Today the British Prime minister, David Cameron, admitted that the British Army shot and killed civilians, without provocation. He then apologized for it. No mush mouth. No weasel words.
Cameron's announcement accompanied the release of the Saville Report, the culmination of a 12 year investigation into the Bloody Sunday killings in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on January 30, 1972. It is unthinkable that Barack Obama would speak, or act, as boldly as the British Conservative PM did today.
The announcement was cheered by thousands in Guildhall Square, Londonderry. The crowd included survivors and relatives of the shootings. My wife attended the hearings in Guildhall, in 2002, and I've stood in the square and later on Derry's walls, looking down into Bogside, imagining those events, three decades ago.
We never got closure for Kent State. We never got impeachment for Iran/Contra or for torture or for illegal wire tapping. We won't get any justice for the pollution of the Gulf Coast either. However, for one day, we can see and hear victims vindicated, even if it's in another land.
