Ballymurphy Inquest

BobbyMac

                                                                                BobbyMac said:                                                                                                                To carry on from the other week's exchange on the JC thread (and to stop derailing it), some info on the inquest into the massacre which occurred before Bloody Sunday                                Click to expand...       

Previous exchange follows:  

                                                                                Trollslayer said:                                                                                                                I have watched a few TV programmes on Bloody Sunday over the years and the soldiers on the ground  had no training for that kind of situation and the only weapons they had were SLRs - high velocity rifles - and bayonets.
Also, if I remember correctly,  no body armour of any kind.                                Click to expand...       

Those murdered didn’t even have white handkerchief’s to defend themselves with ***

I’d argue after the Ballymurphy massacre the paras had all the training they required to deal with unarmed peaceful civilians

Former army medic claims he was told to plant ammunition on dead bodies of Ballymurphy victims, inquest hears

I agree with the general consensus that the commanders should have been be brought in and charged (especially General Ford given the audio below)

gript on Twitter

Trollslayer

@BobbyMac - The whole situation was a mess (can't use the words I want to).
The training the soldiers got was done with a mindset of military opponents which shows the basic failure there.
Sadly that item about planting ammunition is perfectly believable.

Sonic67

You never read Savile. There was weapons there. McGuinness was reckoned to fire the first shot. Some had nail bombs or were throwing acid. Not exactly "unarmed."

McGuinness 'said he sparked Bloody Sunday'

"Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness admitted he was the IRA gunman who sparked Bloody Sunday with a single shot, according to an informer, the Saville inquiry was told yesterday.

Henry Patterson: For many, Saville has fallen short

But the intensity of attacks of the Provisional IRA had been increasing markedly in the weeks leading up to the march. Three days before the march, the Derry Provisionals had shot dead RUC Sergeant Peter Gilgunn, a 26-year-old Catholic father of one, and David Montgomery, a 20-year-old Protestant. They were the first policemen to be killed in the city during the Troubles.

Also from Saville and regarding McGuinness. The enquiry called him 'evasive' when questioned though "was present at the time of the violence and "probably armed with a sub-machine gun" but did not engage in "any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire"

Saville again:

Volume 1, Chapter 3, 3.111
Gerald Donaghey, the 4 nail bombs were 'probably on him' when he was shot, but as he wasn't throwing nail bombs, his shooting cannot be justified.

"..if Private T was responsible for the shot that injured this casualty, this was one of the two shots that Private T fired at a man who had been throwing down bottles containing acid or a similar corrosive substance from the Rossville Flats. Such conduct probably did pose a threat of causing serious injury." Para 3.74

BobbyMac

"According to an informer"
"probably on him"

Put away your smoking gun (sic)

Any thoughts on Ballymurphy?

Is your argument, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs??

A fact that's long forgotten is the reason why the British Army where in NI in the first place

The Catholic community where persecuted and had their civil rights eroded by the Crown and the Unionist population

Trollslayer

Bobby, can I ask a question?
How are the Republican and Loyalist communities coming along with opening up to each other?

Sonic67

It's the findings of the Savile report. I'm sure it was there as they gave some credence to it based on the huge cost and the years of putting it together. Or are you going to selectively choose which bits you want to run with.

It was an environment where there would be a large civilian crowd mustered, a few pot shots fired from the back by the IRA, if they shot a soldier, happy days, another soldier dead. If the soldiers fired back and a civilian was hit, the IRA would disappear and say, "look what they did." Either way heads they win, tails you lose.

It was an environment where riots happened constantly, informers were tortured and some slept with pistols under their pillow in case the IRA came to kill them in the middle of the night.
Any thoughts on Enniskillen?

Sergeant Michael Willetts, 3 Para?

Corporals Derek Wood and David Howes?

Fine, prosecute soldiers decades later. And IRA members too. I remember as a child watching the aftermath of the Birmingham pub bombings. Still no one prosecuted.

Or prosecute neither.
The army was there to prevent a civil war. One of my mates was on a checkpoint when a unionist tried to joke with him about some Catholics who'd died.

He told him to **** off as he was a Catholic.

Trollslayer

Correct.

BobbyMac

Yet the Army and the British state ended up colluding with one side against the other resulting in legitimate targets and innocents being killed

TBF to the UVF, even they drew the line at shooting up a primary school or convent (The British State weren't so squeamish it would appear going by this interview)

Daniel Collins on Twitter

British intelligence tried to get UVF to ‘shoot up a school’, documentary claims

BobbyMac

Ah the whatabouterry defence, colour me shocked

Re Saville, I was poking holes in your own quotes

Anyone involved in illegal activities (out-with the rules of engagement for both sides) or those who killed innocents by mistake (even during the ROE) should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law

Hiding behind I was only following orders or wasn't trained properly didn't wash during WWII, it shouldn't wash when British civilians where being targeted by the British State or IRA

I'm not the one arguing that combatants should be immune from justice even if it's 40 years later

Re your anecdote, if that was me, I couldn't live with myself working for an organisation that thought I was a 2nd class citizen purely on the basis of my religion or was happy to collude with loyalist murderers

BobbyMac

I'm not from the North so can't really say with any authority

I think education, aspiration and the peace of the last 20 years has led to it only being an issue for those at the bottom of the ladder

It's probably why it's approx 50/50 for a United Ireland even without factoring Brexit in
United Ireland - Wikipedia