19 December 1980 On 19 December 1980, an article appeared in the New York Daily News, based on a telephone conversation with Sam Duddy, the press relations officer of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the largest Loyalist paramilitary organization in Northern Ireland. The journalist, Michael Daly, expressed his astonishment that it was possible to find the…
19 October 1988 Today in 1988, Douglas Hurd, the Home Secretary, issued a banning order preventing Gerry Adams and other members of Sinn Fein from broadcasting their opinions on the airwaves. Although technically the ban included eleven loyalist and Republican organisations, its prime goal was to silence Sinn Fein, the largest political party campaigning against…
17 October 1987 On 17 October 1987, at a press conference at the Vancouver Commonwealth Summit, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called the African National Congress ‘a typical terrorist organisation,’ adding that she would have ‘nothing to do with any organisation that practices violence. I have never seen anyone from the ANC or the PLO or…
8 October 1981 On 8 October 1981 British prime minister Margaret Thatcher attended a banquet hosted by Pakistan’s military dictator, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. In an after dinner speech, she urged other governments to join her’s in supporting the regime, which Britain was already supplying with a large amount of weaponry. She finished by proposing a…
21 August 1998 On 21 August 1998, Prime Minister Tony Blair gave his full backing to a U.S. cruise missile attack on the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in the suburbs of Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, declaring ‘I strongly support this American action against international terrorists.’ The Guardian reported that Blair’s unequivocal support was given ‘against the advice…
2 June 1984 On 2 June 1984, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher greeted the apartheid leader of South Africa, P.W. Both, at her official country estate at Chequers. An estimated 40,000 protesters, furious at the government’s implicit endorsement of the regime, took to the streets of central London. Contrary to subsequent assertions, there is absolutely no…
26 May 1981 Today in 1981, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) raided the headquarters of the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in Belfast, discovering a large cache of lethal weapons, including a Thompson sub-machine gun, six Sten guns, a revolver and 550 rounds of ammunition. This came just a week after its supreme commander,…
( The greater part of the text on this page has now been incorporated into an article commemorating the date of Bobby Sand’s death – 5 May 1981 ) 1 March 1981 On 1 March 1981, the 26 year old IRA prisoner Bobby Sands began his hunger strike demanding that he and other IRA detainees…
12 February 1981 On 12 February 1981, David Wyatt of MI6 warned the Northern Ireland permanent secretary that ‘UDA/UFF (loyalist) gunmen, with the full blessing of Tyrie (head of the Ulster Defence Association), are going to continue murdering identified Republicans.’ His statement was yet further confirmation of the already overwhelming evidence the government possessed that…
26 January 1980 On 26 January 1980, Margaret Thatcher wrote to President Jimmy Carter informing him that Britain was ‘looking at a variety of possibilities for covert action,’ meaning acts of illegal force or terrorism, against the government of Afghanistan and Soviet forces stationed there. Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington was not only fully supportive, but…
