A REVIEW published yesterday into the deaths of three Irish soldiers, killed in a landmine explosion while serving with the UN in Lebanon on March 21st, 1989, is highly critical of the circumstances involved.
The device which killed the soldiers “should have or could have been detected before it detonated”, it concluded.
Cpl Fintan Heneghan from Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, Pte Mannix Armstrong from Sligo and Pte Thomas Walsh from Tubbercurry, Co Sligo, were killed when the truck in which they were travelling detonated a landmine.
Minister for Defence Alan Shatter said the review had identified “a systemic failure, not alone by the Defence Forces but by the Unifil mission as a whole” at the time.
He met members of the dead men’s families yesterday “and extended to them, on behalf of the Government, our heartfelt regret for the failure to fully recognise, by early 1989, the implications of the changed circumstances in the Defence Forces mission area in southern Lebanon and for the deaths of their loved ones”.
The Defence Forces chief of staff, Lieut Gen Seán McCann, accepted the review findings and also met the three soldiers’ families yesterday.
He expressed his sincere regret that the procedures in place in the Defence Forces in 1989 were not sufficiently robust to prevent the deaths of the soldiers. “I wholeheartedly and unreservedly apologise,” he said.
The review into the soldiers’ deaths concluded that there was “a deficient assessment of the threat” to them and colleagues serving in the area where they died and that they “should not have been sent” along the track where they met their deaths without it “first being cleared” of explosives.
It also found that procedures checking for such explosive devices “were insufficiently defined and applied” and that training to do so was “deficient”, but that the track where the men died “had not been placed out of bounds”.
It concluded that standard operational procedures were not appropriate and adequate to ensure the safety of the men or their colleagues.
The location where the soldiers died was near an old Unifil position, on the outskirts of the village of Bra’shit in Lebanon. The Army’s 64th Infantry Battalion served with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon from October 1988 to April 1989.
Over the 22 years since the men were killed, their families have argued that they died needlessly and had been calling for an inquiry. Last April Mr Shatter decided there was sufficient new material to warrant an independent review and Frank Callanan SC was appointed to conduct it. His findings were published yesterday.
Mr Shatter commended serving and retired members of the Defence Forces for their support and co-operation with the inquiry. He said it was “testament to the deeply held values of integrity and honesty among our Defence Forces personnel . . . all those interviewed co-operated conscientiously”.
He continued: “We must learn from the past. I believe that the Defence Forces have learned from this failure to undertake an adequate threat assessment and deploy all necessary assets to protect our personnel, wherever they operate.
“Three men have died and three families have been bereaved and devastated by their loss. Our thoughts at this time must be with them.”
A statement from the Defence Forces yesterday also pointed out that protection of soldiers “is of paramount importance to the Defence Forces at home and while on active service abroad on behalf of the State” and that “the standard of equipment, training and procedures today clearly demonstrates the commitment of the organisation to this issue”.
