50 years ago, British soldiers shot unarmed people in Northern Ireland, and to this day none of them have been punished. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants it to stay that way. His plan could become a problem for the EU.
“Broken bottles under children’s feet” rang out in English on radios around the world in 1983. “Body Scattered Across the Cul-de-sac”. And again and again the refrain: “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”. It was the voice of Bono, frontman of the Irish rock band U2, that captivated the numerous listeners.
However, the inspiration for the cult song was a sad one: years earlier, January 30, 1972 had actually become a bloody Sunday. in Derry, Northern Ireland, thousands of Irish Catholics took to the streets that day for their civil rights. Monitored by British Army soldiers. Everything could have stayed peaceful. But then disaster struck.
A bloody year
Paratroopers fired on the demonstrators, killing 13 of them. A photograph of the event tells of the horror: waving a bloodstained white handkerchief, the priest Edward Daly leads a group of men through the streets carrying a mortally wounded man past heavily armed soldiers.
This Sunday 50 years ago, which went down in history as “Bloody Sunday”, became the focal point of the Northern Ireland conflict. And suddenly brought the civil war in the extreme west of Europe to the attention of the world public. Because the 13 people in Derry who were shot by the British paratroopers, some of them outright executed, were unarmed, the younger ones not even 18 years old.
The consequences were devastating. Hundreds of volunteers joined the terrorist organization “Irish Republican Army” (IRA), the paramilitary Ulster Defense Association became even more radical on the Protestant side, and dozens of Catholics were murdered by their enforcers. The year 1972 thus became the bloodiest of the conflicts known as “Troubles” on the divided island.
Commemorating Bloody Sunday 1972, a mural in Northern Ireland shows the priest Edward Daly leading the squad carrying the mortally wounded man. (Source: Brian Lawless/PA Wire/dpa)
“Bloody Sunday made people feel like they were living in a democratic society where change is possible and where the rule of law is an important concept,” says Paul O’Connor of the Pat Finucane Center in Derry, which Protestant Unionists call Londonderry , an interest group for the bereaved of victims of violence, in conversation with the German Press Agency (dpa).
At the time, the only way out for Catholics, who were disadvantaged in Northern Irish society, seemed to be reunification with the Republic of Ireland in the south – for some by force of arms if necessary. Five decades later, however, the wounds are still not closed. Worse still, they threaten to tear up again.
More than 3,600 dead
Because although the British Prime Minister at the time david cameron In 2010, after the completion of a detailed investigation, the innocence of the demonstrators and the misconduct of the army was admitted. To date, not a single one of the 15 soldiers responsible at the time has been brought to justice. And now the government in London is also planning a law that will make any criminal prosecution, civil proceedings or even just public investigations in connection with the Northern Ireland conflict impossible.
The need for reappraisal is huge: the conflict between the mostly Catholic supporters of reunification with the south and the predominantly Protestant supporters of the Union of Northern Ireland Great Britain Between 1968 and 1998 more than 3,600 people died on both sides – mostly at the hands of paramilitaries such as the IRA.
Boris Johnson: Prime Minister’s plans for Northern Ireland are highly controversial. (Source: UPI Photo/imago images)
The proposed legislation should protect veterans from “abusive procedures,” Prime Minister said Boris Johnson in Parliament in London last summer. In addition, people are given the opportunity to “draw a line under the troubles,” he said. But the fact is that apart from Johnson’s Tory party, virtually no one supports these plans. Neither the Northern Irish parties, on either side, nor the Irish Government, nor the survivors and bereaved.
Ireland’s Prime Minister, Micheàl Martin, only described the project in mid-January as a “betrayal of the victims of all violence.” He criticized the government in London for having delayed the process for far too long. The harsh words reflect the relationship between Dublin and London: It is worse than it has been for decades, says conflict researcher Katy Hayward from Queen’s University Belfast in the dpa conversation.
Johnson’s policies are unpopular with everyone
This is mainly due to Brexit. The border between the northern and southern parts of Ireland was a bastion of towers and barbed wire during the Civil War. That changed with the conclusion of peace through the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 – the dividing line became almost invisible. The unequal treatment of Protestants and Catholics decreased. Life under British rule seemed possible again.
But that threatened I-To nullify the exit of Great Britain, controls suddenly became necessary again because the Irish border became the EU’s external border. Preventing this proved extremely difficult. The former prime minister Theresa May tried to square the circle between the demands of the Brexit supporters in London and the two denominations in Northern Ireland and the EU. And failed.
Her successor Johnson didn’t dwell on it for long. Against the opposition of the Protestant parties, he concluded an agreement with Brussels, the consequence of which – a goods border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK – he promptly denied and is now trying to reverse. Since then, the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol has been a bone of contention between London and Brussels – with an uncertain outcome.
The result is that, according to surveys, only four percent of people in Northern Ireland – regardless of their denomination – still have faith in the national government in London, as conflict researcher Hayward says. What does all this mean for the peace process? “Fifty years after Bloody Sunday, the issue of reunifying Ireland is more on the agenda than it has been since,” says O’Connor.