If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.
- George Bernard Shaw

In my novel The Bleeding Hills I raise the view that conservative powers, including those of the British security establishment, are, in a passive aggressive way, not interested in upholding the Good Friday agreement, and, in all consequence, refuse to support lasting peace in Northern Ireland.

In my book I also refer to Tony Blair as “the first prime minister with a brain.” In fact, Tony Blair, despite his failure of handling the Iraq question, was the first prime minister who successfully established peace in Northern Ireland, which included the disarmament of paramilitary organizations of both sides, Protestant and Catholic.

The events of Bloody Sunday, almost 40 years ago, were particularly damaging to Britain’s reputation as was the Widgery report which is widely – even in Great Britian – considered a white-wash. I am counting that the Saville report, which will be released today, will provide an objective finding of what really happened during the events of Bloody Sunday. After all those years it is not a matter of pointing to the guilty; this is a matter of admitting a wrong-doing that shouldn’t have happened and never should happen again. In order to make a better future we need to learn from the past – See above quote by George Bernard Shaw.

My view that conservative powers and the British security establishment are not interested in finding the truth are, with the upcoming Saville report, being confirmed on a daily basis – See the Guardian’s article below and read my post Bloody Sunday – Saville Report Will Be Published.

Bertie Ahern says security chiefs pressed Tony Blair not to call inquiry

Guardian.co.uk – Monday 14 June 2010

Britain’s security establishment tried to dissuade Tony Blair from agreeing to the Bloody Sunday inquiry, the former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern said today. Ahern, who was taoiseach at the time the Saville inquiry was set up in early 1998, also said its creation had helped build nationalist confidence in the Northern Ireland peace process.

The inquiry’s long-awaited report into the killing of 14 civil rights marchers by British paratroopers in Derry in 1972 will be published at 3.30pm on Tuesday in Derry and London. The 5,000-page, 10-volume report took 12 years to compile, at a cost of almost £191m.

Ahern said its impact on the peace process had been critical. “It was immensely important because at that time we were trying to build confidence and help the people of Derry, who had been dealing with this for years,” Ahern said.

Martin McGuinness, the former IRA chief of staff who is now Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, today denied claims that he had told Blair an apology from London over Bloody Sunday would be enough. The Sinn Féin MP said the assertion by Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff in Downing Street, that McGuinness told Blair a multimillion-pound inquiry was not necessary was “erroneous.”

In his book Great Hatred, Little Room, Powell alleges McGuinness made the observations to Blair during secret talks. But McGuinness said: “The citizens of Derry, to a man and woman, want Saville to make it absolutely clear that the 27 people who were shot on that day – murdered and injured – were completely innocent people and that those people who inflicted those deaths and injuries were the guilty parties.” In evidence, McGuinness told the inquiry that on Bloody Sunday he was adjutant of the Derry IRA.

Read the full article…