Bloody Sunday killings to be ruled unlawful

Started by Lady GAA GAA, June 10, 2010, 11:36:14 PM

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Aerlik

To find his equal an Irishman is forced to talk to God!

delboy

Mr Cameron said:

    * No warning had been given to any civilians before the soldiers opened fire

    * None of the soldiers fired in response to attacks by petrol bombers or stone throwers

    * Some of those killed or injured were clearly fleeing or going to help those injured or dying
    * None of the casualties was posing a threat or doing anything that would justify their shooting
    * There was no point in trying to soften or equivocate - the events of Bloody Sunday were not justified
    * Many of the soldiers lied about their actions
    * What happened should never, ever have happened
    * Some members of the British armed forces acted wrongly
    * On behalf of the government and the country, he said he was "deeply sorry"
    * The events of Bloody Sunday were not premeditated
    * Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein, was present at the time of the violence and "probably armed with a submachine gun" but did not engage in "any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire"

An Gaeilgoir

I notice there was no mention of the CPS getting involved following these findings.

delboy

Quote from: An Gaeilgoir on June 15, 2010, 04:22:03 PM
I notice there was no mention of the CPS getting involved following these findings.

The findings have only just been made public, surely that process would require sometime either way.

Aerlik

f**k ME IS ANYONE LISTENING TO THE BASTARD BEING INTERVIEWED OUTSIDE THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT?  SOME LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BRITS....OH DEAR GOD, THE ENGLISH ARMY ARE REPRESENTED BY THE SCUM OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM.  HIS NAME IS STEPHEN POLLARD AND IT'LL  BE A WHILE BEFORE HE HOLIDAYS IN IRELAND, I'D SAY.
To find his equal an Irishman is forced to talk to God!

funtime frankie

What a wonderful day for those famlies and what a wonderful day for Derry. A long time coming - but what did it tell us that we didn't already know?

Ulick

BUTCHER'S DOZEN:
A LESSON FOR THE OCTAVE OF WIDGERY

by Thomas Kinsella


                              I went with Anger at my heel
                              Through Bogside of the bitter zeal
                              - Jesus pity! - on a day
                              Of cold and drizzle and decay.
                              A month had passed. Yet there remained
                              A murder smell that stung and stained.
                              On flats and alleys-over all-
                              It hung; on battered roof and wall,
                              On wreck and rubbish scattered thick,
                              On sullen steps and pitted brick.
                              And when I came where thirteen died
                              It shrivelled up my heart. I sighed
                              And looked about that brutal place
                              Of rage and terror and disgrace.
                              Then my moistened lips grew dry.
                              I had heard an answering sigh!
                              There in a ghostly pool of blood
                              A crumpled phantom hugged the mud:
                              "Once there lived a hooligan.
                              A pig came up, and away he ran.
                              Here lies one in blood and bones,
                              Who lost his life for throwing stones."

                              More voices rose. I turned and saw
                              Three corpses forming, red and raw,
                              From dirt and stone. Each upturned face
                              Stared unseeing from its place:
                              "Behind this barrier, blighters three,
                              We scrambled back and made to flee.
                              The guns cried Stop, and here lie we."
                              Then from left and right they came,
                              More mangled corpses, bleeding, lame,
                              Holding their wounds. They chose their ground,
                              Ghost by ghost, without a sound,
                              And one stepped forward, soiled and white:
                              "A bomber I. I travelled light
                              - Four pounds of nails and gelignite
                              About my person, hid so well
                              They seemed to vanish where I fell.
                              When the bullet stopped my breath
                              A doctor sought the cause of death.
                              He upped my shirt, undid my fly,
                              Twice he moved my limbs awry,
                              And noticed nothing. By and by
                              A soldier, with his sharper eye,
                              Beheld the four elusive rockets
                              Stuffed in my coat and trouser pockets.
                              Yes, they must be strict with us,
                              Even in death so treacherous!"
                              He faded, and another said:
                              "We three met close when we were dead.
                              Into an armoured car they piled us
                              Wl-iere our mingled blood defiled us,
                              Certain, if not dead before,
                              To suffocate upon the floor.

                              Careful bullets in the back
                              Stopped our terrorist attack,
                              And so three dangerous lives are done
                              - Judged, condemned and shamed in one."
                              That spectre faded in his turn.
                              A harsher stirred, and spoke in scorn:
                              "The shame is theirs, in word and deed,
                              Who prate of justice, practise greed,
                              And act in ignorant fury - then,
                              Officers and gentlemen,
                              Send to their Courts for the Most High
                              To tell us did we really die !
                              Does it need recourse to law
                              To tell ten thousand what they saw ?
                              Law that lets them, caught red-handed,
                              Halt the game and leave it stranded,
                              Summon up a sworn inquiry
                              And dump their conscience in the diary.
                              During which hiatus, should
                              Their legal basis vanish, good,
                              The thing is rapidly arranged:
                              Where's the law that can't be changed?
                              The news is out. The troops were kind.
                              Impartial justice has to find
                              We'd be alive and well today
                              If we had let them have their way.
                              Yet England, even as you lie,
                              You give the facts that you deny.
                              Spread the lie with all your power
                              - All that's left; it's turning sour.
                              Friend and stranger, bride and brother,
                              Son and sister, father, mother,

                              All not blinded by your smoke,
                              Photographers who caught your stroke,
                              The priests that blessed our bodies, spoke
                              And wagged our blood in the world's face.
                              The truth will out, to your disgrace."
                              He flushed and faded. Pale and grim,
                              A joking spectre followed him:
                              "Take a bunch of stunted shoots,
                              A tangle of transplanted roots,
                              Ropes and rifles, feathered nests,
                              Some dried colonial interests,
                              A hard unnatural union grown
                              In a bed of blood and bone,
                              Tongue of serpent, gut of hog
                              Spiced with spleen of underdog.
                              Stir in, with oaths of loyalty,
                              Sectarian supremacy,
                              And heat, to make a proper botch,
                              In a bouillon of bitter Scotch.
                              Last, the choice ingredient: you.
                              Now, to crown your Irish stew,
                              Boil it over, make a mess.
                              A most imperial success ! "
                              He capered weakly, racked with pain,
                              His dead hair plastered in the rain;
                              The group was silent once again.
                              It seemed the moment to explain
                              That sympathetic politicians
                              Say our violent traditions,
                              Backward looks and bitterness
                              Keep us in this dire distress.
                              We must forget, and look ahead,

                              Nurse the living, not the dead.
                              My words died out. A phantom said:
                              "Here lies one who breathed his last
                              Firmly reminded of the past.
                              A trooper did it, on one knee,
                              In tones of brute authority."
                              That harsher spirit, who before
                              Had flushed with anger, spoke once more:
                              "Simple lessons cut most deep.
                              This lesson in our hearts we keep:
                              Persuasion, protest, arguments,
                              The milder forms of violence,
                              Earn nothing but polite neglect.
                              England, the way to your respect
                              Is via murderous force, it seems;
                              You push us to your own extremes.
                              You condescend to hear us speak
                              Only when we slap your cheek.
                              And yet we lack the last technique:
                              We rap for order with a gun,
                              The issues simplify to one
                              - Then your Democracy insists
                              You mustn't talk with terrorists!
                              White and yellow, black and blue,
                              Have learnt their history from you:
                              Divide and ruin, muddle through,
                              Not principled, but politic.
                              - In strength, perfidious; weak, a trick
                              To make good men a trifle sick.
                              We speak in wounds. Behold this mess.
                              My curse upon your politesse."

                              Another ghost stood forth, and wet
                              Dead lips that had not spoken yet:
                              "My curse on the cunning and the bland,
                              On gentlemen who loot a land
                              They do not care to understand;
                              Who keep the natives on their paws
                              With ready lash and rotten laws;
                              Then if the beasts erupt in rage
                              Give them a slightly larger cage
                              And, in scorn and fear combined,
                              Turn them against their own kind.
                              The game runs out of room at last,
                              A people rises from its past,
                              The going gets unduly tough
                              And you have (surely ... ?) had enough.
                              The time has come to yield your place
                              With condescending show of grace
                              - An Empire-builder handing on.
                              We reap the ruin when you've gone,
                              All your errors heaped behind you:
                              Promises that do not bind you,
                              Hopes in conflict, cramped commissions,
                              Faiths exploited, and traditions."
                              Bloody sputum filled his throat.
                              He stopped and coughed to clear it out,
                              And finished, with his eyes a-glow:
                              "You came, you saw, you conquered ... So.
                              You gorged - and it was time to go.
                              Good riddance. We'd forget - released -
                              But for the rubbish of your feast,
                              The slops and scraps that fell to earth
                              And sprang to arms in dragon birth.

                              Sashed and bowler-hatted, glum
                              Apprentices of fife and drum,
                              High and dry, abandoned guards
                              Of dismal streets and empty yards,
                              Drilled at the codeword 'True Religion'
                              To strut and mutter like a pigeon
                              'Not An Inch - Up The Queen';
                              Who use their walls like a latrine
                              For scribbled magic-at their call,
                              Straight from the nearest music-hall,
                              Pope and Devil intertwine,
                              Two cardboard kings appear, and join
                              In one more battle by the Boyne!
                              Who could love them? God above..."
                              "Yet pity is akin to love,"
                              The thirteenth corpse beside him said,
                              Smiling in its bloody head,
                              "And though there's reason for alarm
                              In dourness and a lack of charm
                              Their cursed plight calls out for patience.
                              They, even they, with other nations
                              Have a place, if we can find it.
                              Love our changeling! Guard and mind it.
                              Doomed from birth, a cursed heir,
                              Theirs is the hardest lot to bear,
                              Yet not impossible, I swear,
                              If England would but clear the air
                              And brood at home on her disgrace
                              - Everything to its own place.
                              Face their walls of dole and fear
                              And be of reasonable cheer.

                              Good men every day inherit
                              Father's foulness with the spirit,
                              Purge the filth and do not stir it.
                              Let them out! At least let in
                              A breath or two of oxygen,
                              So they may settle down for good
                              And mix themselves in the common blood.
                              We are what we are, and that
                              Is mongrel pure. What nation's not
                              Where any stranger hung his hat
                              And seized a lover where she sat?"
                              He ceased and faded. Zephyr blew
                              And all the others faded too.
                              I stood like a ghost. My fingers strayed
                              Along the fatal barricade.
                              The gentle rainfall drifting down
                              Over Colmcille's town
                              Could not refresh, only distil
                              In silent grief from hill to hill.

mc_grens

Set the truth free indeed.

I think everyone in Derry can walk a wee bit taller today.

Aerlik

#83
"An apocryphal moment in British legal history, in the history of Ireland and in the U.K."  Michael Mansell

He blasted the stupid crap spewed by Empey, Foster and that clique.  He talked about the difference of paramilitary activity and "the agents of the state".  More egg on the face for the sectarian w**kers.

Oh fcuk, here comes Ken McGuinness.
Ah, now it's "urban guerrilla warfare" and not terrorism. 

Oops, back on track is Serg. Ken. Same auld shite, IRA v. brits.... 
"We are creating a heirarchy of victims".

"Urban Guerrilla warfare" used again....Ken, you might be trying to dig yourself out of the doughill lad, but you'll still be stinking of shite. 

To find his equal an Irishman is forced to talk to God!

funtime frankie

Did the Brits let Durkan speak after their opposition leader spoke?

Orior

Would it be too much to ask for Widgery to be stipped of his OBE?
Cover me in chocolate and feed me to the lesbians

funtime frankie


Alco Pup

Quote from: Aerlik on June 15, 2010, 04:24:02 PM
f**k ME IS ANYONE LISTENING TO THE b**tard BEING INTERVIEWED OUTSIDE THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT?  SOME LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BRITS....OH DEAR GOD, THE ENGLISH ARMY ARE REPRESENTED BY THE SCUM OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM.  HIS NAME IS STEPHEN POLLARD AND IT'LL  BE A WHILE BEFORE HE HOLIDAYS IN IRELAND, I'D SAY.

What was he saying?

Aerlik

To paraphrase, he said it wasn't the soldiers' fault.  I kid you not.   I'm still fcukin livid.  Typical English condescending, imperical, patronising shite.  Wankers like him have to realise that the days of Britannia sailing the seven seas to teach the world a lesson are long, fcukin over.

Nice to see a few Palestinian flags in the Guildhall and on lapels today.
To find his equal an Irishman is forced to talk to God!

dec

Quote from: Alco Pup on June 15, 2010, 04:38:59 PM
Quote from: Aerlik on June 15, 2010, 04:24:02 PM
f**k ME IS ANYONE LISTENING TO THE b**tard BEING INTERVIEWED OUTSIDE THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT?  SOME LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE BRITS....OH DEAR GOD, THE ENGLISH ARMY ARE REPRESENTED BY THE SCUM OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM.  HIS NAME IS STEPHEN POLLARD AND IT'LL  BE A WHILE BEFORE HE HOLIDAYS IN IRELAND, I'D SAY.

What was he saying?

BBC coverage

1632 Stephen Pollard, a solicitor representing the soldiers' who appeared before the Saville Inquiry tells BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Beale that Lord Saville does not have justification for his findings and accuses him of cherry-picking the evidence. He says that Lord Saville's conclusions are not sustained by proper analysis of the evidence. "There is just as much evidence for the opposite conclusion," he says.