From the Set the Truth Free Campaign:

With mere days until the scheduled release of Saville’s report into Bloody Sunday, relatives this week delivered a powerful message to the British government by returning several key aspects of history to officials at Downing Street, the Ministry of Defence and Buckingham Palace.

On St. Patrick’s Day the group travelled to London to reclaim the history of Bloody Sunday and highlight concerns over delays in the publication of the Saville Report. First on the agenda was to return a symbolic copy of the original Widgery Report to Downing Street, giving back the British Army version of what happened on January 30, 1972. Families then demonstrated on the Mall with their Set the Truth Free banner as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s cavalcade passed.
Tony Doherty, whose father Paddy was murdered on Bloody Sunday, hand-delivered a copy of Widgery’s original report to 10 Downing Street, accompanied by a letter to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The campaign then made its presence felt outside the Ministry of Defence, where relatives and supporters chalked the outlines of fourteen bodies on the pavement, symbolising the fourteen men and boys murdered on Bloody Sunday. This moving gesture formed the backdrop as family members returned the infamous and wholly inaccurate ‘shot list ‘originally drawn up by the British Army’s former Chief of General Staff, General Mike Jackson to the MoD.
Relatives also delivered a letter listing the real heroes of Bloody Sunday to the Queen at Buckingham Palace, highlighting the fact that parachute regiment commander Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford was decorated by the Queen, receiving an OBE just months after Bloody Sunday. An impromptu invitation to the official St. Patrick’s Day Reception in Parliament also gave relatives the opportunity to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown briefly and handed over their letter in person.

Families were warned on a number of occasions by the Metropolitan Police that their actions were technically in breach of new legislation that bans any demonstration within one kilometre of Parliament, but family spokesperson Tony Doherty said: “Highlighting Bloody Sunday at Buckingham Palace, the Ministry of Defence and Downing Street was more important on this occasion than any alleged technical breach of this new law. We will demonstrate where and when we want and that’s what we did.”

END
For further information or to arrange interviews with relatives, please contact:
Press Officer - Julieann Campbell on: 078. 8972. 0080 or email: julieann@setthetruthfree.org
 

From the Pat Finucance Centre:

Representatives of the Bloody Sunday families will this week leave for London and the US to further highlight the need for urgency and vigilance regarding the long-awaited release of the Saville Report.
 
John Kelly and Jean Hegarty (sister of Kevin McElhinney) will travel to Washington to coincide with planned events at the Whitehouse and will meet senior US politicians to appraise them of recent developments concerning the imminent release of the Inquiry Report.
 
John Kelly in a statement said that “We feel that is very important to take our just demands of truth and justice at this time to both Britain and the US.  Just hours after our loved ones were mown down on the streets of Derry by the Parachute Regiment, the British Embassy in Washington were able to describe and condemn the dead as gunmen and bombers.
 
“We cannot allow an open field for the British Government, either officially or unofficially, to stage and manipulate the release of the report for their own ends.  While we are confident that our long campaign for truth and justice will be completely vindicated, the next few weeks will be crucial in seeing the hated Widgery Report entirely repudiated.
 
Reclaiming history in London
 
Meanwhile several relatives will travel to London on Wednesday, St Patrick’s Day, to ‘reclaim the history of Bloody Sunday’ at 10 Downing Street, the Ministry of Defence and Buckingham Palace as part of the ‘Set The Truth Free’ Campaign.  In order to illustrate this, family members will return an original copy of the Widgery Report to 10 Downing Street on St Patrick’s Day, symbolising the end of  Widgery’s 38-year tenure as the only official British record of Bloody Sunday. At the MoD the families will return the infamous ‘shot list’ drawn up by former Chief of General Staff of the British Army General Mike Jackson. At Buckingham Palace the families will hand in a list of the dead and injured to remind the British Monarch of the ‘real heroes of Bloody Sunday’. Months after the massacre the Queen decorated Para commander Lt Col Derek Wilford who was awarded an OBE. Tony Doherty said “Wilford was no hero-the dead and the injured were the real heros who went out that day to demand civil rights and ended up as targets for the Paras. Wilford should be stripped of his honour.”

 
Families also announced that there will be a rally this coming Saturday in Derry-details to be announced later this week.
 
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Click here to help Set the Truth Free and sign the petition in support of the Bloody Sunday families.  The text of the petition is as follows:

To:  British Government
We the undersigned support the following statement released by the Bloody Sunday families and call on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to "Set The Truth Free" and instruct Lord Saville to publish his report independent of any government interference.

Statement from Bloody Sunday Families and Wounded
Lord Saville - Set the Truth Free!
 
It is now more than 12 years since the Bloody Sunday Inquiry was announced by Tony Blair in 1998.  It could be only a matter of weeks until the report from that Inquiry sees the light of day.  Lord Saville has indicated that the report will be ready in the week beginning 22nd March.  Time and timing are now very much of the essence.
 
The public will know that we have had discussions in recent months with the northern Ireland Secretary of State Shaun Woodward, An Taoiseach Brian Cowan, and officials from both the Irish and British states regarding the timing and modalities of the release of the report.  We have kept Lord Saville appraised of the content and import of these discussions at all stages.
 
At this moment in time we are gravely concerned regarding two critical issues:
 
Firstly, the NIO Secretary of State has indicated that he expects to hold the report for a period of up to 14 days to scrutinise it for breaches of Article 2 of the Human Rights Act 2000 and for breaches of ‘national security’ before he publishes it.  This means that the securocrats within the NIO and other government departments will see the report before we do.
 
Our second grave concern is around timing: with the proximity of the Easter Parliamentary recess and the imminence of an announcement of a general election in the week of or close to 22nd March, should the report be given to government at that time for the above-stated purpose, there is little or no chance of the families receiving it this side of an election.  To make matters worse, the report will be in the hands of officials within the NIO for a period of several months without any political control from above.  This is a frightening prospect for the families as we believe that the report will fall victim to selective leakage and other partisan usage long before the full report sees the light of day.
 

Gerry Adams has unveiled a mural supporting the families involved in the Ballymurphy Massacre Campaign.  Article from Sinn Féin:

Sinn Féin west Belfast MP Gerry Adams today unveiled a mural in Beechmount Avenue in support of the campaign by the families of 11 people killed by the British Army in August 1971.

Speaking today Mr. Adams said:

“I want to commend the work of the families and their determination and courage in continuing to pursue this campaign over many difficult years.

The families have been engaged in a whole series of initiatives to raise public consciousness about those events.

The families of the 11 people killed by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment in the Ballymurphy area, in the three days following the introduction of internment in August 1971, want an independent international investigation into the deaths of their loved ones and an apology from the British government. The families want the truth.

We have met as a group with the British Secretary of State Shaun Woodward and we are seeking a meeting with the British Prime Minister.

We won’t take no for an answer. We think it’s important that the British establishment face up to what was done in its name in a little housing estate here almost 40 years ago.

All of these families deserve the full support and encouragement of the community, and of the Irish government, in their efforts to secure an independent international investigation in these deaths; and to have the British government acknowledge the truth surrounding the shooting dead of their loved ones.” CRÍOCH

IAUC Board member Michael Cummings responds to "Proposing a memorial for IRA terrorists":

February 3, 2010

Letter Editor
INDEPENDENT
Independent House
27-32 Talbot Street
Dublin  1, Ireland

Dear  Editor:

Kevin Meyers commentary on a proposed memorial  in Enniscorthy (“Proposing a memorial for IRA terrorists” 2/3)  is an example of the very selective memorialisation he derides. 

Those who erect political memorials such as that proposed in Enniscorthy do so for two reasons.  First,  there is the process of grieving and remembrance. Second,  is the need to challenge those who re-write history.  In the case of Ireland’s conflict, British historians have made this a cottage industry. Not far from your offices in 1974 the British Army and their loyalist allies committed the largest atrocity of the conflict.  The no-warning Dublin-Monaghan bombs  cost the lives  of 33, mostly women and children shopping.  With the smell of Bloody Sunday still in the air, this act of war transformed a civil rights protest to an armed conflict.  Any fair reading of both the facts and the numbers since 1920 proves without question it is the British and their loyalist subjects who have the “..deviant addiction to violence”…Meyers abhors. 

Those who lose their lives in struggle,  armed or otherwise, could never be accused of “..going with the flow.”  On the other hand,  there is an Irish expression to describe those who  would have people bury painful memories of  British malevolence in favor of  recalling those who fell in service to the British Army.  Can you guess it?   Anything for the quiet life.

Sincerely, 

Michael J. Cummings

Member, National Board

Please sign the online petition to Prime Minister Gordon Brown asking him to initiate an independent investigation into the Ballymurphy Massacre in 1971.  The same British Army Parachute Regiment responsible for the killings at Ballymurphy went on to kill 14 unarmed civilians on what has come to be known as Bloody Sunday in Derry just 5 months later. Photo of the unveiling of the Ballymurphy mural courtesy of Relatives for Justice.

The text of the petition is as follows:

To:  British Prime Minister

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to initiate a fully independent and human rights compliant investigation into the 11 killings of civilians in Ballymurphy, Belfast between 9th and 11th August 1971 by the Parachute Regiment.

On 9th August 1971 the British Government introduced internment without trial in the North of Ireland. Between the 9th and the 11th August the British Army's Parachute Regiment killed eleven civilians in the mainly nationalist Ballymurphy housing estate. The deaths included a Catholic priest and a mother of eight. In all 53 children were left without a parent as a result of these killings.

The killings were not investigated independently or appropriately and the Northern Ireland Office immediately disseminated disinformation alleging that all of those killed were involved in paramilitary activity. The cover up and lies added intensely to the deep hurt caused by these deaths. The ensuing suffering of the families has been indeed egregious. 38 years later it is now time for the British Government to act to put in place a human rights compliant, fully independent investigation so that the truth of what occured is firmly established and to make possible official actions of reparation and apology to the families.

This will contribute positively to the processes of transition and healing in the North of Ireland and to the current debate on dealing with our collective past.