Finally! It took 38 years, but Britain finally admitted that its troops were totally responsible for what happened in Derry, Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972. Some of you have seen the excellent film, “Bloody Sunday” (some of you with me), more of you know what happened on the horrific Sunday and all of you know the U2 song, “Bloody Sunday”. But it took a twelve year investigation and 38 years for the British to admit that 14 unarmed, innocent Irish demonstrators were shot and murdered while participating in a non-violent civil rights march based on the principles of Martin Luther King. Instead of more peaceful protests, this dreadful day led to a resurgence of the IRA and almost 40 years of bitter dispute and violence between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland. Prime Minister David Cameron said in the House of Commons, “...There are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong...And for that, on behalf of the government - and indeed for our country - I am deeply sorry.”
I guess this answers the U2 question:
“How long...
How long must we sing this song
How long, how long...”
The answer is 38 years.
It was a very dignified apology by Cameron, but it leaves several serious questions unanswered. After this conclusion, should the British troops or their commanders be held criminally responsible for their actions in 1972? And what does Britain owe the families of the victims now that it has admitted that all of the casualties were unarmed?
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I agree that an apology is not enough. There should be consequences for those who lied or covered up. An apology is just words without some justice.
ReplyDeleteHere's what Dave Birnbaum wrote to me on FB:
ReplyDeleteOk... so what now? The dead are just as dead. No one is going to be prosecuted. Seems to me like Britain would have been better off to put those 200M toward something of use.
Really, Dave? You don't think it is important that Britain finally owned up to one of the thousands of atrocities they committed in Ireland? I agree with Mary (Huntress), though, that there must be consequences.
ReplyDeleteFor everyone, if you haven;t seen the movie, it is excellent. It feels like a documentary. It was obviously told from the Irish perspective, but this 5000 page report backs up the movie's perspective.
A teacher I had last semester said,
ReplyDelete'you don't offer an apology, you ask for forgiveness.'
Accepting responsibility is a good thing.
(This is David Birnbaum)
ReplyDeleteOf course it's important that Britain is finally claiming fault, but they probably could have and should have done that sooner and cheaper. Talk is supposed to be cheap and I just don't think that apology was worth 200 million pounds 38 years later. The money still has the potential to not be a waste, but that depends on what they do now.
It's a tough situation because too much time has passed to really do much other than apologize and go about business as usual, but the event is still in living memory for many people. This makes people want action. But what action can you really take? The guy who gave the order to open fire is, I believe, already dead. Is it worthwhile to prosecute a bunch of 70-something year olds because they fired when they were told to fire in 1972?
So, again I ask... what now?
Every little bit helps. An apology is only words, that is very true. But now the families feel a little bit better. No one has been arrested, and it's possible no one will, I don't honestly know that that would really help anything at this point. But by giving these families just the tiniest bit of peace, a step toward ending the continuous hatred might be met and a slight bit of tension eased. You are talking about people who have been caring this resentment around for 38 years. This is a very complicated conflict. You are talking about a conflict that had a central theme of Northern Irish Protestants fighting the British in order that they might remain British... Any conflict like that is not giving to EVER have an easy solution. Have you ever been to Belfast? Even knowing absolutely nothing about the conflict (which is about what I knew the first time I went there) you can still FEEL the tension. The entire city is segregated between Catholics and Protestants.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I don't know what now. But it took Britain 4 years longer than it was supposed too to claim responsibility for this. The only result might be an ease of tension, but given that many veterans of this war (I use these the terms veterans and war because those that fought view themselves and the Conflict this way) say that while the fighting is over the conflict still continues. So in that light, I think that even this small step towards accepting responsibilities will ease some tension and bring some comfort to those in question.
As I understand it, this report is the second one. The Conservative government issued an earlier report which was a complete whitewash and claimed the demonstrators were armed and that the British soldiers fired in self-defense. There was even a gun planted on one of the corpses. Tony Blair initiated the second investigation which took 12 years. Obviously, the long time gap meant some of the principals were no longer alive and also memories can become distorted. Even if I did not have strong personal feelings about this conflict, I support the idea of historical truth coming out.
ReplyDeleteThat is true Ms. Hansbury. This is the second investigation, the first one being completely false and saying that the protestors were armed. The second investigation happened under Tony Blair (the beginning of it) because the families were so upset and continued to ask for a reinvestigation. The second one was supposed to (if I remember correctly) have been completed in 2006.
ReplyDeleteSo, as I wrote to Ms. Hansbury on her facebook wall, I asked one my professors what this apology would mean overall. He said that (sadly) it would mean very little in terms of the idea of conflict resolution. Basically, that this 2nd investigation and this apology was always simply something to comfort the families of the victims.
ReplyDeleteThat said, one result of this apology is that the IRA has now been opened to the expectations by Protestant/Unionists of apologies for various atrocities committed by them (the IRA/Provos) such as Bloody Friday, the Shankill Butchers, etc. (Please don't forget that atrocities were committed by both sides.)