Saville inquiry reaches crucial stage

The public inquiry into the horrors of Bloody Sunday, which helped blight chances of peace in the North for nearly 30 years, is today reaching a crucial stage.

General Robert Ford, 78, who as Commander of Land Forces was in charge of the British army’s day-to-day operations in Northern Ireland in 1972, is nearing the end of his evidence.

He gives an insight into the British establishment’s thinking when paratroopers burst into the Bogside on 30 January 1972 to arrest rioters and killed 13 unarmed men on a civil rights march.

One soldier has broken ranks to say the shootings were unjustified and fuelled by a culture of bravado. Others are set to argue they only fired at gunmen and bombers.

General Ford was the army’s second in command in Northern Ireland and the most senior front-line officer on Bloody Sunday. He helps cast light on how strongly the risk to innocent civilians had been studied.

Within weeks and cloaked by anonymity some of the paratroopers who fired the fatal shots will take the stand.

“We have been waiting for 30 years for this inquiry to come and the opportunity to cross examine,” said Gerry Duddy whose brother Jackie, 17, was killed by a single bullet as he ran across the Rossville Flats courtyard.

“Hopefully all the truth comes out and that is that our loved ones were innocent and murdered violently in their own streets.”

The 1972 Widgery Tribunal largely exonerated the soldiers saying they fired in self-defence.

Victims’ relatives have dismissed this verdict as a whitewash. Decades of campaigning followed before the Government set up a fresh inquiry two years ago.

It has been “like an ongoing wake“, according to Kay Duddy.

They now travel to London to hear evidence from more than 300 military witnesses who won a Court of Appeal battle to testify there instead of Derry for their safety.

They are also keeping an eye on the British authorities as discussion of how to handle the repercussions of state violence is put under the spotlight.

The families are now as much experts on the proceedings as the band of eminent barristers who are earning millions from the long-running hearing, expected to cost around £150m (€235m) when it concludes in 2004.

Keenly aware that the truth often hurts, Ms Duddy said: “This is a crucial point. This is the perfect place for this because it is in Whitehall.

“It is the heart of the British establishment and hopefully they will now realise what has been happening over the last 30 years.

“Bloody Sunday did not just affect us. It affected a generation and the inquiry has to help so that we do not pass that on to another generation.”

Michael Doyle, a relative of Kevin McElhinney, 17, who was killed as he crawled towards a doorway in Rossville Street, said: “This is actually an opportunity for the state to tell the truth.”

The bereaved and wounded claim the British army lost one of its most prized possessions on Bloody Sunday – its self control.

Theories about what happened include the paras, psyched up and convinced they would face gunmen and unfamiliar with the Bogside, went on a rampage.

Planning mistakes, loss of military discipline and misconduct, as alleged by some frontline soldiers, meant that a military plan to be aggressive went so wrong that it could verge on criminal negligence.

There is also the suggestion that the military wanted to teach Bogsiders a lesson about who was in charge and this plan was sanctioned by the British government.

A month before Bloody Sunday General Ford wrote a memo to his superior suggesting that shooting ringleaders of rioters was the best way to maintain law and order. He brought in 1 Para, renowned as no-nonsense shock troops in Belfast, to deal with the arrests.

Age, ill health and the passing of time has left General Ford with “nil” memory of Bloody Sunday, he told the inquiry.

No one is ever likely to be jailed for the killings. A declaration of the victims as innocent and an acceptance of responsibility is the best the families hope for.

A South African post apartheid-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a way to move forward would not work in Northern Ireland, the families believe.

Ms Duddy said: “If 28 citizens had been shot down in the heart of Bradford there would be outrage, but because it happened in Northern Ireland – it seems to make it OK.

“There are still communities in Northern Ireland coping where state violence has not been looked at. It is going to be a long time down the line before we can do that and go forward.”

Mr Duddy added: “There are many families that had nobody over the years. If we get success it is an incentive to them to lead some sort of mission. It is a test case and could be opening up the way for other families.”