Why the Bloody Sunday soldiers must not be brought to trial

glen

murder is murder is it not? what the british soldiers did on bloody sunday was cold blooded murder, just like what republicans and loyalists did and alot of them were braught to justice .so why should the british soldiers who opened fire on unarmed civillians not face the same penalty?

TomTom

There are supposedly 3500+ victims in Northern Ireland. We do not have a full account of "The Missing" from the IRA and its affiliates.

I think of Dr Thomas Niedermeyer of Grundig and this article in the Daily Mail in April 2010:

More than six years after he was kidnapped, we had found poor Thomas Niedermayer.

Dental tests would later confirm the body was his and that the Disciple's information had been correct - Niedermayer, bound and gagged, had been buried face down.

Nickle

And they have been let out.

Even more have never been convicted.

For example if you take the paramilitaries, on both sides, where is the confession as to what they have done?

Where is the admission as to which person committed the Omagh bombing?

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Time for the IRA to make the next move.

As for the cost, lets dock the NI assembly the cost of the Saville report from this years budget.

Nick

Bill Rees

Glen, the obvious reason is because many of those on the Republican side haven't been brought to justice, including some very prominent individuals who have admitted their part in the Troubles.
Sometimes you have to draw a line, even if the principles of justice might suggest otherwise.

adrian drummond

Glen,

Imagine you are surrounded by a braying mop, stones and bottles are being thrown at you and a sniper from a nearby block of flats may shoot at you. You are being provoked and intimidated. You are young and do not understand the sectarian divide in which you have found yourself.

Glen, you probably can't do this because you have no idea what's it like. Cold blooded murder? The very fact you pose the question, suggests to me that you have no idea of the context.

Peter Crawford

@Glen
In the first place, many murderers from Northern Ireland have got off scot free. Some have even achieved high office and financial enrichment as a direct result of their homicidal tendencies.

Secondly the two most trigger happy soldiers on that day have both been dead for a few years now. Prosecuting them would serve no purpose. Would it now?

Paully

It seems that the only reconciliation is if the government appease the terrorists - i see a lot of unreconstructed republicans - how much more do they want the major to give to appease their own dirty consciences. I believe in the peace process and it was brave of John Major (not tony blair) to embark on this route - but if the soldiers are tried then so should PIRA/ UDA etc who have committed murder and never been brought to justice - classic republican hypocrisy

Occasional Ostrich

@glen

The problem, as I see it, is finding untainted evidence. Such prosecutions will suffer in the same way as those of 90+ year old ex Nazis in the USA; peoples' memories fade, or are rearranged to suit their mindset. And people with an axe to grind will lie, protected by the excuse that "That's the way I remember it" will protect them from charges of perjury. The problem of reconciling the accounts of witnesses to a road accident only hours earlier are well known; how much more difficult will it be after an interval of 38+ years?

HJ

glen:

"murder is murder is it not? what the british soldiers did on bloody sunday was cold blooded murder, just like what republicans and loyalists did and alot of them were braught to justice .so why should the british soldiers who opened fire on unarmed civillians not face the same penalty?"

We don't know this. The Saville enquiry was an enquiry, not a court of law.

It is highly debatable whether the evidence exists to even consider prosecutions, let alone achieve convictions.

Norman Dee

How can you defeat any terrorist organisation whose value for life comes along behind it's political objectives. That's value for all life, they arbitarily kill their own people in the name of the "cause", with no apparent regrets, and their revenge is endless it's demands don't stop. There will never be justice for the civilians Prod or RC in NI, there will never be justice for the Lebanese when they are killed because Hizbollah fired rockets from their schoolyard, or Gazans because Hamas hides behind them like the cowards they are. New solutions are needed, and the first is to rid the world of religion which has caused all this and more for the power madness of it's leaders.

Occasional Ostrich

@Nickle

Why charge the NI Assembly? It was Bel Air's idea, was it not? Maybe that's why he's building up his £14 million.

strapworld

glen, the penalty is freedom and a large grant from the government, a seat on the Northern Ireland assembly with ministerial cars and allowances. All the trappings of power. That is the penalty for murder in Northern Ireland.

Time for a complete closure on Northern Ireland. Give them total indpendence and wave them goodbye! Same with Scotland and Wales. Time for the English to assert themselves. OOO that is nationalistic you cannot have the English doing that!

Cuffleyburgers

@ Glen - there you are mistaken. The whole point of Savile's conclusion is that the soldiers in question went against their orders and against their training and essentially panicked. That is the opposite of cold blooded murder. That is a tragic mistake.

Plenty of people seem very quick to tar the reputation of the Army, but in general both the Army and the Police in NI have always acted with astonishing restraint and exemplary courage and discipline in sitautions such as Bloody Sunday where they were subject to extreme provocation.

My own suspicion is that a number of the victims of that tragedy were most likely shot by armed members of the IRA who were present, and who certainly will not have regretted the outcome of that day. However that is not the conclusion of Savile's report and so the responsibility rests with the unfortunate soldiers.

Cold-blooded it was not. Cold blooded were: Omagh, Birmingham, Brighton - in fact any number of outrages none of which seem to benefit from the same acrage of newsprint as BS.

You've had your result, now shut the f up.

Vulture

Adams and McGuinness - directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocents - draw ministerial salaries and purr around in ministerial cars.

The Paras killed 13 on Bloody Sunday.

If they are to stand in the dock, then so must the Godfathers of the IRA.

Swiss Bob

There won't be any trials because there are too many 'bodies' buried that will come to light.

Ronnie

It interests me that a distinguished political writer can seriously discuss the rule of law in any context related to the events of Bloody Sunday.

Any army sent into any street that then shoots any group of unarmed civilians is in breach of the principles of the rule of law. That cannot be disputed no matter where it happens.

It will be quite difficult to have an adult conversation about this as many people will, of course, compare Bloody Sunday to what followed and they have had many years to prepare their obfuscations and justifications. However, behind all the fog are the facts of the day in question. Is it possible to focus on those and move on?

Ian C

The sacrifice of principles will only have more devastating consequences if the soldiers are not tried. Their actions in 1972 added greatly to the N Irish problems.

If they are not to add further to the moral decay instigated on that day and added to exponentially by the peace process still then they must at least face trial and for a verdict to be pronounced before any more concessions to what is naturally right can be made.

Commentator

In the politically correct caste system of victimhood in Northern Ireland, only the victims of the IRA have no rights. I see Michael Mansfield is now demanding prosecutions: a "human rights lawyer" who has never shown much interest in the human rights of the victims of terror.

General Zod

I'd be happy with the soldiers' being brought to trial, so long as MacGuinness and Adams come clean about the murders for which they were responsible and submit to trial too.

Ahmed Khan

Have we suddenly become American and adopted thier 'double Standards'????

Murder is Murder and the rogue soldiers must be bought to justice.

Liberty

The use of human shields on Bloody Sunday is the greater evil. This is not just illegal but in international law if a human shield is killed by defenders then it is the hidden attackers that are culpable. McGuinness was hiding in the crowd with a machine gun. He apparently didn’t use it but he must have known that the soldiers, young volunteers afraid for their lives would have tried to identify the terrorists and shoot them. This was, I suspect his intention. He sought to provoke the death of civilians for the publicity and to gain support for his perverted cause and, if possible to make it run for decades. Blair et al obliged him and we are now focussed on the errors of our men on one day 38 years ago and forget the 1000s of innocents killed by the IRA including 1000 of our soldiers on many, many other days.

The Bellman

Ronnie: Saville examined the actions of a specific sub-unit, not 'an army'. These were the actions of individuals, and they were not in the least typical of the rest of the Army. It was not 'any street' but a street in an area where significant numbers of residents had said the British rule of law no longer applied, where paramilitary gangs reserved the right to act as the police force, and where a significant urban terror campaign was being conducted.

The deliberate shooting of non-combatants, as occurred on Bloody Sunday, is deplorable. There are however plenty of circumstances in which the shooting of an unarmed civilian might well be perfectly within the rules of engagement. Indeed there have been several cases in which individual soldiers were tried and acquitted after having shot dead unarmed civilians, because of the extentuating circumstances and the nature and level of the threat. In one case, an army vehicle was being attacked by a group of civilians, and an officer fired an aimed shot through a hatch at one ringleader. He gave no warning, and the man he shot was not armed with a firearm. He was acquitted on the entirely reasionable grounds that he believed his life and that of his driver and signaller were in immediate danger - from, for example, a petrol bopmb being thrown inside the vehicle, or from being pulled out of the vehicle and beaten to death. This episode predated the mortal injury - also by unarmed civilians - of the two signallers in west Belfast in March 1988, which in retrospect makes the acquittal all the more sound.

At that time, our juries were still capable of making intelligent and nuanced judgements. I wonder, given your comment, whether we could be confident of similarly wise decisions in future.

RODEST

Why should the Government and the British people say sorry to the IRA when the IRA refuse to say sorry for their deliberate atrocities.

The enquiry judges the British soldiers actions to have been wrong on that one awful day whle the true circumstances are ignored; months of killing, provocation from the IRA and entrapment of the army though missleading intelegence from those seeking confrontation.

Maybe the way forward from this point is a 'Truth Commission' involving all sides as in South Africa.

If British soldiers are to be prosecuted, then prosecute McGuinness and Adams and CO.

Occasional Ostrich

@Ronnie

The point YOU seem to be missing is that the only reason the Army were there at all was that the 'Rule of Law' was perceived by those in authority to have broken down. That the paras were perceived as not functioning within the laws of the UK was at least in part because their job was different: to halt civil disorder. (and thereby allow the civil authority to reestablish he rule of law) OK, it failed, disastrously, but a lot must be laid at the doors of those who smeared the RUC in the four preceding years so that one sector of the community, which had previously accepted their presence, was conned into believing that civil disobedience was justified. In those years a lot of lies were all the way round the block before the truth had even got its trainers on.

liz

Norman Gee - I largely agree with you - apart from your astoundingly dismissive conclusion. People love to blame religion for all the war and mayhem in the world - as if its absence would cause men to behave any differently. For instance, I'm not aware that religion was much of a driving force in either the Nazi or Stalinist regimes.

Ronnie

Thanks The Bellman, I was making a general point of principle which I beleive we would do well to note. Your comments on particular incidents seem to strengthen the point I was making.

Ronnie

Occassional Ostrich.

I do wonder what effect you imagine your capitalising of 'YOU'. Am I made smaller because you deploy larger letters?

If order breaks down in a civil society do we restore by applying force that is even further beyond the law? My answer is no. That is all I am saying.

I have lived through the whole period of the troubles in Ulster and so you can save yourself the effort of giving me your version of their history. I'm perfectly aware of all the issues but I may have a different view. I'm sure that YOU can survive that.

PayDirt

Soldiers are soldiers, they are trained for the job they do which includes killing. Send in soldiers and killing will inevitably result. If the situation in NI at the time truly warranted sending the Army, then all those responsible for that situation are the ones to blame, not the soldiers. Police action should have been a safer option, however as I remember it the situation was beyond what the police force at the time could handle.

Frank P

liz

Don't discount the religion of totalitarian socialism, common to Stalin, Hitler and many of the Irish nationalist "freedom fighters". It's adherents merely exploited the "useful idiots" of Catholicism and Protestantism for a wider international agenda. And of course they are still purring in victory (not to mention in luxury) as our politicians attempt to to dress us all in sackcloth and ashes. We all suffer from many generations of the 'sins of many fathers' - not to mention mothers. Particularly the Irish-American metaphorical mother-s, who funded, equipped and gave the murderous bastards succour! If Cameron has any balls at all, he will call a halt to this long running travesty, with no further ado. The game is over; we lost - as always - due to weakness and squeamishness. No more reparations. On with the motley for the next drama: this time it is the religion/politics of Islamic jihad, which everyone seems to have forgotten since the cosy coalition have been engaged in a session soixante-neuf. Get your tickets, the show is already a long-running hit.

Ronnie

Incidentally, I'm not demanding prosecution as I don't actually see how that would help after all this time. Our soldiers were poorly trained in urban conflict at that time and this was part of a very painful learning curve.

For me the important thing is that breaches in the rule of law by the state, and subsequent cover-ups, are as unacceptable now as they have always been; no matter where and no matter when.

If we are selective in our application of our own rule law then we are far less than we pretend to be.

Occassional Ostrich, I hope YOU can step back and appreciate the general point I'M making.

yank

Ronnie: "Any army sent into any street that then shoots any group of unarmed civilians is in breach of the principles of the rule of law. That cannot be disputed no matter where it happens."

.

.

Ronnie, I disagree. It most certainly can be disputed, and was, in 1770. Crown subjects were gunned down on the streets of Boston, exactly as occurred in 1972 in NI. And in that case, no provocation shots were fired at the Brit soldiers. Nonetheless, they were indeed tried... and acquitted. The jury was pooled from Boston, the aggrieved town and cauldron of boiling blood, and still no conviction. All under British Law.

I posted John Adams comments here yesterday, he who defended those men, and who would go on to become our second President, after you-know-who. Adams refused to participate in the dishonor of condemning those men. He believed in the rule of law. So should we.

Unlike 1770, bullets and bombs were in the air in 1972. So then, the paras of 1972 had even more cause for their actions, however regrettable, then in yesteryear. Why should we pervert the rule of law today, and prosecute individuals that the rule of law plainly tells us should not be prosecuted?

Misguided actions? Very probably, yes, and we must all learn from our mistakes, as I'm certain the British Army has, even as their politicians stumble.

But let us return to the point of honor, and recognize that honor must be served on all sides, and it's likely important that a John Adams arise to serve honor, and he must arise in NI. The dead are to be mourned, amidst honor.

Ronnie

Paydirt.

...and the RUC was only trusted by one section of the community so they were effectively making the situation worse.

Again, I'm not blaming the RUC per se, thats just how the situation had developed.

Ronnie

And then there is the religion of victimhood and paranoia where we are at the mercy of everyone out there. As we sit helplessly behind our tanks, helicopter gunships, drones, fleets of aircraft carriers and heavy cruisers, cruise missiles, first strike nuclear weapons etc, etc, etc...

Of course if we actually had a religion ourselves, that we firmly believed in, we would possess a higher level of motivation against the Jihadis.

But we want 3D tellies and the latest iPhone instead.

Ahmed Khan

If no action is taken against the rogue soldiers than there would be no difference between Mugaby's 'War Veterans' and the British Army.

Edward Sutherland

Yank, thank you for highlighting the similarities with the "Boston Massacre" incident of 1770. I visited the Old State House in 2007 and was fascinated to read about the incident- little known in the UK- and the highly honourable role played by John Adams- and the slightly less honourable role played by Paul Revere!. It demonstrated to me how quickly matters can spiral out of control in a hostile environment. My own view is that the Saville Enquiry ought to be regarded as the final word. If the "squaddies" are to be put on trial alone, many people in Britain will see it as grotesquely unfair, given the very many other atrocities committed by both sides of the sectarian divide and for which there is no prospect of anyone ever being brought to justice.

The Bellman

Ronnie: Sorry if I have mis-understood you, but you stated that something was indisputable when it was not. As it was expressed, your 'general point of principle' needed substantial qualification. The example I gave served to undermine your earlier post, not support it.

Your general principle would be better summed up as 'Anyone authorised to apply lethal force must do so within the rule of law.' But that is the case anyway.

You say subsequently that we must not apply 'force that is even further beyond the law'. True - but your comment begs the question, by presupposing that 'greater force' is intrinsically 'even beyond the law'. That is not necessarily true. You might as well say 'Too much salt as bad for you.'

Ahmed Khan

The army was deployed in Northern Ireland to keep peace and not aa a group of ill-disciplined thugs happy to aimlessly kill innocent civilians.

Why did the army resort to taking sides and becoming the judge and jury wen it's role was clearly that of peace-keeping.

Fergus Pickering

Tony Blair picked Lord Saville to come up with the result he did. Just as he picked Lord Hutton These old farts will jump whichever way you want. Can you IMAGINE the guy saying anything different. No, I thought not. Cameron apologizes for what happened when he was six years old and we move on and think of something else - like getting shot of Northern Ireland perhaps. It costs us plenty and is of no earthly use.

Edward Sutherland

Ahmed Khan: You spoil your point by the unbridled nature of your comment.The vast majority of British soldiers behaved with great restraint in Northern Ireland in very difficult conditions, with many being killed and maimed. A small group behaved reprehensibly and besmirched the good name of the army, as our Prime Minister made clear. That said, most Britons remain incredibly proud of our army. I'm with the great Doctor Johnson on this one: " Every man thinks meanly of himself who has never served as a soldier".

Kennybhoy

James,

Do you have any thocts as to why the enquiry took SO long to complete? I have my own notions but....?

AY

The whole issue is made up, just a component in the set of campaigns aimed at paralyzing law-enforcement. The idea is to remove opposition when mass riots will start breaking up. And somebody tells me that this time that won't be Irish innocent civilians, but some other innocent people, whose sensitivities are offended by cultural imperialism, Islamophobia, illegal wars, binge drinking, Zionist lobby, that type of stuff.

Peter Hirsch

Saville's report is accurate and honest even if incomplete.

Solders are not policemen. Soldiers are recruited to defend their country: to kill. Policemen to keep the peace and uphold the law. Soldiers do the work of policemen when the violence of mobs and the threat of the sniper deters the policeman - who did not join for that sort of thing.

So when government uses soldiers - trained to kill the enemies of their country with bayonet, bullet and bomb - as police, expect

Kennybhoy

James wrote:

"I must admit to sometimes wondering if the price we have paid for peace in Northern Ireland is too high.."

Only sometimes James...?

The making of the very dirty peace which Northern Ireland presently "enjoys" sowed poisonous seeds. Sooner or later they will bear fruit.

That said. I will be very very surprised if any prosecutions follow. Any such would almost certainly result in accquital of the accused, the fall of the coalition government and a return to violence at some level. Among the likely victims of such violence would be the current Shinner leadership.

Nicholas

"Why did the army resort to taking sides and becoming the judge and jury wen it's role was clearly that of peace-keeping."

Hmm. let me see. Could it perhaps be something to do with the IRA focussing on and using them as a suitable target to represent the oppression of "British imperialism"? You are very naive. I suggest you start 6 decades earlier and read a little history.

The Army were at first welcomed by Catholics as peace keepers but then the IRA began attacking Army patrols (not very skilfully) with the inevitable consequences. Don't blame the Army for that.

Ronnie

The Bellman.

How much armed force is too much when used against unarmed civilians. Is it really the moving feast of convenience that you suggest?

I'm not very impressed by your response to be frank.

The Bellman

@Ronnie: Your 'general principle' and subsequent posts assume that unarmed civilians are by definition not a threat to life. That is an error which makes your principle worthless as anything but a charter for moral poseurs, and certainly no practical guide to anyone attempting to maintain or restore the rule of law.

It is difficult to have a definition of 'too much' force except as applied to specific circumstances. Were you to provide me with hypothetical examples, it would be possible - though extremely tedious - to make a judgement. And I suspect we would agree substantially in most cases you could suggest. There are nonetheless various circumstances under which it is perfectly within the rule of law to shoot unarmed civilians.

British law already has a set of general principles covering the use of force, lethal or otherwise, which is of far greater use than your blanket 'shooting unarmed civilians is wrong'. The use of force must be reasonable, appropriate, the minimum necessary to treat the threat, and the means used must be proportionate to the *likely impact* of the adversary's action. Not, note, proportionate to the *means* by which an adversary might carry it out. And proportionate does not mean 'equal'. That is, the use of firearms is not predicated upon the use or threat of firearms by potential adversaries. If those conditions are met, the use of force is lawful.

For example, a mob might not be armed with firearms, but the aggregate threat posed by that mob to lives in the sphere of their influence could very clearly justify the use of lethal force, were no other means available to restrain them. In such a case, were that force to be applied successfully, resulting in injury or death to members of that mob, a trial would almost certainly follow - unless the circumstances were so clear-cut that there was no prospect of a conviction for murder or unlawful killing etc. For example, were a mob in the process of lynching only one person, and were the police/soldiers to have shot dead ten of the mob, that would arguably not be proprtionate, and be open to charges of murder. The accused would have account for his (or her) actions, and would do so on the basis of the above principles.

Ronnie

Thank you again, The Bellman. I'm looking around for my white flag, I'm sure I saw it the other day.

In the meantime, would you agree that your final paragraph above tends to support the case for an investigation, with the possibility of subsequent prosecutions, in the case of Bloody Sunday?

The Bellman

Well - thank *you*, Ronnie. We're not so far apart as all that: I posted on another thread that I am *intellectually* convinced of the need for prosecutions to be considered in the case of Sp Coy 1 PARA. It's regrettable that this was not pursued at the time, but there's little we can do about that. I say that as one who soldiered in various capacities in N Ireland, and who believes very strongly in the need for the army to be fully accountable.

However, I do not think any of the families or their supporters are prepared for the possibility than an acquittal might follow a prosecution. (Indeed, I suspect many have convinced themselves that convictions are certain.) That is to say that although they are what the relatives etc hoped to hear, Saville's findings might not meet the standards of proof needed to secure a conviction. If the cases were referred for prosecution, it seems to me pretty likely that in many if not all cases a decision would be made *not* to prosecute; or that any conviction subsequently would be appealed successfully; and that would be imflammatory rather than mollifying. It would again be denounced as a cover-up. Far from allowing the various parties to 'move on', it would simply drag out the process even longer.

That is for the PSNI and the PPSNI to decide, of course, but that is the basis of my hesitation.

Ronnie

I agree with you completely The Bellman.

Ideally the investigation and subsequent action should have taken place immediately after the fact but there were very different political imperatives at play at the time. As usual, it's easy to look back and make judgements but, as someone else said here, seeds bear fruit and that is always the case in Ulster.

yank

Mr. Sutherland,

Yes, Paul Revere was a master propagandist, and would likely today be hosting a website for papparazzi photos and dished dirt, and judging American Idol alongside Mr. Cowell. We yanks always knew how to make a buck, you know.

But even amongst his propagandizing, his prints of harsh Wellingtonian redcoats, rank upon rank, firing into a meager collection of innocent farmers, the law still held, and those soldiers were acquitted, because his lithographs were not considered (ahem) a precise factual representation of the events that evening, and only the evidence came through.

Amongst the mob, what would you do? The court back then said the soldiers did not do murder, and not just the court, but a jury of their peers. Does that speak to us today? Might it indeed thunder down upon us?

I agree with Ronnie and Bellman, that the time to do this would have been 40 years back, even amongst the passion and propaganda, but we didn't seize the chance as they did in 1770. Justice delayed is justice denied, if there was justice to be dispensed.

By now, the politicians and lawyers and judges and all the rest have had their say, and done their least worst, both then and today. Now, I think it does all lie with the Brit officer corps, and the NI folks themselves. Not sure of the resolution between them, or if any is possible.

Ronnie

Yank.

The red coats may not have been convicted but there was the small matter of the War of Independece. :-)

yank

Well yes, there is that, Ronnie.

Mr. Revere's work didn't carry much weight in the trial, but it came in mighty handy in future years. ;-)

Marco Ng

A detail that all of you seem to be missing is the context of the incident. Contrary to what several commentators have said, this 'mob' was not being violent or threatening at all. If you read the Saville Report, it concludes that all the victims (indeed, all the protesters) were unarmed and those who were killed were so as well. There were no rocks thrown and the paramilitary shot first. The IRA Sniper was from the military, not the civilians, so in essence, the army shot peaceful protesters in cold blood. I remind you that many of those shot were in fact hiding or running to safety. One was reported to have yelled 'Don't shoot me!' just before being fatally shot.