In the soft rolling countryside of South Armagh, as the leaves turn gold,
Willie Frazer points, every few miles, to the scene of another killing.
"That's where they got my da," he says, at the spot where Robert Frazer,
father of nine and part-time UDR man, was shot dead by the IRA.
There are plenty of other stops as Willie remembers the fallen. "I lost my
da, two uncles, two cousins and six friends, all butchered by republicans. I
was very angry when Fr Reid called us Nazis because the Nazis did the
killing; in South Armagh, we were the killed.
"There were 400 people murdered by republicans here, and 26 by loyalists."
Frazer is spokesman for the victims' group FAIR (Families Acting for
Innocent Relatives).
As a boy, he was called 'Bugner'. "After Joe Bugner, the boxer. Not that I
was big, far from it, but I'd plenty of spirit, and as a Protestant growing
up in Whitecross, you had to be able to fight."
In August 1975, returning from the funeral of Willie Meaklin, a neighbour
killed by the IRA, Willie's father took him aside. "I was 15 and he said,
'Son, there'll be a lot more funerals soon. You'll need to grow up fast.'
"Willie Meaklin had been in the police but left to open a wee shop. He was
kidnapped and tortured for three days. The IRA tied his hands behind his
back with barbed wire. He was 29. We were great friends. We had been due
to go for a few days holiday in Portrush. My da knew it wouldn't be the
last murder."
When they got home, Willie's father laid out his Sunday suit: "He packed
most of his other clothes away in suitcases. Then, he sorted through his
letters and pay cheques and put them into bundles, tied with elastic bands."
A fortnight later, Robert Frazer (49) was reversing out of an elderly
friend's farm when two IRA men jumped out of the hedgerow. "They tried to
kidnap him. They opened the car door and started to drag him out but they
weren't fit for him. He clung to the steering wheel. They battered his hands
with rifle butts. Then, they shot him."
The gunmen took Robert Frazer's body from the car, then drove off in it.
"It was a Saturday night, I was in the Orange hall," says Willie, "Somebody
told me my father had been shot. I rushed home. 'How is he?' I asked my
mother. She was always one for straight-talking. 'How is he? He's dead,' she
said. We buried him in the good suit he'd laid out.
"On Sunday night, the IRA tried to get into the wake house. There was a
crowd of them in the field outside, wanting to shoot as many of us as
possible. The Army stopped them.
"The next night, they used my father's car in the massacre at Tullyvallen
Orange Hall. They went inside and sprayed the room with machine guns. Five
men were killed. Some had been at my father's wake. I went to the hall.
Even today I still remember it – the smell of burning flesh."
Ten weeks later, Willie's uncle, UDR man John Bell, was shot dead. Next
year, three miles down the road at Kingsmill, the IRA took 10 Protestant
workers off a minibus, letting the Catholic driver go, and shot them dead in
retaliation for loyalist killings.
In 1980, another of Willie's uncles, former UDR man Clifford Lundy, was
killed. Two cousins, RUC man Trevor Elliot, and UDR man Alan Johnston, were
also shot dead that decade.
"The IRA talk of their great colonial war against the British," says Willie.
"I see it as pure sectarian slaughter." Willie was in the audience at
Fitzroy Presbyterian Hall on Wednesday night, sparring with Fr Reid, when
the priest made his controversial remarks.
"I got up and walked out. How dare that man call me, my family and
neighbours in South Armagh, Nazis after what we've been through? There were
endless attacks on our home when I was growing up.
"Once, the IRA tried to sledgehammer they're way in. The sledgehammer stuck
in the door. My father removed it when he came home. They left a bomb on
the kitchen windowsill. Had it gone off, we all would have been killed.
"When I was 11, we had to leave Whitecross. It was 98% Roman Catholic. Our
neighbours were taking part in the rent and rates strike against the
authorities. You put a poster in the window to support the strike. We
refused. The house was stoned, then petrol bombed.
"The Army had to guard us for three days. So we moved down the road to
Newtownhamilton. In the new house, we got flares and a radio link to the
Army." Willie, 45, now lives in Markethill with his own family.
The locally recruited security forces in South Armagh, particularly the UDR,
were seen by nationalists as extremely sectarian. There were widespread
allegations of collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. Willie denies these
claims, saying his relatives were "law-abiding members of the crown forces".
For decades, Willie has lived beside those at war with his family. "The
country is different to the city. You nod at people who would kill you. I've
looked into the face of IRA gunmen and not seen the bitterness I saw in Fr
Reid.
"We can all lose the rag and say silly things. But he made extreme comments
all night. 'I'm going to say something controversial now', he said before
his remarks. It wasn't spur-of-the-moment.
"His apology isn't sincere. I'd have more respect for him if he stood by
what he said because I believe he meant it. Now he's saying the IRA didn't
rob the Northern Bank. A man of the cloth, coming out with that rubbish, and
we're supposed to take his word on decommissioning?"
Fr Reid has heightened unionist mistrust and political divisions, Willie
claims.
He's no stranger to controversy himself. He's regarded as more militant
than the DUP. From the signing of the Belfast Agreement, he has mounted
one-man protests at Downing Street, the Dail, Stormont and Sinn Féin
offices. Last year, he was arrested at Leeds Castle.
"Some people might laugh at me and say I'm not wise – I don't give a stuff.
Thinking of the bereaved keeps me going." As unionist disillusionment with
the Agreement has grown, Willie has become less politically isolated: "There
were 25 people at FAIR's first meeting in 1998. Now we've over 2,000
members."
Since Fr Reid's comments, nationalists in Whitecross and Belleek shout "Sieg
Heil!" at Willie, giving the Nazi salute. "I just nod at them," he says,
"and smile."
