ITV documentary claims Gaddafi funding Irish dissidents

Tuesday September 27, 2011 18:05

by Ruaidhrí O' Conghaile

A source at the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has claimed that deposed Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was funding armed Irish dissident republican groups in the north of Ireland as recently as June 2011.

The claim featured as part of an exclusive ITV1 documentary entitled, 'Exposure: Gaddafi and the I.R.A', which aired on September 26th.

A source at the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has claimed that deposed Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was funding armed Irish dissident republican groups in the north of Ireland as recently as June 2011.

The claim featured as part of an exclusive ITV1 documentary entitled, 'Exposure: Gaddafi and the I.R.A', which aired on September 26th.

The MI6 source alleges that a Libyan government courier flew into London earlier this year with $2 million in cash during a stopover on route to the Irish Republic. The money is thought to have been on its way to an Irish businessman closely associated with one of the armed dissident republican groups.

At present, there are three armed dissident groups active in the north of Ireland, Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Continuity Irish Republican Army (C.I.R.A) and the Real Irish Republican Army (R.I.R.A). The program did not specify as to which group the money was to be allocated.

The MI6 source was also unable to confirm whether or not the money had in fact reached its destination.

Colonel Gaddafi's support for Irish unity has long been documented. Expressing his opinion on the situation in Ireland, Gaddafi once famously said, "We believe the cause of Ireland is a just cause, and we support this just cause, because we believe Ireland is Ireland and Britain is Britain, and the existence of Britain in the north of Ireland is a sense of colonisation."

The former Libyan leader supported the Provisional I.R.A campaign to varying degrees from the early 1970's through to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, lending both financial support and substantial arms shipments to aid the Irish campaign.

The programme also obtained a copy of a video, purportedly showing an Irish dissident training camp taking place in the rural Irish countryside. Dissidents appeared to be armed with AK47 automatic rifles and pistols.

Armed insurgency is again on the rise in the north of Ireland, and there has been a steady increase in the number of attacks over the last several years.

During his decades in power, Gaddafi is believed to have funded several armed resistance groups across the world, these include the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the Black September movement, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, and the Japanese Red Army.

Determining the validity of the recent claim featured in the ITV documentary may prove difficult however. MI6 declined to officially confirm its authenticity.

I feel it is also important to draw attention to a number of blatant and rather worrying factual inaccuracies in the documentary. Shockingly, C.G.I footage from a popular computer game entitled 'Arma 2' was depicted in the program as having been a real life incident involving the I.R.A. On top of that, old television footage of street clashes between Irish nationalists and the R.U.C, the former police force in the north of Ireland that were disbanded in the year 2000, was described by the programs narrator as having occurred "earlier this year".

This shows that the standard of research behind the documentary was completely below what one would expect from a broadcaster of the caliber of ITV.

The program had quite a heavy political slant throughout, and was anything but impartial. In the sixty minutes dedicated to highlighting the evil of Gaddafi's role in sponsoring the Provisional I.R.A, there was not one single mention of the role the British government and British security forces played in sponsoring and colluding with Loyalist paramilitaries in the north of Ireland. Several reports and official inquiries have confirmed that the British state played an active role in sponsoring many violent atrocities in Ireland. To draw attention to Gaddafi's role, without so much as even mentioning the fact that the British state did the very same thing, highlights the politically biased nature of the documentary.

My own personal opinion is that the program seemed more concerned with manipulating public opinion in regards to the current situation in Libya.

There was also a strong sense of irony towards the end of the program as a member of the Libyan Transitional Council lambasted the use of violence to overthrow repressive regimes.

It remains to be seen whether or not the claim that Colonel Gaddafi has again resumed his support for Irish dissidents is true. Given the history of the situation, it is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. The poorly researched nature and obvious political agenda of the documentary, will however, lead many to question its overall validity.

ITV use video game footage, claim it is 'real' incident... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6r-kNct630

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Comments (8 of 8)

a number of points.

by independent republican

Tue Sep 27, 2011 20:18

no1
'....the R.U.C, the former police force in the north of Ireland that were disbanded in the year 2000, was described by the programs narrator as having occurred "earlier this year".....

the fact is,it wasn't disbanded,it changed its name to the PSNI and adopted a 50/50 recruitment strategy
'
'This shows that the standard of research behind the documentary was completely below what one would expect from a broadcaster of the caliber of ITV.'

i agree,but to suggest that the ruc was disbanded represents the kind of sillyness that sinn fein like to peddle,instead of disbanding the ruc,they disbanded the IRA and embraced their former enemies.

no2.
'It remains to be seen whether or not the claim that Colonel Gaddafi has again resumed his support for Irish dissidents is true. Given the history of the situation, it is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.'

do you honestly expect people to take this statement seriously?? yes gaddaffi supplied the PIRA with weaponary,but also turned on them and supplied the british with an inventory of all weapons he gave the PIRA,to suggest its possible that he may be supporting 'irish dissidents' is laughable.

He sure did run guns

by Relic from 1970's

Tue Sep 27, 2011 21:41

He used to do so.
Think Marita Anne boat full of guns for the IRA .
As he is about to be shot by his native people nobody cares about him.

...

Tue Sep 27, 2011 22:05

@independent republican:

"the fact is,it wasn't disbanded,it changed its name to the PSNI and adopted a 50/50 recruitment strategy"

Yeah, granted, 'disbanded' was probably the wrong choice of words. You know what I meant though. The point I was trying to make remains the same, that they were portraying old footage as new.

"do you honestly expect people to take this statement seriously??"

I just said "it remains to be seen".. and it does. But if you re-read, I think you'll see I'm actually more or less saying the same thing as you. It is highly unlikely that he is supporting dissidents, however its not totally beyond the realms of possibility since he's done it before. The claims are really questionable, I tried to point that out, by showing that that they can't be confirmed, and by pointing out other inaccuracies in the program.

Some peole will believe ANY old crap

by Rosenbud

Tue Sep 27, 2011 23:54

ITV used 'footage' from a video game in their 'report' - seriously how could anyone but an idiot fall for this crap?

ITV admits it passed off clip from a VIDEO GAME as footage of IRA attack on British helicopter in new flagship news show

ITV was this evening forced to apologise after faking footage on a brand-new flagship show – using clips from a violent video game.

Network chiefs were left embarrassed after admitting that new prime-time show Exposure had used clips from Arma II, purportedly showing the IRA shooting down a British Army helicopter.

The morons at ITV stole THIS bit of youtube video (a sppof) and presented it in their ';report' as genuine footage - the IRA NEVER drove around in camouflaged Jeeps and trucks - NEVER

THAT is how little integrity they have

see here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/09/27/tv-confuses-...life/

Caption: Video Id: bJDeipvpjGQ Type: Youtube Video
only an idiot would fall for this

Wed Sep 28, 2011 00:15

ITV admit using video game clip..
http://www.breakingnews.ie/archives/2011/0927/ireland/r....html

hope I'm not off topic...

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party

Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:33

but I can't help remarking that we're discussing gadaffi's ancient history... and ignoring the NATO elephant's special forces ops in arming and funding its subversion across the globe. Not least their on the ground early activation of the current 'civil war' in Libya.

Gadaffi decoy-duck, mission accomplished?

ITV Gaddafi documentary claimed videogame was terrorist footage

by pat c

Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:35

More on the video game! In the best British journalistic tradition!

ITV Gaddafi documentary claimed videogame was terrorist footage

The producers of ITV’s new investigative current affairs programme, Exposure, face major embarrassment after it was revealed footage they described as an IRA terrorist video made in 1988 was actually taken from a videogame released two years ago.
By Christopher Williams, Technology Correspondent
5:41PM BST 27 Sep 2011

Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA, broadcast on Monday night, explored the flow of weapons and money from the former Libyan dictator to Irish Republican terrorists. It was billed as the first of six documentaries “providing an in-depth, revealing focus on a range of powerful subjects”.

The programme was removed from ITV's online catch-up service on Tuesday afternoon, however, after videogamers recognised computer-generated video.
The hour-long investigation, produced by ITV's own ITV Studios, in association with Sylvia Jones, included a video that it said showed terrorists shooting down a British army helicopter in 1988.
“With Gaddafi’s heavy machine guns, it was possible to shoot down a helicopter, as the terrorists’ own footage of 1988 shows,” the narrator, the actor Paul McGann, said.
“This was what the security forces feared most. It may have been a lucky hit, but for the army and crew, once was enough. No-one died in this attack but there were many other deadly arms to fear.”

But computer-generated material was quickly recognised by fans of the military videogame ARMA 2, which released for Windows PCs in 2009 and is set in a fictional post-Soviet Eastern Bloc country. Some speculated that producers may have taken the video from YouTube, where it was posted on March 24 this year and titled “P-IRA Ambush British Helicopter, Silverbridge – South Armagh, 23 June 1988”.

An ITV spokesman said producers had genuine footage of a British army helicopter being shot down in 1988 but used the videogame material by mistake.
"The events featured in Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA were genuine but it would appear that during the editing process the correct clip of the 1988 incident was not selected and other footage was mistakenly included in the film by producers," he said.
"This was an unfortunate case of human error for which we apologise.”
He added that the documentary would be re-edited to include the authentic footage before being made available again online.

Re: Helicopters

Wed Sep 28, 2011 14:22

The greatest Helicopter catastrophe the British experienced was not carried out by the IRA, but is widely believed to have been a case of them killing their own - though a subsequent 'inquiry' blamed the pilots, many people have questioned this given that the helicopter was jam packed with NI-related Securocrats and Military Intelligence bods.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/jun/14/northernirelan...mment

"The allegation is that the MoD spent a fortune on a bad system, were warned against it in advance by colleagues in the USAF, but went ahead with the deal anyway. Any alleged cover-up is to save face, rather than anything darker.

But dark rumours abound. The loss of ten senior RUC intelligence officers, nine army intelligence officers and six MI5 officers on the eve of the 1994 IRA cessation was, for some, propitious.

"The loss of such senior intelligence personalities probably ensured the political case for a peace process to go ahead despite the recent successes against PIRA [Provisional IRA] and loyalist paramilitaries," wrote academic Sydney Elliott in the most recent edition of the Northern Ireland Political Directory.

The diaries on one of the RUC officers killed in the crash, Ian Phoenix, were published in 1996, and showed the mindset of a dedicated anti-terrorist operator who believed that the IRA could be militarily defeated, if the authorities let them "do their job".

Some of those killed were certainly involved in contentious episodes, such as the "Shoot to Kill" operations on the early 80s, in which six alleged republicans were shot dead in circumstances which themselves have been the subject of call for a new inquiry.

Some loyalists believe that the intelligence officers were deliberately "taken out" for "knowing too much" about the people the government would have to deal with in a post-conflict Ulster."

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ITV documentary claims Gaddafi funding Irish dissidents

Comments (8 of 8)