Tomorrow the Ballymurphy families will receive the long-anticipated findings of an inquest into the massacre of their loved ones in August 1971. The decades-long campaign for truth by the Ballymurphy families and their supporters is a testament to their indomitable struggle. As the inquest reaches its conclusion, People Before Profit extend our utmost solidarity to them at this time. Their campaign continues to be nothing short of inspirational across Ireland and the world.
What happened in Ballymurphy revealed to the eyes of the world the rotten role of British imperialism in Ireland. It was imperialism in the form of internment without trial, torture, state collusion with loyalist paramilitaries, shoot to kill, and ultimately, the murder of innocent people. This was how the British state responded to basic demands for civil rights and democracy.
That month, the British Army left 54 children without a parent in Ballymurphy. Some were evacuated south and put into refugee camps; others were taunted by the military after having their families brutalised. All the while, the British establishment churned out systematic lies about the victims, in order to hide the fact they had murdered innocent people.
The courageous and determined work of the Ballymurphy families has helped put the actions of the British state in the dock, and proved to the world what these campaigners have known all along – that British military forces killed innocent people and then spent years covering this massacre up.
In this context, precisely as the Ballymurphy families are seeking the truth, it is utterly reprehensible that Boris Johnson’s Tory government looks set to propose an amnesty for British soldiers who are culpable for state sanctioned murder.
When the state murders citizens, it is in the interests of all people and all communities to seek truth and justice. We say the British state should be on trial for what it did in Ballymurphy, and those who were culpable in this massacre – the soldiers, generals, the politicians at the very top – should be locked up.
And we don’t stop there, because internment and the massacre at Ballymurphy were only the beginning of brutal militarism and repression meted out after a breakdown of democracy and the denial of democratic rights.
Once they got away with it in Ballymurphy, the Paratroopers knew they could do the same in Derry on Bloody Sunday. They knew they could do the same in Springhill, Westrock, and everywhere else. Decades on and the British military continues to kill with impunity in other parts of the world, be it in Baghdad, Basra, Fallujah, or in any other city that British military boots land to carry out imperialist ventures based upon violence and division.
People Before Profit stand fully with the Ballymurphy families, but also with all other victims of state violence in Ireland, and we look forward to the day that all families have the truth and justice that they so rightly deserve.
