N. Ireland revisits tragic Sunday

Thirty years ago this week, 14 Catholic civil rights marchers were gunned down by British soldiers in Derry city. Yesterday, in one of the largest rallies ever seen in Northern Ireland, their deaths were commemorated.

Few now argue that Bloody Sunday, as it became known, was a watershed event that pushed hundreds of young Catholic men into despairing of the political process and taking up the gun instead.

But still at issue, three decades later, is who fired first and who is to blame. Some in Derry believe the answers will point to the Cabinet table in London or the then Protestant unionist-dominated government in Belfast.

More importantly for today's peace process, the controversy raises questions on whether it will be possible for both Catholics and Protestants to reach agreement on their history as a prelude to a peaceful, shared future.

Some here are talking about the eventual establishment of a truth commission to open the confidential files of the main protagonists - pro-British loyalists, pro-Irish republicans, and the British government itself.

Under the South African model of such a commission, perpetrators of violence have publicly revealed their past acts without fear of prosecution, provided their actions were politically motivated and they were telling the whole truth.

"The idea of a truth commission is certainly gaining ground - but I somehow doubt it will ever come to pass unless there is a radical change of heart by those who fought this conflict," says Neil Jarman, deputy director of the Northern Ireland Institute for Conflict Research. "There has to be a willingness by all parties to reveal their deepest and dirtiest secrets - and by the state to open confidential files to full public gaze, and I see no sign of that happening."

Protestants here are voicing increasing resentment of an inquiry into Bloody Sunday, which began public hearings in March 2000 and could last another two years. (An initial probe shortly after the events exonerated the Army.)

And Protestants say two new films dramatizing the shootings, are overly sympathetic to the Catholic victims.

The films, the inquiry, and the thirtieth anniversary all come during a period of uneasy calm in Northern Ireland's troubled peace process, still plagued by disagreement amid demands that the IRA destroy more of its weapons.

Many Protestants believe that the IRA fired first on Bloody Sunday, and that the British soldiers were not to blame. Protestant leaders, then as now, have repeatedly said that the march was illegal and should never have taken place.

Protestants are furious at the price tag of the Bloody Sunday inquiry - it could total over $142 million - and the media attention given to the killings.

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