In the hours and days following the murder of fourteen innocent civil rights marchers on the streets of Derry on Bloody Sunday, the papers and television media around the world proclaimed the Parachute Regiment had shot dead “gunmen and bombers.” I found myself wondering just how many lies could be brought against a peaceful civil rights march…fourteen and more, that’s how many.
I sat thinking about this on Sunday afternoon after listening to coverage of the Bloody Sunday commemorations most of the day. All very moving I might add and well done to all involved. Then my mind turned to the people who had erected Parachute Regiment flags in the same city in which the massacre had taken place. A flag that commemorates the very military formation that to this day has caused so much hurt and pain. A military formation that shot dead innocent people simply marching for the right to be treated equally to Protestants.
General Frank Kitson was in charge on that blood-soaked day. He gave evidence at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, the first person in the box to ‘evidence’. About thirty relatives of the victims of the Paras that day sat just yards from him and even then he still attempted to conflate the name of the Paras with saving a life. On the contrary, they are shock troops, trained to kill without question. Kitson claimed the soldiers who shot dead their loved ones were experienced professionals, dedicated to saving life. Dedicated to saving life? Really? Eye witness reports state that a Parachute Regiment medic pushed dirt in the bullet hole of one of those wounded lying in the aftermath. Marchers attempting to actually save lives were shot dead. Kitson went on to say “I do not think that the Parachute Regiment in general or 1 Para, in particular, went about their duties in an excessively forceful way.” Thirteen people lay dead, one would die four months later from wounds inflicted on Bloody Sunday!
Items like pipe bombs were planted on the bodies of the Paras victims to make it look like they were carrying weapons. Some had their clothes soaked in petrol to give the impression they were filling or handling petrol bombs. The bodies of some of the victims were thrown into army Saracens and other armored vehicles like lumps of meat. The British army and British government lied and they lied and they lied and it took almost fifty years to get the truth out of them and even at that…they continued to lie. They lied so much on the day that confidential papers from Brian Faulker state that he didn’t even believe British army claims that they had shot dead ‘terrorists’ in Derry. However, in stark contrast to his private thoughts on the massacre, he toed the line, releasing a statement saying “Those who organised this march must bear a terrible responsibility for having urged people to lawlessness and for having provided the IRA with the opportunity of again bringing death to our streets.”
People like Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley and defence secretary Gavin Williamson at the time showed their utter disconnect from the people of the North of Ireland and their understanding of Bloody Sunday by saying that British soldiers in the North were “fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way.” All these British establishment personalities completely ignore the fact that fourteen innocent CIVIL RIGHTS MARCHERS were shot dead marching for simple rights like housing, jobs, and most important of all, a proper democratic vote.
The British government and by extension the British army have a lot to answer for in the North of Ireland. Many innocent people died at the hands of not only overt soldiers but also covert operations carried out by formations like the FRU and SAS. Is it any wonder the British government wants to stop all investigations and inquiries into their own military’s operations in this little part of Ireland when every day families and groups like the Bloody Sunday families are putting up such a monumental fight? It’s only a matter of time until something else comes out which will force another apology…and another and another. There can be no amnesty for murders! Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law…or so we’re told.
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