Much Buzz Over McGuinness Bloody Sunday Statement Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Much Buzz Over McGuinness Bloody Sunday Statement Monday April 30 11:56 AM ET (via Yahoo) Northern Ireland Minister [Believed to Acknowledge] IRA Role By Martin Cowley BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - A Northern Ireland government minister gave written testimony to an official inquiry Monday in which he is believed to have revealed his shadowy guerrilla past as a senior figure in the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Education Minister Martin McGuinness, speaking after submitting his version of what happened on "Bloody Sunday" in 1972 when British troops shot dead 13 Roman Catholic protesters, said British forces had "got away with murder" that day. His lawyers sent McGuinness's draft preliminary statement to the inquiry in Derry [called "Londonderry by the colonial English occupation--ny transfer] 24 hours after an authoritative source said he was set to admit publicly that he had been IRA second-in-command in the city that day. "We have received a draft statement from Martin McGuinness's solicitors," said a spokeswoman for the inquiry which was in its 105 day of oral hearings trying to unravel the truth of what led to the bloodshed on that fateful day 29 years ago. The "Bloody Sunday" shootings in Derry, Northern Ireland's second city, became one of the most hotly-disputed episodes of the province's violent history, fuelling long-simmering Irish nationalist distrust of Britain. McGuinness was set to say publicly for the first time to the inquiry that he had been the city's IRA adjutant. Prior to the Roman Catholic protest march which led to British paratroopers opening fire, he had ordered IRA activists not to shoot so as to ensure the march passed off peacefully, an authoritative source told Reuters Sunday. He would also dismiss as "rubbish and a lie" an allegation that he had fired the first shot. British paratroopers maintain they hit the civilians when they were returning fire. Relatives of the dead and other civilians say the soldiers' actions were unprovoked and that the British soldiers were the aggressors. Protestant Anger McGuinness -- one of two ministers from Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, in a ruling provincial coalition of Protestant and Roman Catholic parties -- refused to discuss the statement. Sources at the inquiry said its lawyers would study the draft statement and then make arrangements to discuss it with the minister before he makes a formal statement on which he is likely to be called to testify. Protestant Unionist politicians, who have for long tagged McGuinness as an IRA boss, said he should be questioned about IRA killings of police before and after Bloody Sunday. McGuinness stayed defiant. "As far as I am concerned the British army got away with murder on Bloody Sunday and they are presently trying to get away with murder at the tribunal," he told BBC radio. "The people of Derry are engaged in a battle here with the British establishment, with the British Ministry of Defense...I intend to stand with the people of Derry and give my testimony to the tribunal." The IRA is observing a cease-fire in a 30-year war that was aimed at ending Britain's rule of the province. The coalition government, which is one of the main fruits of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord, is limping along under protracted difficulties. "Bloody Sunday" has for long dogged the political scene. Irish nationalists say British troops got off without censure for killing innocent civilians while the British troops maintain that IRA gunmen were active on that fateful day. Britain launched the inquiry after the relatives rejected an earlier investigation in 1972 which cleared the troops. Security analysts say McGuinness must have got clearance from the highly-secretive IRA to make the ground-breaking statement. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-05.01.01-00:57:27-6297