Bloody Sunday was not the most murderous event in the quarter century of violence in the North from 1969; but 25 years later it is still the most deeply shocking and troubling in a catalogue of terrible killings. As at Amritsar in India in 1919, highly trained soldiers fired deliberately into a crowd of civilians, and again like Amritsar there were far ranging political repercussions. If any of the thousands of demonstrators in Derry carried guns, there was no report of them being used, and allegations circulated officially at the time that some of those killed were known members of the IRA or had used weapons be fore they died, did not take long to be discredited.
Unprovoked, brutal, in many respects a criminal display of military ruthlessness (in the cold slaughter, for example, of men who were already badly wounded or were attempting to help the victims), the killings in Derry probably did more to inflame support for the IRA than any other single incident during the years of violence. It was a watershed at a time when passions; were already aroused, and the sense of helpless anger; was compounded by the bland deceptiveness of the inquiry carried out by Lord Widgery. There was no attempt to heal the wounds and mend the political fences by admitting to an outrage and explaining how it came about; instead, the report itself was an outrage on common sense and a travesty of justice.
One of the key elements in the Widgery Report - the credence given to suggestions that some victims of the shootings had been handling weapons or explosives - was officially disowned by the British prime minister, Mr Major, in his letter to Mr John Hume four years ago. Yet the whole tenor of the report was driven by the assumption that British troops acted justifiably, sometimes with a "high degree of responsibility", though the behaviour of some, he admitted, "bordered on the reckless". In spite of this finding, no soldier was ever prosecuted for any of the killings that day.
As a record of Bloody Sunday, the Widgery Report is deeply flawed, partly as a result of Lord Widgery's omission of some eye witness evidence from his conclusions, and partly, as recent evidence shows, because of the total absence of salient information, such as the fact that troops stationed on the walls shot some of those who died. Leaving aside these evidential lapses, Lord Widgery's own partiality for the accounts of military witnesses was not always concealed, nor was the professional scepticism with which he examined the evidence given by and about the people of Derry. It was a bad report from every point of view, apart from the pragmatic one for the British authorities of distorting the picture and muddying the issues.
In the 25 years since Bloody Sunday, no part of the North has made greater efforts to change the traditional pattern of politics than Derry, and Mr John Hume's role in that process has been widely recognised. But the memory of the killings is still an active force, in which advocates of renewed violence continue to seek justification. That alone is reason enough for a review of the Widgery findings by the British government; common justice to those who survived, and the relatives of those who were shot, is an equally cogent reason. The recent new evidence which has come to light may help to clarify the course of events and the chain of command. Bloody Sunday was not an isolated atrocity, but it is a good place to start in the search for reconciliation.