Republican News · Thursday 14 February 2002

Justice in limbo

BY JIM GIBNEY

Derry filmmaker Ann Crilly launched her new film Limbo at the Bloody Sunday weekend in Derry. Introducing it, she said she hoped the film would help the relatives of those shot dead on Bloody Sunday 30 years ago. At first glance it was hard to see how the film would do that but its subject matter works on the mind and on reflection, I think it will help the relatives.

The film is about loss, remembering, grieving, belonging, finding closure. It is about being able to put one's missing relative in their place inside the mind, to allow the grieving person to move on, carrying the dead person with them on life's journey and while doing so enjoying the memory of them instead of being burdened by it.

Limbo opens with a scene of a young man walking across mountains with a small box and a spade. He digs a hole and places the box inside it. The next scene is on a beach. An area is cordoned off. A search is taking place. The search is for someone missing. It takes a bit of time to establish that the missing person, Sean, has been shot by republicans and buried. His mother maintains a vigil, hoping against hope that her son's remains will be found.

other middle-aged woman curious to know what is going on joins her. Both women become instant friends. They share a similar burden, both seeking the location of dead relatives. It's not until the end of the film that we discover that the second woman has lost three children, all boys; all stillborn.

When they were born they were not baptised because Catholic teaching forbade it. Stillborn children were buried in unconsecrated ground and the grave was not marked. They didn't go to heaven because of this. They went to a place called limbo where they stayed until judgement day, according to Catholic theology.

The Church's attitude is different today. Stillborn children are baptised, buried in consecrated ground and go straight to heaven; limbo doesn't officially exist.

The film plays off the two women's different experiences but links them through a search for the grave in the mountains dug by the young man at the beginning of the film and the search for Sean's remains.

Sean's body is not found but his mother, clutching messages of sympathy, which she describes as Sean's 'Mass cards he never had', says as she leaves a bouquet of flowers at the site "I have a place now in my heart and prayers. It's time to let go". The other woman finds a place in the mountains as well. A priest blesses the ground and she marks it with a cross and a bunch of flowers and a smile passes her lips fleetingly as she and her husband hold hands.

On a car journey through Derry the two women pass a signpost, 'Bloody Sunday Inquiry'. You are instantly hit by the film's emotion. The dialogue between the pair takes on a wider meaning. It reaches out to embrace the relatives of those killed on Bloody Sunday. They left their homes, their mothers, wives, children, lovers. They never came back. No one got to say goodbye properly. Not knowing the truth about what happened that day leaves the families of those killed in a 'perpetual wake' campaigning for it for 30 years, for them justice is in limbo.

At another event I got a glimpse of the extent to which England's Lord Chief Justice Widgery and senior members of the British Army went to suppress the truth about the circumstances leading up to Bloody Sunday. Eamon McCann told an audience that Derry man Jim Porter, a radio ham, attended the Widgery tribunal.

Porter had brought his taped recordings of radio conversations between British soldiers, including the Paras, as they prepared to invade the Rossville flats. He offered them to Widgery. Given the enormity of the loss of innocent lives one would have expected Widgery to have eagerly listened to the tapes. He was being offered a live, word for word account, an as it happened record, an insight into the soldier's actions and state of mind.

Not only did Widgery reject Porter's tapes. He joined others, including senior members of the British Army, in a darkened room, where they interrogated Porter. Porter claims he was intimidated by the experience.

Widgery rejected the tapes on the grounds that Porter was engaged in an 'illegal' activity. Invading Her Majesty's force's airwaves without their permission constitutes an offence the gravity of which appears to transcend the Para's killing of 14 people! The material relevance or otherwise of the tapes was not tested.

Saville accepted the tapes and the transcript of them. It remains to be seen whether they will be part of the body of evidence Saville will draw from when making his final judgement.

I joined Don Mullan on his tour of the killing sites where the 14 people lost their lives and the 14 others were wounded, some badly. It is a difficult experience by any standards. Don's knowledge of the events is comprehensive and detailed. He brought along large photographs depicting several of the killings taken as they happened, which added a stark realism to his account. We saw Don as a 15-year old boy in a photo staring down at Michael Kelly as he lay dead on the ground.

Don reminded us that there were 3,200 troops in Derry that day, twice as many as were used on Operation Motorman in July 1972 when the Brits occupied Derry's West Bank and ended Free Derry. He asked simply: "Why such a large force to contain a peaceful march?"

He offered an explanation based on the facts. Fifteen minutes before the Paras moved into the Bogside they shot Damien Donaghy (15) and John Johnston (59) who later died. The purpose behind these shootings was to draw the IRA down from Creggan heights.

The Brits hoped for a reaction from the IRA and then they would use their huge force to crush the IRA in Derry and end the 'no-go' area, which was a considerable embarrassment to the unionist government and the military brass hats.

They cared little about the 20,000 civil rights marchers who would be caught up in a firefight of their creation.

Don also revealed that a Para known only as 027 was in hiding, in protective custody from 'his own'. In 1975, he gave a written testimony naming himself and four other Paras who played a central part in killing four of those who died. He is a crucial witness for the Saville Inquiry.

Don also recounted a story 30 years old, still unresolved and yet to be aired publicly. A woman told him in July 2001 that at the time of the shootings on Bloody Sunday she and her mother lived above their pub in Foyle Street.

Her mother was looking out the window and saw a man, whom she recognised from the TV. She described him as a unionist MP. He was in the company of two RUC men. She saw him slapping the RUC men on the back in a congratulatory fashion and shaking their hands. The MP has been named in a statement, which is now with the Saville Inquiry. There is no guarantee that this statement will see the light of day.

Don Mullan believes it should because there is a possibility that the MP and other senior members of the British Army, including General Ford, were on the walls overlooking the scene of the killings observing them as they were happening. British soldiers, not the Paras, killed and injured several people from these walls.

If this turns out to be the case, then not only did British soldiers wantonly shoot 28 people, killing 14 of them, but their masters observed from on high, with detached self-satisfaction, as if they were overseeing a safari hunt.