I was thirteen at the time of Bloody Sunday, so I can remember it just about. It is hard to know what to think about today’s report. On the one hand, it is a kind of justice, however inadequate, for the relatives; on the other, it has taken nearly forty years. And the British government has spent £200 million to tell us what we all knew anyway: that British paratroopers murdered fourteen civilians in cold blood and that a subsequent “inquiry” (Widgery) was a whitewash. Still, it is one thing knowing the truth (as we already did) and it is another to have it publicly acknowledged. Will there be prosecutions? Doubtful.
{ 38 comments }
PHB 06.15.10 at 3:55 pm
It has taken almost four decades.
I wonder how long it will take the Israelis to come clean on their flotilla massacre.
Chris Bertram 06.15.10 at 4:14 pm
Ok, given there was a recent incident in which regular troops killed fired on a number of civilians, an incident where the perpetrating state is planning an inquiry which will certainly come up with the answer it first thought of, I can see why someone would make the comparison to the flotilla attack.
That comparison having been made, in the very first comment, I’d like us to avoid turning discussion of a post about Ireland (and Britain) into a post about Israel and Palestine.
Chris Brooke 06.15.10 at 4:21 pm
The full report is here (with links from that page to the transcripts of the inquiry, witness statements and other documentation, etc.
ajay 06.15.10 at 4:28 pm
I have a nasty suspicion that a Troubles thread could be every bit as acrimonious as an I/P thread…
As for the prosecutions, of course not. We don’t imprison people for killing people during the Troubles any more. But it’s safe to say, I presume, that David Cameron won’t be presenting Soldier F to the Conservative Party Conference as “our Nelson Mandela” any time soon.
john b 06.15.10 at 4:54 pm
Ajay is right – unless we did some kind of “prosecutions followed by immediate releases” nonsense, that would be grossly unfair on the squaddies in question compared to both flavours of homegrown murderous idiot.
ejh 06.15.10 at 4:59 pm
I was going to say that one good reason not to proceed with prosecutions is that there is very little chance that the British judiciary would convict a soldier or policeman for a killing where there were any political overtones: as far as it goes I think that’s true. However, at least, after all these years, the British legal system has bothered properly to investigate a political massacre. Living where I do, I can’t avoid reflecting that the Spanish judicial system is presently engaged in destroying Balthasar Garzón for doing precisely that.
ejh 06.15.10 at 5:04 pm
Thats said, this:
that would be grossly unfair on the squaddies in question compared to both flavours of homegrown murderous idiot.
is nonsense. Many Republicans and Loyalists served long prison sentences for political violence during the Troubles. British soldiers did not. It is not as if both sides have been let off. This is precisely why there was a need to have an inquiry into this killing and not into others, and why Reg Empey’s complaints about it are miserable and in bad faith.
ajay 06.15.10 at 5:05 pm
there is very little chance that the British judiciary would convict a soldier or policeman for a killing where there were any political overtones: as far as it goes I think that’s true.
Previous examples of British soldiers or policemen involved in political killings, and not convicted?
Note that three of the Miami Showband killers were British soldiers, and were nevertheless convicted.
ajay 06.15.10 at 5:06 pm
8 to 7.
ejh 06.15.10 at 5:17 pm
Previous examples of British soldiers or policemen involved in political killings, and not convicted?
I could make a long list but assuming you just want me to demonstrate my point, I’ll cite Blair Peach for policemen and Aidan McAnespie for soldiers. (Given that I said “political overtones”, I might also mention the more recent case of Ian Tomlinson.)
The M iami Showband killers weren’t members of the British Army, as I understand it, though I accept that the UDR may be considered a grey area in that respect. (They were, however, quite likely organised by a member of British intelligence, called Robert Nairac. Nairac, as it goes, was an alumnus of the same Oxford college as myself. Every year they used to present an award, in his name, for sporting achievement, and quite likely still do. )
ejh 06.15.10 at 5:20 pm
Note: on further examination, i.e. looking at Wikipedia. I think you are right about the UDR and I am wrong, and I’ll defer to your argument in that particular instance.
Hektor Bim 06.15.10 at 5:43 pm
I’m with ejh on this. Why can’t the soldiers in question be prosecuted? Is the British government claiming that its soldiers were just another militia, just like the IRA or the UDR? If so, that seems to be rather a significant admission. If the state claims a monopoly on the use of violence, it has to be held to a higher standard, particularly if it considers everyone else who uses violence to be criminals.
Pub Editor 06.15.10 at 6:05 pm
Previous examples of British soldiers or policemen involved in political killings, and not convicted?
Boston? Amritsar?
(Sorry: that’s a bit off topic, I suppose.)
roac 06.15.10 at 6:46 pm
One of the soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre was convicted of manslaughter. (IIRC, he then pleaded benefit of clergy and was branded on the thumb.)
Dan Hardie 06.15.10 at 8:11 pm
I’ve always supported prosecutions for the Bloody Sunday killings and still do. A great many guilty men in Northern Ireland have either gone free way before their time, or never faced a court, and that is deeply distasteful.
But we should not permit murder by the State or its agents. There has always been plentiful evidence that this is what happened on Bloody Sunday, and now the evidence seems close to irrefutable. There will always be excuses for the excesses of soldiers or policemen. A liberal society with any guts will not listen to them.
scathew 06.15.10 at 8:14 pm
It’s hard to believe in America we would come to the same conclusion, so it’s at least a little something to be proud of in the UK.
Heck in the U.S. we can’t even release something about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy without redacting content – as if there is something to still be protected from that age.
Harald Korneliussen 06.15.10 at 8:43 pm
Is it significant that it’s Cameron doing this, and not any of his predecessors?
Abi Sutherland 06.15.10 at 8:52 pm
@Harald:
Is it significant that it’s Cameron doing this, and not any of his predecessors?
For what value of “this”? The Saville Inquiry’s been going since 2000; whoever happened to be PM when they finished the report was going to end up holding the baby.
For calling Bloody Sunday “unjustified and unjustifiable” and apologizing for it? I don’t know if it’s significant that he be the one to do it, but I’m glad he was so blunt.
ejh 06.15.10 at 9:23 pm
It’s hard to believe in America we would come to the same conclusion, so it’s at least a little something to be proud of in the UK.
Kent State comes to mind, I suppose. It’s true that Calley was convicted for My Lai, even if nobody else was and the sentence he ultimately served was a joke.
conall 06.15.10 at 10:13 pm
Surely the greatest crime is that of Widgery? Squaddies acted in the heat of the moment; Widge had an eminent legal brain, great esteem and adequate time for reflection (with pay and perks to match). He too, should have realised the consequences of his whitewash, and should be punished accordingly.
Maybe it’s time (groan!) to have an enquiry about enquiries? Or at the very least choose the Chair on the cab-rank principle (at random from a panel of the great and good), not hand-picked to fix a result.
conall 06.15.10 at 10:22 pm
p.s. Widgery died at the age of 70 in 1981. Still that trivial detail should not deter us, in the style Cromwell’s fate, of digging him up and sticking his head on a pole. It’s not just the £195 mn. he cost; many lives were also wasted by his mis-carriage.
PHB 06.15.10 at 11:47 pm
I really can’t see any prospect of prosecutions. That would defeat the whole point of the exercise which was to close the issue. I can hardly imagine Martin McGuiness wanting to be forced to account for his use of a machine gun on that day under oath.
Besides which, what would be the prospects of a fair trial at this point? The commission findings are on the balance of probability, they are not beyond reasonable doubt. The evidence of who knew what, who saw what, who thought what is all fragmentary. A trial at this stage would be very unlikely to result in convictions.
But take a careful look at the circumstances then and now. The circumstances of Bloody Sunday were far more ambiguous than those of the flotilla. One of the dead was carrying a nail bomb for a start. There is no getting away from the fact that the demonstration was less than a Ghandian passive resistance affair.
The historical fact is not what occurred by the myth that has superseded those events. The nail bomb is irrelevant, as is the question of whether petrol bombs were thrown or shots fired.
Also significant is the fact that the violence peaked shortly after Bloody Sunday. The British authorities realized that the brute force approach was a counter-productive failure. The big drop in the number of deaths comes a few years later though when the policy of ‘criminalization’ was brought in.
Pretty much every US media outlet tells us that the Israeli approach to terrorism is the successful one. Based on what? Their situation has only deteriorated as a result. Contrast that with the effect that the British realized after adopting West German tactics from ’74 onwards.
Hektor Bim 06.16.10 at 12:54 am
PHB,
Why would it be difficult to obtain a conviction? It seems there is sufficient evidence to convict the troops and many witnesses. Deciding to not prosecute the troops is actually a tacit confession that they had they had and have the support of the British political elite in their actions.
Also, Gandhi, not Ghandi.
parse 06.16.10 at 1:28 am
Calley was convicted in a court martial, not a civil criminal trial. If there were prosecutions for Bloody Sunday, would you expect a military or civil court proceeding? I don’t know how jurisdiction would be decided in the UK or how the status of British soldiers serving in Northern Ireland compares to U.S. Army troops in Vietnam.
PHB 06.16.10 at 2:23 am
The evidence of the witnesses is highly unreliable. They have have almost 40 years where their status has been dependent on their story of that day.
Is Jessie Jackson’s account of his presence at MLK’s death completely credible? It was widely challenged during his presidential campaign.
Obtaining a conviction would require attributing a very specific measure of guilt to one individual. As things stand the responsibility is distributed up and down the chain of command. The Colonel disobeyed an order in going into the Bogside, but it was not apparent that the deaths were a foreseeable outcome. Pretty hard to see a case for manslaughter.
There might be a case for murder against one or more of the soldiers. But it is damn hard to see how the person who pulled the trigger is identified. And even if they are identified the evidence is likely tainted by the qualified immunity given for the inquiry.
Tom T. 06.16.10 at 3:34 am
It’s hard to believe in America we would come to the same conclusion
There were a few prosecutions for civil-rights murders forty years later.
sg 06.16.10 at 4:58 am
I find it hard to believe that the massacre was not ordered from above; still seems like a whitewash to me, with the soldiers in question being singled out for punishment, as ever, when they were being point men for a military occupation. If I were one of those men, I would feel quite hard done by being hung out to dry for killing on someone else’s orders.
(Not as hard done by as if the demonstrators had fought back, or I’d actually been convicted for what I did, but still).
Chris Bertram 06.16.10 at 6:38 am
@PHB
_One of the dead was carrying a nail bomb for a start._
However
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/foyle_and_west/10138851.stm
“Widgery dismissed claims that the devices had been planted after death – saying nobody had offered any evidence to the contrary. But, the Saville inquiry heard that neither the soldier who first examined Mr Donaghey nor the army medical officer who received him at the aid post had found anything suspicious when they had checked over the teenager. … In conclusion, the Saville Report found the nailbombs were “probably” on Mr Donaghey but said he was not preparing to throw them at the time nor was he shot because he was carrying them. “
ajay 06.16.10 at 8:24 am
I could make a long list but assuming you just want me to demonstrate my point, I’ll cite Blair Peach for policemen and Aidan McAnespie for soldiers.
If you’re making an argument about the judiciary, you should make an argument about the judiciary. In neither of these cases did the killer actually appear before a judge. (And calling Ian Tomlinson a political killing is one hell of a stretch.)
Thom Brooks 06.16.10 at 9:35 am
The Peace Process may well have seen political prisoners released from prison, but these persons sat trials and received prison sentences. Now that the report has been published and its findings so clear (leading to an official apology from the Prime Minister), I suspect trials may well be held….even if sentences suspended or pardons granted.
ejh 06.16.10 at 9:37 am
Not that much of a stretch, given that I said “political overtones”, and given that it took place during anticapitalist demonstrations in the City of London.
No, the people responsible didn’t get anywhere near a judge: of course they didn’t. I wonder if that may be among the reasons that I think the judiciary are unlikely to convict.
Alice 06.16.10 at 9:58 am
40 years and it takes a tory to apologise. Well I’ll de damned. Its about time.
Chris Williams 06.16.10 at 10:00 am
I’ve not read Saville yet (though one day I might have to) and IANAL, but given the precis that I’ve seen so far, I think that any possible prosecution is likely to fail two tests. The first is the official ‘public interest’ one: there may well be a ‘balance of probabilities’ case that some members of a certain group killed some people when they could have had no reasonable belief that they were acting in self-defence. But this does not make up a ‘reasonable doubt’ case to pin the deaths of specific individuals on specific individuals, and given that Lee Clegg was released on appeal following a far better documented case, I don’t think that the CPS could do anything other than drop the case, if they apply their usual criteria to it.
Two is the ‘Mendonca factor’ – enough key figures in the prosecution, (let alone the judiciary), will be unhappy that the squaddies who pulled the trigger are taking the entire rap for a process which the officer class had a very large hand in, so they will sabotage the case.
ajay 06.16.10 at 10:27 am
31: I wonder if that may be among the reasons that I think the judiciary are unlikely to convict.
Wouldn’t a trial in the Peach and Tomlinson cases have involved a jury, anyway? It wouldn’t be the judiciary who would convict or not…
ejh 06.16.10 at 10:36 am
No, but there are such things as summings-up, and directions of various kinds from the bench, and they have a pretty poor reputation in politically-related cases, and for that matter cases involving officers of the law.
Hektor Bim 06.16.10 at 1:41 pm
I will say that I find it extremely unlikely that prosecutions will result, but I think that has much more to do with the political aspects of this, given that Britain has a Conservative government with a clear alliance with Unionists. There are a number of powerful people who don’t want convictions and will resist them.
It is very possible to get convictions in old cases. The US has successfully convicted a number of people in old civil rights cases.
StephanieM 06.16.10 at 4:16 pm
The soldiers who were interviewed during the course of the inquiry did so with a guarantee of immunity. They cannot be prosecuted for the crimes about which they gave testimony. However, Savile concluded that some of them lied during these interviews, which opens the possibility of prosecution for perjury, against which they will not have immunity.
Chris Williams 06.17.10 at 8:21 am
What’s the longest delay between someone perjuring themselves and being successfully prosecuted for it? If any of the cases come to trial as perjury I would put a very large sum of money on the defence. Thirty years is long enough to forget lots of things, even if we don’t bring in the idea of contaminated recall,
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