BLOODY SUNDAY 1972, BRITISH SOLDIERS SHOOT INTO CROWD OF PEACEFUL MARCHERS
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MURAL FOR VICTIMS OF BLOODY SUNDAY 1972-IRELAND
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BLOODY SUNDAY 1972-PRIEST GIVING THE LAST RITES TO A DYING CIVILIAN
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It seems the British continued to treat the people of Northern Ireland especially the Catholics with utter contempt as they had treated other peoples throughout the history of the British Empire whether in India ,China, Africa & the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. (Of course the French, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch & Germans etc. tended historically to be no better in regards to native or aboriginal populations in the countries which they had conquered.)
For the Brits, modern conflict in Ireland has always been a test of their deeply held self-image as the arbiters of fair play. In November 1920, the Times denounced Lloyd George's campaign against the Irish separatists not in terms of its effect on Ireland, but as an affront to Britain's reputation as a champion of civilisation. Just over 50 years later, a member of the committee appointed by Edward Heath's government to investigate the interrogation methods employed in Nortern Ireland condemned them as "... alien to the traditions of what I believe still to be the greatest democracy in the world".
Taylor identifies Bloody Sunday (when the paratroopers killed 13 civilians in Derry in 1972) as the pivotal event of the British war against the Irish Republican Army. It provided the IRA with recruits and boosted their fragile authority to wage war against soldiers. And it eventually convinced the British military that conventional methods could not be used to defeat the IRA while Britain remained committed to the rule of law.
"On Sunday, January 30th, 1972, a civil rights march began in Derry City. The march had been banned... but the Catholic civil right demonstrators considered it worth defying the ban for their cause, and 20,000 men, women and children set out.
The march was prevented from entering the city centre by members of the British Army. The main body of the march then moved to ‘Free Derry Corner' to attend a rally. Some stones are known to have been thrown at soldiers in William Street. A squad of the Parachute Regiment moved into the Bogside apparently to make arrests. Shots were fired, and 13 people lay dead and many others injured. The soldiers later said that they had come under sustained gun and bomb attack by the IRA, but such a view of events has been denied by eye-witnesses for two decades, and particularly the contention that those killed all by single shots to the head and body (the classic indications of deliberately aimed shots, not mere panic firing) - were carrying weapons or bombs."
There are many people who see nothing wrong with the killing of unarmed citizens if they are disobeying the law . But what is not taken into consideration is that it is difficult to impossible for a group of citizens to peacefully protest & demonstrate to have their grievances heard & taken seriously by a particular government when all peaceful means of protest have been made illegal by the passing of draconian laws.
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Lyrics by:
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Well it was Sunday bloody Sunday
When they shot the people there
The cries of thirteen martyrs
Filled the Free Derry air
Is there any one amongst you
Dare to blame it on the kids?
Not a soldier boy was bleeding
When they nailed the coffin lids!
CHORUS:
Sunday bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday's the day!
You claim to be majority
Well you know that it's a lie
You're really a minority
On this sweet emerald isle
When Stormont bans our marches
They've got a lot to learn
Internment is no answer
It's those mothers' turn to burn!
You Anglo pigs and Scotties
Sent to colonize the North
You wave your bloody Union Jack
And you know what it's worth!
How dare you hold to ransom
A people proud and free
Keep Ireland for the Irish
Put the English back to sea!
Well, it's always bloody Sunday
In the concentration camps
Keep Falls Road free forever
From the bloody English hands
Repatriate to Britain
All of you who call it home
Leave Ireland to the Irish
Not for London or for Rome!
And here are some sites on the net to check out:
For more on Bloody Sunday 1972 see:
New Statesman Spies Like Us
August 6,2001
by Maurice Walsh
WIKIPEDIA
BLOODY SUNDAY FROM ANSWERS .COM
& BLOODY SUNDAY 1972
BBC NEWS
Wednesday, 30 January, 2002, 08:18 GMT
Political impact of Bloody Sunday
MSN GROUPS IRISH HISTORY
groups.msn.com/IrelandOurs/historicallinks
IRISH NATIONAL ANNIVERSARIES
ANYWAY MORE ATTROCITES AT A LATER TIME,
BYE FOR NOW,
GORD.
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