Bloody Sunday in London
By Fern Lane
Two thousand people marched through London on 24
January to commemorate the victims of Bloody Sunday and
to demand that the truth be told about the events of
that day.
Although there was a heavy police presence, with a
helicopter overhead, police in riot gear and
surveillance teams on roof tops, the march passed off
peacefully and ended with a rally at Caxton House.
It was led by Joe McKinney, whose brother William was
killed on Bloody Sunday and Sinn Fein's Dodie
McGuinness. Joe told supporters that consecutive
British governments from Edward Heath's to Tony Blair's
had refused to face up to the British state's
responsibility for the atrocity.
He said, ``It is the duty of the state to seek out
murderers and bring them to justice, but the Widgery
Report found the innocent guilty and the guilty
innocent.''
``Justice is not a privilege served only on the few,'' he
said.
``In the last few years we had thought that the attitude
was softening, John Major told us that the victims
should be presumed innocent. But Colonel Wilford showed
no remorse - he said that he had nothing to apologise
for.''
Edel Kelly, wife of POW Patrick Kelly, currently
imprisoned in Full Sutton jail, spoke on the plight of
men held in English jails, including those without
tariffs who have served 23 years but are unable to
apply for transfer because they have been given no
minimum sentence.
She outlined the abuses of prisoners which had taken
place, including the denial of proper family or legal
visits and explained the difficulties of trying to
maintain family relationships when husbands and fathers
are held hundreds of miles away and are denied any
physical contact during rare visits which are videoed
and take place in the presence of prison officers.
Alongside Joe and Edel on the platform was the Labour
MP John McDonnell. ``This issue will not go away,'' he
said.
He told the audience that in the lobbies of the House
of Commons, both he and fellow MP Jeremy Corbyn ``have
pinned people against the wall and said to them `Do you
know what has happened in Ireland in your name?'''
He called for an independent inquiry into Bloody
Sunday, saying, ``If this government can send a Foreign
Office Minister to Algeria to find out what is
happening there, then they can bloody well send one to
Derry.''
Referring to the current talks process at Stormont, he
said, ``A council of the Isles and an assembly is not
what people have laid down their lives for over thirty
years. We want peace, but the settlement must be just
and the settlement must be for an agreed and united
Ireland.''
Dodie McGuinness also addressed the rally. She
commented that during his recent Channel 4 interview on
Bloody Sunday Colonel Derek Wilford ``called it a
`magnificent day.' Well, we'll see him eat his words.''
She went on, ``800 years of colonial occupation by the
British establishment and it still doesn't think it has
anything to apologise for.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)