The Guineapigs by John McGuffin (Penguin Special, 40p) /Sean Reed To launch a book like John McGaffin's The Guineapigr at the beight of the anti-trish hysteria which is now sweeping Britain may not be the best time from the sales point of view.
However, from the viewpoint of socialists faced with the need for facts and information to use to hurl back the tide of anti-trish raciam, this is a very welcome book indeed.
McGuffin piles fact upon fact to expose the use of torture by the British Army in maintaining imperialist rule in Ireland, and he acrapes away the flakes of whitewash from both the Compton and Parker Renorts.
The book lists five reasons for torture:
L To gain intelligence, 2. To get 'confessions" which will lead to charges in the courts. This helps to give sion that with the numbers unt be "on top of the situation".
1. To out mummary punitiment.
4. To c crate a climate of fear in the arca from which the arrested man comes, to weaken support for the guerrillas, and to Erase the number of informers, 5. To create fear in the minds of the rounger volunteers, so that if captured they will break quicker, believing that hey will be subjected to the same turtOne may of course differ us to the order of importance attached to these five reasons. One former member of the Special Air Service (SAS) interviewed by this reviewer placed reason 4 (creation of a climate of fear) at the top of his list.
In fact one form of torture not being taught at the SAS's Battle School in the Brecon Mountains and at Bradbury Lines (the SAS camp at Hereford)is planned with this in mind. The method takes the form of inserting a "Y" shaped twig into the stomach of a living man, and twisting it so as to draw out the intestines.
One SAS officer, now a 'respectable busincas man' in the City, boasts of the fact that he once drew 20 feet of intestine from a guerrilla in the Gulf States. This gentleman is now a strong supporter of hanging for "terrorists"
Elsewhere, John McGuffin quotes the list of "Twenty-five Principal Methods of Torture used in Holywood and Girdwood Barracke 1. Placing a man in 'search position, single finger of cach hand to the wall, Jegs well apart and well back, on the toes knees bent, for prolonged periods, 2. Heavy punching to the pit of the stomach of man in 'search position'. 3. Kicking the legs from under a man in scorch penition so list be tals to che ground, banging his head on the wall, 4. Beating with batons on the kidneys and on the privates in 'acarch position', 5. Kicking between the legs while in the search position. This is very popular among the RUC officers, and they often do it for periods of half an hour or an BOUT 6. Putting a man in 'search position over a powerful electre fire or rudiator, Red Weekly 12 December 1974 Page 2 7. Stretching a man over benches wnth two electric fires underneath and kicking him in the stomach.
I threats to prisonors" families, bribes offered, false confessions used 8. Rabbit-punching to the back of the neck while in "search position".
9. Banging the head against the wall.
10. Heating the head with a baton in 11. Slapping the ears and face with open 12. Twisting the anns behind the back and twisting fingers.
13. Prodding the stomach with straicht fingers 14. Chopping blows to the ribs from bellind with simultancous blows to the stomach.
15. Hand squeezing of the testicles 16. Insertion of instruments in the anal 17. Kicking on the knees and shins.
18. Tossing the prisoner from one officer to another and punching him while in the 19, Enjoctions.
20. Electric cattle prod.
21. Flectric shocks given by use of a machine.
22. Buming with matches and candles 23. Deprivation of sleep.
24. Urinating on pasoner b, Firing blanks;
c. beating men in darkness;
d. blindfolding:
e. astilants using stocking masks:
f. wearing surgical dress:
# staring at white perforated wall in small cubicle; Il. uso of amphetamine drugs;
The book deals specitically with the treatment meted out to fourteen Irishmen by the British security torces in the period from August to October 1971.
At the time of writing it has Just been announced that two of these 'guincapigs", Joe Clarke and James Auld, who only a few days used to date in Ireland, but currently ago were awarded substantial damages by a Belfast court for the totture which they suffered, have been interned for a second time.
In private discussions during the recent Labour Party Conference, Merlyn Rees and Stan Orme told MPs that they would never sign a second internment order for them. Being honourable men, they kept their word: Roland Moyle, a junior Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office, signed instead.
Henri Alleg, whose book The Question did so much to highlight the French use of torture in Algeria, once estimated that it took seven years before the standards of torture enforced in the colony became standard in the metropolitan country.
Five years after British troops went into Northern Ireland in force *to bring British standards of democracy to Northern Ireland, we now have Stormont standards in Britain. the first batch of Birmingham sus pects appear in court heavily broised, while the police are piven seven days under the Jenkins laws in which to work on anyone before they need ro be charged.
Socialists must nake sure that this book is in every left-wing book shop and bouk-stall in the country. Militants in organisations like the Troops Out Movement will also tind it invaluable in their work. quite poacefully. This, howeres, did ities, so they decided to deport the in the city to another purt of the country.
on the crowds wounding and killing sovcral. The enraged crowds then attacked the local banks. Two bank managers were killed, and one bank number of Europeans were attacked and beaten, among them a woman I1551AE In ruply the British authorities moved in the army and placed the