​‘Utter contempt’ has been shown to Kingsmill families says victims campaigner

Families bereaved by the IRA’s sectarian massacre of ten protestant workmen at Kingsmill – and the only survivor Alan Black – “have been treated with utter contempt” ​according to the director of victims’ group SEFF.
By The Newsroom
Published 15th Apr 2024, 00:10 BST
Updated 15th Apr 2024, 07:12 BST
Kingsmill Massacre survivor Alan Black speaks to the media outside Laganside Courts, Belfast, following the conclusion of the inquest for the victims of the Kingsmill massacre, in which 10 Protestant textile workers were shot dead when their minibus was ambushed outside the village of Kingsmill on their way home from work on January 5 1976. Photo: Oliver McVeigh/PA WireKingsmill Massacre survivor Alan Black speaks to the media outside Laganside Courts, Belfast, following the conclusion of the inquest for the victims of the Kingsmill massacre, in which 10 Protestant textile workers were shot dead when their minibus was ambushed outside the village of Kingsmill on their way home from work on January 5 1976. Photo: Oliver McVeigh/PA Wire
Kingsmill Massacre survivor Alan Black speaks to the media outside Laganside Courts, Belfast, following the conclusion of the inquest for the victims of the Kingsmill massacre, in which 10 Protestant textile workers were shot dead when their minibus was ambushed outside the village of Kingsmill on their way home from work on January 5 1976. Photo: Oliver McVeigh/PA Wire

​Kenny Donaldson was reacting to the findings of an inquest last week which concluded that the 1976 attack was an overtly sectarian attack mounted by the IRA.

He said: “The headlines are no different now than they were at the point of the HET Inquiry report many years ago, except that some of the more malicious diversionary narratives around Kingsmill have been kicked into touch.

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“Those directly impacted know it was the Provisional IRA who mercilessly carried out the attack; a premeditated and long planned attack, motivated by sectarian and ethnic hatred and designed to provoke a response which would've signalled the potential for a downward spiral towards all out civil war.

“What they want and deserve to know is the identities of individuals involved, particularly those now deceased. And they expected to receive Open Justice, for 10 years they have been psychologically tortured whilst others connived to draw the process out and to have so-called disclosure sessions in private, free from any meaningful level of accountability.

Mr Donaldson also said the Irish State truly “needs to catch a grip of itself and stop its' arrogant approach”.

He said “this was the litmus test of their bona fides on these issues and they have come up woefully short, the Omagh Statutory Inquiry will soon be upon us and there cannot be more of the same - that would be intolerable. We have argued for many years that a Coronial Inquest would never have the scope to unearth the full truth of Kingsmill, and so it has been proven. The families have dwindled in number over the last decade, with several first generation victims passing on, never having a sense of inner peace that justice and accountability was served”.

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Mr Donaldson said: “This Society needs cleaned out; the good, the bad and the ugly needs to be unraveled, Society reset and perhaps on a solid foundation of truth there is potential for this beautiful land and its people to flourish”.