Bloody Sunday murderers should face justice

The passage of time cannot wash away the guilt of the men who killed innocent civilians

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3 MIN READ
NIÑO JOSE HEREDIA /©Gulf News
NIÑO JOSE HEREDIA /©Gulf News
NIÑO JOSE HEREDIA /©Gulf News

My father was a peaceful man, plentiful of patience, slow simmering to anger, well rotund in stature and well read in substance.

He was the devil's advocate in debates and always had the ability to see other sides of stories. He would subscribe to socialist pamphlets as easily as conservative broadsheets, just to obtain a different perspective. And when it came to public demonstrations or political rallies, my father was an observer from the sidelines, not a participant in the frontlines.

In Ireland, a divided island then teetering on the abyss of all-out civil and religious war, staying on the sidelines was a path taken by many. It was too easy to be sucked into a vortex of political violence. My grandfather and his brother had fatally fallen out five decades before, when civil war erupted over whether to accept a British offer of independence for the South — what was to become the Republic of Ireland — while London divided the island and held on to, as it still does today, six counties of Ulster.

Determined not to repeat the anger and hatred of his father's generation, my father favoured reasoning over rifles, persuasion over pistols, the ballot box over the bomb.

With one exception: Monday, January 31, 1972.

Venting anger

He was part of a crowd of thousands that angrily demonstrated in front of the British Embassy, then on Merrion Square in a Georgian terraced building. The building was firebombed, gutted and left to burn. And to their credit, the Gardai — Irish police — stood by and let it happen. Not a single arrest was made that day.

The day before, as I remember it, was a seasonable, mild winter's day.

My father and mother had a habit of going for afternoon strolls. Us kids were young enough to not want to go out with our parents, and old enough to be left alone to watch afternoon football.

I remember the breaking news flashes that one, three, five, 10, 20 people had been shot at a civil-right's march in Derry.

"Any news?" my father asked on his return.

To this day I can still see the look of disbelief as we told him. For the rest of the night, the rabbit's ears antenna on the black and white telly was tuned to RTE and the events of that Bloody Sunday.

There were shaky images of a balding priest, Father Edward Daly, crouching with a wounded man and some helpers, holding a white handkerchief in the air — a white flag of neutrality and a helping hand of humanity — as British soldiers shot with murderous malice at unarmed and peaceful civilians.

When the members of 2 Para — the Second Battalion of the Royal Paratroop Regiment — were done emptying the magazines on their FN rifles, 26 innocent people were shot; 14 died.

An initial inquiry — a whitewash carried out by a British judge while British troops patrolled and controlled the streets and fields of Ulster — determined that the troops were fired upon first.

Lies.

Just as British judges convicted the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four.

Lies and fabricated evidence.

There was a famous cartoon at the time showing Big Ben striking 12 noon while a tourist asked a London Bobby for the time. "Four o'clock," the constable says.

Finally, the truth is now out, thanks to a £191 million (Dh1.04 billion) inquiry over 12 years led by Lord Mark Saville.

The only gunshots that day came from 2 Para.

The only guilty persons are members of 2 Para.

The only ones who disobeyed orders are the killers from 2 Para.

The only ones who have never paid for their deeds are members of 2 Para.

The only ones who must face justice are members of 2 Para.

If there is to be closure from the murderous actions of 2 Para, it must come in having the same brought before judge and jury and held accountable for their unprovoked attack on the people of Derry.

While British Prime Minister David Cameron formally issued an apology for the deeds of 2 Para that day 38 years ago, it is too little too late.

Real justice does not have an escape clause because of time.

The Royal Paratroop Regiment had a long and glorious history. Now it is forever formally stained with the blood of the good people of Derry.

The ceremonial colonel-in-chief of the Royal Paratroop Regiment is Prince Charles who, on occasions of pomp, appears in the uniform of the regiment.

Never again should he don that uniform, cut from the cloth of killers.

Better still, he should resign from that ceremonial position. Isn't that the path of honour for a soldier?

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