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Anorak News | Bloody Sunday In Pictures: Lord Saville, Lord Widgery, Facts Or Truth?

Bloody Sunday In Pictures: Lord Saville, Lord Widgery, Facts Or Truth?

by | 14th, June 2010

BLOODY Sunday. It took Lord Saville 12-years to inquire as to what went on in Northern Ireland. In 1972 British Paratroopers killed 13 civilians on a civil rights march in Derry City. How can it take so long? The inquiry has cot the taxpayer just under £200million. Thirteen dead. And the lawyers get the money.

Lord Widgery investigated in the immediate aftermath; an inquiry set up by then Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling. Irish nationalists dismissed it as a whitewash. Widgery’s report spoke of some of the victims being armed. But there was no proof that they were.

Father Edward Daly worked at St Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry. He gave testimony:

“They call themselves an army, it was utterly disgraceful. There was nothing fired at them, I can say that with absolute certainty because I was there.”

In 1998, Tony Blair, who ordered the Saville inquiry, said it was…

“…not to accuse individuals or institutions, or to invite fresh recriminations, but to establish the truth about what happened on that day, so far as that can be achieved at 26 years’ distance.”

Lord Ramsbotham, military assistant to General Sir Michael Carver, Chief of the General Staff, at the time of “Bogside Massacrre” says…

it would be difficult to bring charges against soldiers that had been “ordered to go into an operation”, saying: “I mean, who are you going to charge and with what? It’s very difficult, and 30 years ago, for heaven’s sake! And when some of the |people are already dead, it doesn’t make it any easier.”

And the victims?

Bloody Sunday campaigner Eamonn McCann said he would be “surprised and deeply disappointed” if this claim was upheld by Lord Saville.

“Based on the evidence, I’m confident he is going to find that none of the dead or wounded were nailbombers or gunmen. All of them were unarmed civilians.”

Says the BBC:

A republican paramilitary group, the Official IRA, have said they fired a small number of shots on the day.

You want the truth? Or do you want the facts?

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File photo dated 01/02/1997 of the 14 black flags for the 14 victims of Bloody Sunday flying over Free Derry Corner in Londonderry.



Posted: 14th, June 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink