BY DOUG COOPER AND JULIE CRAWFORD
DERRY, Northern Ireland - "The British government has got
away with murder for too long - let's see if they can handle
the truth as well as they can handle the lies," said Kay
Duddy. Her brother, Jack Duddy, was among the 14 civil rights
protesters killed by the British Army here in 1972, on what
became known as Bloody Sunday. She was the last speaker at a
day-long conference, "State Violence: State the Truth," held
in the Pilots Row Community Centre in the Bogside neighborhood
January 30, the day before the annual Bloody Sunday
demonstration. (A report on the demonstration appeared in the
February 15 Militant).
The conference was part of an effort by relatives and supporters of the Bloody Sunday victims to reach out to other families of the hundreds of nationalists and Catholics killed by British forces and pro-British loyalist death squads since 1969 - both in the occupied six counties of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The day's discussions was an opportunity for a number of these other families to meet and exchange experiences. Bloody Sunday relatives pointed to their 27-year-long fight as an example of how to sustain a united effort to win justice.
A photo exhibition at the front of the hall included some of those killed by British state violence, including Robert Hamill, a nationalist kicked to death by loyalists while the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) cops looked on in 1997, and Peter McBride, 18, shot in the back in 1992 by two Scots Guards after a patrol stopped him in North Belfast.
Paul O'Connor of the Pat Finucane Centre, one of the organizers of the conference, pointed out that the exhibition represented only a small number of those killed. Nearly 400 killings could be directly attributed to the British state, O'Connor said, and there was growing evidence of state involvement in the many more killings of Catholics carried out by loyalist murder gangs.
John Kelly, from the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, described the early years of that fight and noted how it intensified around the 20th anniversary. Kelly emphasized that while London has been forced to open a new inquiry, to get "prosecutions of those who planned and carried out Bloody Sunday, we have a long way to go."
O'Connor noted that in recent visits to Ireland, Charles Windsor, heir to the British throne, and British prime minister Anthony Blair refused to meet with relatives of those killed by British security forces but did see relatives of those killed as a result of republican military operations or by loyalist murder gangs. Such moves are designed to reinforce the British government's attempt to portray itself as neutral and its occupation of the six counties in the occupied North as separating "two warring tribes."
Elish McCabe, who heads Relatives for Justice, spoke of the "litany of murders" by Britain. Her brother Aidan McAnespie was shot dead by a British soldier at a border crossing in February 1988. "The British government is involved in a dirty and illegal violation of our human rights," she said. McCabe also denounced the Dublin government's role in covering up these murders. She detailed other examples of British violence, such as the "shoot to kill" policy of the early 1980s and the use of plastic bullets against protesters.
The vast majority of those killed by the security forces have been unarmed civilians, attorney Paddy MacDermott told the conference. In 30 years only four British soldiers have ever been convicted of murder, he said. None have served more than a few years in prison and all were reinstated into the army upon release. The first prosecution for murder of an RUC cop was for the 1984 killing of Sean Downes. The cop was acquitted. No police officer has served any time for murder since the conflict began in earnest 30 years ago, he noted.
Those killed include Irish Republican Army (IRA) fighters who were ambushed and summarily executed over the years or who were wounded and allowed to bleed to death. The IRA is currently on cease-fire after waging a military campaign against British occupation.
Róisín Barton's brother, Colm Keenan, was an IRA Volunteer killed by the British Army while unarmed. It was "a summary execution," she said. Barton said families of executed IRA Volunteers were demonized in a way "they couldn't do with Bloody Sunday.... My brother was a soldier." She added that no family who had lost members to state violence should be "silent victims."
Martina Duffy's father Patrick, an IRA man, was shot at point-blank range by the Special Air Services (SAS), an undercover special forces unit of the British Army. "I'm very proud of my father," said Duffy, who was attending the conference with her mother. "He was fighting for justice." After his death "we didn't know how or where to start to get justice."
The presence of relatives and survivors of British state violence from the south, showed the potential for an all- Ireland campaign. It also highlighted the complicity of the capitalist rulers in Dublin in hiding the facts. Derek Byrne from Dublin was seriously injured in the 1974 Dublin-Monaghan bombings that killed 33 people. While no one has been charged with this atrocity, several media reports have implicated a loyalist death squad assisted by British police agencies. Byrne was initially pronounced dead, and lay in a morgue for several hours. "We never got anywhere with the Irish government," he said. "We need justice for all, under one banner, North and South," He condemned both the British and Irish governments for their cover-up.
Meanwhile, Paul Mahon, a lawyer who is currently working with the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, explained how new facts are beginning to emerge about the extent of British state violence. Members of the Parachute Regiment of the British Army, which was responsible for the Bloody Sunday killings, carried out another massacre, he said, the Springhill massacre in Belfast in July 1972, where six people were killed.
Some British soldiers involved in Bloody Sunday have appealed court rulings that they are entitled to only partial immunity from being named during the new inquiry established by the Labour government, known as the Saville Inquiry.
The conference finished with a final panel discussion, exchanging views on the usefulness of truth commissions and other questions. There was some debate on whether the arrest in Britain and possible extradition of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet to Spain aided or hindered the struggle for justice in Ireland.
One panelist was Jeremy Corbyn, a Labour MP with a record in support of the Irish struggle, who spoke earlier at the London Bloody Sunday march. He argued for London to extradite Pinochet.
Tony Hunt, a leader of the Communist League in the United Kingdom, spoke from the audience in response, noting that the British state had no more right to interfere in the affairs of the Chilean people than it did in the affairs of the Irish. He pointed to how London was using the Pinochet case to pretty up its own record and justify intervention in Iraq and Yugoslavia.
A Basque participant explained that the Spanish judge who requested Pinochet's extradition is the same judge who imprisoned the entire national executive of the Basque nationalist party Herri Batasuna on trumped-up charges. Asking why the Spanish courts had never taken action against Spanish military officers who carried out gross acts of murder and torture during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, he said, "I think the fight for justice begins at home."
Doug Cooper is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia in Sydney. Julie Crawford is a member of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union in Manchester.