Stormont Votes Against Ballymurphy massacre inquiry by Fionnghuala Nic Roibeaird - WSM

anarkismo.net: Stormont Votes Against Ballymurphy massacre
inquiry by Fionnghuala Nic Roibeaird - WSM (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)

Today the story broke that an ex-soldier has been arrested in connection with Bloody 
Sunday in which 13 people (and another who later died from his injuries) were murdered at 
a protest against internment in Derry's Bogside on 30 January 1972. ---- The soldiers 
involved in the massacre, the Parachute Regiment, were involved in another massacre less 
than six months prior to this. In August 1971, 11 people were murdered over a period of 
three days by the Parachute Regiment in Ballymurphy in the west of the city - 10 were shot 
and another suffered a heart attack after a confrontation with a soldier in which it is 
alleged that the soldier put an empty gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. ---- 
Yesterday, the Stormont assembly voted down a motion that called on Theresa Villers, the 
Secretary of State, to join the southern government in calling for an independent inquiry 
into the massacre.
 
The families of the victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre call for the "appointment of an 
Independent Panel to examine all documents relating to the context, circumstances and 
aftermath of the deaths of their loved ones. Its focus would include: the investigation of 
the role of the British Government, British Army, criminal justice agencies such as the 
RUC, DPP, the Coroner's Office and the significance of the media."
 
Yesterday's motion comes over a year and a half after Villiers ruled out an inquiry into 
the massacre.
 
Both Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy Massacre took place against the backdrop of oppressed 
Catholics resisting state oppression particularly in the context of mass arrest and 
internment, using violence and terror to aid and abet this task.
 
British occupation here, and throughout the globe, as well as occupation by other imperial 
and colonial powers, has accounted for the murder of many innocent lives. Many have died 
suffering from mentally and physically ill health as a result of imperialism and many 
today suffer still. It has created desperate situations for people who had the simple 
misfortune of being born in a place where a superior power could reap economic and 
territorial benefits.
 
The sheer strength of shrewdness of tactics of British Imperialism is made all the more 
clear at this time of year when mainstream society is compelled to "honour" those 
responsible for so much misery and destruction and those who refuse to join in are painted 
as the criminals.
 
People who refuse the "Poppy Compulsion" are demonised while those who murdered the 
innocent are made heroes of.
 
Those who did the rich man's bidding and those who simply "followed orders" are not 
heroes. The real heroes are those who fought for more; those who fought to raise their 
children in a just society; those who fought against brutality of the state; those who 
fought for the liberation of all - liberation from oppression, from rulers and from tyranny.
 
In the end it is the capitalist State that will feel the wrath of its victims.
 
No justice - No peace!
 
WORDS: Fionnghuala Nic Roibeaird
Related Link: http://www.wsm.ie/stormont
 
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/28716