The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.1           January 12, 1998 
 
 
`All Out For Bloody Sunday March' -- Author calls for new inquiry in 1972 massacre of 14 Irish nationalists  

BY PAUL DAVIES AND DEBRA JACOBS
MANCHESTER, England - "As a 10-year-old, I offered the British soldiers Woodbines, when they arrived in Derry. I thought they were there to protect us, but soon that changed. After Bloody Sunday our political innocence disappeared quickly. We began to acquire political acumen, we started to learn who we were up against," explained Don Mullan at a public meeting in Liverpool. As a 15-year-old, Mullan took part in the civil rights march on Jan. 30, 1972, in Derry, Northern Ireland, that became known as Bloody Sunday, after the British army shot dead 13 of the demonstrators. Another died in the hospital from bullet wounds. In 1997 he published Eyewitness Bloody Sunday - The Truth, a collection of testimonies of people who were in Derry on the day of the demonstration. In a December tour initiated by the Irish Campaigns Network, Mullan spoke to 130 people in Liverpool, as well as at public meetings in London and Manchester.

The campaign for an independent public inquiry, led by relatives of those that were killed, has picked up following the publication of Mullan's book. In November, a delegation including two of the relatives and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) mayor of Derry, Martin Bradley, went to Westminster to lobby members of Parliament (MPs). SDLP leader John Hume won the support of 60 MPs for a motion demanding the truth about Bloody Sunday in the British parliament. The head of the Irish government, Bertie Ahern, recently warned the British government that he would publish documents supporting the calls for an inquiry into recently uncovered evidence concerning the killings.

Following the meeting in Liverpool, Mullan said that he was approached by two soldiers, who told him that many soldiers now thought that the paratroopers who carried out the killings had "gone too far."

"Bloody Sunday was intended to kill the civil rights movement and crush opposition," Mullan explained, in response to a question at the meeting in Liverpool. The demonstrators who were killed were taking part in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march against the use of internment without trial by the Stormont government in Northern Ireland and against the ban on civil rights demonstrations. At that time there was mounting resistance to internment, including a rent and rates strike by nationalists that involved 26,000 households.

Mullan described the resistance to British rule in the city of Derry. He recalled the 1969 "Battle of the Bogside" when the Derry Citizen's Defence Association barricaded the largely Catholic Bogside area of Derry to prevent a sectarian Apprentice Boys march from entering their community. The Stormont government had previously banned several civil rights marches, but gave backing to the pro-British Apprentice Boys march, angering local Catholics who did not want the triumphalist march passing outside their homes. For 48 hours local residents fought running battles to keep the Royal Ulster Constabulary [RUC] out of the Bogside. Then British authorities decided to pull the RUC back and send troops into the area. This was the beginning of the current military occupation of Northern Ireland.

In the months that followed the killings on Bloody Sunday, the British launched Operation Motorman, a military assault on those areas of Derry and west Belfast that were "no-go" areas, using 21,000 troops, tanks, and helicopters to dismantle the barricades that had kept these areas free of direct state control.

At the Manchester meeting Mullan explained how nationalists were outraged when Elizabeth Windsor, the British monarch, decorated the commander of the paratroopers on Bloody Sunday. Lieut. Col. Derek Wilford was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal later in 1972 for his services to the British state.

Following the killings the British government moved swiftly to an inquiry into the killings that has become known as the Widgery report. Within days of the killings 500 eyewitness testimonies were recorded to be presented to the Widgery tribunal by the National Council for Civil Liberties. Only 15 of these were considered by inquiry. Mullan's book publishes more than 100 of the testimonies for the first time.

Widgery concluded that "the army fired only at identified targets - at attacking gunmen and bombers. At all times the soldiers obeyed their standing instructions to fire only in self defense..."

In November 1996 Mullan received copies of recently disclosed statements from four soldiers positioned on the Derry city walls. Soldier number 156 said, "An army sniper was situated on my left about 15 yards away in the attic of a derelict house, outside the city walls returned three shots .. there was no return of fire."

Mullan also described the impact of the British government cover up that followed Bloody Sunday on many nationalists in Derry. He quoted Mickey Devine, who later died in 1981 on hunger strike in prison. Devine was 17 in 1972. He described the funeral that followed the killings on Bloody Sunday. "I will never forget standing in the chapel," he wrote. "That sight more than any other convinced me that there will never be peace in Ireland while Britain remains. When I looked at those coffins I developed a commitment to the republican cause that I have never lost."

"After Bloody Sunday, my generation stopped being afraid of Stormont and the British regime," Mullan said. "Unlike our parents we became highly politicized and developed a sense of Irish identity.

"The relatives of those that were killed have never asked the British government for an apology. We don't need another `review' either," Mullan said. "We want an independent inquiry that will establish who planned Bloody Sunday, who carried it out, and who covered it up. If the government does not establish an inquiry, we need to get 60-80,000 people out on the streets of Derry on Jan. 30, 1998."

A march and rally is also being planned in London on January 24, to commemorate the 26th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The rally will be addressed by Joe McKinney, a relative of one of those who were killed, British MP John McDonnell, and Sinn Fein representative Dodie McGuinness.

Paul Davies is a member of the AEEU. Debra Jacobs is a member of the RMT.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home