Bloody Sunday: A Tragedy Goes Satire

ARTICLE

This afternoon, 15 June 2010, the longest public inquiry in British legal history will arrive at its official close. Downing Street's new face, David Cameron, will announce the public release of the final report into the Bloody Sunday massacre, once initiated by his pre-predecessor, to the House of Commons. The report is quite possibly going to challenge Cameron's administration more seriously than any other political issue on their still wet agenda. It might even deal them a blow no political solution can muffle.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Younger readers and those so far less interested in politics and history may be at a loss now, perhaps only recognizing "Bloody Sunday" to be a popular hymn, released by a famous Irish rock band; don't worry, you are still on the right track.

On (the second) Bloody Sunday (in all-Irish history), 30 January 1972, British paratroopers shot dead 13 unarmed protesters, seven of them still teenagers, marching against internment, in the streets of the city of Derry (Londonderry). Internment, in many cases without trial, used to be common procedure in Northern Ireland.

The Special Powers Act

The "Civil Authorities Act" (dating from 1922), basically allowed for indefinite internment of any person

"whose behavior is of such a nature as to give reasonable grounds for suspecting that he has acted or is acting or is about to act in a manner prejudicial to the preservation of the peace or maintenance of order."

De facto, it was applied only to the Irish population and those suspected to support their cause. Earlier reports of ill-treatment of political prisoners — who were generally denied their political status, and treated even worse than many a legally tried and sentenced criminal — in the Long Kesh internment camp, turned out an unexpected high number of protesters (approximately 10,000), all of them obviously "giving reasonable grounds for suspecting that they were about to act in a manner prejudicial to the preservation of the peace or maintenance of order" under aforementioned law, also known as the "Special Powers Act", by their mere appearance on the scene. So, by this reading, the protest march was indisputably illegal, the internment was not — never mind human rights.

The Widgery Inquiry

An initial inquiry, headed by Lord Widgery, established shortly after the shooting, quickly returned a report, representing the killing as the tragic result of peace enforcement gone awfully wrong. By maintaining that paratroopers had merely returned fire in self-defense, the report so obviously contradicted available eye-witness testimonies, that it soon lost credibility with the public, especially among Irish nationalists and the families of the victims.

The Saville Inquiry

A major campaign ensued, demanding investigations into the matter be reopened, and truth be found and made public; the campaign should last for 26 years, until the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, saw no other way than yielding to the demand to settle sentiments.Yet it took two more years for the investigations to eventually commence. A panel of three judges, at first located in Derry and later in London, headed by the Rt Hon Lord Saville of Newdigate, took particular care to investigate each death in detail, to learn which victim had been shot by which soldier and why, instead of trying to learn what had actually gone wrong. They took 2,500 statements (in total), heard 922 people giving direct evidence, heard 121 audio tapes, watched 110 video tapes, and considered 160 volumes of evidence. The inquiry, lasting 12 years in total (including considerable time spent in court, as the inquiry was repeatedly challenged, among others, for possibly jeopardizing the anonymity of soldiers giving evidence), is estimated to have cost just short of €240m (about half of which in legal fees). The subsequent report is estimated to run between 4,500 and 5,000 pages.Notwithstanding Lord Saville's obvious efforts and supposedly good intentions to arrive at the truth of it all, the long-awaited report is rather unlikely to reveal anything new as to how the massacre came to pass, or what should be done about it. The inquiry had been "specifically prohibited from ruling on any individual's criminal or civil liability". So what new evidence might ever have surfaced during the inquiry, it won't matter legally. No soldier will have to face prosecution, regardless of possible evidence having been found.

Finished? Not Quite!

Upon completion, the document had to be handed to the Northern Ireland Secretary, Shaun Woodward, who insisted on retaining it for up to 14 days (or how long ever might be thought necessary?), to have it thoroughly checked by government officials in order to prevent legal issues possibly arising from Saville inadvertently compromising national security or breaching human rights provisions. Not quite plausible, given that the report was drafted by three judges, and repeatedly challenged in court during the process. Ironically, the only experts Woodward managed to find in 12 years sit in the offices of the accused soldiers' employer (Ministry of Defense), Home Office (including MI5), and the Treasury solicitors (who used to instruct the soldiers' barristers during the inquiry hearings).

Seeing What's Left

The remnants surviving the inspection will fail to surprise anyone somewhat familiar with the case; it has already been widely accepted for years that the victims were unarmed, and killing them was unjustifiable, to put it mildly. Practically no one is seriously in doubt today whether or not "evidence" had been manufactured in the aftermath of the tragedy, and during the first inquiry — save for the manufacturers, perhaps. Even though the shooting is expected to be ruled unlawful, justice will go empty-handed — and what truth will actually be told, remains to be heard.To learn about the Inquiry in detail, please follow the link below.

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Gerry MacOstair is a freelance writer and web developer in Vienna, Austria. At the time the Saville Inquiry commenced, he lived in Dublin, Ireland. There, he personally experienced the high expectations its establishment used to evoke.

Follow Gerry MacOstair on Twitter

External Links

The Bloody Sunday Inquire Website

Published on the Front Page of Fortitude June 15, 2010
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