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 |  Subject: Bloody Sunday: soldiers criticise Saville report findings  Wed Jun 16, 2010 4:57 am | |
| Some of the paratroopers who served in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday have criticised the findings of the Saville Report.
The long-awaited Saville Report cleared the 13 victims of any blame for the killings during a civil rights march more than 38 years ago.
The report said none of those shot had posed a threat, found that British soldiers fired first and criticised senior officers for sending “aggressive” paratroopers into the city’s Bogside area in breach of their orders.
But the six soldiers, none of whom fired shots at the victims, dismissed criticism of Lt Col Derek Wilford, a senior officer who was accused in the report of disobeying orders. The six soldiers said he was singled out because the report's authors needed to place blame on a senior officer.
It comes after David Cameron apologised on behalf of the country for the killings, which he called “unjustified and unjustifiable”.
But the inquiry, which cost £191 million and lasted 12 years, found that there was no conspiracy by either the British or Northern Ireland governments, or the military, to cause a confrontation with the nationalist community on the day of the shootings.
Instead, it blamed the 10 minutes of chaos on 20 individual paratroopers who “lost their self-control” and shot civilians in the back as they tried to flee. It said they acted after “a serious and widespread loss of fire discipline” and that many had since “knowingly put forward false accounts in order to justify their firing”.
Announcing Lord Saville’s findings in the House of Commons yesterday, the Prime Minister said: “On behalf of the Government, indeed on behalf of our country, I am deeply sorry.”
He quoted the report’s conclusion that the killings had resulted in a “catastrophe” for the people of Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Director of Prosecutions will decide whether to put on trial any of the soldiers, who were granted anonymity at the start of the inquiry.
Families of the victims hailed the report as a vindication of their campaign for justice, saying the world now knew that their loved ones were innocent.
But the soldiers’ representatives accused Lord Saville of “cherry-picking” from the evidence to draw conclusions that would be politically acceptable to the nationalist community.
Lord Saville said: “The immediate responsibility for the deaths and injuries of Bloody Sunday lies with those members of Support Company whose unjustifiable firing was the cause of those deaths and injuries.”
The report concluded: “What happened on Bloody Sunday strengthened the Provisional IRA, increased nationalist resentment and hostility towards the Army and exacerbated the violent conflict of the years that followed.
“Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland.”
A clearly moved Mr Cameron said it was not right to “honour” those who served in the Armed Forces by “hiding the truth” about Bloody Sunday.
He told MPs: “What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. The families of those who died should not have had to live with the pain and hurt of that day – and with a lifetime of loss.
“Some members of our Armed Forces acted wrongly. The Government is ultimately responsible for the conduct of the Armed Forces.”
Mr Cameron promised however, that an open-ended inquiry would never again be allowed. Lord Saville was heavily criticised for how long it took to produce his report and the expense involved.
Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the Army who was with the soldiers on Bloody Sunday, added his own apology for the deaths which occurred “without justification”.
"Over the 38 years of the army's operational deployment in the province, the vast majority of the some 250,000 soldiers who served there behaved admirably, often in the face of severe provocation, and with the loss of several hundred lives and over 6,000 wounded," he added.
Chief of the General Staff General Sir David Richards said: "The report leaves me in no doubt that serious mistakes and failings by officers and soldiers on that terrible day led to the deaths of 13 civilians who did nothing that could have justified their shooting.
"The Prime Minister has apologised on behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom, the Army and those involved on the day, and I fully support that statement.
"We must never forget the tragic events of Bloody Sunday. In the 38 years since that tragic day's events, lessons have been learned. The way the Army is trained, the way it works and the way it operates have all changed significantly.
"We should also remember that the overwhelming majority of the military personnel deployed over 38 years in Northern Ireland conducted themselves with utter professionalism, restraint and humanity."
But Stephen Pollard, a solicitor representing the soldiers, said Lord Saville’s certainty in identifying individual soldiers “flies in the face of most of the evidence he heard”.
“I’m certain he cherry-picked the evidence,” he said. “There is just as much evidence for the opposite conclusion.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/7831748/Bloody-Sunday-soldiers-criticise-Saville-report-findings.html |
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