Government challenged to stand up for victims of Ballymurphy massacre

THE RELATIVES of 11 people killed in a British Army shooting rampage in Ballymurphy in August 1971 met with TDs and Senators in Leinster House on Wednesday ahead of a debate on a cross-party Bill calling for the establishment of an Independent Panel of Inquiry into the massacre.

The Bill also demands that the British government stop blocking and hiding the truth and agree to an Independent Review on the events.

Speaking in the Dáil, Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams TD who is from Ballymurphy, said:

"For the Ballymurphy families with us today the story of that time began in the early hours of Monday 9 August 1971 when thousands of British soldiers, supported by the RUC, invaded nationalist areas across the north, and smashed their way into hundreds of homes. I watched them destroy my own home. They smashed religious and family icons, they shit in the beds.

They dragged over three hundred men and boys off into the night – many to be tortured."

Gerry Adams also hit out at Tánaiste Joan Burton who earlier claimed that the victims were killed during a "gun battle" between republicans and British forces. This allegation was made by British soldiers at the time to justify their shooting spree.

"Contrary to what the Tánaiste claimed, the shooting came from one side only," Adams said.

Describing the Parachute Regiment as "shock troops" sent to "pacify rebellious areas" he said:

"They left behind families and communities deeply traumatised in their wake and nationalist areas in uproar with impromptu barricades being erected around housing estates in Belfast and in Derry.

Speaking of the killings – which left 50 children bereaved and saw a grandmother and a local Catholic priest among the dead – Adams noted that the Parachute Regiment went on to carry out the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry five months later, leaving 14 Civil Rights marchers dead:

"Six months after Bloody Sunday the Paras returned to west Belfast and carried out another similar action in Springhill, the housing estate adjacent to Ballymurphy where they shot dead another five people, including three children and another priest."

Praising the ongoing campaign for justice by the Ballymurphy families, Adams said:

"They've refused to be broken, they've refused to hate. But it's not enough to say we support them. Motions on their own will not make a difference. The Irish Government needs to put in place a strategic approach which sees the British Government challenged on this issue at every meeting and every international forum.

"The full resources of this state must be employed to challenge the actions of a neighbouring state in the killing of Irish citizens.

"Finally, we should not forget that the pain, the suffering and the tragedies from decades of conflict are, for many, as real today as they were when they first occurred."