Bloody Sunday - a day's work for the British Army
by Ken Ferguson, 16/06/2010
After 12 years of evidence, £200 million in legal bills and 5,000 pages of evidence the Saville enquiry has issued a “guilty” verdict to the Parachute Regiment over the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry in 1972.
This now gives the official stamp to what has been clear almost since the shootings—the elite unit of the British Army unleashed murder not in response to being fired on but as an act of brutal repression against a mass movement for civil rights.
However although the recognition of the innocence of the victims is clearly welcome the wider presentation of the Saville report has carefully maintained the central myth that events such as the Derry killings are unusual.
Such an outcome is vital to maintain the lie that, uniquely, the British state is a peaceful body, respecting human rights and supported by armed forces who bravely act in its support.
This tale is bolstered by a ceaseless presentation of the military on parade with scarlet tunics and bands and tales of glory in which the Brits are always the good guys alongside tributes to the—growing—lists of those killed in action.
Even as he accepted the innocence of the victims Prime Minister Cameron was careful to maintain the tone of support for the military and the right wing Daily Mail chose to report Saville alongside news of the deaths of two more British soldiers in Afghanistan with the line that they were the real army.
So the mood music is maintained; events such as Bloody Sunday are deeply regrettable, should not have happened but are fortunately abnormal and probably the responsibility of few individuals.
This version was put forward by former army chief Sir Mike Jackson who was an officer in the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday when he told the BBC that the problem was caused by a “handful of soldiers”.
However a look at history suggests that this cosy myth of the British military as largely disciplined force for good damaged by the occasional bad egg needs to be taken with a dessert spoon of salt.
Sitting alongside the “thin red line” tales of heroism there are plenty of examples of their use as brutal enforcers for the slippery front men of the plundering British state.
For example there is the case, here in Britain, of the infamous Peterloo massacre of 1819 where troops of the Cheshire Yeomanry and cavalry from the 15th Hussars charged a meeting for voting reform in Manchester killing 15 and injuring thousands.
Or India in 1919 at Amritsar where British forces opened fire on protest about the arrest of nationalist leaders in a Jallian Wala gardens killing 379 people and injured hundreds more.
This was graphically described by the War Minister Winston Churchill who told the House of Commons that the crowd was:
"Pinned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square, with hardly any exits, and packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies, the people ran madly this way and the other.
“ When the fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed upon the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for 8 or 10 minutes, and it stopped only when the ammunition had reached the point of exhaustion."
The commanding officer General Edward Dyer was sacked but returned to England to be hailed by his imperialist backers as a the “Saviour of the Punjab”, given a purse of £10,000 and presented with jewel handled sword.
Across the face of the globe and the pages of history the record of the forces of the British state abounds with such examples. Scots Guards accused of massacres in Malaya in 1948 back to Cromwell’s slaughter at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649.
In the last few years it now emerges that the British Army has been involved in human rights abuse in Iraq including beatings and abuse of suspects up to murder.
Yet again it is said to be more “bad apples” and of course the Generals and politicians are shocked and surprised to hear of it.
The reality is that behind the scarlet tunics, battle honours and tunes of glory the Crown maintains its armed forces as an essential part of its machinery of control and dominance.
The members of these forces are what Lenin once described as “bands of armed men” and they are at the service not of peace and democracy but needs of the rich and powerful whose interests they serve.