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Bloody Sunday killings to be ruled unlawful

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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,670 ✭✭✭✭Wolfe Tone


    Never mind losing pensions, they should be locked up.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Under the GFA, they'd be only detained temporarily, before being released. Sauce for the goose and all that.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,307 ✭✭✭T runner


    Aidan1 wrote: »
    It was possibly the biggest PR boost the SF/IRA got in the entire history of the troubles also, and perhaps the most unfortunate thing about this publication is that it will give rise to a whole new round of whataboutery from the 'republican community'.

    Maybe it will just finally give a bit of closure to those whose family members were murdered.
    On that note, it will be interesting to see what Saville has to say about the locations and actions of Mr McGuinness that day. Senior republicans got a pass on the criminal justice system because of the peace process, regardless of whether or not they had convictions. I wonder if SF will extend the same definition of justice to former members of the British Army?

    The relevant person/people will have to act in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,670 ✭✭✭✭Wolfe Tone


    Nodin wrote: »
    Under the GFA, they'd be only detained temporarily, before being released. Sauce for the goose and all that.
    I thought that was paramilitaries? Or is the BA included in that?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,307 ✭✭✭T runner


    MUSSOLINI wrote: »
    I thought that was paramilitaries? Or is the BA included in that?

    I think they will also get off under the GFA. Not 100% though.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,670 ✭✭✭✭Wolfe Tone


    T runner wrote: »
    I think they will also get off under the GFA. Not 100% though.
    When I get a chance I will look up the GFA and see what it says... I really thought it was only IRA UVF etc.. sure they only got released on condition of them being on a ceasefire?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    MUSSOLINI wrote: »
    I thought that was paramilitaries? Or is the BA included in that?

    I'm npt sure how well that would go down in the UK to be honest. As Nodin says, sauce for the goose.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,759 ✭✭✭✭dlofnep


    Here is the specific text regarding prisoners and early release. I believe it is specifically for paramilitary organisations. Although it's kind of ambiguous.
    PRISONERS
    1. Both Governments will put in place mechanisms to provide for an accelerated programme for the release of prisoners, including transferred prisoners, convicted of scheduled offences in Northern Ireland or, in the case of those sentenced outside Northern Ireland, similar offences (referred to hereafter as qualifying prisoners). Any such arrangements will protect the rights of individual prisoners under national and international law.

    2. Prisoners affiliated to organisations which have not established or are not maintaining a complete and unequivocal ceasefire will not benefit from the arrangements. The situation in this regard will be kept under review.

    3. Both Governments will complete a review process within a fixed time frame and set prospective release dates for all qualifying prisoners. The review process would provide for the advance of the release dates of qualifying prisoners while allowing account to be taken of the seriousness of the offences for which the person was convicted and the need to protect the community. In addition, the intention would be that should the circumstances allow it, any qualifying prisoners who remained in custody two years after the commencement of the scheme would be released at that point.

    4. The Governments will seek to enact the appropriate legislation to give effect to these arrangements by the end of June 1998.

    5. The Governments continue to recognise the importance of measures to facilitate the reintegration of prisoners into the community by providing support both prior to and after release, including assistance directed towards availing of employment opportunities, re-training and/or re-skilling, and further education.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,670 ✭✭✭✭Wolfe Tone


    Thanks very much for that dlofnep, as I thought.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    There is no mention of Paramilitaries, it just says prisoners. If it was intended just for Paramilitaries than it should say so. Any lawyer worth his salt is going to argue the odds on that one.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,670 ✭✭✭✭Wolfe Tone


    I suppose, will be interesting to see what happens.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,759 ✭✭✭✭dlofnep


    There is no mention of Paramilitaries, it just says prisoners. If it was intended just for Paramilitaries than it should say so. Any lawyer worth his salt is going to argue the odds on that one.

    It states "organisations". I'm not sure if Army falls under such categories. Like I said, it's ambiguous.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,670 ✭✭✭✭Wolfe Tone


    And it also states that they must be under a ceasefire too. A conundrum all right!


    Does anyone know if the Northern Ireland Offenses act was enacted? To deal with the On the Runs? I imagine that would play a part.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,770 ✭✭✭Bottle_of_Smoke


    There is no mention of Paramilitaries, it just says prisoners. If it was intended just for Paramilitaries than it should say so. Any lawyer worth his salt is going to argue the odds on that one.

    Yes but point 2 would kind of throw a spanner in the works. Prisoners affiliated to organisations which have not established or are not maintaining a complete and unequivocal ceasefire will not benefit from the arrangements.

    British Army to go on ceasefire? Well I guess Mohammed McTaliban's got his finger's crossed.

    I'm not sure jailing the soldiers makes sense when you have others who committed worse atrocities out on early release. Though maybe I'd feel different if I had a family member murdered that day.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jank


    Presumably you would include all killings in that statement.?

    Eh, Duh!

    YES! I am sure it is news to you that IRA & UVF have been to court and even jailed in the north.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    MUSSOLINI wrote: »
    And it also states that they must be under a ceasefire too. A conundrum all right!


    Does anyone know if the Northern Ireland Offenses act was enacted? To deal with the On the Runs? I imagine that would play a part.

    I doubt very much that participation in a UN sanctioned operation would count as breaking a ceasefire.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,092 ✭✭✭celticbest


    I'm not sure jailing the soldiers makes sense when you have others who committed worse atrocities out on early release. Though maybe I'd feel different if I had a family member murdered that day.

    Worse atrocities :confused:

    These soldiers killed unarmed civilians in the name of queen & country, what's worse then the people whom have been charged with keeping law and order being the one who actually commit an atrocity :confused:

    Soldiers above everyone else through training and discipline should have controlled themselves in a tense situation and not carried out a murder spree....(Unless they were order to).


  • Registered Users Posts: 289 ✭✭Jaap


    dlofnep wrote: »
    It states "organisations". I'm not sure if Army falls under such categories. Like I said, it's ambiguous.

    What does the IRA stand for??? Is it not Irish Republican ARMY???...maybe I'm wrong...:confused:


  • Registered Users Posts: 289 ✭✭Jaap


    celticbest wrote: »

    Soldiers above everyone else through training and discipline should have controlled themselves in a tense situation and not carried out a murder spree....(Unless they were order to).

    I think the same could be said for the IRA/Sinn Fein, INLA, UDA, UVF and so forth!!! They always considered themselves soldiers in a war...more like terrorists tormenting their own and others' communities!!
    It was the big players...like a certain very important member of the NI Assembly from Londonderry...who gave the orders to shoot and bomb!!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,407 ✭✭✭Promac


    As someone who is from Derry, I have to say I'm glad this is finally coming around. I'm shocked but not really surprised by the attitudes of some on here about it though. We finally have some admission of guilt from British authorities and you'd swear it was a finger pointing at the people that were shot instead. The worst of them were kids throwing stones - most of them 17 or younger.

    And someone said that we should all just move on - well, it's not so easy to move on when your house is still firmly in a British post code and you still have to wait for the same people responsible for things like Bloody Sunday to enact some kind of justice for it. If that'll ever happen. Admitting that those soldiers were wrong is not the same as allowing them to be held accountable. I don't think the GFA will cover them but that doesn't mean that Cameron will allow them in the dock.

    I think we'll get an apology and a nice plaque. If we're lucky.

    If we're not lucky then this summer will be another Drumcree.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Promac wrote: »
    As someone who is from Derry, I have to say I'm glad this is finally coming around. I'm shocked but not really surprised by the attitudes of some on here about it though. We finally have some admission of guilt from British authorities and you'd swear it was a finger pointing at the people that were shot instead. The worst of them were kids throwing stones - most of them 17 or younger.

    And someone said that we should all just move on - well, it's not so easy to move on when your house is still firmly in a British post code and you still have to wait for the same people responsible for things like Bloody Sunday to enact some kind of justice for it. If that'll ever happen. Admitting that those soldiers were wrong is not the same as allowing them to be held accountable. I don't think the GFA will cover them but that doesn't mean that Cameron will allow them in the dock.

    I think we'll get an apology and a nice plaque. If we're lucky.

    If we're not lucky then this summer will be another Drumcree.

    I disagree. People want to move on but that's not possible until a line is drawn under this.

    I think there will be trials (where there is enough evidence) and convictions, but I don't think anyone will end up in prison. Once trials etc are out of the way, then there can be a full apology and people can start to move on.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,407 ✭✭✭Promac


    I disagree. People want to move on but that's not possible until a line is drawn under this.

    I think there will be trials (where there is enough evidence) and convictions, but I don't think anyone will end up in prison. Once trials etc are out of the way, then there can be a full apology and people can start to move on.

    Which bit do you disagree with?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,092 ✭✭✭celticbest


    Jaap wrote: »
    I think the same could be said for the IRA/Sinn Fein, INLA, UDA, UVF and so forth!!! They always considered themselves soldiers in a war...more like terrorists tormenting their own and others' communities!!
    It was the big players...like a certain very important member of the NI Assembly from Londonderry...who gave the orders to shoot and bomb!!!

    Where's Londonderry, I've never heard of that place :confused:

    Provisional organisations were not acting on behalf of any government, they were acting on behalf of the people for which ever side of the community they represented. However the British army were acting on behalf of a government and because of this should they should have observed international laws, you do not kill unarmed civilians.

    Look at the situation Israel is currently in because of the way there forces acted, it is a similar situation to what happened in Derry, government forces killing innocent civilians, are Israel also correct in there actions? Or is the Worldwide public outcry justified?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Promac wrote: »
    Which bit do you disagree with?

    I think there will be trials. David Cameron has a headache on his hands, but I think they will go ahead.

    There is, I presume, the opportunity for private cases if the CPS don't prosecute.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    celticbest wrote: »
    Where's Londonderry, I've never heard of that place :confused:

    Provisional organisations were not acting on behalf of any government, they were acting on behalf of the people for which ever side of the community they represented. However the British army were acting on behalf of a government and because of this should they should have observed international laws, you do not kill unarmed civilians.

    Look at the situation Israel is currently in because of the way there forces acted, it is a similar situation to what happened in Derry, government forces killing innocent civilians, are Israel also correct in there actions? Or is the Worldwide public outcry justified?

    You've obviously never been to Northern Ireland then, because there are signposts all over the place pointing to Londonderry.

    There has been public outrage, there has been global condemnation, it all happened 38 years ago. TBH, what you are doing is precisely what people don't want, which is to open old wounds. This is about closure.

    If the IRA were not an army fighting a war, then it removes a lot of theirs and their supporters credibility. All this crap about governments etc is nothing more than double standards.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,407 ✭✭✭Promac


    I think there will be trials. David Cameron has a headache on his hands, but I think they will go ahead.

    There is, I presume, the opportunity for private cases if the CPS don't prosecute.

    Yeah, it's possible alright but will they be trials that go anywhere? I reckon it'll either be a quick slap on the wrists or another long, drawn out affair with no real results at the end of it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Promac wrote: »
    Yeah, it's possible alright but will they be trials that go anywhere? I reckon it'll either be a quick slap on the wrists or another long, drawn out affair with no real results at the end of it.

    I reckon there will be deals done to get them out of the way.

    Plead guilty to avoid opening old wounds, take the rap, do three months in prison and then be released under the GFA with your pension.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,934 ✭✭✭OhNoYouDidn't


    I reckon there will be deals done to get them out of the way.

    Plead guilty to avoid opening old wounds, take the rap, do three months in prison and then be released under the GFA with your pension.

    I think so too, the leaks seem to point towords Soldier F, who killed at least 4 people and lied his arse off in the tribunal being tried. Hence this sort of clumsy propaganda in the Mail.


    It wasn't Blair who brought peace to Ulster but brave British soldiers about to be branded as criminals - By General Sir Michael Rose
    15th June 2010


    The low thump, thump, thump, was unmistakable. It was the sound of the Thompson machine gun, a chunky low-velocity weapon.
    We all knew it was the IRA's weapon of choice. They liked its macho feel, and had used it on us a couple of weeks earlier when we were patrolling on the nearby Lonemoor Road.
    But they had not hit any soldiers that day; they'd hit and injured a 12-year-old girl.

    The sound this time came from somewhere near the Rossville Flats in the Bogside, a nationalist area of Londonderry and a known stronghold of the IRA.
    I was standing looking down on the Bogside when I heard it, with Sgt Garrett, my second-in-command in the Coldstream Guards. I asked him to note down the time - 4pm on January 30, 1972, and then we moved rapidly down the hill towards the sound of the gunfire.
    The Army was returning fire now, and the fight was growing in intensity. Not many hours afterwards, 13 men lay dead, seven of them teenagers. Another man was to die four-and-a-half months later.
    What happened on Bloody Sunday was a terrible thing, not just for the affected civilians, but also for the Army.

    Witnesses testified that the killed and injured were unarmed, that some were shot in the back, that civilian protestors were injured when Army vehicles ran over them.
    Today the actions of the soldiers who returned fire against the IRA that day will almost certainly be declared by Lord Saville to have been unlawful and, 38 years after the event, this will increase pressure for their prosecution.
    The killings may or may not have been unlawful - but it is my firm view that it is not possible to judge with any certainty after an interval of more than 30 years whether they were or not.
    Furthermore, the £190million expense of this inquiry is nothing less than obscene when British soldiers have been dying in Iraq and Afghanistan daily for want of vital equipment and cuts in the defence budget.

    Lord Saville, who chaired the Bloody Sunday inquiry, looking into the events of January 30, 1972, in the Bogside, Londonderry
    But what I find perhaps most distasteful about this 12-year-long inquiry is that the role of British soldiers in Northern Ireland has been brushed aside for the sake of political expediency.
    The truth is that peace was brought to the Province not by Prime Minister Blair, kowtowing to former terrorists such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
    It came to Northern Ireland as a result of the courage of the British Army, the Ulster Defence Regiment, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the intelligence services.
    By the time Blair offered this inquiry as a sop to Republicans, the IRA had already been militarily defeated by the very soldiers whose reputation he knew it would undermine.
    The events of Bloody Sunday were terrifying, fast-moving and chaotic. But as I told the inquiry when called as a witness, there is one thing of which I am absolutely certain.
    It was the IRA who started the firing with the Thompson machine gun - and, inflammatory though it may sound, I believe they started firing with the express intention of causing civilian deaths.
    The security forces' policy was to contain the nationalist civilian protest planned that day behind steel barriers in the Bogside - to prevent them from entering the Protestant area of the city. The Army was on one side of the barriers, the protest on the other.

    Brigade orders were that the Army should not enter the Bogside - for it was known through intelligence sources that the IRA intended to create a bloodbath by drawing the security forces into a firefight with their gunmen in the middle of the civil rights march.
    But when I and my second-in-command got down there, we were astonished to find that the barricades had been drawn aside and the paras were moving through into the Bogside, exchanging fire with the IRA gunmen who mostly seemed to be firing from the blocks of flats facing us.
    I asked one of the platoon commanders why they had ignored orders.
    He told me, above the increasing sound of firing and the screaming from the scattering crowds in front of us, that they had been told to do so by the Commander Land Forces.
    It was rumoured that the commander had been irritated by the stones and nail bombs that were being thrown by some of the crowd and had decided to overrule the brigade order and told the paras to arrest the troublemakers. It was a disastrous decision.
    I soon found myself taking cover beside a paratrooper who was lying in a gutter by the corner of a building, carefully firing up at the opposite blocks of flats.
    When I asked him what he was firing at, he pointed at some crouched figures running along the balconies of the flats. I could see that at least one of them was carrying a rifle.
    As I lay in the gutter, I could see bullets hitting the wall of the building above me. There was no doubt that the IRA gunmen were firing from their positions on the galleries of the flats opposite, where I was taking cover.
    In my view, it is entirely possible that they could have been responsible for some of the civilian deaths, shooting from on high down into the streets below where the crowd was trying to escape from the killing zone.

    But it was absolutely clear that in exchanging fire with the terrorists, the British Army had fallen into the trap laid for them by the IRA, who had set out that day to commit murder and mayhem, caring nothing for the lives of their own republican supporters.
    Indeed, I believe it was their specific aim to get as many people killed as possible. For the deaths would serve as a ruthlessly cynical recruiting tool. As the news of the dead in Londonderry that day spread around the world, the result was much the same as Irish people everywhere rallied to the nationalist cause.
    In Northern Ireland, in the Irish Republic and in the U.S., thousands of young men and women joined the IRA.
    The people of Northern Ireland and the British Army have already paid a high price for what happened on Bloody Sunday, for the consequence of the decision to move the barricades and exchange fire with the terrorists was to heighten and prolong the conflict, probably by decades, with massive loss of life, suffering and destruction.
    The decision to hold the Saville Inquiry has been little more than a grotesquely expensive exercise in propaganda, designed by Blair to bring the IRA further into the political process.
    But as I have said, the IRA had already been militarily defeated. They had been forced into taking the political route only because they had no further military options to pursue.
    How ironic now that the soldiers who brought peace to Northern Ireland are likely to be treated as criminals as a result of this inquiry, while former terrorists such as McGuinness and Adams - who did everything to prevent peace - are feted in their roles as ministers.
    Nor should the effect of the Saville Inquiry on the British soldiers fighting today in Afghanistan be underestimated. Some will be the sons and even grandsons of those being accused of unlawful killing.
    Even if they are not, they will be asking themselves whether each time they open fire on the Taliban, they might not, in some distant future inquiry, be asked to justify their actions. This is no way to go to war.
    If anyone should be the subject of a judicial process, it is Tony Blair. He should be held to account for his actions in launching the disastrous, costly and unnecessary war in Iraq.
    Meanwhile, it will be the British Army and people who bear the cost of this equally disastrous, costly and unnecessary inquiry.

    ● General Sir Michael Rose is the former Head of UN Troops in Bosnia


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...#ixzz0qucQep17


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,407 ✭✭✭Promac


    I saw that - what a disgusting shower. Hardly surprising from the mail though.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,092 ✭✭✭celticbest


    I think so too, the leaks seem to point towords Soldier F, who killed at least 4 people and lied his arse off in the tribunal being tried. Hence this sort of clumsy propaganda in the Mail.


    It wasn't Blair who brought peace to Ulster but brave British soldiers about to be branded as criminals - By General Sir Michael Rose
    15th June 2010...................Meanwhile, it will be the British Army and people who bear the cost of this equally disastrous, costly and unnecessary inquiry.

    ● General Sir Michael Rose is the former Head of UN Troops in Bosnia


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...#ixzz0qucQep17

    To true OhNoYouDidn't,

    It's like - Oh sorry, because a Brit General say something it must be true :confused:

    If this inquiry cost a Billion £'s it was still necessary, no matter what the cost it will never bring back those innocent people murdered by her majesty's armed forces.

    PS. Lets not forget what type of paper the Mail is in the UK & now it's doing the same thing here with the Irish mail.....Brit propaganda.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    I reckon there will be deals done to get them out of the way.

    Plead guilty to avoid opening old wounds, take the rap, do three months in prison and then be released under the GFA with your pension.

    General Michael Rose is trying to open those wounds and rubbing salt into them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,072 ✭✭✭PeterIanStaker


    Typical Daily Mail sh!te. Independent Newspapers aren't far behind.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    gurramok wrote: »
    General Michael Rose is trying to open those wounds and rubbing salt into them.

    If the enquiry says the killings are unlawful then its up to the judicial system to decide whether to bring prosections against the soldiers not General Rose.

    I do have some sympathy with the point of view that hundreds of millions of pounds and 12 years of an enquiry seems over the top considering the other atrocities that have occurred related to the conflict in the north. No-one has gone to jail over the Warrenpoint killings, no one has gone to jail over the Enniskillen massacre for instance. I doubt there will be an enquiry into these and will the IRA tell the world who was responsible for those atrocities? pretty unlikely.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 20,759 ✭✭✭✭dlofnep


    Lads, the Derry/Londonderry name dispute is of little relevance to the thread.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    I do have some sympathy with the point of view that hundreds of millions of pounds and 12 years of an enquiry seems over the top considering the other atrocities that have occurred related to the conflict in the north. No-one has gone to jail over the Warrenpoint killings, no one has gone to jail over the Enniskillen massacre for instance. I doubt there will be an enquiry into these and will the IRA tell the world who was responsible for those atrocities? pretty unlikely.

    And not one RUC/UDR/British soldier has gone to jail for killing unarmed people.

    You see, those atrocities you mention have been thoroughly investigated by the authorities. The Bloody Sunday one that was committed by the 'forces of law and order' was not.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,798 ✭✭✭karma_


    That mail article barely deserves to be commented upon. It's contemptible trash.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    gurramok wrote: »
    And not one RUC/UDR/British soldier has gone to jail for killing unarmed people.

    You see, those atrocities you mention have been thoroughly investigated by the authorities. The Bloody Sunday one that was committed by the 'forces of law and order' was not.

    So what? I don't dispute any of that.

    It seems here though that the lives of unionists or soldiers are somehow worth less than those of nationalists. There should have been a wide ranging truth and reconciliation commission in the north to examine the many atrocities committed by all sides but instead all they got was this expensive enquiry.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,598 ✭✭✭✭prinz


    There should have been a wide ranging truth and reconciliation commission in the north to examine the many atrocities committed by all sides but instead all they got was this expensive enquiry.

    +1. Important to note that police and soldiers of the South African Apartheid Regime were also offered amnesty for cooperation with the commission. Lessons should be learned the officers involved in the killing of Steve Biko most notably.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 6,798 ✭✭✭karma_


    So what? I don't dispute any of that.

    It seems here though that the lives of unionists or soldiers are somehow worth less than those of nationalists. There should have been a wide ranging truth and reconciliation commission in the north to examine the many atrocities committed by all sides but instead all they got was this expensive enquiry.

    Well lets face it, if you don't see much wrong with the killing of unarmed men on an aid flotilla I doubt you have much sympathy for those slain on Bloody Sunday.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26,567 ✭✭✭✭Fratton Fred


    Promac wrote: »
    I saw that - what a disgusting shower. Hardly surprising from the mail though.

    Why is it disgusting?

    It sounds to me as though no matter what the enquiry says, people have already made up their minds.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,407 ✭✭✭Promac


    3.35pm: Cameron says he is "deeply sorry".
    3.34pm: None of the casualties was posing a threat of death or serious injury, Cameron says.
    3.32pm: In no case was any warning given by soldiers, Cameron says.
    3.32pm: Cameron says the conclusions are that what happened was unjustified and unjustifiable. "It was wrong." The first shot was fired by the British army.
    3.31pm: In the Commons, Cameron is speaking now.
    That's why.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    So what? I don't dispute any of that.

    It seems here though that the lives of unionists or soldiers are somehow worth less than those of nationalists.

    You have picked that up wrong.
    There should have been a wide ranging truth and reconciliation commission in the north to examine the many atrocities committed by all sides but instead all they got was this expensive enquiry.

    There wont be a wide ranging truth and reconciliation commission and you know well why. It will expose any dirty handling by state authorities in the matters.
    This incident is just many of hundreds of fatal acts committed by state authorities that remain unanswered for. From an Unionist and British point of view, its best not to ruin the 'good name' of the security forces and this is the first time that good name is under serious investigation in the north.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,941 ✭✭✭caseyann


    wes wrote: »
    I have to say, I don't see why the cost of the inquiry matters. The cost of justice shouldn't matter imho. Personally, I think there needs to be prosecutions, and that a democratic state should hold itselfs to far higher standards than terrorist groups.

    Yeah alot of the people will shout about how its ok to spend hundreds of thousands on Bogus asylum seekers,but complain when the money is used for something for Irish people who were murdered in cold blood.
    Shows something doesn't it.

    I know it wont heal the wounds for people and those who passed never to hear the truth come out.But hopefully it will let them rest in peace now and their families.And show up the other inhumane genocide on Irish people for so long,hiding behind excuse of its because of the IRA:rolleyes:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,020 ✭✭✭BlaasForRafa


    karma_ wrote: »
    Well lets face it, if you don't see much wrong with the killing of unarmed men on an aid flotilla I doubt you have much sympathy for those slain on Bloody Sunday.

    You have no right to presume who I have sympathy for.

    I grew up during the 80's and Sinn Fein/IRA used things like Bloody Sunday and the Hunger Strikes to drum up a lot of anti-British feeling. I used to be very much anti-British/anti-Unionist when I was a kid and felt good when I'd hear about a British soldier being shot but thankfully I grew out of that phase and recognised Sinn Fein/IRA for what they are.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    Why is it disgusting?

    It sounds to me as though no matter what the enquiry says, people have already made up their minds.
    By the time Blair offered this inquiry as a sop to Republicans

    If it was a sop to Republicans, all the unarmed people who were murdered would of been IRA members. They were not. It was nothing to do with the IRA.

    It was innocent people marching for their civil rights brutally shot for trying to get basic rights. Thats disgusting.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 872 ✭✭✭Sofa King Great


    gurramok wrote: »
    If it was a sop to Republicans, all the unarmed people who were murdered would of been IRA members. They were not. It was nothing to do with the IRA.

    It was innocent people marching for their civil rights brutally shot for trying to get basic rights. Thats disgusting.

    Republican =/= IRA


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,518 ✭✭✭OS119


    no immediate prosecutions - Cameron says AG decided in 99 that evidence/witness statements given to the enquiry cannot be used as prosecution evidence (except on issues of purjery).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    I grew up during the 80's and Sinn Fein/IRA used things like Bloody Sunday and the Hunger Strikes to drum up a lot of anti-British feeling. I used to be very much anti-British/anti-Unionist when I was a kid and felt good when I'd hear about a British soldier being shot but thankfully I grew out of that phase and recognised Sinn Fein/IRA for what they are.
    Aye, the British didn't bring any of the anti-British sentiment on themselves.:rolleyes:


    I'm torn on this, it's a ridiculous amount of money to be spent, and in a way it's hard to reconcile this with the whole moving-on buzz that's meant to be policy up there, but the UK Government should've ****ing copped themselves on long ago and admit what happened.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,443 ✭✭✭Byron85


    Writing in today's Daily Mail, the General - who was a captain in the Coldstream Guards and in Derry when the shootings took place - warned any trials will destroy the morale of troops in Afghanistan.
    'They will be asking themselves whether each time they open fire on the Taliban, they might not, in some distant future inquiry, be asked to justify their actions. That is no way to go to war,' he said.

    Former army officer and ex-shadow defence secretary Patrick Mercer has also warned prosecutions would 'set a dangerous precedent'.


    This comes across as emotional and political blackmail. We can't criticise the killing of innocent civilians in Ireland 30 years ago because it will affect the morale of troops in Afghanistan? Pull the other one. God forbid that soldiers need to be held responsible for indiscriminately firing on civilians.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,670 ✭✭✭✭Wolfe Tone


    Quite surprised. Did not expect to see an apology quite like that.


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