A Chara, - Your report, like most reports, on the British Army's Operation Banner gives the exact number of British soldiers killed but does not include the number of Irish citizens killed by British forces either directly or as a result of collusion. In both cases the vast majority (over 80 per cent) were unarmed civilians.
Similarly, the name of the first soldier killed in 1971 is given but there is not a mention of even one of the names of any of the five unarmed civilians killed by the British army before then. Is the life of an armed British soldier still more important than that of an unarmed Irish civilian?
Incidentally, the first British soldier killed in the Troubles was Hugh McCabe, a 20-year-old from Divis Flats in Belfast who was home on leave when he was shot dead by the RUC as they machine-gunned Divis Flats on August 15th, 1969 - one of the many killings by the RUC which led to Operation Banner. - Is mise,
Dr SEAN MARLOW, Willow Park Road, Dublin 11.