The Saville Inquiry and Martin McGuinness

It seems that I am not alone in my wondering about Martin McGuinness's role in Bloody Sunday and afterwards. The Telegraph report that David Cameron has said that:

"I do find it painful that I now sometimes sit around a table with Martin McGuinness and I think about what that man did..."

Meanwhile Guy Walters also in The Telegraph wonders 'Martin McGuinness on Bloody Sunday: Do we know his full story? ' and asks many pertinent questions, some of which I have also posed over the past few days. However it is the end of this piece that deserves wide coverage, certainly the BBC should bear it in mind when fulimanting on the evil Paras:

'... relatively few Provisional IRA men came forward to assist the Inquiry. Fewer than 20 of the estimated 40-50 members of the Derry PIRA gave evidence, and it is unlikely that the remainder, despite the hazards of their occupations, have all died. In fact, potential Provisional IRA witnesses were actively discouraged from giving evidence, and it is conceivable that they may have been threatened.

Future historians should be aware that Lord Saville’s report, despite its length, is ultimately only as reliable as the testimonies and submissions given to it. In the words of paragraph R2A-4 of the Reply Closing Submission, the submission given by Martin McGuinness is “simply incorrect” and “flawed”. None of this diminishes the dreadful actions of the Parachute Regiment that day, but it does remind us that we do not know the full story.'

Lord Tebbitt whose wife was maimed in the Brighton bombing and who saw many other people murdered or maimed makes some fine points, including these:

'For my part, I hope that Mr Cameron’s unwillingness to contemplate any more costly open-ended inquiries will not exclude a public inquiry into the Brighton murders at the Conservative Party Conference in 1984. Just as the families of the victims at Londonderry had a right to know whether people in high places had plotted the killings, so the surviving victims and the families of the dead of Brighton deserve to know if the killer Magee acted on his own, or whether the murders were plotted by people in IRA/Sinn Fein – and, if so, who those plotters were.

The victims of Brighton are no less important than those of Londonderry. They should not be treated as second-class victims.

I think that as we study the details of the Saville Report there will be more pointed questions than those asked in the House of Commons. Although it was not mentioned there today, one of the innocent victims was probably carrying nail bombs, as one does on a peaceful protest. We know, too, that while Saville was able to conclude as a matter of fact that the Army should not have been ordered into the Bogside (a matter of opinion, I would have thought), he was less able to be unequivocal about Mr McGuinness. He, it seems, was present at the scene, but only “probably” carrying a submachine gun, which it was “possible” that he may have fired. (This McGuinness denies.)

On the other hand, Saville was able to conclude without qualification that “we are sure that Mr McGuinness did not engage in any activity which justified the shooting”. I may be a trifle old fashioned about carrying submachine guns around the streets and “possibly” firing them, but it does seem to me a practice which, had it happened, might provoke a sharp reaction from potential targets.'

Meanwhile the BBC still report that

'Martin McGuinness has said he hopes the Saville Inquiry will say that everyone killed or injured on Bloody Sunday was unarmed and posing no threat... Mr McGuinness said: "The citizens of Derry, to a man and woman, want Saville to make it absolutely clear that the 27 people who were shot on that day - murdered and injured - were completely innocent people and that those people who inflicted those deaths and injuries were the guilty parties." '

Unarmed apart from the 'nail bombs' presumably?