Bloody Sunday families slam $77,000 compensation offer from Britain as ‘an insult’
British government’s offer seen as “derisory” after 14 killed by Parachute Regiment
Published Saturday, February 16, 2013, 7:43 AM
Updated Saturday, February 16, 2013, 2:03 PM
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Photograph taken on Bloody Sunday, 1972
Photo by Google Images
The families of civilians killed and injured by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday have slammed the offer of a $77,000 (€58,000) compensation package from the British government.
In January 1972, British paratroopers opened fired on innocent civil rights marchers and 14 were killed. After a lengthy inquiry into the matter the Saville Report was published in June 2010. Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron subsequently apologized to the families of the victims in Parliament. The report which took 12-years to complete was heavily critical of the British army and found that soldiers killed people without justification.
Read more: British Take Blame for Bloody Sunday
Of the 26 civilians who were shot that day thirteen died, one died a few months later and the others survived. Victim’s families been offered $77,400 each as part of the family’s $2 million compensation package provided by the British Ministry of Defense.
Kate Nash, whose brother William was killed and father Alex was injured, told the Sun newspaper: “My brother cannot be replaced and all the money in the world won’t bring him back.”
Nash said she is interested in accountability and not money.
A solicitor for one of the families said the $77,400 offer was derisory and an insult.
A spokesperson for the Belfast-based law firm Madden and Finucane, representing many of the Bloody Sunday relatives, told TheJournal.ie: “Negotiations in respect of compensation are continuing with the MoD and their legal representatives.”
“The contents of those negotiations shall remain confidential between the families of those murdered and the wounded whom we represent and the MoD.”
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135 Comments
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IrelandNorth | Feb 27, 2013, 02:44 PM EST
Since the perfideous Act of Union, 1800/'01 postdates the US patriotic repossession of purloined lands by 24 years, I fail to see how Ireland had any hand, act or part in such dubious imperial misadventurism. Indeed, King George III was known to have said, during hair pulling rants, that: "We lost the colonies through the Irish!" Ireland and the Irish were adequately recompensed by emigration and elevation to the world's paradigm democracy. The task of the British and/or Irish Isles is to influence their respective mainland.
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RobinForester | Feb 27, 2013, 06:19 AM EST
Someone should point out to our American cousin Curtis-Johnson (and all American Rebels of that ilk) that when Jesse James Washington stole the original 13 US states from the People of the British Isles, it was at that time a four-brother nation under one flag, England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, with each of them owning a 1/4 share each in America. So by my reckoning if you carry this debt forward to the present day, then then Irish-American Legacy and inheritance of 1766, today indicates that Ireland owns a quarter of the USA, and, for instance, when Secretariat won the Triple Crown, the Preakness, Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, it was an Irish horse and an Irish Champion and so on and so forth, to make amends a quick settling up of all overdue USA debts to Ireland should be arranged, or in the alternative a return of this all land to it’s rightful owners would be a more just solution?
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RobinForester | Feb 26, 2013, 10:59 PM EST
To C J Johnson Esq: So you lose! You have been knee-capped on all your arguments and offered proof that my favourite nation the USA is worse than Britain in many aspects, I was shocked US prisons have had 1300 riots in their history, their cities and workplaces have followed the same pattern and it was you who <---expanded---> this Derry discussion into one round after another of Curtis Johnson points to attack Britain, whilst ignoring the US own similar and more often much worse acts. My reference to Halliburton and the building of ''800 detention camps'' is correct, you were asked to Google it, I'm 100% certain you did so, yet in debate-defeat you're not gentleman enough to admit. If it's any consolation my daughter doubted it as well and she's one super-clever person. What occurred in Derry was a disgrace, then again so was Henry Fords workers riot and control methods in Dearborn. Yanks forget how knowledgeable the English and Irish are about USA history and internal affairs.
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curtisjohnson | Feb 26, 2013, 08:25 PM EST
@RF – “CJ, are you telling us all you dispute the Presidents Authority to take preemptive steps to quell riots, civil disturbance and protests, Shame on you! “ What are you talking about??? You go from Bloody Sunday, to concentration camps in America, 9/11, the Nazis, Halliburton. It’s insane. Is your next response going to be about Roswell and crop circles? I think you may have had too many shots to the head in all those fights.
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IrelandNorth | Feb 26, 2013, 02:33 PM EST
The article started out as Bloody Sunday in Derry. There's a lot of extrapolation here, interesting though it may be. The argument seems to be that the end justified the means. So who gets to decide, and for whose benefit? Clearly, the Protestant work ethic is in the ascendant with some, over a perceiveed Hispanic fecklessness. At least the Paddies got a break for a while.
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RobinForester | Feb 26, 2013, 06:46 AM EST
It does n ot give me any pleasure to read this. It does illustrate that 'he who throws stones', needs to check facts first. (q) By far the most horrendous US Northern camp was Elmira, located in New York a few miles from the Pennsylvania line. Some 9000 prisoners were confined to a camp meant to hold only 5,000. Two observation towers were erected right outside the prison walls. *** For 15 cents, spectators could watch the wretched prisoners within the compound. When winter struck Elmira in late 1864, prisoners lacking blankets and clad in rags collapsed in droves from exposure. By early December, half-naked men stood ankle-deep in show to answer the morning roll call. Repeated requests for badly needed medicines were ignored by officials in Washington. The pathetically equipped hospital lacked beds, equipment and personnel. By late December 1864, at least 70 men were lying on bare hospital floors and another 200 diseased and dying men lay in the regular prison quarters, contaminating their healthier comrades.
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RobinForester | Feb 26, 2013, 05:22 AM EST
Curtis, has been moaning about ''Anglo-Materialism'' in the USA, will someone please explain to him that it was the English White Anglo-Saxon materialism which made the USA great, without it you would have a Spanish / Mexico siesta society. Try and imagine if you will what it was like when those magnificent people got off a sailing ship called 'The Godspeed' and looked at the future USA for the first time. My medal goes to the first man amongst them 'Who rolled up his sleeves and said to the others "It's going to take some doing, so we'd better start now clearing stones and weeds from that there land now and, make a fire Molly and put the kettle and be making some tea whilst we get started,". God Bless America, and one day please God we can have it back from those rebel infidels.
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RobinForester | Feb 26, 2013, 05:03 AM EST
CJ, are you telling us all you dispute the Presidents Authority to take preemptive steps to quell riots, civil disturbance and protests, Shame on you!
“Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs." Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists." Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. (Google/ 800 US Concentration Camps)
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RobinForester | Feb 26, 2013, 04:47 AM EST
Seanomelb. All nations pass through a period where 'men behave as men' and not how we would wish them to'. Incidents like the Boar War, the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the US Civil War revolt all of us, and in a perverse way our revulsion 'UNITES US All, ' and it forms the basis of new laws for the protection of the individual.
Here is a reminder: In 1864 Henry Wirz, a Swiss immigrant was assigned the responsibility for Andersonville prison. While both sides incarcerated prisoners under horrible conditions, Andersonville deserves special mention for the inhumane circumstances under which its inmates were kept. Wirz oversaw an operation in which thousands of inmates died. As the Confederacy began to dissolve, food and medicine for prisoners were difficult to obtain. When word about Andersonville leaked out, Northerners were horrified. Poet Walt Whitman saw some of the camp survivors and wrote, "There are deeds, crimes that may be forgiven, but this is not among them."
Wirz was charged with conspiracy to injure and murder POW. He was found guilty and sentenced to die. On the scaffold, Wirz reportedly said to the officer in charge, "I know what orders are, Major. I am being hanged for obeying them." The 41-year-old Wirz was one of the few people convicted and executed for crimes committed during the Civil War. It’s a salutary reminder that during the Civil War (RIP all ) war crimes were acceptable' to both sides. The English are no different.
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curtisjohnson | Feb 25, 2013, 09:10 PM EST
RF, your desperation to shift the focus from the british terror state is getting nutty. 800 concentration camps set up in the US!!! I suppose the US government engineered Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy also? Granted, I am not disputing that the US suffers residuals from the toxins of anglo-materialism (from the supremacis m of Lothrop Stoddard, Dewey’s pragmatism and its ruinous on American education, Woodrow Wilson’s imperialism/supremacism, the klan and its modern incarnations such as the VDARE reptiles, etc).
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seanomelb | Feb 25, 2013, 07:11 PM EST
Robin I have no problem agreeing with some of what you say. The camps you refer to "American civil war" I understand did not house women and children,and only housed captured soldiers.in appropo to the British who housed men women and children during the boer war. And on another side issue the Yellow star used to identify Jews in Europe was first used in England in the middle ages where anti semitism was rife. 800 camps ready to go in theU.S. sounds like a conspiracy theory. BTW why do you condone the excesses of the British and not admit that they to are culpable of crimes aginst humanity. IrishNorth My father spent some years in the curragh from 1941 it was not a pleasant experience.
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IrelandNorth | Feb 25, 2013, 02:35 PM EST
Geez! The best book written on this sorry story is Eamon Mc Cann's "Bloody Sunday in Derry", an eyewitness account about what transpired on that fateful day. Of the 112,000 British subjects recorded as living in the 26 counties, (Census of Ireland, 2011), many said they emigrated to Ireland to escape multicultural Britian. Concentration camps, whether run by Americans (Quantanimo), British (Magilligan prison) or Irish (Curragh military camp) are unacceptable.
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RobinForester | Feb 25, 2013, 08:59 AM EST
Seanomeld is probably unaware of this information that the USA currently has 800 concentration camps under mothballs in case an emergency occurs. See: There have been "Concentration Camps" in the USA for 170 years. When the Germans started building their camps in 1933 they were based on US Civil War camps, just like the final solution was based on an American Eugenics programs already working in the US in the 1930s.
On December 7th 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. US citizens feared another attack and war hysteria seized the country. On February 19th 1942 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under the terms of the Order, some 120,000 people of Japanese descent living in the US were removed from their homes and placed ininternment camps. The US justified their action by claiming that there was a danger of those of Japanese descent spying for the Japanese.
At present there over 800 unused prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States. The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby. The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, which can hold approximately 2 million people.
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seanomelb | Feb 25, 2013, 07:01 AM EST
Foster would not know fact from fiction. The siege of Amristar comes to mind where a peaceful demonstration was mown down by the bristish and at the inquiry some months later the CO was asked why he stopped firing he replied "WE ran out of bullets sir" ON a side note the general involved was assassinated by an Indian student some years later and the gun was traced back to the IRA. Robin me boy how about the Kenyans who have been given permission by your high court(recently) to sue the British government for torture, or maybe you forget that concentration camps were invented by the British during the Boer war. Fix your own mess you self righteous hypocrite.
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