DERRY, Northern Ireland — The moment when the people of this city learned that their 38-year campaign to establish the innocence of the victims of Bloody Sunday came at 3.26 p.m. today, four minutes before it was officially announced. That was when a thumbs-up appeared from an aperture in a stained-glass window high in Derry's Guildhall where relatives of the 14 dead had been given an advance view of Lord Saville's 5,000-word report.
The response was a huge cheer from a crowd of 6,000 gathered in hot sunshine in Guildhall Square. A wave of emotion swept through the square and the packed nearby streets as more thumbs and waving hands appeared. The cheering continued until the British Prime Minister David Cameron appeared on a giant television screen at a half-past-three.
There was silence as Cameron announced to the House of Commons that the killings of civil rights demonstrators by members of Britain's elite First Parachute Regiment on Jan. 30, 1972, were "unjustified and unjustifiable."
This produced another prolonged cheer. Many people stood applauding with tears in their eyes. Justice had been done at last for the relatives of those whom the British Army had shot and then callously called bombers and gunmen. All of the 14 victims were exonerated from any blame.
Bookmarks