Even if an entire IRA brigade had engaged the paratroopers on Bloody Sunday, this could not have legitimised the killing of unarmed civiliansThirty years after Bloody Sunday, the official inquiry continues to reveal new details of what happened in Derry on January 30th, 1972. Dick Grogan, who was in Derry on the day, examines the inquiry's slow progress
A tumult of gunshots and screams will be summoned up in the minds of many when a minute's silence is observed in Derry's Bogside this afternoon to mark the 30th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
At 4.15 p.m. precisely, beside the simple stone monument on which 14 names are engraved, hundreds will recall the sense of disbelief and shock that spread as British paratroopers opened fire on Civil Rights demonstrators on January 30th, 1972.
Though almost a generation has passed - and a prolonged reckoning in violence and bloodshed - the events of Bloody Sunday are still well within living memory in the city.
Nowhere is this more acutely apparent than in the daily testimony of ordinary citizens before the tribunal of inquiry that convenes in the Guildhall. Mixed with the painful memories, there is a sense of hope that the truth may emerge to purge the bitter legacy.
The perception of an immense unresolved injustice still persists. Tears and sublimated trauma, anger, suspicion and scepticism - and sometimes resignation and great charity - are all manifest from time to time in the formal legal setting of the tribunal.
Two years of oral hearings, preceded by two years of preparatory research, have brought the Bloody Sunday inquiry merely to an interim stage on its long journey towards establishing the truth.
For the eyewitness evidence of almost 500 civilians heard to date must now be balanced with the sworn testimony of hundreds of soldiers due to begin later this year. However, the personal accounts heard in great detail so far have served to pose the key unanswered questions even more starkly.
Three primary issues remain unresolved: who planned and took responsibility for the operation; who initiated the firing and for what reasons; and why were the dead and injured stigmatised by the troops and by the Widgery Inquiry of 1972 - in some cases directly, in others by implication - as having been gunmen or bombers?
This formal, sworn investigation is presented as a non-adversarial inquiry. But inevitably it contributes to the perception that there is a multiple criminal case to answer.
As 28 people were killed or injured by army bullets in 30 minutes or less, it appears to follow that unless they were using or threatening to use guns or bombs, the soldiers who shot them must be open variously to charges, at least, of manslaughter and at most, of murder and attempted murder.
It is as bare as that. But the late Lord Widgery chose to evade the issue in his 1972 report. He praised the soldiers and said that each was his own judge of whether he had identified a gunman: "I have the explanation on oath of every soldier who fired for every round for which he was required to account".
The smear which he bequeathed, and which has rankled ever since, concerns the imputation he cast on the dead and wounded.
While he said that none of them had been "proved" to have been shot while handling a gun or bomb and some were "wholly acquitted" of complicity in such action, "there is a strong suspicion that some others had been firing weapons or handling bombs".
This unsubstantiated and conveniently broad accusation was demolished by the British prime minister, Mr Tony Blair, even before he announced the new inquiry in the House of Commons on January 29th, 1998.
And since the inquiry began, a lawyer for most of the soldiers who were active in Derry on Bloody Sunday has acknowledged that innocent people were killed.
The thrust of the case which the soldiers' counsel persistently attempt to construct is, not that any individual killing or wounding of a civilian was justifiable per se, but that most of those cut down were in close proximity to an actual gunman or bomber. And that up to 34 active IRA gunmen on the day were, in fact, hit and their bodies spirited away.
In turn, lawyers for the families pointedly make allegations of responsibility for the events of Bloody Sunday against a range of senior military and political figures above the rank of General Robert Ford, the Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland on the day, as well as against those soldiers who actually pulled the triggers, and their line officers.
The real "meat" of the inquiry - the rigorous questioning of military, police and political figures - is still to come. But the civilian evidence heard so far has yielded copious new detail on the killings.
It has also dramatically illuminated important side issues, such as the brutal treatment of fleeing civilians, of some 50 people taken prisoner ("arrested" is hardly an appropriate term for what happened them), and of priests, first aid volunteers and people trying to drive the wounded to hospital. The inquiry has had limited success in persuading former IRA members of the period to come forward, even though relatives of the victims strongly urged everyone to speak out. Five self-acknowledged former Official IRA men are in negotiation with tribunal officials, "talking about talking" about their role back in 1972.
But Mr Martin McGuinness appears to be the sole former Provisional IRA member from the Bogside who is so far willing to testify, and who has, indeed, already completed and signed a statement.
Much effort and time is spent on trying to establish just how many shots were fired at the invading paratroopers, by whom, and at what stage. But in the broader sense this is something of a red herring, as even if an entire IRA brigade had engaged the soldiers, this could not legitimise the killing and wounding of unarmed civilians.
Yet this is also part of the overall truth, and in the final analysis relatives and others will only be concerned that such detail should not be allowed to excuse the soldiers' behaviour or in any way distract from the political and command responsibility of those who unleashed frontline combat troops upon a civilian assembly.
Meanwhile, legal sparring continues on matters such as the archives of informers' and agents' reports of that period. And one Bloody Sunday paratrooper whose account of the events differs sharply from that of his colleagues is in hiding under the umbrella of a "witness protection" scheme.
The tribunal has been delayed by two extraneous legal battles - to have both soldiers and police give evidence under their own names, and to have the soldiers come to Derry to testify. It eventually lost both cases. Higher British courts granted blanket anonymity, and also accepted the soldiers' case that they feared for their lives should they return to the city where the killings took place.
Thus, the entire inquiry must move to Britain later this year to hear the military evidence and, almost certainly, political luminaries such as Sir Edward Heath and some high-ranking civil servants and security advisors who were involved in 1972 will choose to testify there, too.
ALTHOUGH many millions of words of testimony have been heard, almost every week the eyewitness evidence throws up some unique new detail, or opens a previously unknown lead.
Some recent revelations include several witness sightings of British army snipers and observers or "spotters" in locations well inside the Bogside "perimeter" at the time the paratroopers advanced down Rossville Street.
And a most diverting and possibly very significant tale emerged as a lawyer for the soldiers questioned the radio amateur, James Anthony Porter, who monitored military radio traffic on the day.
Not only did the inquiry hear of Lord Widgery's peremptory dismissal of Mr Porter's taped material, but a subsequent scenario was sketched in which army officers, who were regularly and frequently detailed to search his house, gradually became socially friendly with him in the months and years after Bloody Sunday.
While their "squaddies" ransacked his tapes and books, the officers sipped his whisky and listened to opera records with him.
According to his account, they readily volunteered the information that the army's secure radio system broke down on the day of the shootings.
This is the encrypted radio network on which the order to launch the paratroopers' operation was supposedly transmitted - although no written log record of such an order has turned up.
Hearsay though this revelation may be, it clearly prompts grave questions and requires comprehensive answers. It joins a long list of unexplained issues which will be put to senior military witnesses this autumn.
The public verdict on the Widgery "cover-up" was made plain long ago. The jury is still far from the stage of considering a verdict on the Saville inquiry and, around Derry at least, considerable hope and confidence is still reposed in the tribunal judges.
This evening, as a memorial service for the dead of Bloody Sunday takes place in St Eugene's Cathedral, Derry's close-knit community must summon up renewed reserves of patience in anticipation of a second long chapter in the legal process of excavating some form of truth from 30 years of evasion and obfuscation.