The BBC headline may focus on a different aspect of the statement from Sinn Fein’s Mitchel McLaughlin, but it’s clear from the quotes that Sinn Féin rejects the findings of the Historical Enquiries Team’s (HET) report on the Kingsmill massacre. Specifically, the party rejects the HET finding that the Provisional IRA carried out the “purely sectarian” and “calculated slaughter” of 10 Protestants in south Armagh in 1976.
From the BBC report
The Historical Enquiries Team (HET) found the IRA was responsible and the victims were targeted because of their religion.
At the time of the massacre the IRA were on ceasefire and the South Armagh Republican Action Force claimed responsibility for the deaths.
Mr McMcLaughlin said he was prepared to accept the findings of an international reputable body that carried out an impartial truth process for everyone that had been involved in the conflict.
“I am prepared to accept the evidence if I have access to that independent process, I am prepared, even though I believe and have believed up to this point the denials by the IRA that they were involved in it,” he said.
“If someone has proof that the denial does not stand up to examination then I would be obliged to consider it as a republican and I would, because I do not believe republican principals [sic] permit people to be involved in sectarian activity,” he added.
And the Provisional IRA murder of 23-year-old schoolteacher Mary Travers and the attempted murder of her Catholic Resident Magistrate father, Tom Travers, was less inherently sectarian than the murder of PSNI Constable Ronan Kerr…
“I can’t see anything”, indeed.
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