UNIONIST REACTION:QUESTIONS ABOUT Bloody Sunday remain unanswered and "outstanding concerns" have still to be addressed, DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson has said.
The Lagan Valley MP said he does not want to see any prosecutions following the publication of the Saville report on Tuesday. Instead, there was a fresh need to examine how matters can be moved forward, he said.
He told RTÉ radio, unanswered questions related to the whereabouts and actions of Martin McGuinness on January 30th, 1972, when paratroopers opened fire on anti-internment marchers.
“We recognise that the people who were killed were innocent and that the killings were unjustified,” he said. “Specifically the inquiry refers to the activity of the IRA on the day in question in relation to Martin McGuinness, that they were not aware of what his activities were on that day.”
He said the context in which the shootings took place had to be examined and the role of the IRA in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday had to be included in that.
Mr Donaldson warned against what he called a “one-sided approach” to the shootings and specifically to the calls for prosecutions of soldiers while IRA members went unmentioned.
“We must try to build a better future and ensure that what happened in 1972 when over 500 people lost their lives doesn’t happen again.” The Ulster Unionists have also criticised the Sinn Féin response to the Saville report.
Fermanagh Assembly member Tom Elliott said the inquiry concluded that neither the Westminster nor Stormont governments intended lethal force to be used, claiming this “has overturned the republican mythology about that tragic day”.
“Martin McGuinness, however, has now said that he cannot accept this finding,” Mr Elliott said. “This follows his statement that Saville was wrong in its finding that he was armed with a sub-machine gun on the day. Republicans cannot have it both ways. They either accept Saville or they do not.”
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister, also criticised Mr McGuinness. He said the Deputy First Minister should stand down and be investigated for possession of a sub-machine gun on Bloody Sunday and for perjury during the Saville hearings.
Unionist and Protestant reaction to publication of the Saville report covered a wide spectrum, the new moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland said yesterday.
“I certainly do not sense overall hostility or even disquiet, but certainly there is huge pain all over the place,” the Rev Norman Hamilton said.
Unionist political reaction was not “off-message” he said, and some comments no doubt reflected the mood in some unionist quarters.
“Whether it reflects an overall message is another question. I think we need to get past the adrenaline, the euphoria and the press coverage and let it unpack itself. It would be interesting to come here [to Derry] in a month and ask folks in the light of quietness, what they have made of today. Therein lies the long-term lesson.” The moderator said that Derry has set an example for greater cross-community action for the rest of Northern Ireland.
The Rev Norman Hamilton warned however that “the mechanism for doing it has to be different in a little village in Tyrone or in two streets in north Belfast”.
He said: “This context [in Derry] has made this possible, this cannot be replicated.” He said the events this week in Derry “have given me hope”.
“Personally I am hugely encouraged by the depth, the scale and the warmth of what has happened here today. People are the same flesh and bone on the Crumlin Road in Belfast as they are in Derry so I am fired up with hope.”