It should have been a day that confirmed what every enlightened person knew about the British occupation of the north of Ireland, an occupation that had its origins in the brutal and undemocratic partitioning of Ireland in 1922.

Yet the Australian media rarely found the courage to say what we all knew; 'Northern Ireland' was founded on discrimination and state terror, terror that was no better than any other form of terror. Yes, there was much hand wringing after 14 innocent civil rights marchers - seven of them teenagers - were shot dead in Derry's Bogside in 1972 and many others wounded, but rarely if ever did the media in Australia question British occupation or strip away the myth that portrayed the violence in the North as nothing more than sectarian.

Will the Saville Report - 13 years in the making - put an end to the lies? Does an apology by the British Prime Minister make any difference? Maybe the report and the apology will offer some comfort to those who lost loved ones and those whose friends were among the dead and traumatised. 

However, as The Age reported on Tuesday 15 June, 'nearly all the parents of children who were killed on Bloody Sunday have died.' So too have many republicans - such as hunger striker  Bobby Sands - who were driven to take up arms by the events of Bloody Sunday. Does anyone really believe the paratroopers who slaughtered those innocent people weren't acting with the consent of higher authorities? That question, unfortunately, won't be found in any official report!