The march for justice

Posted by Jim on January 26, 2019

The context for this years’s Bloody Sunday March. For more information
see bloodysundaymarch.org

The main focus of the 2019 Bloody Sunday march is on our demand for
“Sir” Michael Jackson to be jailed.

Yes, the paratroopers who fired the shots must be brought to book. But
the greater guilt lies with the top brass.

Jackson, in the Bogside as second-in-command on the day, should be
charged with murder and with perverting the law by procuring the
cover-up.

By the time he appeared before the second Bloody Sunday Inquiry, under
Lord Saville in 2003, Jackson had risen through the ranks to become
Chief of the General Staff, Britain’s top soldier. Following the
publication of the inquiry’s report in June 2010, Tory prime minister
David Cameron couldn’t have described the Derry massacre as “unjustified
and unjustifiable” if the finger of blame had been pointed at Jackson.

Saville damned rank-and-file paratroopers and let the upper echelons off
scot-free. The same old story.  We owe it to the victims not to let this
stand.

We place Bloody Sunday in the context of Ballymurphy, the Shankill,
Loughinisland, McGurk’s Bar etc. And we relate it, too, to State
assaults on citizens elsewhere: the collusion by cover-up in the killing
of Liverpool fans at Hillsborough; the relentless massacre of young
black people by police in the US; the continuing ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians by the Israeli state; the persecution of the Rohingya in
Myannmar; and the drowning in the Mediterranean of refugees fleeing
poverty and war.

The world is awash with blood. We march for the cleansing of war and
injustice from the earth.

The Bloody Sunday March is not party-political. Everyone is entitled to
their own perspective. We urge people of all persuasions to join with us
once again on Sunday, January 27th to signal that we won’t stop
campaigning until the families of all who have lost their lives to State
violence have truth and justice.

We want Jackson jailed, not for revenge or retaliation but because when
the State kills its citizens it must be held to account.