We’ll never know the truth of Bloody Sunday

12 June 2010

When the £200 million Saville inquiry is published next week, it will not reveal what happened in Londonderry 38 years ago — and it never could have, says Douglas Murray

The second Bloody Sunday inquiry was meant to draw a line under what was not just Londonderry’s worst day, but one of the British army’s worst days. Thirty-eight years ago, in the space of about 25 minutes, some men commanded by Colonel Wilford of 1 Para lost sight of the policing operation they were so unwisely sent on and began firing. Any lessons the British army could have learnt from this can be learnt only theoretically now. Among the soldiers who did the most firing, some went into special forces and some are now dead.

In 1999, in an otherwise unwise Radio 4 interview, Colonel Wilford, the man who commanded 1 Para that day, gave vent to the feelings of many. ‘I have to ask,’ he said, ‘what about Bloody Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and every day of the week?

‘What about Bloody Omagh? What about Bloody Warrenpoint, Enniskillen, Hyde Park, or Bloody Aldershot and Brighton — bloody everything the IRA have ever touched.’

It is a good question. Colonel Wilford, like his men, lives in his retirement wondering whether the law will come for him. Yet one other commander, a paramilitary commander, has, like certain other men who fired that day, never looked back and shares none of the worries of British soldiers. The man I watched grandstanding in the Guildhall of Londonderry is too busy being Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. And nobody, but nobody, would order an inquiry into him. Or any of the other bloody things he and his bloody movement ever bloody touched. This is one-directional justice. Each individual will have to work out for themselves whether this constitutes the mature behaviour of a democracy at its very best, or a wasteful exercise in appeasing a political sympathy that has been appeased for too many years.

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Snukes

June 14th, 2010 10:27am Report this comment

Suggesting that an atrocity carried out and covered up, by a supposedly democratic government, should not be investigated because of the atrocities carried out by a number of psychos?
Given the lack of military causalities the issue of whether 'the other side' had a few rusted handguns seems largely irrelevant.
A sincere quest for the truth is to be lauded, no matter how late, no matter how limited & no matter how unavoidably flawed it maybe.
The search for the truth is the one area where a government, no matter how flawed its policies and practices have been in the past, can demonstrate clearly the difference between democracy and the fascist tactics of paramilitaries.
Colonel Wilford would have contributed a lot more to the situation, to the stature of the army and his own moral courage if he had apologized for the deaths, accidental or otherwise, instead of hiding behind the (very serious) wrongs of others.
There would have been no Martin McGuinness if Bloody sunday hadn't occurred, there would never have been 25 years of blood & carnage if innocent people had been shot down by the very people who should have been protecting them.
Lets not muddy the waters, as has happened so often in the NI past. Let the truth come out

David Bouvier

June 17th, 2010 9:50am Report this comment

So "Snukes", what is a cover up: the deaths of the marchers were acknowledged at the time, who killed them was known at the time, that they should not have been killed was agreed by an equiry within months. Not a very good cover up.

The only issues then are some suggestion of mitigating circumstances for the soldiers, and a strange reluctance of the British State to publish the message from Edward Heath and the Queen that the republicans seem to believe must exist, commanding a small squad of paras to shoot a few people for the hell of it.

And I don't know what you mean by "there would be no Martni McGuinness if Bloody Sunday hadn't happened" but he was:

1) already a senior PIRA "commander", on what they would call "active duty" that day

2) furnished with one PIRA's two Thompson sub-machine guns (one of which was used to murder two policemen days before hand)

Saville believes on balance that he was there, armed, and may well have fired shots.

If you are suggesting that Bloody Sunday somehow makes the terrorism and death the Paras fault, you need to read a bit more history.

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