Republican News · Thursday 14 November 2002

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry

BY FERN LANE

General Robert Ford concluded his evidence to the Saville inquiry on Tuesday this week after almost three weeks in the witness box. During that time his claims about what happened on Bloody Sunday have been comprehensively discredited by Arthur Harvey and Michael Mansfield, representing the families, and as a consequence the already glaring inconsistencies in the British Army's version of events have become ever more apparent.

During his evidence, Ford repeatedly insisted that British soldiers had come under fire from the IRA and that they had been engaged in an open gun battle, but he could not explain why highly trained British Army snipers had failed to find one single target during this battle.

He claimed that the IRA had opened fire first, but was subsequently forced to concede that an officer of the Parachute Regiment had fired "warning shots" over the heads of marchers and that it was these shots which may have been mistaken by some other members of the regiments as IRA sniper fire and which led them to open fire themselves.

He could not explain how, having gone to watch the operation as an observer, he had, in the words of Michael Mansfield apparently "missed the action" - the so-called gun battle between the British Army and the IRA - from his vantage point. The reason he had not paid attention, suggested Mansfield, was because he was there simply to "egg on" the Paras and because "once the Paras had gone through the barrier... you knew perfectly well they were going in to do a hard, fast job of teaching Bogsiders a lesson".

Ford insisted that there was no prior plan or intention to arrest marchers on the day, merely rioters, but could not explain why his written plans did not make any allowance for the separation of marches and rioters or why members of 1 Para launched what Lord Saville termed a "frontal assault" on marchers in Rossville Street, and arrested anybody who happened to cross their paths - including a priest, middle-aged women and very young boys.

Ford denied that there was a shoot-to-kill policy on the part of the British Army, despite the evidence of a memo in which he recommends just that and suggests that the army's weapons be modified to allow soldiers to carry out that function more effectively and despite the copious evidence that the army was considering the possibility of shooting unarmed protestors.

Last week, Ford told the tribunal that he was "saddened" about the deaths of innocent people, but on Tuesday this week went on to question their innocence, saying that Tony Blair's statement to the British Parliament that those killed were to be considered as such was "jumping the gun". The tribunal heard that at the time he was actually, in the words of another member of the British Army, "lapping it up".

On Tuesday, Michael Mansfield QC, for some of the families, suggested to General Ford that he was "not interested in the truth" about what had happened on Bloody Sunday and had "never taken the slightest interest in the victims".

Mansfield put it to General Ford whether what he had in mind for the operation on 30 January 1972 "necessarily entailed a serious risk that far more unarmed civilians than gunmen would be killed" or if it was not, then "it is astonishing throughout the time then and the 30 years since, that you have never managed to discover how such highly trained, disciplined and focused troops managed to hit so many targets that were unarmed."

He put it to General Ford that "the reason you have not discovered it is - that you have known all along that what you had in mind would entail unarmed civilians being killed".

---

Transcript of the taped telephone conversation between two British Army officers on the evening of Bloody Sunday, during which they discuss the day's events:

" Look, there has obviously been a hell of a sort out... the whole thing's in chaos... yeah, obviously I think it has gone badly wrong in the Rossville... the doctor's just been up the hospital and they are pulling stiffs out there as fast as they can get them out."

" There is nothing wrong with that."

" Well there is because they are the wrong people ... there is about 9 and 15 killed by the Parachute Regiment in the Rossville area they are all women, children, fuck knows what and they are still going up there... I mean their Pigs are just full of bodies... there is a 3 tonner up there with bodies in... Stiffs all over the place and [solider 028]."

"[Soldier 028] involved is he."

"The padre is a bit upset. He is going off to see the commander about all the ill treatment."

"General Ford."

"Yes."

"He was lapping it up - he said it was the best thing he had seen for a long time - Well done, 1st Para, he said, look at them ... 24 ... million dollar... He said this is what should happen. He said we are far too passive ... and I will tell you later."