The families of 10 Protestant workers slaughtered by the IRA in South Armagh will meet First Minister Peter Robinson to demand a public inquiry into the atrocity.
They want the Kingsmill massacre murderers named, shamed and brought to justice. They also want inquests into their loved ones deaths re-opened in the hope of gaining more information about the killings.
The Provos have always denied involvement in the 1976 attack in which 10 workmen were taken from their minibus and shot dead in one of the worst sectarian acts during the conflict.
The murders were claimed by the 'South Armagh Republican Action Force'. But a recent Historical Enquiries Team (HET) report revealed the Provos had lied about their involvement for the past 35 years and the 12 gunmen were IRA members.
The IRA figure behind the massacre is widely believed to be a man who lives just across the border in Republic and is a major suspect in the Omagh bomb. The families have accused the Irish government of allowing the killers to live openly in the Republic.
The victims were riddled with 136 bullets. Colin Worton, whose brother Kenneth (24) was killed, said: "Kenneth left behind a wife and two wee daughters. These innocent men on their way home from work were lined up beside their van and shot from two feet.
"Some fell on top of each other. The gunmen then went round the dying men and shot them again in the head as they lay on the ground.
"Kenneth had no face left, it was blown away in the gunfire. You wouldn't do that to a dog. In war, both sides are meant to be evenly matched. But these men had nothing to fight with except their lunch boxes and flasks."
Worton slammed the police and government for "doing nothing" to catch the killers. "There are two ongoing inquiries into phone tapping in Britain – it was an awful invasion of privacy but nobody died. Yet we can't get an inquiry into mass murder in Northern Ireland."
June's HET report damned the police investigation as incompetent. "Steps must be taken to secure justice," Worton said. "We'll be telling Peter Robinson that we wont just go away and forget about it."
Kingsmill was in retaliation for the murder of six Catholics 24 hours earlier. None of the victims were security force members, let alone loyalist paramilitaries. Although a frail 88-year-old pensioner, Jane Lemmon vowed to travel to Stormont to meet Robinson in her quest for justice.
Her husband Joe (49) was one of the victims. "He went out to work and never came home," she recalled. "It was a terrible time. Our daughter Shirley was getting married. For days, the white envelopes came through the letterbox. Some were accepting wedding invitations, others were sympathy cards."
Lemmon said she'd tell the First Minister how much she still missed her husband: "There's an emptiness in my heart that's never been filled. I want Joe's killers jailed. I lost a good man and my two girls lost a great father."
The HET report linked the weapons used in Kingsmill to around 100 other IRA shootings.
Cecil Chambers' youngest brother Robert (19) died at Kingsmill: "The HET report told us nothing we didn't know. What we need now is action, not words, from our politicians. In Northern Ireland, we're treated like peasants. Had Kingsmill happened in England, justice would have been secured years ago."
Chambers said the atrocity destroyed his family: "It effectively killed my parents. For years, my mother kept laying Robert's place at the table and cooking his dinner. My father never left the graveyard."
