GIVE BALLYMURPHY CHANCE FOR TRUTH

Posted by Jim on September 25, 2017

 

A chara

 

 It is said everyone deserves their day in Court. Why are the “Ballymurphy Massacre” families, waiting for their day in court, forty-six years after the killing of their loved ones? Why is Arlene Foster’s permission needed to get Court inquests and a chance for truth?

 

 The “Ballymurphy Massacre,” was set in motion when British Prime Minister Edward Heath greenlit Brian Faulkner’s call for Internment. Faulkner’s Ulster Unionist Party ran Britain’s Orange State for nearly fifty years. Internment, or mass arrests and indefinite imprisonment of suspected Republicans without charges or trial, was their answer to periodic Irish resistance.

                       INTERNMENT

 On Monday August 9,1971,British troopers rampaged across the north, broke into homes, terrorized families, jailed hundreds without charge, and began a catastrophic Internment policy lasting four years.

 

 Mass arrests and home invasions were step one. They selected  men held without charge, hooded and brutalized them with techniques which have Britain charged with torture in the European Court.

                     ELEVEN VICTIMS

 The massacre began hours after the first days’ raids ended. British Paratroopers barracked in Ballymurphy came out and opened fire without warning.

 

A Catholic priest, waving a white handkerchief, Fr. Hugh Mullan,     nineteen year old Francis Quinn, mother of 8 children, Joan Connolly, were each shot dead for going to help wounded victims.

 

Daniel Teggart, was felled by a bullet to the leg, then shot a total of 14 times, as he lay on the ground. Noel Philips was also shot dead that first night.

 

 Joseph Murphy was wounded, and taken into custody. Before his death on August 22nd, he whispered that he had been shot a second time while in the Para’s barracks. The second bullet was found after his body was exhumed for an autopsy.

 

Edward Doherty, John Laverty, Joseph Corr and John McKerr were murdered over the next two days. An eleventh murder victim, Paddy McCarthy, died of a heart attack, when troopers placed an empty gun inside his mouth in mock execution.

 

                       COVER STORIES

However the “Ballymurphy Massacre” did not end with taking 11 innocent lives, or taking parents from 57 children. The British also massacred the truth. Cover stories were crafted. Victims became posthumous gunmen. British Royal Military Police made their troopers innocent and the dead guilty.

 

 No eyewitnesses could challenge the official story line. No lawyers could ask why no British casualties, nor weapons recovered from so many dead IRA gunmen. The BBC and newspapers  relayed this British version.

 

Brigadier General Frank Kitson, had written “Law should be used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal… little more than a propaganda cover for disposal of unwanted members of the public”.(Low Intensity Operations)

As a secret British Ministry Memorandum, uncovered  by Relatives For Justice put it, the British “Army should not be inhibited in its campaign by the threat of Court proceedings”.

 

British troopers would have undeclared immunity. The families of murdered “unwanted members of the public” would not be allowed to “inhibit” Britain’s campaign with court proceedings. They would have to swallow their grief and take it.

 

 It worked so well in Ballymurphy that the British decided to try it again five months later, with the mistake of too many witnesses on “Bloody Sunday”.

 

               RELATIVES FOR JUSTICE

 

More than a quarter-century later, Relatives For Justice organized a conference for forgotten victims of the Troubles. Afterwards, still grieving families vowed to fight for truth. They fought for and in 2011, won the legal right to reopen inquests. They would get their day in court and chance for truth!

 

They are still waiting. Eighteen months ago, British Chief Justice Declan Morgan, met the Ballymurphy families, among others, about delays in legacy inquests. Morgan said Britain was  legally obligated to hold these inquests. He planned to deal with all 50 legacy inquests within 5 years, given cooperation and some funding.

 

On September 5th,Morgan went public with his “deep frustration” at getting nothing. The funds are there said the British, but need agreement and Arlene Foster’s permission for release. Democratic Unionist Party head Arlene Foster refused. She says it would divert money from “innocent victims.” After all, Foster assumes, if British troopers killed the Ballymurphy victims, they must have been guilty of something.

 

Once the British ruled through the UUP, and blamed them for the injustices of the Orange State. Today they give nationalists a say, but impose sham requirements for agreements amounting to a DUP veto. The British not worried about the victims being proven innocent. They worry that the truth may point to the guilt of those who fired the shots and those who gave them immunity to do so. They think unionists can always cancel out nationalist demands. The British do worry about American pressure. Will Irish-Americans help get the “Ballymurphy Massacre” families their chance for truth?

                                                        Slan

 

                                                MARTIN GALVIN

The writer is Freedom-for-all-Ireland Chair for ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS, in New York State.