Joseph Brean | October 20, 2013 | Last Updated: Oct 21 8:13 AM ET
More from Joseph Brean | @JosephBrean
More from Joseph Brean | @JosephBrean
Frederick Hoare/Central Press/Getty Images fileAn
armed soldier attacks a protester on "Bloody Sunday" when British
Paratroopers shot dead 13 civilians on a civil rights march. Police are
to instigate a murder investigation into the deaths of 14 people in
Londonderry on Bloody Sunday in 1972 after the findings of the Saville
inquiry were considered by the PSNI and the Public Prosecution service.
In
a legal move that could inflame the dormant passions of the Irish
Troubles, up to twenty British soldiers may be arrested and interviewed
over their roles in Bloody Sunday, the defining atrocity of modern Irish
history, in which British troops opened fire on unarmed protesters.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence has hired lawyers for the men, now in
their sixties and seventies, according to a report in London’s Sunday Times,
and interviews under legal caution, meaning they can be used as
evidence in prosecutions over the 14 deaths, are “expected imminently.”
“This is the beginning,” an anonymous source “close to the police” told the newspaper. “It is the first time the soldiers will have been interviewed formally by police as part of a murder investigation. It is possible that some of the soldiers will be prosecuted.”
The controversial move follows protest by victims’ families, and was met with outrage from former soldiers, who called it politically motivated.
Gregory Campbell, MP for East Derry, told the Irish Times that prosecution “could prove disastrous in how our society deals with the past.”
The criminal investigation, to which the Northern Ireland Police
Service has assigned twelve detectives, caps a run of modern responses
to historical injustices in Britain, from child sexual abuse by Jimmy
Savile and other entertainers in the 1970s, to the criminal
re-investigation of the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium disaster, in which
nearly 100 people were crushed to death.
A 12-year public inquiry, established in 1998 by Tony Blair after a previous official report was dismissed as a whitewash, wrapped up three years ago, and found the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable.” It also described a “serious and widespread loss of fire discipline” among the troops of the First Battalion, Parachute Regiment (known as the 1Paras) and said some soldiers had lied to cover their actions. Prime Minister David Cameron apologized on behalf of the country.
A key condition was that testimony at the inquiry not be used for prosecution, and its witness list is now said to be the framework for the police investigation.
Bloody Sunday ranks as one of the darkest days in the conflict over
Northern Ireland, which underlined the end of Britain’s colonial era.
Recent years have brought symbolic progress. Last year, the Queen wore green when she shook hands in Belfast with Martin McGuinness, a senior politician and former IRA leader. But the ancient divide between Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists is never quite settled.
Bono wrote one of U2′s best known songs about his shock at the killings, and in the lyrical history of the country, Sunday Bloody Sunday has become a modern echo of W.B. Yeats’ poem Easter 1916, about the violent suppression of the 1916 Easter Rising and the execution of its leaders, in which a “motley” crew united under “green,” and “a terrible beauty is born.”
That was followed four years later by the original Irish “Bloody
Sunday,” in which men loyal to revolutionary leader Michael Collins
(including a future prime minister, Sean Lemass) rounded up 19 British
soldiers and assassinated them at eight locations in Dublin — a purge
that the loyal British counter-insurgency answered with the killing of
14 spectators at a Gaelic football game.
Those twinned atrocities in the war for independence “at least helped to accelerate progress toward peace talks,” according to Tim Pat Coogan in his history of modern Ireland.
But Bloody Sunday in the winter of 1972, sometimes called the Bogside Massacre, was different, and evoked the era-defining memories of Sharpeville in South Africa in 1960, when police police fired on protesters and killed 69.
“What happened in Derry on that January day helped to ensure more than two decades of subsequent IRA violence,” Mr. Coogan wrote.
The protests in Derry, officially Londonderry, were against the mass
arrest and detention without trial of suspected Irish republican
paramilitaries.
A similar protest the week before at a prison had met brutal
resistance from the 1Paras, but no shots. Apparently in defiance of
orders, troops moved on the Catholic Bogside part of Derry shortly after
4 p.m., backed by armoured vehicles, seeking suspected fighters among
the civilians. They conducted what Lord Saville, who led the inquiry,
called “a running battle down Rossville Street.”
It lasted half an hour and ended, in Bono’s words, with “bodies strewn across the dead end street.”
In all, 26 protesters were shot. Thirteen people, all male and more than half teenaged, were killed. Another died later. Some had been shot in the back. It made a hero of Father Edward Daly, soon to become Bishop of Derry, who was photographed waving a white handkerchief as he led a group carrying a dying young man.
The inquiry found that two soldiers — known as Lance Corporal F and Soldier G — might have been responsible for most of the deaths.
The effect was deep. By March, the devolved parliament of Northern
Ireland had been suspended, later abolished, and direct rule by the
United Kingdom imposed. Civil rights marches finally gave way to
terrorism and conflict. The Troubles were in full flame.
The possibility of prosecuting soldiers raises fraught questions of morality and law, similar to killings by police. In an editorial alongside their report, the Sunday Times said prosecution would be “wrong” and “this process should be halted.”
“Bloody Sunday was an ugly chapter but it is closed chapter, and closed it should remain. Today Northern Ireland is moving forward: surely eyes in the province should be looking ahead?” wrote General Lord Richard Dannatt, a former British army chief who served in Northern Ireland, in a commentary for the Daily Telegraph.
The man who commanded the unit involved in the attack, Colonel Edward
Loden, whom the inquiry cleared of personal blame, was shot and killed
by burglars last month at his son’s house in Nairobi.
Many of the soldiers who were present that day have gone on to high influence, such as former U.K. army chief General Sir Mike Jackson, who was with the 1Paras as an adjutant, and Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan. Neither is accused of wrongdoing.
Colonel Kemp told the Sunday Times that the threat of prosecution is “disgraceful.”
“Although I utterly condemn the unjustified killing that took place on Bloody Sunday, it is despicable that 41 years later law officers are planning to prosecute the soldiers involved for murder,” he said. “This ridiculous, politically motivated prosecution is not in the public interest and should not be permitted.”
National Post
jbrean@nationalpost.com
Getty Images fileThe
Civil Rights Association lead a march January 31, 1972 in Londonderry,
Northern Ireland, a day after "Bloody Sunday," when British paratroopers
opened fire on a civil rights march, killing 14 civilians.
“This is the beginning,” an anonymous source “close to the police” told the newspaper. “It is the first time the soldiers will have been interviewed formally by police as part of a murder investigation. It is possible that some of the soldiers will be prosecuted.”
The controversial move follows protest by victims’ families, and was met with outrage from former soldiers, who called it politically motivated.
Gregory Campbell, MP for East Derry, told the Irish Times that prosecution “could prove disastrous in how our society deals with the past.”
M. Stroud/Express/Getty Images fileGrieving relatives of the victims of the "Bloody Sunday" massacre on Feb. 8 1972.
A 12-year public inquiry, established in 1998 by Tony Blair after a previous official report was dismissed as a whitewash, wrapped up three years ago, and found the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable.” It also described a “serious and widespread loss of fire discipline” among the troops of the First Battalion, Parachute Regiment (known as the 1Paras) and said some soldiers had lied to cover their actions. Prime Minister David Cameron apologized on behalf of the country.
A key condition was that testimony at the inquiry not be used for prosecution, and its witness list is now said to be the framework for the police investigation.
REUTERS/Paul Faith/PoolBritain's
Queen Elizabeth shakes hands with Northern Ireland deputy first
minister Martin McGuinness, watched by first minister Peter Robinson (C)
at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast June 27, 2012. Queen Elizabeth shook
the hand of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) commander McGuinness for
the first time on Wednesday, drawing a line under a conflict that cost
the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians, including that of her
cousin.
Recent years have brought symbolic progress. Last year, the Queen wore green when she shook hands in Belfast with Martin McGuinness, a senior politician and former IRA leader. But the ancient divide between Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists is never quite settled.
Bono wrote one of U2′s best known songs about his shock at the killings, and in the lyrical history of the country, Sunday Bloody Sunday has become a modern echo of W.B. Yeats’ poem Easter 1916, about the violent suppression of the 1916 Easter Rising and the execution of its leaders, in which a “motley” crew united under “green,” and “a terrible beauty is born.”
Getty Images fileA
firebomb explodes outside the British Embassy February 3, 1972 at
Merrion Square in Dublin as violence flared following a march to protest
the "Bloody Sunday" massacre in Londonderry City, when British
paratroopers shot dead 14 civilians on a civil rights march.
Those twinned atrocities in the war for independence “at least helped to accelerate progress toward peace talks,” according to Tim Pat Coogan in his history of modern Ireland.
But Bloody Sunday in the winter of 1972, sometimes called the Bogside Massacre, was different, and evoked the era-defining memories of Sharpeville in South Africa in 1960, when police police fired on protesters and killed 69.
“What happened in Derry on that January day helped to ensure more than two decades of subsequent IRA violence,” Mr. Coogan wrote.
Michael Stroud/Express/Getty Images fileRelatives mourn over the coffin of a victim of the 'Bloody Sunday' march.
Getty Images fileA
British paratrooper takes a captured youth from the crowd on "Bloody
Sunday," when British paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march,
killing 14 civilians, January 30, 1972 in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
It lasted half an hour and ended, in Bono’s words, with “bodies strewn across the dead end street.”
In all, 26 protesters were shot. Thirteen people, all male and more than half teenaged, were killed. Another died later. Some had been shot in the back. It made a hero of Father Edward Daly, soon to become Bishop of Derry, who was photographed waving a white handkerchief as he led a group carrying a dying young man.
The inquiry found that two soldiers — known as Lance Corporal F and Soldier G — might have been responsible for most of the deaths.
BOUI DE TOROUT/AFP/Getty Images fileA
young Catholic rioter, centre, throws a stone March 2, 1972 in
Londonderry at a British armoured jeep during a rally protesting against
the "Bloody Sunday" killing by British paratroopers of 14 Catholic
civil rights marchers in Londonderry. Shortly after, the Irish
Republican Army (IRA) declared that their immediate policy was "to kill
as many British soldiers as possible."
The possibility of prosecuting soldiers raises fraught questions of morality and law, similar to killings by police. In an editorial alongside their report, the Sunday Times said prosecution would be “wrong” and “this process should be halted.”
“Bloody Sunday was an ugly chapter but it is closed chapter, and closed it should remain. Today Northern Ireland is moving forward: surely eyes in the province should be looking ahead?” wrote General Lord Richard Dannatt, a former British army chief who served in Northern Ireland, in a commentary for the Daily Telegraph.
BOUI DE TOROUT/AFP/Getty Images fileYoung
Catholic rioters hurl projectiles March 2, 1972 in Londonderry at
British soldiers during a rally protesting the "Bloody Sunday" killing
by British paratroopers of 14 Catholic civil rights marchers in
Londonderry.
Many of the soldiers who were present that day have gone on to high influence, such as former U.K. army chief General Sir Mike Jackson, who was with the 1Paras as an adjutant, and Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan. Neither is accused of wrongdoing.
Colonel Kemp told the Sunday Times that the threat of prosecution is “disgraceful.”
“Although I utterly condemn the unjustified killing that took place on Bloody Sunday, it is despicable that 41 years later law officers are planning to prosecute the soldiers involved for murder,” he said. “This ridiculous, politically motivated prosecution is not in the public interest and should not be permitted.”
National Post
jbrean@nationalpost.com
Oli Scarff / Getty Images fileA
woman walks past a mural in the Bogside area of Londonderry close to
where the "Bloody Sunday" killings took place in 1972 on June 14, 2010
in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Oli Scarff / Getty Images fileA
general view of murals in the Bogside area of Londonderry close to
where the "Bloody Sunday" killings took place in 1972 on June 14, 2010
in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Oli Scarff / Getty Images fileA
general view of a mural in the Bogside area of Londonderry close to
where the "Bloody Sunday" killings took place in 1972 on June 14, 2010
in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
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