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Reflections on Bloody Sunday.
Somehow
human beings, including this columnist, put more stead in twenty
year anniversaries than in nineteen year ones. So in the case of Bloody Sunday
50 years seems more important than forty nine. Why this is so is worthy of some
research beyond at this point my capacity. But fifty years it is since that
fateful day.
In
less than 30 minutes it was all over. The shooting began at 4.10pm. When
it ended 13 men and boys were dead. Another was to die weeks later. Another 14,
including one woman had been shot and grievously wounded. On our television
screens we could see the deadly consequences. The still bodies in their pools
of blood. One moment alive. The next dead. Lines of men were filmed being frog
marched by British soldiers and forced against walls. A community in shock.
Bloody Sunday marked a watershed moment in our history.
For
many Bloody Sunday also marked a personal turning point in our lives. I know
that many of my friends, my peer group, reflected on our memories of that day
as we recalled where we were. It was a moment when many became convinced that a
state that could plan, carry out and defend the public execution of citizens
had no legitimacy. Many didn’t know about Britain’s recent colonial past. Its
use of counter-insurgency techniques. The application of state violence,
including mass murder and torture to advance its objectives in Kenya, in Aden,
in Oman and other places. The employment of collusion and of counter-gangs to
kill political enemies and civilians. All of that was to become known
later.
But
for the avoidance of doubt it should now be clear to everyone that killing
people on Bloody Sunday was the intention, the plan and the reason for the
deployment of the Paras in Derry, just as it was in Ballymurphy months
earlier.
On
30 January 1972 and in the days that followed it was about the victims and
their families. It was about demonstrating - by attendance at the funerals or
other protests - including the civil rights march in Newry the following Sunday
- that we would not be intimidated off our streets.
For
many it became a difficult emotional balance between shock and anger and a
desire for revenge. It was a reminder of the injustice of the British state’s
involvement in Ireland and of the failure of politics. And as the British
state’s propaganda machine went into overdrive to defend the Paras, and British
and Unionist politicians accused the victims of being gunmen and bombs, the
anger and frustration grew.
Seamus
Heaney caught the mood:
My
heart besieged by anger, my mind a gap of danger.
I
walked among their old haunts.
The
home ground where they bled;
And
in the dirt lay justice like an acorn in the winter
Till
its oak would sprout in Derry
where
the thirteen men lay dead.
(The
Road to Derry)
It
took almost 40 years to clear their names. The families and other campaigners
deserve great credit for their dignity, persistence and generosity. Their
commemoration of the 50th anniversary was a fitting remembrance of
Bloody Sunday.
In
June 2010 Martin McGuinness and I walked with thousands more from Free Derry
Corner to Guild Hall square, the original destination of the civil rights march
in January 1972.
In
the Guild Hall Square the crowds cheered loudly as it became increasingly clear
that the Saville Report was going to exonerate the victims. Tony Doherty whose
father was killed by the Paras put it well when they eventually emerged to
speak to a packed Square. He said:
‘The
victims of Bloody Sunday have been vindicated. The Parachute Regiment has been
disgraced. Widgery’s great lie has been laid bare. The truth has been brought
home at last. It can now be proclaimed to the world that the dead and the
wounded of Bloody Sunday, civil rights marchers, were innocent one and all …..
The Parachute Regiment are the front line assassins for Britain’s political and
military elite. The report of the Saville Tribunal confirms this……..’
Twelve
years later most people do know. Sadly there are still some who seek to deny
it. British politicians in the main but unionist politicians also and sadly
some in the Irish state.
The
British government still wishes to avoid its responsibility. That’s the
rationale behind its legacy and amnesty proposals. It’s refusal to honour its
commitment to hold an inquiry into the killing of human rights lawyer Pat
Finucane.
How
could the British establishment expect its spies and spooks and solders to kill
at their command if they were unable to guarantee them immunity from
prosecution?
When
he apologized for the actions of the Paras the then British Prime Minister
David Cameron said: “Bloody Sunday is not the defining story of the service the
British Army gave in Northern Ireland from 1969-2007.”
He
was wrong. I said so at the time. Bloody Sunday is the defining story of
British actions in Ireland. There were many others. On the New Lodge. In
Tyrone. In Springhill. In Fermanagh. On the Shankill. In Ardoyne. In Armagh. In
Dublin, Dundalk and Monaghan.
The
UDA and UFV and others killed as many as they did because the British state
gave them the green light. They armed the loyalist death squads and provided
information on victims. The Glenanne Gang and the Dublin Monaghan bombs were
the work of the British state. The more than two hundred civilians and Sinn
Féin members and family members killed with weapons supplied by apartheid South
Africa and British intelligence in 1987 were the work of the British state.
This
week the people of the Ormeau Road will mark 30 years from the day when UDA
killers armed with British supplied weapons murdered five of their neighours in
the attack on Graham’s bookies.
These
families do not want an Amnesty. Not a statute of limitations. They want
those responsible held to account. They deserve our support.
Finally,
my condolences to the family and friends of Terry Laverty who died last
week. Terry’s brother John was shot dead by the Paras during the
Ballymurphy Massacre. Terry was himself arrested at that time and imprisoned on
the trumped up charge of rioting. He never gave up. He campaigned tirelessly.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.
Julian Assange
Britain’s
counter-insurgency guru General Frank Kitson explained it well when he wrote
over 50 years ago: “the press properly handled is one of the
government’s strongest weapons.”
Direct
control of reporting by the media through the imposition of censorship or
indirect control through political alliances with those who own the media, is
not a new phenomena. The Irish people have long experience of British
government manipulation of media coverage about events here. The killing of 14
men on Bloody Sunday in January 1972 and before that the Ballymurphy Massacre
and the manner in which the British establishment managed the media afterwards
are two examples of this. British political leaders and military commanders
rushed to defend the Paras and criminalise the dead and wounded. That they
failed took 40 years of hard work and trauma by victim’s families and the
people of Derry and Ballymurphy.
A
further example of a desire to control the media is playing out in London this
week. Lawyers acting for Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks are
petitioning the British Supreme Court in a bid to stop his extradition to the
USA. In 2019 the Trump administration indicted Assange for allegedly breaking
the US Espionage Act. This is based on his publication ten years ago of tens of
thousands of documents provided by Chelsea Manning that covered diplomatic gossip, politically partisan briefings, and
documents that ran the risk of exposing those living in oppressive regimes.
However, these documents also included evidence of the use of torture and
the killing of civilians.
A
wide ranging group of civil liberties and press freedom groups, including
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders have
called for the end of the prosecution of Assange.
This
is in tune with a ruling US Supreme Court in 1971 which agreed that the New
York Times and Washington Post could publish papers relating to the American
prosecution of the war in Vietnam ( the Pentagon Papers). The Court decided
that: “The press was protected [by the Founders] so that it could bare
the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained
press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the
responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the
government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to
die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”
Assange
has spent over seven years trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He was
forcibly removed in April 2019 and imprisoned in Belmarsh prison in London
where he has been held for the last three years in solitary confinement.
Assange’s
continued incarceration and persecution affects him personally but it also
stands as a threat against all journalists, editors and publishers who pursue
investigative journalism and defend free speech. Julian Assange
should be released.
Leonard Peltier should
be freed
Leonard Peltier has Covid. The Native American rights
activist has spent almost 45 years in prison and was already suffering
ill-health. His family and supporters are deeply concerned at this serious risk
to his life and have renewed their appeal for the US President Joe Biden to
exercise clemency. I support their call for Leonard to be freed.
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