It was meant to be a peaceful march. But as we have all too often seen, peaceful protests, whether they be in compounds, on the streets or on sea, can end up as bloody affairs. The date of 30 January 1972, sometimes known as Domhnach na Fola (Bloody Sunday), was one such event.
A civil rights demonstration had been organised in defiance of the authorities in the Northern Irish town of Londonderry. The British Parachute Regiment was given the task of controlling it. By the end of the affray, 13 people were dead — another subsequently died in hospital — and 15 were left wounded. It catalysed 30 years of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland. Before the year was out, the British Army had lost 100 men.
Lord Saville's mammoth 5000 page report of that seminal moment of 'The Troubles' has been eagerly anticipated. It constitutes one of the final steps of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Contributions from the legal fraternity have been impressive and plentiful. Lord Saville has been able to call upon his Commonwealth colleagues, the Canadian judge William Hoyt and the former Australian High Court Justice John Toohey.
Thousands gathered to listen to the verdict. Most got what they wanted — the admission that the killings of Bloody Sunday were 'unjustified and unjustifiable'.
Rarely can a report have been rendered with such crystal clear findings. Prime Minister David Cameron issued a formal apology in the House of Commons. The report, he said, had been 'absolutely clear', leaving room for 'no ambiguities'. The civilians who were felled by bullets had been unarmed. False claims had been made by various soldiers about the presence of 'nail bombers'. Some continued to fire as the protesters fled or lay wounded. The regiment should never have been deployed to the Bogside in the first place. Prosecutors in Northern Ireland are considering the possibility of bringing charges against the offending parties for perjury.
Not all are in favour of these findings. For one thing, the sheer length of the inquiry — a staggering 12 years — has made various commentators suspect its veracity, its balance. The cost also has been enormous, some 200 million pounds. Questions have been asked as to whether the inquiry unintentionally compromised national security or breached privacy provisions during the investigations.
Then there are the usual countering arguments: How many Derrys have there been? How many other bloody events committed by the IRA? And wasn't Martin McGuiness, current Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, armed at the protest? Violence can be labyrinthine and entangling in its complexities.
There is little doubt that another inquiry was required after the problematic findings of Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery, who, as David McKittrick of The Independent explained, did 'more to damage the country's reputation in Ireland than almost any other single act during the history of The Troubles'.
Widgery's 'whitewashing' effort, made 38 years ago, took a mere 558 dismissive words, exonerating the paratroopers while condemning the protesters. 'Some', went the devastating verdict, 'are wholly acquitted of complicity in such an action; but there is a strong suspicion that some others had been firing weapons or handling bombs.' The deluge of violence was duly prepared.
Exposing the use of naked and lethal force against civilians, even if they be unruly in exercising their right of protest, is certainly in the public good. While the unionist and republican factions remain divided on their views of the British army, their differences are unlikely to precipitate any long term effects in light of this report. As Voltaire claimed, 'To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.' True reconciliation can only ever take place with a true recounting of memory.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.