>From MCELROY@zodiac.rutgers.edu Sun May 2 19:49:12 1993 Are Far-right Loyalists here Tied to Pretoria? by Kevin Cullen (Sunday Globe 6/21/92) Belfast - British Army intelligence officials breathed a sigh of relief a few months ago when Brian Nelson, their top informant in Northern Ireland, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after admitting he took part in the very murders he had been supposed to prevent. While the security forces were relieved that the Nelson case would go away without a public airing of some very soiled laundry, one person who is frustrated the whole truth did not emerge is Adrian Guelke. Guelke, 44, a lecturer in politics at Queen's University, thought that with the Nelson case he would finally find out why Protestant extremists tried to kill him as he and his wife slept in their home last autumn. The attempted murder of Guelke, a native of South Africa, was the first attack of its kind on an academic without obvious connections to extremist elements here. As a result, some intellectuals suggest a degree of academic freedom in NI has been compromised. But the attack on Guelke, who was shot once but survived because the guns of both of his assailants jammed, raises an even murkier subject: the connection between loyalist extremists here and far right-wing supporters of apartheid in South Africa. ...Guelke says he is no longer in fear of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the paramilitary group that said it attacked Guelke because he had imported arms from the Middle East for the IRA. "Through intermediaries," said Guelke, widely recognized as a moderate who has no links with the IRA, "the UFF has admitted it was a mistake, that a third party came to them with intelligence documents with my name on them, and showed them my house. They feel they were used. They won't say who the third party is, but I believe there has to be a South African connection." WHO FINGERED GUELKE? Just who provided the dossier that fingered Guelke, and why, remains a puzzle that could have been solved by Nelson. According to police, Nelson was working as both a British agent and chief intelligence officer for the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the cover name for a legal loyalist organization called the Ulster Defense Association, when he went to South Africa in 1985 in search of weapons. Historically, loyalists have been porrly armed compared to the IRA, and Nelson's trip was the first attempt by loyalists to use South Africa as a base to increase their firepower. South Africa was a logical choice. Throughout this century, loyalists in NI who consider themselves British and want to remain British subjects have empathized with South African whites. Both groups have a seige mentality - loyalists with their fear of being swallowed up by what they view as a Catholic-dominated Irish Republic; South Africans with their fear of the black majority. In the early 1980s, the South African security forces began recruiting Northern Irish men as police officers. Sources familiar with the major arms deal Nelson brokered in 1985 say his contact in South Africa was a Northern Irish-born man who had moved there. Nelson apparently succeded in arranging to buy from Armscor, the South African state armaments manufacturer, several hundred rifles, pistols, grenades and rocket launchers. No one has ever been charged in the weapons suggling scheme, but three loyalists and a South African diplomat were arrested in Paris in 1989 as they allegedly tried to consummate what police said was the loyalist end of the deal: missle parts stolen from the Shorts aircraft factory in East Belfast. NEW LOYALIST FIREPOWER The South African arms are one of the main reasons that loyalist killings have risen dramatically in the last two years. Between 1972 and 1976, during the worst fighting in the political and sectarian conflict that broke out in 1969, loyalist extremists killed about 500 people. Over the next 12 years, however, they averaged only about a dozen murders annually. Last year loyalist gunmen, armed with a new, more ruthless leadership and better weapons, killed 40. Police have recovered more than half of the wepons smuggled in from South Africa, some of which have been used by loyalists to kill at least six Catholics, including three mourners at an IRA funeral in 1988. But why, given Nelson's role as a double agent, the shipment was allowed to land here and be handed out remains a bone of bitter contention. Guelke isn't the only one who wants to know more about Nelson and South Africa. Nationalist politicians, from the party that represents moderate Catholics and the party that supports the IRA, want answers too. So does the Irish government, which has raised the matter at the last two Anglo-Irish conference meetings. One Irish government official acknowledged, "We don't really expect the Nelson case to come into the open." But the Irish government does see the debacle as creating leverage for reform among the security forces in NI. Last week for example, the British government announced that an independent assessor would review the system used to file complaints against the British Army in Northern Ireland. A BBC documentary last week refocused attention on the Nelson case, and may well lead to an investigation of Nelson's chief handler, named only as Colonel J. Also searching for answers are the families of Ternece McDaid and Gerald Slane, for whose murders Nelson was initially charged. The charges were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea. "The authorities have a duty to tell people what has been going on and end all the covering up," said McDaid's widow, Maura. Guelke, meanwhile wants the matter resolved so he can return to South Africa to continue his research. ***** for more info on Ireland on Peacenet, see "reg.ireland".