NO MORE BLOODY SUNDAYS

Yet England, even as you lie
You give the facts that you deny.
Spread the lie with all your power
All that's left; it's turning sour.
Friend and stranger, bride and brother
Son and sister, father, mother
All not blinded by your smoke.
Photographers who caught your stroke,
The priests who blessed our bodies, spoke
And wagged our blood in the world's face.
The truth will out, to your disgrace.

So wrote the poet Thomas Kinsella in his poem Butcher's Dozen, which brillantly exposed the British cover-up of the cold-blooded murder by its troops of 14 Irish citizens in Derry on January 30, 1972 – Bloody Sunday .

Kinsella has written that his poem was a response to the Widgery Tribunal, set up by the British government to whitewash the actions of its troops. Lord Widgery, he said, coldly put aside the truth of what happened and it was evident to Kinsella “that we were suddenly very close to the operation of the evil real causes . . . ”

These “evil real causes” centre around the British government's determination to stay in Ireland and to gun down innocent anti-internment marchers in the expectation that this would provoke an IRA response. This in turn was to be used as a justification for British troops invading the west bank of Derry, including the Brandywell, Bogside and Creggan, which for the two years before 1972 had been no-go areas, free from British rule.

More and more evidence has been coming out in recent weeks which show how well planned the deliberate actions of the British Crown Forces to kill unarmed marchers on Bloody Sunday were.

The only comparisons with this massacre outside of Ireland would be the Sharpville massacre of 61 South African in 1960 and the Amritsar massacre of April 1919 where British troops killed 500 Indians and injured 1,500.

It is now known that the first three victims, William Nash (19), John Young (17), and Michael McDaid (20) were killed by British snipers hidden on the city walls overlooking the march. Channel 4 TV broadcast corraborating evidence of this by a British soldier on January 29 last (1996). This was the signal for the Paras to attack the protest and to commence firing aimed single shots at the crowd for almost 20 minutes.

Then British Prime Minister Edward Heath's correspondence with Lord Widgery before the Tribunal got under way has also come to light. In one letter Heath reminded Widgery that not only was there a military war in Ireland but also a propaganda war and that he should bear that in mind in his report.

Britain must be made to account before the world for Bloody Sunday in Derry and the subsequent Widgery cover-up and whitewash of British troops' actions. This British butchery traumatized and enraged Irish people at home and around the world.

The call for a renewed investigation into Bloody Sunday has been joined by SDLP and Leinster House politicians in recent days. Their concern is that Bloody Sunday is preventing the reconciliation of nationalist people in the Six Counties with British rule. Not reconciliation in Ireland but reconciling Irish people to British rule.

Republicans do not seek any such thing. British rule in Ireland is wrong, illegal and undemocratic and inevitably provokes resistance by Irish people. This in turn brings about incidents such as Bloody Sundays, four of which have taken place in Ireland in the twentieth century alone.

Sincere, honest people maintain that Bloody Sunday can never happen again. The only way to ensure this, to get rid of such products of British rule, is to end British rule in Ireland itself.

There must be no more Bloody Sundays!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four Bloody Sundays since 1913

During the 20th century there have been four 'Bloody Sundays' in which Irish people were massacred by British forces:

• August 31, 1913 during the Dublin Lock-Out when British police attacked Jim Larkin's mass meeting in O'Connell Street, Dublin, killing one person and injuring more than 400.

• November 21, 1920, British forces killed one Tipperary player, Michael Hogan, and eleven spectators when they opened fire at a football match in Croke Park, Dublin. Sixty spectators were injured.

• July 10, 1921, concerted attacks on nationalist areas of Belfast by British Crown Forces and pro-British elements left 15 people killed, 68 seriously injured with 161 nationalist homes burnt out.

• January 30, 1972, British Crown Forces killed 14 anti-internment marchers and injured thirteen in Derry.

Source: SAOIRSE- Irish freedom newspaper 1997