The 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II may be forever marred by the legacy of lawlessness—a war by most measures— the British government waged in their colonial carve-out of Ireland. Prime Minister Truss and the Conservatives have a plan to bury part of that past and, in the process, to avoid a “State sponsor of terrorism” label. Parliament is poised to adopt an Amnesty/Legacy bill that would close all investigations into 1000 civilian killings in N. I. whose deaths were barely investigated due to suspicions of loyalist, Army, police and MI5 collusion.
Most Americans first became aware of the corruption of law and justice by Her Majesty’s Government as it crushed the Catholic civil rights protests. The police and MI5 then used loyalist vigilantes to attack democracy by murdering elected Sinn Fein officials and those who supported them. As head of the Church of England or as Commander of the Imperial Forces, the Queen lavished praise on the Ulster Defence Regiment with a proven record of human rights abuses and collaboration with loyalists’ killers. She awarded an OBE to Colonel Derek Wilford who commanded the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday. It took more than 40 years for Her Majesty’s government to stop lying about Bloody Sunday and to stop smearing the victims and their families. For nearly 50 years Her Majesty’s Ministers of Defence including the current Minister Ben Wallace have refused to cooperate with the Irish government in the investigation of the British Army role in the 1974 no-warning bombing of Dublin & Monaghan shopping centers killing 33 women and children.
In a perverse way the bills’ adoption would put a spotlight on the Queen’s silence which protected Britain’s image so well as a supporter of democracy and the rule of law. But if Britain unilaterally abandons the rule of law, as the proposed statute contemplates, it would undermine the Good Friday Agreement, poison relations with America, Ireland and the European Union and truly damage the late Queen’s memory.
Michael J Cummings
Secretary, American Brexit Committee
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