Military monitoring - a twenty year campaign - 11-11-97

See also:

Submarine campaign
Microwave health hazard
Bombing range danger
Dumping in the Beaufort Dyke
Campaign against low flying
Health threat from crash sites
Aer Lingus flight a victim of military testing?
UK MoD trains and supports genocide regime
British helicopter force in crisis
Military bases cause environmental pollution

The General Secretary outlines briefly some facets of the Celtic League's Military Monitoring campaign. Started almost by accident it has become one of the League's great success stories. Often ridiculed,in the early days, our claims about the problems caused to fishermen by submarine operations, and our concerns that large quantities of military chemical weapons had been disposed at sea, have been vindicated by the passage of time.

Introduction

The callous murder of a twelve year old girl by the British Army in South Armagh, was to lead to one of the longest running and most successful campaigns the Celtic League has ever undertaken.

 Majella O'Hare was walking with friends near her local chapel at Whitecross in South Armagh. Iinitially military sources blamed the IRA, but eventually it was admitted that she had been killed by a burst of fire "accidentally" discharged by a British army patrol, her and her friends had just walked by.

 Manx nationalists in Mec Vannin and members of the Mannin branch of the Celtic League had watched developments in North Ireland, particularly in relation to the use made of the Isle of Man as a base to support operations there. However no campaign of opposition had been initiated, The Majella O'Hare killing altered all this, and the nationalist grouping, the Celtic League & AMA (Anti Militarist Alliance), was established which pledged to campaign until all bases had been removed form the Isle of Man.

 In August 1982, the Mannin branch having enjoyed some local success with the campaign, urged the Celtic League Annual Meeting, held in Dublin, to adopt a general policy to "monitor the development of military activities and installations in the Celtic countries". The remit was also to include monitoring of the environmental impact.
 
 

Campaigns

The NATO Range.

 See also Bombing range danger

 When the general military monitoring strategy was adopted by the League, the Mannin branch had some years of local campaigning behind it. The RAF range of the north west of Mannin, used extensively by NATO, was one of the first targets. Leafleting and a vociferous campaign of monitoring low flying , produced early results and low flying by military aircraft below 2000 feet was banned over the Island's land mass. (This is still one of the few such bans on RAF activity over the United Kingdom and Isle of Man). In 1988 after almost ten years of opposition the Isle of Man government was forced to scrap plans to expand the range facility - a move it was making at the behest of the British government - and in 1993 the range closed and the last British facility was dismantled. A pollution legacy lives on however, and the Celtic League are now campaigning for compensation from the British to clean up 30 square miles of sea bed of the north coast.

 The British Army Leave Mann

 In parallel with the bombing range campaign, a systematic programme of opposition to British Army use of Mann for military exercises was maintained. The observation of "goings on" in and around the military base at Jurby produced some interesting information. Units from North Ireland periodically used the base, particularly in the mid seventies, and helicopter traffic and fixed wing Beaver spy planes were frequent visitors from Aldegrove near Belfast. In 1988 after much concern had been expressed about British army behaviour in a "Home defence" exercise held on the Island, the British Army quietly left.

 The Submarine Problem

 See also Submarine campaign

 "An Irish fishing vessel has sank after a mysterious collision in the central Irish sea area of Co Louth". BBC Northern Ireland radio made this announcement one morning in April 1982. The announcer went on to quote Royal Navy sources as dismissing suggestions that one of their submarines had been involved. No Royal Navy submarines had apparently visited the Irish sea for several days. The Celtic League not only knew this was a lie but we had graphic evidence to confirm it. A photograph of the Royal Navy submarine HMS Porpoise, on passage towards the area the Sheralga went down, taken just hours before the sinking. The Sheralga incident led to further examination of the record of all submarine operating powers in the waters around Britain and Ireland. Comparatively swiftly, we built up a dossier of over 150 incidents, disappearances, sinkings & snaggings of vessels. We engaged in vigorous correspondence with government and International agencies, and with good support from MPs in the United Kingdom and TDs in the Irish parliament, succeeded in having the matter raised at the United Nations. Eventually the International Maritime Organisation introduced two specific resolutions to address the problem. Officially, the League ended this campaign three years ago when the AGS Mark Kermode laid a wreath to the memory of over 100 fishermen on a dozen vessels, believed lost in submarine related collisions.

 That photograph of HMS Porpoise also cost the British Ministry of Defence dear. In 1988, six years after the sinking of Sheralga, several hundred thousand pounds in compensation was paid to the owner and crew.

 The Breton Connection.

 Very little opportunity presented itself to give practical support to our opposition to French military activity, although several of the submarine incidents monitored involved Breton vessels. However visits by French naval vessels always attracted protest, and in the early 1980s the crew of the French minelayer Narvik, paying a courtesy visit to the tiny fishing village of Port St. Mary in the Isle of Man, were greeted by such protesters (see photo). Later visits by French vessels used the harbour at Douglas, where the French could avoid such opposition by tying up in the security area of the Port.

 Micro Wave Links - To Irish Neutrality.

 One of the issues used to illustrate the advantages of a coordinated monitoring campaign, when the League AGM considered the issue in 1982, was the revelation by the Mannin branch that the UKs Air Defence System was using facilities in Ireland to relay information from its main radar station, at Bishops Court in Ulster.

 The Mannin branch had stumbled on the information when investigating why heavy capacity micro wave links were being constructed, linking Bishops Court through Mannin to the Lancashire coast. Several articles subsequently appeared in the Irish media. However the Irish government rejected the claim that the traffic constituted a breach of its neutrality.

 The Sea Dumps

 See also Dumping in the Beaufort Dyke

 "He swelled up like a balloon, turned purple and shed all his skin including his scalp." Reports like this, after a Breton trawler was contaminated by mustard gas in 1969 after fishing in the Beaufort Dyke area, led us to the assumption that not all the materials deposited were as inert as the authorities would have us believe. For over twenty years the Celtic League has campaigned for information about the contents of Beaufort Dyke and other sea dumps. Fifteen years ago we expressed concern that in addition to chemical weapons, nuclear material had also been disposed of at sea in these inshore areas. In 1993 we stepped up the campaign and called for Irish government support at a special Dublin Conference, the theme of which was "A Dangerous Legacy in Our Seas". Nothing, however, could have prepared us for the scale of the environmental disaster the British have created - to which a solution has still to be determined. From 1995 onwards there has been a stream of confirmatory evidence that vindicates our campaign. A staggering one million tonnes of explosives and chemical waste have been deposited in Dumps around the Irish coast and in Beaufort Dyke. In 1997, the British also owned up to the disposal of nuclear waste. The monitoring of this eco- disaster led to the development of cooperation with local authorities, in the areas affected by material seeping from the sea dumps. This campaign will continue for many years to come.

 Army Bases and Military Pollution - One in the Eye for Portillo

 See also Military bases cause environmental pollution

 The Celtic League, after extensive research during 1992, determined that a serious pollution problem may have occurred around a wide range of used and disused military bases. We became aware that the MOD were suppressing two reports (one concerning Army bases, the other RAF airfields) which were highly critical. Requests to have the information released led initially to blanket denials that the reports existed. However using information from the Army document in 1993, we published our findings.

 The issue was taken up on our behalf by George Foulkes MP (a good supporter in a number of monitoring campaigns we pursued). The rather bumptious junior Defence Secretary Nicholas Soames, initially denied our claims. However when we passed our report via Foulkes to Portillo, the Defence Secretary had to do a u-turn on earlier government comment and announce a staggering 600 "land quality statements" on military bases and installations.

 The range of other Monitoring activities was, and is, extensive. Monitoring and campaigning against low flying in Wales and Scotland; publicising suppressed information about the problems caused by carbon fibre pollution at aircraft crash sites; investigating the operation of British military forces in Ulster and exposing the humiliating attempt by the MOD to buy second hand helicopters world wide, to shore up its faltering helicopter force in North Ireland, prior to the 1994 cease-fire; continuously probing and exposing facets of the still mysterious crash of an Aer Lingus airliner over the British Aberporth missile testing range in 1968 (this resulted in a release of papers and official logbooks ahead of the thirty year rule); opposition to extensions to the Aberporth missile complex; attempting to unravel the mystery of the disposal of weapons manufactured in Britain's chemical weapons complex at Nancekuke in Cornwall, which closed many years ago. All these are just a sample of the elements that have made up our military monitoring in recent years.

 The Celtic League have not worked alone. No record of our work is complete without acknowledgement to people like George Foulkes (Labour MP), Donald Stewart (SNP) in Scotland, Dafydd Wigley and Dafydd Ellis Thomas (PC) in Wales, and Hugh Byrne (TD) in Ireland. These are just some of the parliamentarians who helped us. Also action and interest by various Irish governments ,and by International bodies such as the IMO have been invaluable. Over the years a greater degree of openness, in particular by the British government, has also assisted - however it is pertinent to qualify this by saying information has invariably been proffered to avoid or deflect media embarrassment.

 The campaigns would have not have progressed without good publicity and a stream of press releases over the years, which produced a good take up by both the National media in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, London and also news media world wide.

 The submarine monitoring campaign and the Chemical weapons dumping issue were picked up globally, and this in turn assisted our efforts.

 Twenty years after it began, our Military Monitoring campaign continues.

 J B Moffatt, October 1997.

 Further more detailed information on individual campaigns is available from the Celtic League.