30th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday

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30th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday

Those Who Were Shot on Bloody Sunday and Killed

Inside Story

Interview with Greg Tucker

Zimbabwe Blames Britain for Sanctions Threat

On January 30, 1972, 14 people, many of them youth, were killed when soldiers of a British paratroop regiment opened fire during a civil rights march in Derry in the north of Ireland.

The day became known as Bloody Sunday.

Thirty years later, the search for justice for the innocent victims and to uncover the truth still continues in the face of the intransigence of successive British governments and vested interests in authority. WDIE adds its voice to those of the families and all who are demanding that justice must prevail and a long-standing crime against humanity be set to rights and dealt with openly before the court of public opinion.

Thirty years later, Bloody Sunday still remains a powerful testament to the bloodshed, injustice and violence which result from annexation and from wrecking the aspirations of a people to decide their own destiny. It remains a powerful testament to the corruption and reaction which result here in Britain from those in authority arrogating the power to act in our name. It remains a powerful testament to how acting on behalf of an unjust cause can turn the armed forces into murderers.

The demands remain: Justice for the victims of Bloody Sunday! Let the truth be told! Not in our name!

Hugh P. Gilmore, aged 17 years
Gerard V. Donaghy, aged 17 years
Kevin G. McElhinney, aged 17 years
John F. Duddy, aged 17 years
Michael G. Kelly, aged 17 years
John P. Young, aged 17 years
William N. Nash, aged 19 years
Michael McDaid, aged 20 years
James J. Wray, aged 22 years
William A. Mckinney, aged 27 years
Patrick J. Doherty, aged 31 years
James McKinney, aged 34 years
Bernard McGuigan, aged 41 years
John Johnston, aged 59 years

The following article, entitled "The bloody truth", by Damien Kiberd, is taken from the Sunday Business Post, Dublin, Ireland, 27 January, 2002.

Joanne O' Brien is a photojournalist. She does not comment or editorialise. For years she has pursued a personal obsession. She has taken monochrome pictures of the relatives of those who died on Bloody Sunday (January 30, 1972). But she has also recorded the words of the people she has photographed; accurately, and without comment.

Together, her pictures and the words of those affected tell a story more compelling than any that will ever be produced by a public inquiry.

It took 27 minutes for the Parachute Regiment to do its worst on Bloody Sunday. But some of the families of those who died or were wounded in Derry that day have still not recovered.

Joe Friel was 20 when the members of One Para shot him in the chest on Bloody Sunday. Lord Widgery retrospectively classed him a gunman after his 11-week long whitewash of an inquiry in 1972. But he was an improbable gunman. His father, his grandfather and his grand-uncles had all served as squaddies in the Crown forces.

Friel was trying to get home to the Rossville Flats when he was shot. He was in Glenfada Park when the most fired-up members of One Para cut loose.

"A wee boy Gregory Wild shouted: `There's the Brits.' I instinctively turned around and saw three Paras," Friel recalls. "The one in front was shooting from the hip. As I heard bang, bang, bang. I felt just a light tap and the blood started to gush out of my mouth . . . I fell against a wooden fence, staggered round the corner, fell down."

Friel's will to live enabled him to turn the corner. But Jim Wray who was shot just behind him was not so lucky. He was given the coup de grace by paratroopers as he lay wounded on the ground.

"Jim Wray, a fellow I knew, was shot right behind me, presumably in the same lot of shots," Friel says. "Jim fell to the ground. The soldier came over and put a bullet in him as he was lying there. So that's my nightmare. If I had fallen to the ground, shot too, it was lights out."

Friel never spoke about Bloody Sunday afterwards. It was a taboo subject in his house. He quit his job in the Inland Revenue in 1975 suffering from stress. He never told his own son that he had been shot until the boy was 11. Like many other victims, he bottled it all up.

Others were unable to do so. As if to bolster Widgery's assertion that the victims were criminals, the British Army regularly raided the homes of those related to the dead, scooping up male household members and interrogating them for days. They suffered twice, three times, many times. Robbed of their loved ones on that fateful day, they endured the slurs of Widgery who used just 15 out of a total of 582 eye-witness accounts of what had taken place in the course of his cursory inquiry.

The official cover-up began almost before the dust had settled. The wounded body of Gerard Donaghy (17) was carried into Raymond Rogan's home: "My wife was anxious to find out who the lad was so that we could let his people know. I patted his pockets. He was wearing very tight jeans and a denim jacket. The doctor searched his pockets. A medal around his neck was the only thing we could find. If there had been nail bombs on him, I wouldn't have let him be carried into my house because that would have been putting my family at risk."

Rogan tried to drive the wounded Donaghy to hospital in his white Ford Cortina. But he was stopped and pulled out of the vehicle by members of the Royal Anglian regiment. They left the boy to die in the back seat. There was to be a savage denouement to the story.

Rogan says: "Widgery dismissed my evidence. They had photographs of Gerard Donaghy in the back of my car with nail bombs in his pockets. I just could not believe it. There was definitely nothing in his pockets, absolutely nothing."

Piecing together the evidence in the latest (Saville) inquiry is taking a long time. The fact that the British Ministry of Defence destroyed the Paras' rifles won't help at all. But the suppression of evidence is nothing new.

As Dr Raymond McClean, who officiated at the post-mortems of 11 victims, recounts, even the X-rays taken at the time were not produced during the Widgery cover-up. McClean believes that several of the victims were shot precisely by Army snipers. The bodies of three were dumped in a Saracen (an army vehicle) "like pieces of meat", not taken to hospital.

Alice Long, a Knights of Malta volunteer, also witnessed the bodies being dumped in the Saracen car in Rossville Street.

"There were three fellows piled on top of each other, all face downwards with their coats pulled over their heads," she recalls. "We heard a slight moan. I went over to the door of the Saracen but the soldier kicked it shut . . . I saw a foot twitch, so I tried once more and he kicked it shut again. There was a bit of an argument with him and he pulled up his gun and poked it into the small side flap of the Saracen and he said: `The Parachute Regiment does not make mistakes."'

Alice Long volunteered to give evidence to Lord Widgery, but he rejected her offer.

Joanne O' Brien's book is called A Matter of Minutes. In the frontispiece of this important document, she quotes the black American writer James Baldwin:

"To accept one's past -- one's history -- is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressure of life, like clay in a season of drought."

No one will ever again dare to accuse Joanne O'Brien's subjects of inventing their personal histories.

A Matter of Minutes is published by Wolfhound Press, €16.50

Remembering Bloody Sunday - Excerpts from Joanne O'Brien's book A Matter of Minutes

Teresa McGowan

Teresa McGowan had been married to Daniel for 18 years when he was shot trying to get away from gunfire on Bloody Sunday. Afterwards, he retired from his job as a maintenance man at DuPont and never worked again. At the time, Teresa was expecting their ninth child. She went back to work at the Ben Sherman factory two weeks after the baby was born.

I remember being at the upstairs window -- me and the younger ones -- watching the march, and the bands coming down the road. I thought to myself "gosh, I'd love to be on that march", but I had too many youngsters.

That afternoon, when I saw Billy Long at the door, I thought he was looking for Danny. He beckoned me and when I looked into the car, I couldn't believe it was my husband. He was very old-looking, lying there semi-conscious, and his whole complexion was grey.

Danny had always liked to work, [he] was never idle. He used to cut the children's hair and would organise to take them all away to a caravan during the holidays. He was a very dependable person.

After he was shot, his nerves were bad. He was in the hospital with them for a while and he wasn't capable of work at all. Then he started to drink a lot more than ever.

His hair went white and his health deteriorated. He got cancer about fifteen years afterwards. He took a tumour in the floor of his mouth, and by the time he got his operation, it had become a major thing. He was always a very fat man, but they took a piece of his tongue away. Now he doesn't eat much, he chokes very easily. I don't know what keeps him going.

Everybody's marriage changes through the years, but I would say that it was Danny that changed after Bloody Sunday. We could sit here all day with the family visiting and Danny will not have two words to say to them. There's not great conversation. As the children were growing up they could have been great pals, [but] that just didn't happen.

He doesn't mix with anybody. It's that TV and him. I go to the Saville Inquiry, he doesn't. I like to sit down there at the Guildhall because you are learning something. There's lots of things coming out of the Inquiry now, it's like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle.

I was up in Buncrana recently, I looked at the couples enjoying themselves and thought that should be Danny and I. We shouldn't be spending our older years like this.

Bishop Edward Daly

Edward Daly grew up in Belleek, Co Fermanagh. He was ordained in 1957 and was appointed curate to Saint Eugene's Cathedral in Derry in the early 1960s. He was 34 years old at the time of Bloody Sunday.

I was up for early masses on that Sunday morning, at seven o'clock. From then until six o'clock on Tuesday morning I didn't see my bed.

I remember the rioting at the bottom of William Street. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary -- par for the course in Derry at that time. As the march came down William Street, I had an uncomfortable feeling. There were Paratroopers on the roofs in sniping positions and that was strange -- we'd never seen Paras before in Derry.

I remember hearing that someone had been shot . . . everybody else was running and I ran with them. In the courtyard of the Rossville Flats I saw Jackie Duddy come running, laughing. I thought he was laughing at me, and just at that moment two things happened: he gasped and there was a shot. I dived behind a low wall about 18 inches high, where I took cover with a large number of people. All hell was let loose.

Eventually, there was a lull in the firing. I was terrified as I got out beside Jackie. He said something that I interpreted as, "don't tell my mother", but his mother had died two years before. That always puzzled me.

There was a lot of blood. I opened his shirt and tried to staunch the bleeding with a handkerchief. Then a member of the Knights of Malta, Charlie Glenn, arrived out beside me and said, "he's very badly injured", so I decided to administer the last rites. I got out my oils and anointed him.

We both had to lie down because the gunfire was quite heavy. Most of the time we were on our tummies. Now I wonder would I have gone out under gunfire if I'd had time to think about it; (laughs) I think you have an innate duty to do those things.

Gradually, we were joined by Willy Barber and then Liam Bradley. They suggested that I go in front with a white handkerchief. I'd never seen anybody waving one before, except to surrender in films, but they suggested that it might afford some protection. We didn't realise there were soldiers firing towards us from Chamberlain Street. But we had to get Jackie out. We weren't going to drop him there, that would have been criminal. We brought Jackie to McHugh's shop. Mrs McHugh phoned for an ambulance but [Jackie] was dead.

The sight I saw, I couldn't believe. There were dead and injured all over the place. I have no idea how many I anointed that day. I'm sure it was sixteen or seventeen.

Our parochial house was packed with people that night. Approximately a hundred people were arrested, the authorities wouldn't release their names. Everybody who hadn't accounted for a member of the family immediately thought the worst. There was confusion -- for example, young McDaid's body was identified as somebody else.

I don't know if you have ever seen the face of a human being after a high velocity shot has hit it -- it's a pretty awful mess. I remember Mrs McDaid coming along and being assured that he must have been arrested. She hadn't left our house 20 minutes when we heard that her son was dead. That night is like a blur. A huge silence came down over the city.

I suppose in modern parlance, I never had time to grieve but I did have the opportunity to talk endlessly about it. That's one of the best therapies, talking it out of your system.

I did crack up eventually in 1973. I got hepatitis and was quite ill. The doctor recommended that I get out of Derry for a while. So I went to work at RTE in Dublin. I felt like a fish out of water because I missed the warmth of the North. I was getting accustomed to Dublin when I was appointed as Bishop of Derry, so I suddenly found myself back here seven or eight months later.

I have attended the Saville Inquiry and was quite concerned at the hostile questioning by Army counsel of some of the civilian witnesses, particularly when they had nobody there to stand up for them.

While I have my own need to tell the story, one has to speak for a lot of people, I feel that burden very much -- for Jackie Duddy particularly -- but also for my colleagues (who also ministered to the dying that day), Tony Mulvey and Tom O'Gara. Those of us who were witnesses have a duty to ensure that the good names of the victims be reinstated.

Damien Donaghy

Damien `Bubbles' Donaghy, who was 15 years old on Bloody Sunday, was the first person to be shot that day. He survived his injuries but his cousin, Gerard Donaghy, was killed. Damien had just left school and was about to start an apprenticeship. He now works as a window cleaner and is married with four children.

We got to the bottom of William Street and we saw soldiers hidden in the bakery. There was a bit of stoning. They fired a rubber bullet which bounced off the wall, and I went to get it. The next thing I knew I was lying flat on my back, shot. Then as Mr John Johnson was trying to lift me they shot him. Four or five people carried me into Mrs Shiels's house in Columcille Court.

Dr McClean came in and Fr Carolan. I was about thirty minutes lying there, they had to rip my trousers and put a tourniquet on me.

Fr Carolan took me to hospital. There was a checkpoint on the bridge, and they flagged us down. But Fr Carolan just drove straight past, he was stopping for nobody. I think he knew at the time that there were others shot.

I was 15 and had just finished school, and was trying to get a joinery apprenticeship. By the time I could walk properly I was 19 and too old.

I gave my evidence at the Saville Inquiry. It was a very nervous experience at the start. Then I said to myself, what have I to be worried about? I've done nothing wrong.

The Army lawyers got in touch beforehand to confirm they accepted I wasn't a nail bomber.

They were saying for years that we all had nail bombs, guns, everything, and now they are saying we hadn't. So what's the use of spending millions and millions on the tribunal?

I think I was very lucky. I was left to tell my own story, but the poor people lying in the cemetery can't tell theirs at all.

WDIE interviewed Greg Tucker, RMT Convenor, on the picket line at Waterloo Station on Monday, January 28.

WDIE: Could you tell us something about the history of the struggle?
Greg Tucker: What we have got here is a struggle against low pay. Since privatisation, because of a shortage of drivers, the companies have put drivers’ pay up, but they have funded the drivers’ pay increase by holding back everybody else’s. It has come to a time when the RMT membership – whether they are guards, platforms staff or other staff – have said enough is enough: we want the same pay rise as the drivers’ pay rise; we want the same ourselves. That is what the strike is about.

WDIE: What support has the strike got?
Greg Tucker: This is the fifth day of the strike. There has been good support from the members. We are pleased with the support from the RMT outside the company itself. There has been lots of support around the country. The dispute is growing because other workers in other companies have got similar issues. They have got similar issues in the north of England, in a dispute at Arriva North, and there are other disputes in other companies. I think that there is a real mood in the rail industry that the time has come to sort the situation out. Like people have said, when we were privatised we waited for a Labour government to sort out our problems but nothing has happened, so it is time for people to sort out our problems ourselves. We have given up waiting for the government to renationalise; we are going to sort out our pay using our own strength.

WDIE: What do you see is behind it? Is it simply a financial issue from the company’s side or are they trying to divide?
Greg Tucker: They are using this now, they want to smash our union. There has been victimisation of our key activist in the organisation of our union members; that is part of the dispute as well. Brian Souter of South West Trains and Stagecoach on the buses has a history of being anti-union. They are bringing that to the railways. I think we aim to show that the circumstances for the railways are totally different from the buses. We are not going to be pushed around in the way they were able to push around bus workers. We are going to stand firm.

WDIE: I think that today they said that they were going to put managers to work?
Greg Tucker: They have been training managers and admin staff to be guards – a couple of days to be a guard, half a day’s training to be a platform worker, to try and cover our members’ jobs. They will do that for about a quarter of the workers, but it is still going to cost them hugely to keep running. It is going to cost them millions of pounds’ revenue a day so we are still hurting them. I have to say that they are playing with passengers’ lives.

WDIE: Yes, that’s another issue. There must be safety questions?
Greg Tucker: Well, we cannot believe that they are properly trained, the managers and admin staff that they are using. They may get away with it if nothing happens, they may be lucky. But if some small accident happens then it might well magnify it in its intensity because the staff they have got working just are not up to the job, so we are concerned that they are playing with passengers’ lives.

WDIE: You mentioned that there was some hope that Labour would make some changes?
Greg Tucker: I think I would argue that rail workers made a mistake when it came to discussions at the time in what we expected to get from a Labour government, but I think that workers generally did feel that Labour had promised to take back railways under public control and that they can sort our their problems that way. Now, we had discussions, we pointed out that it was not that simple. We did not trust Labour to deliver and Labour has not delivered, and so we have been proven right. I think that people have got tired of waiting and realise that they have got to fight their own battles.

WDIE: How do think it is linked to developments in society as a whole?
Greg Tucker: It is hard for me to judge if it is just a mood amongst railway workers or something else, but if you look around you will see that the Post Office workers are balloting for strike action, and you have got the Civil Service and PCS on strike today as well. There is a growing movement amongst working people that we have to fight our own battles, we have to stand up for ourselves. I think a real movement is beginning to grow.

WDIE: Would you say that workers need to become political themselves?
Greg Tucker: Well, I think that has always been the case. One of discussions we are having within the RMT is what do we do with the political fund. We are a political union. At the moment it goes to Labour, which is a bit of a waste. Most of us are saying, well, isn’t there something better we can do, isn’t there another political strategy we could have rather than just relying on Labour which is clearly failing.

WDIE: What other alternatives are being considered?
Greg Tucker: I think it is early stages. In terms of parliamentary candidates and in terms of politics more generally, I think we should be putting our money towards people who support us in policy rather than people who clearly have no intention of supporting us. That might mean in some cases some existing Labour MPs who are supporting us could still be supported, but actually I think it is more about being independent in the way we operate in terms of political agenda.

WDIE: What about the idea of putting forward your own candidates?
Greg Tucker: I think that is a potential; there is lots of discussion about how we do that, whether we support others who are supporting us or whatever. I think that there are some principles we have to adopt in terms of supporting working class candidates on a socialist platform. We cannot do deals with the Liberals just because they happen to be supporting us on this day. I think that has been tried and failed a hundred years ago. But I think that there are things that we can do as a union, which I think we are failing to do.

Zimbabwean state media said on January 29 that the threat of European Union sanctions against President Robert Mugabe and his ruling elite are part of a British campaign to demonise its former colony.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday agreed that if Zimbabwe prevented the deployment of EU election observers by February 3, a travel ban would be imposed on President Mugabe and his inner circle. The foreign assets of these decision-makers would be frozen and a ban would be imposed on the export to Zimbabwe of arms and other equipment which could be used for internal repression.

In an interview with the Guardian, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw argues that now is the time to put "Mugabe on the spot". He said that Britain would be pushing for tough sanctions to pile the pressure on Zimbabwe with action including the freezing of Robert Mugabe's assets, a travel ban and suspension from the Commonwealth. He would be pushing for this at the EU meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels.

The state-owned Herald newspaper said that President Mugabe had told journalists on Monday: "The EU was demonising Zimbabwe despite the fact that the country had a tradition of regular and democratic elections."

ZBC radio said: "Independent political analysts and Zimbabwe government officials accuse the United Kingdom of leading a campaign to get the European Union to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe."

An information ministry spokesman declined to comment on the EU ultimatum.

Zimbabwean state radio reported on Monday that President Mugabe had invited observers from the EU, the Commonwealth and some African countries. But he would not allow in observers from Britain, which he accuses of backing the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).