Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill: A Bill to address the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles and promote reconciliation by establishing an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, limiting criminal investigations, legal proceedings, inquests and police complaints, extending the prisoner release scheme in the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, and providing for experiences to be recorded and preserved and for events to be studied and memorialised.
This is all well and good, but where do the victims come into all of this? Truth and reconciliation have never really taken off in NEI, not really. For real, genuine truth and reconciliation to take place, all sides must commit to the divulging of facts, truths and historical accuracy. Hearsay, myths and legend are no good if we are to move through our past and strive for a better future for all. For instance, 50 years, half a century has passed and still families of those murdered in Ballymurphy are waiting, not for justice but simply for the truth behind the killings of innocent civilians by the Parachute Regiment. Experience, especially from the Catholic and nationalist perspective has shown that when it comes to the crown and state forces operating in NEI, the truth doesn’t come easily and justice is even harder to come by.
The dictionary defines ‘Reconciliation’ as – The process of making two people or groups of people friendly again after they have argued seriously or fought and kept apart from each other, or a situation in which this happens. It defines ‘Truth’ as – The quality or state of being true. Somehow, after 25 years of peace, we’re still at a point where masked Loyalists openly walk our streets in broad daylight under the watchful gaze of the PSNI. Republican gunmen are still able to carry out an attempted murder of a senior PSNI detective and Republican colour parties are still marching in masks and aviator shades. Does that sound like truth or reconciliation to you? It certainly doesn’t to many who lived through the Troubles, and it can’t be defined as culture because Irish culture does not dictate that our colours should be carried by masked men under the Tricolour. These people aren’t defending our communities from anyone but rather are imposing their own legacy issues on us while many are, to an extent, dealing with them in a more peaceful way for all.
There’s a very secretive elephant in the room when it comes to truth and reconciliation. That massive shadow in the corner, the one holding the gun is the British state forces both overt and covert that operated with impunity in the North throughout the Troubles. Formations such as the Force Research Unit or FRU seemingly operated in NEI without oversight. The FRU was a covert military intelligence unit of the British Army’s Intelligence Corps. It was established in 1982 during the Troubles to obtain intelligence from ‘terrorist’ organisations in the North by recruiting and running agents and informants.
While its mission was to obtain humint (human intelligence) from informers, it also ran literal death squads from Palace Barracks in Holywood, Co. Down which roamed the North and even into the South of Ireland shooting innocent people. It was known to have shot and killed innocent Catholics for the sole purpose of starting tit-for-tat killings between the IRA and Loyalist terrorists in the hope of starting an all-out civil war. When do we get the truth about the British army’s role in the Troubles, both covert and overt? When will they reconcile their role with what they were telling us about the bad old IRA? Surely when looked at subjectively they were as bad if not worse than any paramilitary or guerilla organisation operating at the time, both of which are regularly referred to as ‘terrorist groups’. When one looks closely at the shadow in the corner, a Union flag can be faintly seen. You see, the Troubles weren’t simply between Catholic and Protestant, Republican and Loyalist; hiding in plain sight and sometimes deep in the shadows was the British state, instigating, targeting and manipulating both sides but the Loyalist side more than any other.
When does the British state begin to tell the truth to us about its role in the North? Clearly it doesn’t think it should explain its operations in the North with its Northern Ireland Legacy Bill being nothing but an amnesty for British soldiers who slaughtered mostly innocent people here throughout the duration of the Troubles. So worried is the British Government about its heinous role here that it is willing to endanger human rights laws to push it through. Soldiers who shot dead innocent people in Ballymurphy, Derry, Tyrone and beyond could tell all (which they won’t) and still walk free, even if their actions amounted to murder.
Truth and Reconciliation haven’t really begun in NEI because they can’t. The British Government is blocking deadly, vicious truths which will lead all the way to the door of 10 Downing Street and Whitehall. Meanwhile, the same British Government want ex-IRA volunteers to divulge truths, they want ex-UVF and UDA men to divulge truths while the British security and intelligence parts of the jigsaw go unaccounted for. How can a full picture be drawn of the Troubles if a massive part of the puzzle is always missing because that shadow in the corner refuses to talk?
Until everyone agrees to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, truth and reconciliation will go nowhere. It’s up to us, we the people to push for the truth from all sectors of the conflict here, whether we support them or not. Sometimes the truth hurts but we free ourselves by getting the truth we deserve and open up a future free from looking over our shoulders at what is chasing us from the past.
Too many times we stand aside
And let the waters slip away
Till what we put off till tomorrow
Has now become today.
So don’t you sit upon the shoreline
And say you’re satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids
And dare to dance the tide.
– Garth Brooks. The River.
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