Banner and Crosses carried by the families of the Bloody Sunday victims on the annual commemoration march.

More than twelve years after the hearings started, and after numerous delays, the Saville Report addressing the findings of the events of Bloody Sunday will finally be released tomorrow.

Also today I found an article in The Guardian which represents the most critical account of British handling of the affair I have ever read in an English newspaper. It bluntly addresses the cover-up by British troops that continues to this day.

In my novel The Bleeding Hills I refer to the British Army’s poor handling of the situation during and after the events of Bloody Sunday, and my views are definitely not shared by British militaries. Nevertheless, I feel great satisfaction that my views are confirmed by the Guardian’s reporter, Richard Norton-Tayler.

And there is yet another aspect in my novel that is being confirmed in the article, namely the different handling of the affair by the new conservative government. I raise the point that a conservative government will change Great Britain’s course on achieving lasting peace in Northern Ireland, and it will change it dramatically. In fact, I predict that, in the long run, a conservative British government will challenge the validity of the Good Friday agreement and thus fuel violence in the Northern Provinces again.

The Guardian article also refers to the justice secretary Kenneth Clarke complaining about costs and timeline of the Saville report, and the tone used indicates to me a very critical view not limited to expenses. Yes, the inquiry took longer than expected, and the continued delays angered many. The most important aspect, however, is finding the truth, and it seems the truth will not sit well with British conservatives and militaries. In all consequence, they will criticize every aspect that comes with the report.

Bloody Sunday: Amnesia among troops, inflammatory claims by officers

Source: Guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 June 2010

A week after Bloody Sunday, Field Marshal Michael Carver, chief of the defence staff, met soldiers from 1 Para. He told them they would be supported if they had acted in good faith and if they told the truth at the Widgery tribunal. If they did not, “God help them”, Carver told the soldiers.

They did not tell the truth to Widgery. No disciplinary action was taken against them even though that inquiry, accepted as a whitewash (the secretary to the tribunal said Widgery would “pile up the case against the deceased”, according to declassified documents) concluded that firing by some soldiers “bordered on the reckless”.

Nor did the soldiers tell the truth, years later, to the Saville inquiry. By then they had long since left the army. Most – though not all – fell back on their lawyers’ advice, blocking questions with the refrain “I can’t remember”.

Read the full article…