Big Brother Britain Keeping Watch
A former British military intelligence operative who served in the Six Counties has revealed just how widespread covert intelligence gathering operations have become in occupied Ireland.
According to the ex-Brit, who identified himself to the Irish News (1-12-07) as ‘Peter Wood', at least 1,000 members of the British forces in Ireland in 2003 were actively engaged in mounting covert surveillance operations – installing hidden cameras and listening devices, and monitoring movement and conversations.
These covert troops were not officially accounted for in the figures for the amount of occupation forces in the country at the time.
Ironically, ‘Wood’ stated that as the number of 'green' or frontline British troops on Irish streets and fields decreased, the number of British military personnel involved in conducting spy operations on behalf of British intelligence increased proportionately. One must assume that the numbers secretly involved in such activities has increased over the last four years.
As well as placing individual republicans and other anti-colonialist activists in the Six Counties under direct and intense surveillance, the former British operative admitted that similar surveillance operations were also being conducted in the Twenty-Six Counties.
Now that the most overt spy-towers and bases in the North have been dismantled and the 'green troops' have been withdrawn to barracks (to be used whenever needed), 'Wood' tellingly said that British intelligence gathering has been made easier because, "People are less aware and more off their guard….If you think that just because of the political process here that all covert work has stopped, you would be stupid."
'Peter Wood's' claims should re-awaken republicans and other anti-imperialists to the fact that they are now, as always, the prime objects of British intelligence operations throughout Ireland.
MI5 has spent tens of millions of pounds building a new headquarters at the British army's Palace Barracks in Holywood, County Down, which will be capable of holding up to 400 people. The four-storey building, which has an underground section, extends to more than 10,000 square feet.
MI5 has officially taken on intelligence gathering responsibilities in the Six Counties relevant to "national security interests"— i.e. the security of British state in Ireland.
MI5 and its subordinates are present in Ireland to protect the interests of the British government here and will be controlled by that government (to the extent that MI5 are controlled by anybody other than their own raison d'être). The announcement made at the end of 2006 by the British government that MI5 will be taking on primary intelligence gathering responsibilities against republicans from this year onward is an indication that the British are as determined as ever to uphold the Six County state.
The recent declaration by the then British prime minister Tony Blair that MI5 will have no role in "civic policing" in the North does not affect their prominent role in "non-civic policing."
Collaboration between the RUC-PSNI, MI5 and the British army will continue and local politicians will be powerless to stop it. So, too, will collaboration between those forces and the Gardaí. In matters relating to "national security" (British occupation) the RUC-PSNI chief constable will not be accountable to the Six County Policing Board but the British secretary of state.
Recognition of the political reality that intelligence gathering and surveillance will remain within the framework of the forces of occupation does not mean that we should be cowed by that fact — it merely places an onus on each of us to be aware of and to be alert to the everyday realities faced by republican activists.