RNU Reacts to Saville Report

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Friday June 18, 2010 11:10 by RNU PRO - Republican Network for Unity (RNU)

“If Bloody Sunday had been limited to a few troopers and their commander, why was the truth so long stonewalled and the cover-up so doggedly continued? Why did the families of the victims have to wait so long for the truth? Meanwhile the families of many other victims of unjustified shoot-to-kill, plastic bullet, or collusion murders, continue to wait for justice.”

“The Republican Network for Unity (RNU) wishes to join in applauding the families of the Bloody Sunday victims, who by their profound dignity, unbreakable determination, and unyielding commitment to justice for their slain loved ones, have wrested from a British Prime Minister, an apology and exoneration that long seemed unattainable,” said RNU spokesperson Danny McBrearty.

“Saville’s indictment of British troopers, for ‘ unjustifiable killings’ and ‘false accounts’ are polite terms for murder on Bloody Sunday, and perjury before the inquiry about those murders. The crown which regards time as no obstacle to prosecuting Republicans like Gerry McGeough on a decades old charges, must now determine whether the same rules will be applied to British Army murders and perjury.

“Bloody Sunday however did not begin and end with a few British troopers or with the once knighted, now abandoned commander who ordered them forward. Those murders were as patently ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’ when they were committed and witnessed in January 30, 1972. Both Saville and Cameron have been far more forthcoming in exonerating the innocent then in acknowledging the guilt of all but the bottom rung of the British military and political establishment.

“While premeditation and conspiracy may not be found in the pages of the report, they are clearly evident in the months leading-up to Bloody Sunday and the cover-up which followed.

“For decades the official British version presented to Westminster, Widgery and the world, was that the murdered civil rights marchers were shooting, or tossing nail bombs at restrained troopers, who in turn were forced to fire as a last resort. This tale was told before the bodies of the victims were cold. The troopers were applauded, promoted, some assigned to the SAS. Wilford was knighted and Widgery whitewashed murder and perjury.

“The clear message to these troopers and to all those in the British Army who would serve in the six counties, was that murders of Irish nationalists, even with as many witnesses as Bloody Sunday, could be committed with impunity and would be backed by the crown.

Bloody Sunday, itself came at the end of a six month period, in which the crown, staged internment, the torture of internees, and the Ballymurphy Massacre in an escalating pattern of failed repression.

“If Bloody Sunday had been limited to a few troopers and their commander, why was the truth so long stonewalled and the cover-up so doggedly continued? Why did the families of the victims have to wait so long for the truth? Meanwhile the families of many other victims of unjustified shoot-to-kill, plastic bullet, or collusion murders, continue to wait for justice.”