Today was another important milestone in the history of the Catholic community in the North as the region struggles to come to terms with the terrible legacy of the past.

The Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Noel Treanor, made public a number of documents relating to the ‘Ballymurphy Massacre’ when British soldiers shot dead 11 innocent Catholics in west Belfast in August 1971.

The same unit of British soldiers shot dead 13 unarmed civil rights marchers just six month’s later in Derry’s Bloody Sunday. After decades, the British government apologised for that crime against humanity last month.

The killings occurred at the height of a policy of internment-without-trial when British troops rounded up and imprisoned hundreds of Catholics. The soldiers involved claimed that they only opened fire when they were fired upon. Witnesses have always disputed this version of events.

The previously-unpublished documents that Bishop Treanor has now made available include eyewitness accounts of the events. Among other things they show:

* the British army fired on two first-aid men wearing white helmets and carrying a first-aid kit;

* they fired on and killed a number of people, including Fr Hugh Mullan, who were clearly carrying a white emblem, the international symbol of truce;

* they fired on and killed people who were clearly going to the assistance of women and children fleeing a hostile mob;

* the British army Units involved, whether through fear or vindictiveness unnecessarily fired a large number of rounds into the waste grounds across which innocent men, women and children were fleeing;

* there is a sufficient weight of evidence to indict the soldiers on the roof of the Springmartin flats;

Bishop Treanor has now backed the families’ campaign for an independent inquiry and apology from the British government.

However, as Bishop Treanor pointed out: “It does not always require a Saville-style Inquiry to provide sufficient grounds for an apology for actions that were manifestly wrong or to uphold the innocence of those who were manifestly innocent or entitled to the presumption of innocence.

“In the case of the Ballymurphy killings, sufficient eye witness and other evidence is available to render an efficient mechanism of investigation and assessment realistic and achievable, one which could quickly justify the inclusion of those killed and injured in the spirit and scope of the apology issued by the British Government following the publication of the Saville Inquiry,” he said.

An inquiry must take place and an apology be issued without delay. Justice deserves nothing less.

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