From Derry to Gaza: no more state massacres, no more state cover-ups!

As one inquiry into state-sponsored murder ends, another begins. The former being Tuesday’s eventual publication of the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday – when British paratroopers massacred 14 unarmed civilians at a Civil Rights demonstration in Derry in January 1972.

The intervening forty years have seen countless smear campaigns against the victims and their families, cover-ups, denials, and the MOD suspiciously managing to mislay swathes of vital evidence.

But finally, justice has been served: all 14 of those murdered were found to be wholly innocent, with the killings found to be unlawful and unjustifiable. David Cameron offered an official apology, and it could potentially open the door to criminal prosecutions of the soldiers involved in the massacre.

Fast forward 38 years, and another inquiry is being launched into a state-sponsored massacre of innocent civil rights protesters. This time in Israel, following their vicious assault on the Gaza Aid Flotilla on 31st May,  when Israeli commandos opened fire on aid workers and peace activists, marking another bloody day in the history of state repression of national freedom movements.

Immediately, Israel faced international condemnation for their attacks. And much like the British government back in 1972, they’ve responded to the massacre with lies, cover-ups and propaganda that ignore even the most basic facts of what happened. Now the Israeli government, having shaken off demands for an international, independent inquiry, announced a couple of days ago that they will be launching their own investigation into the attacks.

Britain too, in the immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday in the early 1970s, held a tribunal to allegedly ‘clear up’ what happened. The Widgery Tribunal was completed within 10 weeks of the massacre and, you’ll be shocked to hear, absolutely reeked of an establishment cover-up: the inquiry backed entirely the army version of events on the day, and added to the speculation that ‘nail bombs’ and weapons had been found on the bodies of those killed. Even Tony Blair has been prepared to call it a ‘whitewash’, which is why a new inquiry, led by Lord Saville, was then established in 1998, taking until this week to finally announce its outcome.

As for Israel, their ‘impartial investigation’ looks set have all the hallmarks of an establishment stitch-up. For starters, the inquiry, the panel and its mandate have all been decided on by the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who happens to be the same man that ordered the flotilla attack in the first place.

But it’s the panel itself requires some extra special attention… in there we’ve got an ex-Israeli military General, as well as a judge and a lawyer. Then there’s an ‘independent foreign observer’, a man who knows all about a bit of extra-judicial killing, yep… David Trimble, the right-wing Ulster Unionist politician. Just to affirm how impartial Trimble is, on the day of the Flotilla attack itself, he was at the launch of a new ‘Friends of Israel’ group set up by a close friend of Netanyahu. The other foreign guy is some Canadian military hack, Ken Watkin, notable for the time he instructed the Canadian military to start sending Afghan detainees back to be tortured by local security forces. Nice one Ken, you’re gonna fit in juuust fine in this line-up!

David Trimble is a particularly interesting choice. Trimble opposed the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday from the outset, saying in 1998 that ‘opening old wounds like this is likely to do more harm than good’. He expressed fears to Blair at the time that any outcome that strayed from that of the Widgery inquiry, which concluded that soldiers had ’bordered on the reckless’, would see British soldiers in the dock – the unimaginable horror! With this attitude, it’s unlikely he’s gonna want to see IDF soldiers in the dock either – not that the inquiry even has this remit.

Trimble rose to prominence as the public face of the Drumcree parades in Portadown – consistently trying to lead provocative Orange marches through a predominantly nationalist area. Stirring up sectarian hatred did wonders for his political career though, and he was soon elected leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. And this sense of political opportunism never left him, and soon enough he’d jumped on the Good Friday Agreement bandwagon, bagging himself a Nobel Peace Prize in the process. Now a Tory peer in the House of Lords, it seems his Machiavellian sensibilities haven’t lost him, and an international  role awaits.

Israel will now press ahead with its inquiry, and predictably enough find that their own security falses and government are not at fault, and no doubt discover that the Turkish and American civilians who died were actually violent extremists intent on funnelling guns to Hamas too.  Call it another Widgery – and let’s just hope the truth comes sooner than a 38 year wait.