Seanad debates

Thursday, 15 July 2021

Report of Independent Review Group Jadotville: Statements

 

9:30 am

Photo of Gerard CraughwellGerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As I start, I want to acknowledge the role the Minister played in bringing an independent review group about. I acknowledge the work of his Department in the support it gave in every way. However, the brave men of Jadotville, along with their families and loved ones have been dishonoured and treated abominably for 60 years by the Defence Forces in Ireland. Nothing in this report of the independent review group on Jadotville published today addresses, seeks to undo or redresses the wrong. Shamefully, it piles further pain, humiliation, and suffering on the surviving veterans of Jadotville, and dishonours the memories of the deceased Jadotville veterans.

The comments I am making now come from a variety of sources that have contacted me today and last night. The anger is unbelievable. The Irish 35 Infantry Battalion in the Congo, to which Jadotville 'A' Company belonged, was part of a larger military UN military component. The brigade was UN and Indian-led, at the time. The whole UN force in the Congo was led by an Irish general of which the Indian-led brigade was a subordinate component part. I am told that immediately prior to the fateful dispatch of 'A' Company to Jadotville, two other infantry companies - one Irish and one Swedish - had been stationed in Jadotville, but were quickly withdrawn by the Indian brigade commander. He was a colonel who had credible intelligence provided to him. Two companies of soldiers were hopelessly outnumbered by the assembling, combined forces of Katanga Gendarmerie and international mercenaries. They were hell-bent on attacking the UN forces in Jadotville and reclaiming the town. I understand that the sequence of events, and unorthodox orders, given directly to the Irish battalion by the Irish force commander, bypassing proper channels of command, and the Indian brigade commander, are at the root of this ill-fated deployment of 'A' Company to Jadotville. Why the Irish force commander, in this instance, violated the proper chain of command when the Jadotville deployment of 'A' Company subsequently went wrong, became a centrepiece of not wishing to delve too deeply into Jadotville and the Defence Forces medals boards in the 1960s, lest the ugly truth be revealed.

Both the Irish force commander and the Irish battalion commander in the Congo at the time were close personal friends, and not just military colleagues. Both were from the same rural part of Ireland. I further understand that those who have erred in their flawed decision-making and subsequent issuing of unorthodox orders in the Congo, and who used personal friendships with Irish personnel then stationed in the Congo to have these flawed orders carried out, were subsequently in a position of high authority in Ireland when the 1960s medals board sat.

Given the so-called independent review group report we are now discussing and the Jadotville medals board in the 1960s, when the terms of reference were carefully crafted, and the membership of the boards were "friendly forces", to use a military term, then the required partisan findings of the group on boards by convening authorities can all but be guaranteed a tactic as old as time itself. In the case of the so-called independent review group, another worrying factor-----

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