Indeed they were.
But the legal conceit that their deaths were caused or contributed to by an inadequate warning gets me thoroughly wound up... the cause of their deaths was that someone felt that planting bombs was a valid political protest; that the bomb planters, or the organisation behind them, may have felt that supplying a warning would prevent death or injury is iniquitous and ingenuous at best.
This coroner's comment effectively legitimises that behaviour. It was OK that you placed the explosive; the fault was that your warning was insufficient.
I don't hold any brief for terrorism in any flavour. I have argued strongly in the past that there should be no such class of person as 'terrorist' and that they should be charged with the crimes they commit: murder, conspiracy thereto, discharge of firearms, assault with a deadly weapon and all the rest. Legitimising a class of criminal helps, I feel, no-one... except the criminals themselves.
I don't disagree with anything you have written there. I do have a question however; do you consider state sanctioned terrorism the same? Personally I do and don't consider for one minute that the UK behaved any better, their actions just never made the headlines in the same way. There is a lot of murky history to the troubles, UK "state security apparatus" and the ruling classes have a lot to answer for too.
Yes Clanger.
Much like the French have directly sanctioned mass military actions leading to many many deaths (hundreds) in Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Mali and a lot of other part of its old empire over there "troubles". That's before you start looking into the military attack on the Greenpeace ship "Rainbow Warrior" (2 I believe). And countless other shootings in more recent anti-Jihadi raids inside and outside of France. And bombing and raids in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq...etc etc. That did not work out too well for the western world....
Your point isn't lost on me. BUT...
I suspect - at a time when people around the world are monitored, listened too, and shadowed on line and off, with cameras in the streets and roads, and national intelligence gathering agencies knowing who you are and how you dress - you won't find any Country that does not sponsor a very large, targeted, relentless military action- by its ruling classes against any group it wants done away with. People tend to agree with this - as they NEVER vote to bring down governments that do it at election time. It's unconvenient to say that - but that's how it is. People turn a blind eye to what's done in the name of their country.
France, like the UK - used to rule a large part of the globe. And it's history of strong military response to uprisings/terrorism/people they say are a threat to them is just as big as the UK Maybe there are even more events we the public are not even aware of yet...
It's hard to tell who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" when they are both shooting people.
MM