Former Northern Ireland Negotiator Says There Are Still Lessons To Learn From Bloody Sunday

Jonathan Powell, an instrumental figure in the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, has said the UK government must learn from Bloody Sunday and involve victims in truth and reconciliation processes in Northern Ireland.

Powell was Downing Street Chief of Staff for ten years under former prime minister Tony Blair and was chief British negotiator on Northern Ireland. He was a key figure in the Northern Ireland peace talks that led to the 1997 Good Friday Agreement, ending decades of violent sectarian conflict. He now runs a charity called Inter Mediate which works on peace negotiations in armed conflicts around the world.

Tuesday will mark the 52nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when 13 people were shot dead by British soldiers who opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on 30 January 1972.

There are still many unanswered questions surrounding other crimes carried out during the Troubles: an issue which many governments have struggled to contest with and remains a political challenge for the government today.

Describing Bloody Sunday as a “terrible mistake” by the British state, Powell told PoliticsHome that his experience in peace negotiations in Northern Ireland and other countries had shown him the importance of involving victims in truth and reconciliation exercises. 

The UK government passed the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act into law in September last year, offering controversial conditional amnesty to people accused of murder during the Troubles, in exchange for their cooperation with a new independent commission that will look into more than 1,000 unsolved killings from the period.

Before Christmas, the Irish government announced it would bring a legal