New row over Cameron’s Bloody Sunday apology

Posted by Jim on July 23, 2016

Former British PM David Cameron has been accused of hypocrisy over his
Bloody Sunday apology amid efforts to eulogise his legacy following his
departure from Downing Street.

People Before Profit Assembly meber Eamonn McCann hit out over gushing
political commentary about Cameron, many of which featured his
‘historic’ apology for the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1972, in which 14
civil rights demonstrators were killed.

Mr McCann has accused Cameron of attempting to absolve senior British
army officers and politicians of culpability by allowing the ordinary
lance-corporals of the Parachute Regiment to shoulder all responsibility
for the killings.

“The usual suspect commentators and politicians have been falling over
themselves to heap praise on David Cameron for his apology for Bloody
Sunday,” said Mr McCann.

“In fact, the apology was predicated on no politician or senior military
man having been fingered by Lord Saville. Saville blamed one officer and
10 rank and file soldiers for all the killings and woundings,” he said.

Mr McCann said Mr Cameron, whose apology was beamed onto a big screen in
Guildhall Square from Westminster in 2010, gave General Michael Jackson,
Brigadier Frank Kitson, Major General Robert Ford, Brigadier Patrick
MacLellan, Edward Heath, Lord Carrington, Reginald Maudling, Alec
Douglas-Home, among other leading figures of the day, a clean bill of
health whilst “damning the men who had pulled the triggers”.

He added: “This was a perfect example of an official inquiry fulfilling
its true purpose – of finding small fry to shoulder all of the blame
while enabling the real villains to escape scot-free.”

He made controversial claims that some nationalists had facilitated the
manoeuvre.

“One of the main reasons Cameron’s ‘apology’ worked, at least for a
time, is that influential elements in Northern Nationalism had, in
effect, already ‘cleared’ his Commons statement. At least one member of
Sinn Fein had discussed the terms of the apology with British officials
in advance.

“The deal was that Cameron would acknowledge that all of the dead and
wounded had been innocent and would condemn the privates and corporals
involved in strong terms. But he wouldn’t have to say a bad word about
anybody that the ruling class cared about.

“In exchange, there would be no more Bloody Sunday marches – and no
attempt to push on for prosecutions. ‘This is as good as it gets,’ the
families were systematically told on their doorsteps in the days after
publication of the report..

“At this time, mid-2010, the British authorities were trying to put
together an overall deal by which the past would be put in the past and
we’d all ‘move on’.

“The stitch-up has unravelled, largely because some family members –
Kate and Linda Nash, Liam Wray, Bubbles Donaghey, Mickey Bridge and
others – weren’t prepared to accept the deal and opted instead to keep
on marching until the original demands of the Bloody Sunday campaign,
including prosecutions, had been met.

“Kate, Linda and the others were also conscious of the fact that calling
off their campaign would be a kick in the stomach for the bereaved
families of other atrocities – Ballymurphy, McGurk’s Bar, Kingsmills,
Enniskillen, Birmingham, Loughinisland, etc – who hadn’t yet reached the
stage achieved by the Derry campaign.

“The point to keep in mind as Cameron leaves Downing Street to spend
more time with his money is that, far from bravely telling the truth
about Derry, his Commons statement was just a new and more subtle phase
in the efforts of apologists for State violence to escape the verdict of
history.

“The proper response to Cameron’s departure is – good riddance.”

Some relatives have now issued a statement in which they deny they were
involved in negotiations around the Saville Inquiry. Tony Doherty, John
Kelly, Gerry Duddy and Jean Hegarty, who all lost relatives in the 1972
massacre, insisted that there had been no such deal or any discussion of
a deal.

“The Bloody Sunday march was never discussed with the NIO or Downing
Street. To suggest otherwise is fanciful. There was no discussion of the
issue of prosecutions. How could there be? None of us, Mr. McCann
included, knew at that time what was in the Saville Report.”