TPQ: Your teenage brother, William, was murdered by the Parachute Regiment in the course of the war crime that has become universally known as Bloody Sunday. How did you feel about the visit of Charles Windsor to Ireland given his official title as Colonel in Chief of the Parachute Regiment?
KN: I was totally distracted by hurt and anger. And on top of all that emotional trauma, a feeling of "betrayal" that my own countrymen would entertain this man despite the quite obvious distress that this would cause to the victims of State murder in this country. The fact is that not one has ever received justice. I have been receiving messages from people who are inconsolable.
TPQ: This has to be all the more galling because of the Sinn Fein stance. What in your view has caused Sinn Fein, a party that ostensibly arose to confront this hideous murder machine, to end up bowing and scraping in front of these top notch British aristocrats? Danny Morrison was recently described to me by Martin Galvin as someone who once stood with a poster or placard inscribed with:
IRA in big letters and held it to a helicopter trying to drown him out as a gesture of defiance (but) ... is now holding up photos of himself and the royals.
Morrison met Windsor four years ago at a Glastonbury music festival and used it as a photo opportunity to promote himself but not to mention the Derry or Ballymurphy massacres. It would be hard to imagine even someone as compromised as Freddie Scappaticci doing this. What has happened?
KN: My own belief is that somehow Adams and McGuinness were compromised in some way. I do believe they collude with the British - I should say bought agents. We all have seen pretty peculiar things otherwise unexplainable.
TPQ: How do you feel about Sinn Fein running with the hares and hunting with the hounds – party members were trying to stand with families while the party leaders were inside with the Colonel in Chief?
KN: Just a day or two ago on the Ballymurphy Facebook page a photograph of some of those families across the street from a church and they are protesting. Alongside them are Paul Maskey and Gerry Kelly. At the Church outside is Martin McGuinness shaking Prince Charles' hand. Surely they are having a laugh at these poor families. How dare they.
TPQ: Had they the brass neck to try this in Derry?
KN: Sinn Fein would not have tried this in Derry because I'm very sure that they would have been challenged on this by members of The Bloody Sunday Families. And of course my own group, The Bloody Sunday March Committee, would have been at the fore in exposing this attempt to once again use these families to promote whatever underhand agenda they had.
TPQ: How do you feel Sinn Fein have treated the relatives that still demand justice?
KN: To anyone listening to the media coverage of this event you would imagine that people welcomed this and those who didn't were simply begrudgers who wanted to stay in the past. This implication by Sinn Fein is like being knifed in the back. All I hear is progressing the peace process, reconciliation and "forgiveness" a new word by the way added to their repertoire - again insinuating that we are unforgiving people. Again, how dare they.
TPQ: Sinn Fein have sought to create the impression that their meeting and greeting is an exercise in reconciliation. Do you believe that?
KN: I believe Sinn Fein set up this meeting with The Prince of Wales, a cynical move in order to try and grab the middle class vote in the South. They gave no thought to the victims of the Dirty War here or indeed in The Free State. Sinn Fein have used an awful lot of victims’ campaigns for justice to get to their lofty heights in the political world and that's what it's really about - power and control.
TPQ: They have also refused to reconcile themselves to the truth of what happened to Joanne Mathers, the young census worker killed in Derry during the hunger strikes, or the victims of Kingsmill, a war crime on a par with Bloody Sunday. Do you find it hard to believe that, against such a mendacious backdrop, Sinn Fein is genuine about reconciliation?
KN: Of course Sinn Fein are not genuine about reconciliation. If indeed they were then why are we still waiting for bodies to be recovered from The Disappeared? Why indeed did they murder an innocent young woman who was only trying to make a few extra pounds for her little family? A young woman who was a threat to no one - tell her family. I don't believe that something like that though could be justified in any way and I'm sure her family would want Justice. The Kingsmill Massacre is also a terrible crime that no person of conscience could ever excuse. What possible advantage could there be in lining up people and murdering them because they happen to be Protestant? The acts of cowards.
TPQ: They seem through insinuation to have a go at the relatives of those murdered by Windsor's war criminals but through ingratiation cosy up to Windsor.
KN: What none of them mentioned which let's face it, is the proverbial big white elephant in the room - Justice. We have a Justice system which refuses to prosecute State killers. A justice system we have been battling for 43 years. I cannot tell you how hurtful it is to hear people on the TV and Radio constantly say that The Bloody Sunday Families had a £200 million Inquiry and an apology from a British Prime Minister. "What more could they want?"
TPQ: What should happen to the British troops who butchered your brother and his fellow unarmed protesters?
KN: I would like the killers of our loved ones brought to trial and charged with murder. We would like the Justice System to work as it should - equally, so that soldiers, police officers and Government 'to the very top' should be accountable to the Law. Surely that's the way this should work. Corruption and collusion are rife here and indeed Sinn Fein play a huge role in all of that.
TPQ: Do you not think that the British are actually using the prosecutions as a means to bury truth rather than bring it out? They know that there will be few people coming forward to reveal what "heinous knowledge" they possess if it is likely to lead to prosecution for them or even others. If they were to do what Attorney General John Larkin suggested then the threat of prosecution would be no longer be a bar to people coming forward. There would still be social pressure not to and there would be a hell of a battle to access the British documents but at least one impediment would be removed and that might just increase the likelihood of more people getting justice albeit through revelation rather than retribution.
KN: I know the British have been double dealing in Ireland for a very long time. The Good Friday Agreement would be a Good example of that. A Truth Commission is no guarantee of people actually finding out the truth. The Saville Inquiry offered the protection of no prosecution for soldiers who told the truth and that was a dismal failure because of course the Inquiry was under the full control of The British Government aided by Sinn Fein who basically ran the Bloody Sunday Campaign in the guise of The Bloody Sunday Trust so we were being shackled but of course not always fully aware of it. Sinn Fein as we all know do run The Bloody Sunday Trust.
TPQ: Has Sinn Fein no real interest in securing prosecutions?
KN: I think you might say we were surrounded by people whose interest was not served by any soldier being prosecuted. Both sides had too much to lose. For God’s sake Adams denies ever being in the IRA. Anyone listening to General Michael Jackson on the radio here the other day could quite clearly hear that there was absolutely no remorse and indeed just fell short of criticising The Saville Inquiry. How on earth could we ever be confident of ever hearing the truth from these sources? Everyone knows the conclusions of the Inquiry into Bloody Sunday. Blamed on a few bad apples. A Truth Commission would have the same outcome.
TPQ: How would prosecutions as a means of truth recovery succeed? All the obstacles you point to would still exist. The Criminal Justice System functions through the British PSNI which is up to its neck in cover up and delaying; the British judiciary that has an atrocious record in terms of justice delivery; British prosecutors like Barra McGrory over whom a serious question mark must now loom large as a result of what happened in the seriously tainted prosecutorial process in a recent sex abuse case. Why therefore would the Criminal Justice System succeed any more than a Truth Recovery Process that excludes prosecutions? What mechanisms in terms of initiation, implementation and oversight might make it work?
KN: I realise we are up against it and the whole system is against us but we must continue to fight that system in the hope, especially in light of the recent sexual abuse case, that the PPS and more importantly Barra McGrory and The Attorney General will reflect on the failures of his and their department. After all we all deserve justice. And it must be challenged for future generations. It's the responsibility of us all to continue to challenge this rotten system in order to ensure a decent society for us all. In the words of the early American Civil Rights Activists, No Justice No Peace.
TPQ: Certainly no peace of mind. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with The Pensive Quill Kate. You do know of course that Donnncha MacNiallis of Derry Sinn Fein will dismiss you as mediocre for talking to TPQ and will lambast you as running with an anti-Sinn Fein agenda.
KN: Well I would have to assure Denis that on this occasion and probably for the first time in his life he has got something right. I am indeed anti-Sinn Fein and for the reasons I've stated and many more besides. I could write a book Anthony. As regards me being mediocre, I may very well be ordinary but I certainly don't betray my principles or my people.
Kate,
ReplyDeletethanks very much for your contribution. You made a very strong and logically consistent case. This piece is being well read and distributed around the net. People want to hear a raw authentic voice, different from the elocution induced guff emitted by politicians.
Keep saying what you have to say Kate.