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Come
on, Mick Griffith, you know perfectly well that our
book (Martin McGuinness: From Guns to Government,
Mainstream, Edinburgh and London, £7.99) does
not claim “that Martin McGuinness started the
Bloody Sunday massacre.”
What
appears in our book is a detailed account of what
Martin McGuinness did before the march, based on an
account from Paddy Ward, a contemporary of Martin
McGuinness and a Fianna leader in 1972. Ward was subsequently
recruited into the IRA by McGuinness and later joined
the INLA.
We
go on to describe what McGuinness did later in the
march, information which comes from a variety of eye
witness sources.
Neither
of us has ever tried to put the blame on McGuinness
for the deaths on Bloody Sunday - we cast doubt on
Infliction’s claims, for example, and we specifically
state in the footnotes to Chapter 4: “Those quoted
here who saw McGuinness on the day are adamant that
he tried to attack the army on several occasions,
none of them successful. They would like it recorded
that, in their view, nothing could have justified
the Army’s murder of 14 unarmed civilians on
Bloody Sunday, a point on which the authors are in
complete agreement”.
The
truth about what happened on Bloody Sunday is too
important for trivial point scoring and neither of
us intends to engage in it. We have both continually
encouraged those who have given us accounts of what
they experienced on Bloody Sunday to give statements
to the Saville Inquiry, as has Martin McGuinness.
People can make up their own minds why Lord Saville
is still appealing for people who were members of
the IRA at the time of Bloody Sunday to give evidence.
So far very few have come forward, although Paddy
Ward is in the process of finalising arrangements
to give evidence.
The
problem for the republican movement with campaigning
for inquiries and tribunals, like the Saville Inquiry,
is that you then have to accept the evidence given
in good faith, without demonising those brave enough
to come forward. Time for a reality check - it’s
the truth, stupid, and we all have to live with it,
no matter how unpleasant that truth may be.
By
the way, I was surprised to read criticism of Anthony
McIntyre for carrying an interview about our arrests
by the PSNI team investigating the publication of
taped transcripts of Martin McGuinness and Mo Mowlam
and Jonathan Powell, among others.
While
it is true that McIntyre’s website, in the past,
has carried a favourable review of our book, he himself
wrote a fairly critical one. Should he not have?
I
had thought that An Phoblacht followed Sinn
Fein’s policy of opposing both censorship and
heavy handed police tactics - obviously a case, yet
again, where the republican movement follows the dictum,
“don’t do as I do, do as I say.”
1984
or what?
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