Goal is an Ireland based on freedom, justice and equality

By Carál Ní Chuilín

There is a striking mural at the top of the New Lodge. It depicts six young men from the area who were murdered by British soldiers exactly 37 years ago.
Every morning as I set off for another day at the Assembly I see Jim Sloan, Jim Mc Cann, Brendan Maguire, Tony TC Campbell, John Loughran and Ambrose Hardy relaxed and smiling down as their families and friends remember them.

On the 30th Anniversary of the killings, the families of the six men and the wider community launched a report, based on the community inquiry.
The findings of this report highlighted what we already knew. What happened on the New Lodge Road on the 3rd and 4th of February 1973 was state murder. The British Government have yet to accept culpability for this atrocity. This was a carefully crafted political act to attack us as a people, our way of life and our very existence.

The link between state murders and the killings highlighted in the O’Loan Report on Collusion, is that political direction for the murders of so many of our people was endorsed at the very highest political level and thus we continue to support the families search for justice.

The British Army have gone from the top of the flats, they have gone from Girdwood barracks, and we want to build on the type of Ireland that we can live in, based on freedom, justice and equality.

We want to live in a community where the events of the 3rd and 4th of February 1973, can never, ever be repeated. We want to ensure that we cherish all children of the nation equally, not just some, but all. We want to build our political strength and get a United Ireland, which will protect all its citizens and be the guarantor of truth and justice.

And as I come home once again I'm faced with that same mural of six of this community’s young men cut down in the prime of life.
It's almost like being judged twice a day as an elected representative on how you have battled for equality, justice and the rights that so many gave their lives for.
That's a good thing. It places recent frustrations in perspective. It also reminds us of the importance of justice powers being secure in the hands of those that know the brutality of justice abused and denied for so long.