Analysis: British state let off the hook

Posted by Jim on September 15, 2018

By Eamonn McCann

The exposure of Michael Jackson in Channel 4’s Ballymurphy documentary
makes it necessary to look back on his performance at The Bloody Sunday
Inquiry – and at the Inquiry’s refusal to draw proper conclusions about
his participation in the murders, his role in the cover-up, and his
perjury to the Inquiry.

His word isn’t worth its weight in dirt.

Jackson was present in Ballymurphy throughout the three days in August
1971 when the paras turned the area into killing fields. He was quoted
in the documentary saying that he had been “dealing with the press” when
the shooting was at its height and hadn’t seen a thing.

He put on exactly the same performance in the Bogside five months later.
He is a murderer, a liar and a coward.

Even before the smoke had cleared from Rossville Street on Bloody
Sunday, Jackson was writing out fake accounts of every single killing
and wounding. His script was then typed out and distributed by British
Army chiefs and the Ministry of Defence and sent by the Foreign Office
to every British embassy and consulate in the world as the basis for
answering any questions from local politicians or media.

Jackson’s lies were effectively repeated in the House of Commons by Home
Secretary Reginald Maudling. It will be remembered that Bernadette
Devlin rushed across the chamber and didn’t hit him half hard enough.

All this was laid out in detail in “Go On The Paras!” published three
years ago by the Bloody Sunday March Committee. “Go On The Paras!” will
be republished next January.

The fact that Bloody Sunday was a repeat performance in Derry of what
had happened in Belfast links Ballymurphy and the Bogside together
forever. We pledge the Ballymurphy families our full support until
justice is done.

The Ballymurphy families have marched with us every year. Next January
we hope that they and representatives of all other families bereaved by
State killers will join with us and shout out with one voice our demand
for truth and justice.

Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday directly contradict the official narrative
of the Troubles which has implicitly been accepted by mainstream opinion
North and South – that the problem here has to do with ancient hatreds
between Protestants and Catholics and that the solution lies in a system
of government in which Protestants and Catholics agree to bite their
lips and “share power.”

This lets State killers off the hook.

We ask British journalists to ensure that we will never again have to
watch Michael Jackson on television mouthing off about morality in war.
It’s like Jack the Ripper giving us his opinion on violence against
women