Bloody Sunday massacre
Ireland’s prime minister criticizes British amnesty plans
01/19/2022, 7:48 p.m
The 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre in the northern Irish city of Derry at the end of January. 13 demonstrators died in a hail of bullets opened by British soldiers. To date, no one has had to answer in court. If the British government has its way, it should stay that way.
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has criticized the British government’s plans for amnesty for soldiers and former paramilitaries in the Northern Ireland conflict. British soldiers involved in the killing of civilians in the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, for example, must be held accountable, Martin said in the Irish Parliament in Dublin. “That would be completely unacceptable, it would be a betrayal of the victims of all violence,” Martin said. The government in London has delayed dealing with the violence in Northern Ireland for far too long.
January 30 marks the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre in the Northern Irish city of Derry, officially known as Londonderry. British soldiers opened fire on demonstrators during a largely peaceful protest march. 13 people died directly, a fourteenth victim probably succumbed months later to the injuries sustained. 15 people were injured. Although the British government admitted in 2010, after publishing an inquiry that the killings were unjust, no one has yet been brought to justice.
Now London wants to draw a line under the legal process. Plans unveiled last year envisage a ban on further trials related to violence during the conflict. However, they are opposed by all sides in the former civil war region.
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. However, society there is deeply divided between Protestants, who see themselves as British, and Catholics, who define themselves as Irish and call for the part of the country to be united with the Republic of Ireland. For three decades, militant groups on both sides, as well as the police and the British military, fought a bitter civil war that left thousands dead and only ended in 1998. Tensions there have recently increased again, partly because of Brexit.