Lee Clegg was convicted of the 1990 murder of West Belfast teenager Karen Reilly, an incident that also claimed the life of Martin Peake and the wounding of a teenage girl -Markievitz Gorman - when a joint British army RUC patrol fired upon a car the three were travelling in. Clegg was sentenced to life imprisonment. It had initially been claimed that the car had driven through a 'roadblock' injuring a soldier and was then fired upon. However, this was proven to be untrue and that in fact there was no 'roadblock' and that this was concocted after the shooting including the self-inflicting of injuries on a soldier in a bid to substantiate the lie.

This was at variance with an eye-witness who refused to change his evidence despite numerous interviews by the RUC in a bid to coerce him. Subsequent to this Private Chris Aindow, who was in the patrol at the time and whom the injuries were inflicted upon, eventually broke ranks and revealed the true sequence of events - this despite the presence of the RUC on the night of the killings. This eventually led to a statement being retracted by an RUC member present that provided cover to Clegg. A prosecution became unavoidable.

After a lengthy political camping by the British establishment and right wing press Clegg's conviction was overturned. He was reinstated back into the British army and promoted. News that he is now serving in Afghanistan has emerged this week.

Speaking in response to media calls about this latest development Chairperson for Relatives for Justice Clara Reilly said;

'The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is based upon self-interest, power within the region, and oil - it is not about protecting and defending human rights and democracy, principle or integrity, therefore we should not be surprised that it involves people of no principle or integrity which extends to people like Clegg.

For many of the world's neutral observers the deployment of Clegg in Afghanistan will be judged against his role in the killing of two children, Karen Reilly and Martin Peake, and the wounding of Markievitz Gorman no matter how much the British spin their version.

It is not at all surprising that the British army have deployed Clegg in Afghanistan and most likely numerous other British soldiers and former RUC personnel who were equally involvement in human rights abuses in Ireland and who were given impunity.

In terms of transition it is evidentially the case that the British Army have not drawn any lessons from its campaign in Ireland despite its numerous military failings not least the killing of hundreds of children and civilians.

One would have thought that given such a legacy that clear lessons would have been learnt. However, that would be to work on the naive premise that their involvement in Afghanistan, like that in Ireland, is one of creating peace which many in the democratic world are now realizing is not the case. As in Ireland hundreds of ordinary children and civilians have been killed by the British army in Afghanistan. This is a terrible legacy yet we only ever hear of British fatalities and casualties from the media.

From the British point of view Clegg was unfortunate and became unintentionally entangled in the web of a criminal justice system specifically designed to convict non-state actors to the conflict. This was largely due to a civilian witness who refused to be intimidated which in turn led to an RUC member retracting his cover statement for Clegg. The then objective was to rally the British establishment in overturning his conviction which they eventually did.

That ruling decision was, like the hundreds of decisions regarding killings by the British army and the RUC in which there were no prosecutions, a political one.

For the people of Ireland, and in particular the community of West Belfast, we know the truth and the awful human legacy of the British army's actions of which Clegg was a part of. Indeed this community recently commemorated the brutal killings by the Parachute Regiment of 11 unarmed civilians in Ballymurphy on August 9th 1971. Lets hope that the people of Afghanistan are spared three and half decades of the British army.