One of the key military figures in the Bloody Sunday killings in Derry in 1972 has died.
General Sir Robert Cyril Ford was the British Army’s Commander Land Forces, Northern Ireland in 1972.
He was in charge of the military operations during a civil rights march in Derry on January 30, 1972.
General Ford gave the order for members of the Parachute Regiment to enter the Bogside area to arrest people.
During the subsequent shootings, 13 people were killed, with a 14th victim dying a few months later from his injuries.
General Ford was criticised in the Saville Report into the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry for deploying soldiers to arrest rioters.
"In our view his decision to use 1 Para as the arrest force is open to criticism but he did not know his decision would result in soldiers firing unjustifiably,” the report stated.
General Ford died last week at the age of 91.
In an opinion piece in tomorrow’s Derry News, journalist and campaigner Eamonn McCann, a former member of the Bloody Sunday Trust, claims that General Ford (pictured above) would be best remembered for shouting the order ‘Go on the paras!’ as soldiers entered the Bogside on Bloody Sunday.
“More than any other single person, Ford was responsible for bringing the Bloody Sunday massacre about,” McCann writes.
“Even more significant, perhaps, was his role in relation to the June 2010 report of the Bloody Sunday tribunal.
“In one of the least plausible of his findings, Lord Saville found that Ford had played no part in organising the killing of 14 unarmed civil rights demonstrators and the wounding of 14 others.
“The finding flew in the face of the evidence.”
Read Eamonn McCann’s article in tomorrow’s Derry News.
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