Irlandinitiative Heidelberg - 30th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Derry, 13.11.2001 to 27.01.2002

The Bloody Sunday inquiry re-opened at Derry's Guildhall on Monday after a three-month adjournment during which former and serving British soldiers challenged a ruling that they must give their evidence in Derry. The outcome of their judicial review is expected in two weeks.

Fourteen civil rights protestors died as a result of the shooting by British soldiers in Derry's nationalist Bogside area on January 30, 1972. The ongoing inquiry in Derry under Britain's Lord Saville is the second such attempt to uncover the truth behind the killings.

In testimony this week, it was heard how a British soldier placed his foot on an injured victim before shooting him. The same soldier then shot a man who had his hands raised and was appealing to him to stop firing.

On Tuesday, Paddy McCauley said he saw a soldier with his foot on the prone body of Bloody Sunday Jim Wray as he lay in the Bogside. He said he saw the soldier shoot the 22-year-old Derry man, and seconds later, shoot another victim, Gerard McKinney.

Mr McCauley told yesterday's hearing of the Saville Inquiry that after seeing the soldier with his foot on Mr Wray, another victim, Gerard McKinney, caught his eye.

"As Gerard McKinney was running he held his arms in the air and shouted 'Don't shoot', or 'Don't shoot him'," Mr McCauley said.

"In what seemed to me to be one movement, the soldier shot Jim Wray then spun to his right and, with his rifle at hip level, shot in the direction of myself and Gerard McKinney," he said.

The witness said he saw the soldier's gun recoil as he shot Mr Wray. As the soldier turned to shoot towards Mr McKinney, Mr McCauley said he heard the victim go "Ugh" as he was hit.

He said Mr McKinney still had his hands in the air when he was hit. Another witness, James Logue, described seeing the same incident.

In other testimony, another witness revealed a close friend had never recovered from a psychiatric illness after witnessing the events of Bloody Sunday.

Witness Gerry McLaughlin said his friend, Dan McCluskey, fell ill within two weeks of Bloody Sunday.

Mr McLaughlin said he went on the Bloody Sunday march as a 16-year-old with a number of friends, including Mr McCluskey. When the shooting started, Mr McLaughlin said he ran with Mr McCluskey to Glenfada Park South and dived to the ground.

"Dan McCluskey was with me but he did not lie on the floor. He stood there laughing," he said.

The witness said he initially believed Mr McCluskey was laughing at him but other people warned him he was still in the line of fire of soldiers on Derry's Walls.

"Dan was breaking his sides all the way there and I realised that he was not laughing at me; he had flipped," the witness said.

Mr McLaughlin said that two weeks after Bloody Sunday, his friend was receiving psychiatric treatment.

"He was released for three weeks but then his mother asked for them to come and take him back for help. He had totally flipped," he said.

"By the time I saw him again they had removed all his teeth and he looked like a real old man. He is still alive now.

"We spent 15 years in the same street, living three doors apart, we went to school together but he doesn't know who I am.

"I blame what happened on Bloody Sunday for this," he said.

Witness James Logue, who was 17 in 1972, told the inquiry yesterday that he saw a man, who he later learned was Gerard McKinney, with his hands in the air at Abbey Park.

Tuesday-Thursday, 20-22 November, 2001

Life and death impact of Bloody Sunday

The terrible impact of the Bloody Sunday killings on one victim's family was outlined to the Saville Inquiry yesterday by the brother of one of the dead.

John Kelly, whose 17-year-old brother, Michael, was shot dead, told the inquiry that his mother still cries about her son, one of 14 civil rights demonstrators who were killed by British soldiers in Derry in 1972.

Mr Kelly, who chaired the campaign to have a new inquiry into Bloody Sunday established, told the three tribunal judges that his mother still prays that the truth and justice will come out.

The witness said he was in the nationalist Bogside area when his brother-in-law told him that Michael had been shot. He travelled with his brother to Altnagelvin hospital, where the 17-year-old was pronounced dead.

Mr Kelly said his father collapsed on being told at the hospital that his son had been killed.

He said events had a particularly heart-breaking impact on his mother who had to be heavily sedated during Michael's wake.

"During the wake, on the Tuesday in the early hours of the morning, she lifted Micheal from his coffin and hugged him. She was crying sore and saying 'Michael, son, Michael, son.'

"We had to restrain her and put Michael back into the coffin," he said.

The witness said his mother had a nervous breakdown after Michael's death and had no memory of the five years after Bloody Sunday.

"One winter, we found my mother in the cemetery with a blanket trying to keep Michael warm at his grave," he said.

He also gave a description of his brother, saying he was completely uninterested in politics.

"We were a close family and ma would have killed us if we had got involved in politics. As I have said, it was his first march and he attended solely for the 'craic' with his friends," he said.

Mr Kelly said army claims that Michael was about to throw a nail bomb when he was shot were not true - his brother would not have known what to do with a nailbomb.

In other testimony, a Derry man who was injured on Bloody Sunday told the Inquiry yesterday that he saw a soldier shoot another injured man at point blank range.

Joe Mahon broke down at one stage during his testimony yesterday.

The Derry man, who was 18 years old at the time, believes he was not shot a second time because he heeded a warning from a woman to 'play dead', after he was shot for the first time.

Mr Mahon said he was running through Glenfada Park when he was shot and wounded and fell beside victims, Jim Wray and William McKinney.

The witness said he saw Jim Wray move his upper body after the shooting, but lay still himself after hearing a woman's voice shout: "Don't move - be still".

He said a soldier, whom he saw earlier firing from the hip, walked towards the body of Jim Wray.

"He saw Jim Wray's shoulders move and realised that he was still alive. The soldier then pointed the rifle at Jim Wray's back and fired two shots into his back at point blank range," he said.

Mr Mahon said he watched the soldier move on into nearby Abbey Park and heard further shots before the soldier returned.

"I saw him take his helmet off and wipe his forehead with the back of his hand... He then shouted: 'I've got another one'."

The woman who told him to play dead and apparently saved his life was a young first aid volunteer. Ms Eibhlin Mahon (then Lafferty) was 18-years-old and on duty as a uniformed Knights of Malta member on Bloody Sunday.

She faced down the British paratroopers and called on them to stop firing as she went to the aid of three casualties lying in the courtyard of Glenfada Park, the inquiry heard.

The courage she displayed under fire was acknowledged both by counsel for the victims' families and counsel for the soldiers. The 400th civilian witness heard at the inquiry, her evidence (and that of earlier witnesses) described how she stood her ground, facing the paratroopers until the three victims were carried away.

She did not know the man who survived, Joe Mahon, at that time, but a number of years later they married.

Mrs Mahon described the distinctive uniform she wore on the day - a white first aid coat with a red heart on the top left hand pocket - and the white first aid bag she carried.

Soon after the shooting began in the Bogside, she saw two bodies lying in Abbey Park and ran towards them. She said yesterday: "There was shooting going on as I ran past the front of the houses in Abbey Park and bullets were bouncing around me . . . I felt a 'whoosh' as one bullet hit the side of my trousers . . . I grabbed my leg and I dived to the ground."

As she lay beside the body of Gerard McKinney, she said, he seemed to be dying or already dead, and she knew there was nothing she could do.

Lord Anthony Gifford QC, on behalf of the Wray family, commended Mrs Mahon for her "great courage in going out, insisting on seeing the bodies removed and standing up to the soldiers as you did." Two counsel for various groups of soldiers, Mr Edwin Glasgow QC and Sir Allan Green QC, also acknowledged that she must have shown great courage on that day.

The inquiry continues.

Tuesday-Thursday, 27-29 November, 2001

Courage of Bloody Sunday hero acclaimed

The heroism of a man who crawled out under intense rifle fire to help a dying victim on Bloody Sunday was publicly acknowledged by both sides at the inquiry this week.

The image of Paddy Walsh approaching the prone body of Paddy Doherty is among the most dramatic pictures that emerged from the shootings on January 30th, 1972, when British soldiers opened fire on nationalist civil rights demonstrators, killing fourteen.

Mr Walsh, who was 38 years old and a father of five children, described in evidence yesterday the incident which took place in the shadow of Rossville Flats and which was observed with fear and horror by people looking down from windows.

He said he crept out, crouched low, to see if there was anything he could do for Mr Doherty, who was lying in the open.

He reached the body and began to search for identification but found nothing. "I searched every pocket," he said. "I was thinking to myself why has he been shot? It could have been me. I lifted his head to say a prayer to him . . . I heard the whoosh of bullets going over my head, but I did not realise they were bullets at the time."

He also recalled bullets hitting the ground nearby.

Mr Walsh, who had helped another wounded man, Patrick McDaid, to safety minutes before, admitted that it had taken a lot of persuasion for him to come forward to give evidence. "I don't talk about Bloody Sunday now but I attend the memorial service every anniversary," he said.

He said that if he had a gun on Bloody Sunday "I would have taken a chance after I saw an innocent man shot. He had no weapons, no nail bombs. No one around there had any weapons either. The people that were shot were simply shot; they were murdered for no reason at all."

Ms Eilis McDermott QC, for Mr Doherty's family, said they had asked her "to publicly thank you for the heroism you showed on this day in your efforts to help Mr Doherty". Mr Peter Clarke QC, for a number of soldiers, joined other counsel "in saluting you for your courage and your compassion".

Fifteen-year-old Donna Friel, looking down from a second-floor flat, watched the entire episode unfold. Now Mrs Donna Harkin, she said she saw several men crawling towards the shelter of an alleyway.

The last man, Paddy Doherty, pushed an elderly man ahead of him into safety and was then hit in the buttock by a bullet. His body jerked off the ground, and she could see the colour draining from his face.

"I went hysterical," she said. "I had a rosary in my hands and I tried to climb out of the window to get down to the ground to help Mr Doherty. I got my leg out of the window but Mrs McCallion pulled me back in."

She then watched Mr Walsh make several attempts, amid continuous shooting, to go out to Mr Doherty and he eventually reached him.

Concluding her evidence, Mrs Harkin asked the tribunal if she could say something. She said she believed Mr Doherty, a father of six, was an innocent man who was murdered that day.

She hoped that when this inquiry was over, soldiers who had been given medals or bravery awards would return them, "because it was a coward that shot Mr Doherty, not even shooting him in the back, they shot him as he was crawling away, trying to save himself."

In other testimony, a Derry woman told the Inquiry she witnessed a fight among soldiers shortly after the Bloody Sunday killings.

Susan Doherty (nee Ferry) said she was 16 when she went on the 1972 anti-internment march. Mrs Doherty said she was with her sister, Evelyn O'Hagan, when she saw the soldiers arguing as women made their way home from the march.

As she made her way past St Eugene's cathedral the witness said she saw soldiers "arguing and fighting" among themselves.

"One of the soldiers shouted: 'We have killed the Fenian bastards today...'

"One soldier grabbed another soldier by the throat and pushed him against the railings. I remember that. The soldier said to the other 'It's all right, you bastards are going home tonight, we're staying'," she said.

But the IRA persuaded young Derry men not to retaliate against the British army on the evening of Bloody Sunday, the Inquiry was told.

Kevin Barrett said he was present in the nationalist Creggan with other young men who were discussing the deaths earlier in the day.

"The feeling mainly amongst the young boys was that steps should be taken to retaliate against the army," Mr Barrett said.

"There were guns available that night. I saw a sniper's rifle, a Le Grande make, lying across the back seat of a car.

"Despite the strong feelings amongst some people, there were others -- IRA members I believe -- who urged restraint.

"In the end their view prevailed," said Mr Barrett.

Monday-Wednesday, 10-12 December, 2001

British seek to limit Bloody Sunday expenses

An attempt by the British Secretary of State to block a pay rise for senior barristers at the Bloody Sunday tribunal is the latest legal wrangle to beset the investigation into the 1972 shooting of 14 civil rights demonstrators by British soliders in Derry.

Although the costs of the inquiry continue to mount, Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin has said no price could be put on the search for justice.

"We have to accept that expertise costs money. It is important that the families searching for justice in the Bloody Sunday tribunal have the best legal representatives available given the fact that they are taking on the entire British military and security machine," he said.

Meanwhile, in testimony at Derry's Guildhall, the inquiry has been given the name of a political figure who, a witness claimed, "took delight" in the Bloody Sunday killings.

Gabriel Campbell told the inquiry on Tuesday that he saw the man, who he said was a Protestant living in the Waterside and who later became involved in politics, talking to an army and RUC officer.

"The attitude of both officers disgusted me. They were very flippant and seemed to be gloating over the number of people who had been shot. The fact that they were officers rather than lower ranks made it worse. The civilian too appeared to be taking delight in the fact that so many civilians had been killed," he said.

On Monday, a witness suggested that his brother-in-law and another man were shot and wounded at an early stage on Bloody Sunday in a deliberate effort by the British army to "draw fire out" from the IRA.

Mr John Duddy, whose sister was married to the late John Johnston, said Mr Johnston had not even been on the Civil Rights march that day and was on his way to visit an elderly acquaintance when he was shot in the area of William Street.

Aged 59 and smartly dressed, Mr Johnston was an unlikely target, Mr Duddy said, adding: "My personal opinion... is that he was sacrificed in order for the army to draw fire out."

Although he was released from hospital after treatment for his wounds, Mr Johnston developed other medical problems and died seven months later. He is regarded as the 14th fatal victim of Bloody Sunday.

Mr Duddy described a heated altercation with a soldiers as he and other family members tried to drive to Altnagelvin Hospital to see Mr Johnston. Soldiers stopped them, pulled them out of the car and asked him where they were going.

"I said: I'm going to the hospital to see my brother-in-law who you bastards shot. One soldier then said to another: 'That bastard stands for four hours'."

He was spread-eagled against railings of St Eugene's Cathedral and searched. A Welsh soldier was giving him some abuse. Mr Duddy said: "I think I may have sworn at him and he said to me, 'Only there's too many here, you'd be a dead man'."

Monday-Wednesday, 17-19 December, 2001

Anger as English courts undermine Bloody Sunday Inquiry

Soldiers involved in the killing of 14 civil rights demonstrators in 1972 will not have to give their evidence in person to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, according to a London Court of Appeal.

On Wednesday the court upheld a High Court ruling quashing a decision by the Inquiry that the witnesses must present their testimony in Derry, the city where the killings took place and where the Inquiry is continuing.

The case was brought by 36 military witnesses who claimed the tribunal, chaired by Lord Saville, was "knowingly exposing individuals to the risk of death".

The witnesses are now expected to give their evidence by video link from London to the tribunal.

Yesterday, relatives of those who had died in the shootings said they were disappointed by the ruling.

Mickey McKinney, whose 27-year-old brother William was killed on Bloody Sunday, said: "Again we feel an inferior court has overruled an international inquiry. Here you have a system starting to protect its own."

Mr McKinney said it was vital now to explore other avenues for getting the soldiers to give evidence.

Greg McCartney, a lawyer for relatives of Jim Wray, said he was "totally disgusted" by the appeal decision.

McCartney warned that repeated intervention by British courts could prevent the Saville Inquiry from reaching the full truth behind Bloody Sunday.

And he said there was a fear that the use of a video link could pave the way for soldiers demanding that they be screened while delivering evidence.

He said if this was the case -- and their demand was upheld by courts -- it would mean soldiers giving evidence by audio link.

"The Bloody Sunday families have been waiting 30 years for justice from British judges and it looks as if they will have to wait another 30 years," he said.

Mr McCartney said his client's guarded confidence that the Saville Inquiry could reach the truth had been destroyed by the interference of British courts. He said there was now a possibility that the full truth could never be uncovered although he stressed there was no question of his client withdrawing from the Tribunal.

John Kelly, whose 17-year-old brother Michael was among those shot dead, vowed to continue his fight to have the soldiers brought to Derry.

As he met with other relatives of victims in Derry, he said: "We are not going to walk away from this.

"The families are going to stay with this to the end no matter what an English court says."

The Inquiry, which is in recess at the moment, is due to return to Derry on January 14.

Friday-Monday, 4-7 January, 2002

Bloody Sunday victims hail landmark film

Relatives of the victims of the Bloody Sunday shootings have reacted strongly and emotionally to the first showing of a new movie which documents the massacre of 14 Derry civilians almost 30 years ago by British troops.

The 1,000-strong audience at the screening of 'Bloody Sunday' in Derry included city leaders, actors and Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness.

The first showing - before relatives of the 27 people who were shot on the day - left many families in tears. At the third showing the reaction was similar -- the audience remained silent until the final dot of the final credit, before erupting in a standing ovation.

The powerful and evocative film used a fly-on-the-wall style to show events in Derry on January 30, 1972 and does not disguise the horror and shock of the Bloody Sunday killings.

Afterwards John Kelly -- whose brother Michael was killed -- said he had not cried about Bloody Sunday for many years, but wept yesterday.

"It is powerful. If you want to know the truth, go and watch the film," he said.

"If you do not - if you want to remain with the lies - don't go."

Liam Wray, a brother of victim Jim Wray, said: "It was a very potent piece of film.

"It encompasses the reality of Bloody Sunday, the naivete, the despair, and the tragic brutality. I hope that this will bring home the brutality and inhumanity of that day."

Education Minister Martin McGuinness, former SDLP leader John Hume, and retired bishop of Derry Dr Edward Daly were among the guests at the first screenings.

Mr McGuinness said the film was "powerful".

"The impact of the film on the audience was clear for all to see. The film will help tell the world the truth about Bloody Sunday." he said.

He also embraced the actor James Nesbitt and praised producer Mark Redhead and writer-director Paul Greengrass for tackling such a story.

"I think the fact that English people are prepared to tackle a subject that is of such great embarrassment to the British Government is to their eternal credit and I think helps the peace process," he said.

He said Bloody Sunday had left a deep scar on the city.

"What really touched me watching the film was seeing the people of Derry. They were allowed to participate and make their own film and tell the world the truth of what happened."

But he said it was easy to blame the soldiers for what happened on that day.

"Successive British governments turned a blind eye to what happened. I think the introduction of internment and the killings on Bloody Sunday found them out."

PAINFUL

An emotional Jimmy Nesbitt, who played Ivan Cooper, said the audience's reaction was very important to him.

Mr Nesbitt said: "It has been the greatest day of my life."

A northern Protestant, MR Nesbitt added that making the film had been a "humbling" experience.

Nesbitt, who was just six-years-old on Bloody Sunday, spoke to relatives after the screening.

He said he had been extremely moved by the film and the audience reaction.

"These people have lived with it for 30 years. I only lived with it for a year," he said.

"If it was tough for me, it's a damn sight tougher for them."

Nesbitt said he would die happy if it could in any way bring "some sort of closure to a very painful chapter in our collective history".

Nesbitt said the script had an extraordinary effect on him when he first read it. He was six years old on Bloody Sunday, but was largely unaware of what had happened.

"The problem with the Protestants and the British is that no one ever wanted to own Bloody Sunday, and it's as much a British tragedy as an Irish tragedy. We're trying to make sense of it."

"I think in the peace process going on at the minute, a big section of the unionist community realise we can't walk away and we've got to sit down and acknowledge things and share things.

"So I hope Bloody Sunday helps make people aware of this big wrong."

* The film will be premiered at the Sundance Festival in Utah on 15 January, two weeks before the 30th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

* A second film about Bloody Sunday, entitled Sunday, will be shown to families on Wednesday.

Thursday-Friday, 10-11 January, 2002

'Now our story is being told' - Bloody Sunday victim

The writer of a film about the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry's Bogside thirty years ago said yesterday that he hoped the film 'Sunday' would become a requiem for the dead.

The film is the second to be made in connection with the 30th anniversary of the events of January 30, 1972, when 14 civil rights demonstrators were killed by British soldiers.

The film, which will be screened on Channel 4 on January 28th, views the events of the killings of 13 civilians in the Bogside from the point of view of Leo Young, whose brother John was one of the victims.

Mr Young, who went on the march with his two brothers, Patrick and John, said after yesterday's film preview that he didn't know his youngest brother had been killed until two days after the shootings.

"The last words my mother Lily said to me on Bloody Sunday before the march were for me to watch after John," he said. "During the shootings we became separated and while I was searching for him, I came across the body of Gerry Donaghy.

"I was one of the men who tried to take young Donaghy to hospital, but on the way there we were were stopped by the army and arrested.

"I couldn't believe it when I was told that the army found four nail bombs on his body, because I never saw them and I wouldn't have got into a car with an injured person who was carrying four nail bombs.

"I was arrested, taken to the Strand Road police station and then transferred to Ballykelly army camp. When the Special Branch questioned me they knew John had been killed, but they never told me. Everyone in the camp knew John was dead except me.

"Then two days later I was taken back to Strand Road barracks. No-one knew where I was. My family didn't know where I'd been for two days. As I was leaving Strand Road barracks a detective asked me how many brothers I had. I told him two and he said to me 'You only have one now'.

Jimmy McGovern said after yesterday's press preview of 'Sunday' that the four years he had spent writing the script were "four years of a moral dilemma". The author said the killings made him think his country was "unworthy" of his patriotism.

"It (England) spat on these principles and became unworthy of my love," he said.

The writer said he did not expect the production to receive "rave reviews" from the English press but he took more satisifaction from the verdict delivered by the Bloody Sunday families.

"It feels and sounds like a good requim for the dead," he said.

Mr McGovern's film is the second to be screened about Bloody Sunday this week. Last weekend 'Bloody Sunday', a film produced by Granada and featuring James Nesbitt, was shown to the Bloody Sunday families.

McGovern's film opens with the funeral of Sammy Devenny, a Derry man who died shortly after suffering a savage beating in his home at the hands of the RUC.

It takes viewers quickly through the early battles of the troubles before plunging into the immediate story of Bloody Sunday as seen through the family of victim John Young and concentrating on the experience of his brother, Leo Young.

The production features many moving and poignant scenes such as the parting of young John Young and his friend Jackie Duddy as they fled from incoming paratroopers, and the funerals of the 13 who died on Bloody Sunday.

Indeed, one of the most dramatic episodes in the production is the scene with Leo Young carrying the body of his youngest brother, John, through the aisle of St Mary's church in Creggan.

As he helps take John's coffin to join 12 others, he whispers to his brother again and again "I was looking for you".

Geraldine Richmond - who witnessed the deaths of Hugh Gilmore and Bernard McGuigan and who was present at yesterday's viewing - thanked Mr McGovern for showing the humanity of the victims and those present on Bloody Sunday.

"Now our story is being told," she said.

'Sunday' will be shown on Channel 4 television on Monday, January 28.

Thursday-Friday, 10-11 January, 2002

Paras in Derry area on 30th anniversary

Meanwhile, a battalion of the regiment that was involved in the Bloody Sunday massacre will be stationed in the area throughout the 30th anniversary, it has been revealed.

The 3-Para battalion of the notorious Parachute Regiment will be based at the British Army's Ballykelly base, just outside Derry.

A brother of one of those killed on Bloody Sunday has condemned the decision to deploy the regiment to the area as "insensitive".

Michael McKinney - whose brother William was shot dead on Bloody Sunday - said it was ironic that current members were able to live in the area while their former comrades would not agree to travel to Derry to deliver evidence to the ongoing inquiry into the massacre.

Tuesday-Wednesday, 22-23 January, 2002

IRA actions on Bloody Sunday revealed

“On Bloody Sunday I was the adjutant (second in command) of the Derry Command of the IRA," Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness has told the Bloody Sunday inquiry in his statement.

According to reports, the statement reveals he wanted to find a rifle and do something when he realised British paratroopers had shot 13 civil rights marchers dead (a 14th died later from his wounds). He also says that it was decided not to retaliate but to let the world see what the British army had done.

“I decided to let the world see what the British army had done. “If we brought weapons into the area we would give the British army an excuse to go further.

“Therefore the decision was taken not to engage the British forces. Weapons were not to be taken from the dump and volunteers were not to be allowed to attack,” he stated. Mr McGuinness said he was confident no-one disobeyed this order.

Mow the Minister of Education in the Six Counties, Mr McGuinness is expected to take the witness stand at the inquiry in the near future.

His statement refutes British allegations that he opened fire at soldiers on Bloody Sunday and he reveals that the IRA gave an assurance to organisers of the Bloody Sunday march that its members would not be armed in the Bogside, where the march was due to take place.

He gave details of his own position as adjutant of the Derry Command within the IRA, stating: “Frankly I was not sure what an adjutant did.”

“I was only 21 at the time and found myself in a position and role that was not defined. In practice the role was to maintain the integrity, discipline and structure of the organisation.

“This was not a conventional army. A lot of the volunteers were younger than me. There were very few older men. We were inexperienced. My role was to ensure that the units met regularly, that the organisation was properly structured and that discipline was maintained. Members needed to know what the IRA was about.

“There was a Quartermaster. I was never the Quartermaster as I have seen suggested in a British intelligence paper,” he said.

The Education Minister also confirmed the IRA gave an assurance to organisers of the Bloody Sunday march to stay away during the anti-internment protest.

He denied the IRA used civil rights’ marches as cover from which to launch attacks on security forces.

“I can never recall a civil rights march where the IRA had taken advantage of people on the street to attack the British army. It was unthinkable,” he said.

Mr McGuinness said the OC (commanding officer) of the IRA was approached on the Thursday before Bloody Sunday by organisers of the march.

He said: “The following day, Friday evening, I was asked by the OC for my opinion on this request. By this stage, I was aware of the ongoing reports of a substantial military build-up in the city.

“Taking everything into consideration I expressed a view in favour of the suggestion.”

He later ordered two units of the IRA to patrol the Creggan and Brandywell districts in case the army used the march to move into the no-go areas.

“All other volunteers were advised that they could either attend the march or have the day to spend with their families. Most volunteers, myself included, attended the march. We were all unarmed,” Mr McGuinness said.

When he eventually realised people had been shot dead, Mr McGuinness said he felt “helpless, angry and disgusted”.

“I wanted to get a rifle, find other volunteers and try to do something about the situation,” he said.

But after meeting other IRA men and realising the army was not attacking nearby Creggan or Brandywell, he said the organisation decided the army was attempting to draw it into a fight.

“It was concluded that any military engagement with the British army then would see us fall into a trap and it would be a serious mistake to take weapons to the scene of the shootings,” he said.

SIGNIFICANT TESTIMONY

New evidence revealed at the inquiry yesterday suggests that the British army's secure radio system failed on Bloody Sunday. This implies that no specific order was transmitted to the Parachute Regiment to mount the claimed "arrest operation" in Derry's Bogside.

The revelation came during a highly significant day at the inquiry which also heard about bizarre campaign of harassment of a key witness by the British army which has now backfired, and a call by lawyers for an investigation into possible suppression of vital evidence 30 years ago.

Evidence given by a local radio amateur, James Porter, who tape-recorded police and British army radio transmissions on the day, directly challenges a core finding of the Widgery tribunal, which carried out the first official inquiry into the shootings in 1972.

Lord Widgery's report stated: "The order for 1 Para [First Battalion, Parachute Regiment] to go in and make arrests was passed by the Brigade Major to the Commanding Officer 1 Para on a secure wireless link, i.e. one which was not open to eavesdropping."

Now aged 81, Mr Porter told the inquiry yesterday how he was called to attend the Widgery inquiry in Coleraine only on the very last day of its hearings, March 14th, 1972. There he was taken to a private room where he was interviewed by a number of "very hostile" tribunal staff, who were joined by Lord Widgery and an army officer.

The Widgery inquiry had transcripts, but not actual tapes of the radio messages. Mr Porter said that when he offered copies of the tapes to Lord Widgery, chairman and sole member of the tribunal, the judge said: "I am tired of hearing about your tapes ad nauseam, and this inquiry is over", or words to that effect.

Mr Porter was not then called to give sworn evidence before Widgery. He revealed yesterday that a few days later he was stopped by an army patrol and photographed.

"My photograph was then posted in a montage of wanted people supplied to all army checkpoints around Northern Ireland, and the caption was 'unsympathetic'," he said.

He and anyone in his car was routinely arrested and harasssed thereafter. Soldiers searched his house on numerous occasions, and this treatment continued for five years, from 1972 to 1977. But during this period many army officers got to know him and some became very friendly.

The topic of Bloody Sunday invariably came up, and the officers volunteered the information that the army's encryption device on that day was "an enormous piece of equipment which took two men to lift".

"It was also a heavy consumer of electric current, and on Bloody Sunday it had run down the battery of the radio car in which it was located, in Waterloo Place just outside the Bogside.

"So the radio car was out of commission during the period of time that the troops entered the Bogside on Bloody Sunday," said Mr Porter. He said this information was volunteered by the officers because by that stage "it was not ever envisaged that there was going to be another inquiry".

CAMERAS SPIKED

And an Irish newspaper photographer has alleged the use of a water cannon on Bloody Sunday was a deliberate attempt to sabotage cameras used by television crews and photographers. He said a water cannon deliberately sprayed all the visual media on either side of the marchers.

Former Irish Press photographer Pat Cashman, who was shot on the elbow with a rubber bullet while working on Bloody Sunday, said a water cannon deliberately sprayed all the visual media on either side of the marchers, making photography impossible for most present.

Also, Mr Barry McDonald QC, acting for a number of families of Bloody Sunday victims, asked the inquiry to explore whether there may have been "concealment, destruction or disappearance" of British army photographs and cine-film of Bloody Sunday.

Tuesday-Wednesday, 22-23 January, 2002

Feature: Bloody Sunday film review

Directed by Paul Greengrass UTV/TV3 Sunday 20 January, 9.30pm

By Jim Gibney

As I watched Paul Greengrass's 'Bloody Sunday' film on television on Sunday night past I was slowly transported back 30 years in time to an era of the struggle which the passage of time and age had almost erased from my memory.

The director skilfully recreated the times that were in it. The fashion of the time was there in all sorts of ways: the dress of the actors, their hairstyle, the motorcars; the poverty of the time in the sparseness of home comforts; the raw energy of the time seen through the youths, the contenders for control of the streets; the human combustion and banter, the chaos of the time: essential ingredients when revolution is in the hearts and minds of the oppressed.

The focus is on the circumstances that led to the killing by the British Army of 14 civil rights protestors and the wounding of 13 others in Derry as they peacefully walked along their own streets seeking entry to their own city centre on a pleasant Sunday afternoon at the end of January 1972.

But within the film there are many layers of political and human tension, which are separately played out on the side of the protestors and the British Army, all heading towards a cataclysmic end for the people of Derry and for the people of Ireland and Britain.

On the protestors' side the contrast, though subtle, is between Ivan Cooper, a Protestant from Strabane, played by Jimmy Nesbit, a cautious yet popular civil rights figure and member of the SDLP, and a youthful actor who plays Gerard Donaghy, who was 17 when the Paras killed him.

Gerard is surrounded by youths like himself throughout the film. With their long hair flowing behind them, they strut the Bogside streets exuding a raw boundless energy, infecting all those they meet with their enthusiasm. They are ready to take on the world and shape it for themselves. But the world that is shaping outside their small Derry homes and their tender years, in the 24 hours immediately prior to the massacre, is more deadly than they can imagine, more ruthless than the words that trip off their tongues as they hurl abuse at the British soldiers.

But then, fear and youth rarely mix. It is young people with their unfettered minds, with their 'attitude', their 'devil may care' approach to life, who drive things forward. They might not make the big political decisions but in situations of conflict as Derry was in 30 years ago, indeed as the Six Counties have been in since 1969, very often it is young people who make the difference.

For those of us old enough to remember or who were a part of the struggle in the early '70s, this film forces you to ask 'How did we get through it all?' The power of the British military is on display. It reminded me of the Falls Road curfew in July 1970, Internment, August 1971, and 'Operation Motorman' in July the following year, to name but a few displays of Britain's military might pitched against a practically defenceless civilian population.

Over the 24-hour period prior to the killings, Derry City was hermetically sealed by thousands of British soldiers. You get a sense of asphyxiation as the film races between the British Army's local HQ, where the orders to seal the streets are being issued by the minute, and the actions of the Brits on the ground as civilian law is replaced by martial law. The ring of steel encircles, squeezing ever tightly the population.

Trying to break out of this straitjacket, to give the threatened populace some assurance, is Jimmy Nesbit's Ivan Cooper. Wherever he meets the British Army he introduces himself as 'a Member of Parliament' for Derry but he is shown no respect; not a yard of territory beyond the military cordon is yielded to him. He moves at breakneck speed, pumping flesh, waving to people, issuing instructions to the March organisers, all the while whispering to his confidantes, 'get the stewards'. He was concerned to ensure that the youths were blocked from going to the British Army barricade at William Street.

The film shows the local British Army and RUC commander being sidelined as the Commander of Land Forces, General Ford and the 1 Para move in. There is surprise all round that Ford and the Paras should be there. It is clear that they are there 'on a mission' never specified. But there is a vortex in the three-way dialogue between Ford, the Paras' Commander Wilford and the local Brigadier MacLellan that points to a prearranged plan.

And that plan we now know.

I've been going to the Bloody Sunday march since 1989, the year after I got out of the H-Blocks. A few years ago was the first time I got a sense of what happened that day. I joined others on Don Mullan's guided tour of the killing zones where the dead and wounded were shot. I was overcome by fear as he recounted the casual manner in which people were shot to death. I was terrified standing in Glenfadda Park as he told us how at point blank range two British soldiers strolled over to two men lying face down on the ground and shot them.

The film affected me even more. For me, there are three powerful scenes: the actual shootings themselves; inside Altnagelvin hospital as the relatives gathered, beside themselves with grief, wailing for their loved ones; and the image of Paddy Doherty crawling across the footpath after being shot. I know his son Tony. He has campaigned vigorously for the truth about his father's death and the deaths of the others and I thought of him and his family and how they must have felt as they saw that numbing scene.

For many people, Bloody Sunday was a watershed in their lives. They were never the same people again. We will never know how things might have unfolded had that day ended differently. What we do know is that armed conflict escalated to unprecedented heights and continued for 23 more years, with disastrous consequences for thousands of people.

Some of my close friends were affected. They watched the film with me in my own home. One of them had his 18-month-old sister accidentally killed by the IRA in an operation against the British Army in September 1971, before he was born. Another lost both his legs in a loyalist bomb attack when he was 16 years old on New Year's Eve 1975. A third spent over 20 years in gaol.

I could be critical of the film with respect to what was missing from it but I won't be. This film will do a lot to help the people of Derry get at the truth about that horrendous day and that is the basis upon which it should be judged. I am looking forward to viewing Jimmy McGovern's film also about Bloody Sunday, called 'Sunday', which will be released next week.

Thursday, 24th January, 2002

30th Anniversary Programme of Events

Thursday, 24th January, 2002

12.00 p.m. Launch of Bloody Sunday Black Ribbon

Bloody Sunday Centre, Shipquay Street

Monday 28th January

The Remembering Quilt

The Gasyard Centre, 128 Lecky Road Mon-Fri 10-5 p.m. Sat 4-9 p.m.

This project by Relatives for Justice commemorates victims of state violence.

Monday 28th January

9.00 p.m. "Sunday"

Broadcast Premier of Jimmy McGovern’s Drama Documentary on Bloody Sunday. Broadcast at 9.00 p.m. on Channel 4 Television (see website www.sundayfilm.net).

Tuesday 29th January

12.00 p.m. Unveiling of Mural

Free Derry Corner

7.30 p.m. "A Matter of Minutes – The enduring legacy of Bloody Sunday"

The Gasyard Centre, 128 Lecky Road

Launch of photographer Joanne O’Brien’s new publication which chronicles in photographs and text the lives of the victims and survivors of Bloody Sunday.

Wednesday 30th January

4.15 p.m. Minutes Silence

Bloody Sunday Memorial, Rossville Street

We ask that people join us at the memorial or throughout the city and observe a minute’s silence to mark the time 30 years ago when the British army began shooting.

6.00 p.m. Memorial Service

St. Eugene’s Cathedral, Francis Street

A selection of prayers, readings and music featuring traditional singer Caitríona O’Leary to commemorate those who lost their lives on Bloody Sunday.

8.00 p.m. Christy Moore In Concert

The Rialto

Ireland’s premier musician performs with support from local artists. Doors open at 7.30 p.m. Admission by ticket only, priced at £17.50. Tickets available from The Gasyard Centre or Cool Discs, Foyle Street.

Thursday 31st January

8.00 p.m. "Scenes from an Inquiry"

The Playhouse, Artillery Street

A new production written and directed by Academy Award nominee Dave Duggan with Shadow Film by Jan Vaclav Caspers. A sole Purpose Production with Jackie Duddy, Sarah Wray and Caoimhe Farren

Admission by Invitation. Contact Jean Hegarty (028) 7136 0880

Further performances on Friday 15th and Saturday 16th February. Tickets £3.00. Contact Jim Lecky on (028) 7126 8027.

Friday 1st February

7.30 p.m. Bloody Sunday Memorial Lecture