Bloody Sunday inquiry was ‘cynical political move’, NI general claimed
Tony Blair established the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, following campaigns from the victims of the 1972 shootings on the streets of Londonderry.
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Your support makes all the difference.The top British soldier in Northern Ireland accused Tony Blair’s government of a “cynical political move” for establishing a new inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday, according to newly released State Papers from the Irish archives.
In 1998, the then-prime minister established the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, also known as the Saville Inquiry, following campaigns from the victims of the 1972 shootings on the streets of Londonderry.
Regarded as one of the darkest days of the Troubles, 13 people were killed on Bloody Sunday and another man shot by paratroopers died four months later. Many consider him the 14th victim of Bloody Sunday but his death was formally attributed to an inoperable brain tumour.
An inquiry led by Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery shortly after the shootings supported the soldiers’ version of events that they were returning fire. Bereaved families dismissed the report as a whitewash and began a campaign for a new inquiry for more than 25 years.
Mr Blair’s announcement of a new Tribunal was not well received by some key figures in the UK military, according to the documents.
The commander of British troops in Northern Ireland, General Sir Rupert Smith, was invited to dinner with Irish officials in the Anglo-Irish Secretariat in Belfast in June 1998, near the end of his term.
The Irish officials recorded that he was more cerebral than the average British soldier, and was fond of provocative theoretical debate, though this was not “accompanied by sensitivity to nationalist concerns or any real understanding of how the Army is perceived on the ground in Northern Ireland”.
General Smith was a former officer in the Parachute Regiment who had served in Northern Ireland, but was not in Derry on Bloody Sunday.
He had also been caught in an explosion in Northern Ireland in 1978, suffering 28% burns on his body.
At the mention of the Saville Tribunal, General Smith expressed his “trenchant opposition” to what he called a “cynical political move” designed to scapegoat soldiers “yet again”.
He implied the soldiers involved had been placed in an impossible position on the orders of politicians, and insisted “with some passion” that the Widgery report had “got it about right”.
He claimed it was “immature” to try to assign absolute guilt in such complex situations.
The officials note he later reverted to a calmer tone and accepted that Bloody Sunday was “a uniquely appalling event”.
General Smith said that a new inquiry was part of the price to be paid for a comprehensive settlement.
However, his “vehement” opinions clearly reflected a belief that politicians were responsible, and were trying to shift the blame onto the military. It was quite extraordinary for such a senior figure to express such views to representatives of another State.
A year later, the Secretariat hosted General Smith’s successor, General Sir Hew Pike.
He was regarded as “a quieter and more unassuming type than his predecessor, and is also of a less cerebral disposition”.
The briefing note continued: “He confessed himself ‘baffled’ by NI politics since he arrived here and said that he is on a very steep learning curve.”
The Saville Inquiry was a bone of contention at that meeting also.
General Pike insisted that the Army would resist efforts to have the anonymity of the soldiers involved lifted.
Ian Hamill, a Ministry of Defence official attached to Army HQ in Northern Ireland, criticised Lord Saville as “an expert on Scottish commercial law and knows very little about Ireland”.
In 2010, the Saville Inquiry ultimately found that there was no justification for shooting any of those killed or wounded and that they had not fired upon the soldiers.
It further found that a number of soldiers had put forward knowingly false accounts and that those killed had not posed a threat of causing death or serious injury.
:: This article is based on documents in 2024/28/11, 2024/28/12 and 2024/28/43.