APPENDIX 26
Memorandum submitted by Mr Clem McCartney
A COMMISSION OF
RECORD
The last week has particularly focused our minds
on the past—specifically on events and incidents during
the last 30 years. It is not surprising that questions are regularly
arising about what happened in the last 30 years of Northern Ireland.
it is a natural human need, perhaps even an inevitable need, that
in trying to move forward we have to deal with the past. The past
has an impact on our present as we try to create our future
This is not easy and statements made about the
past in the last few days have provoked strong but very contradictory
responses and emotions. Martin McGuinness made a statement to
the Saville enquiry acknowledging that in 1972 he was second in
command of the Irish Republican Army in Derry. The European Court
of Human Rights pronounced that the British Government had acted
wrongly in the way it had dealt with the deaths of a number of
republicans who had been killed by the security forces, including
those killed in the attack on Loughgall police station in May
1987, and therefore had violated their rights and should pay compensation
to their families. Only a little while earlier new revelations
about Irish Government involvement in providing arms to the north
in 1969 opened up that issue again.
There have been both public and private responses.
Those who have republican sympathises feel vindicated by the ruling
of the Court of Human Rights and applaud McGuinness's willingness
to speak out Those who suffered at the hands or republicans and
those hostile to republicans are angry and more detatched observers
are baffled that the state will have to pay compensation for those
who were going out to attack the state. These conflicting reactions
and emotions are not being processed by society in any systematic
way. It has been suggested that Unionists are unwilling to use
the courts in the way that Nationalist have, or to call for committees
of inquiry. Individuals can write to the newspapers or ring up
Talkback and try to give most prominence to their interpretation
of the incidents. Unionist Assembly members have brought a motion
for a debate in the Assembly on Martin McGuinness's statement.
Each community tries to impose its feelings and interpretations
on events. Even if it is clear what interpretation each community
wants to put on the past it is not clear what would satisfy each
community and what they a want and need in order to be at ease
with a past which is far from pleasant or easy.
But in the midst of the discussion and argument,
more significantly the events of the last week and reactions to
them have both shifted the debate about how we deal with the past
and demonstrated what might be helpful. When we began to talk
about the past, we focused on atrocities which have been committed
and assumed that the appropriate starting point is the needs of
the survivors of those atrocities. It was acknowledged that the
survivors need to be helped to go through a grieving process and
various ways to help that process have been discussed. Considerable
attention has been paid to the idea of a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission on the example of South Africa. While such a step might
be what the victims deserve as a moral right, there is no consensus
that it would meet their needs or be effective in terms of the
healing of the wider community. One view is that it would be impossible
to reach any agreed understanding. In other countries where a
Truth Commission has the established the main allegation has been
the oppression of the people state while in the Northern Ireland
situation, parties have had conflicting allegiances and the majority
of the population have accepted the role of the state. It might
also not fit with the local culture where we are expected to "thole"
our loss and public displays of grief are not encouraged. From
this angle the emphasis on providing victims with a special space
might make it even harder to cope with the loss.
We need to bear in mind that the survivors of
atrocities and society as a whole are seldom satisfied when justice
is done or when compensation is paid. In a recent review of experience
of dealing with the past, Roberta Bacic who worked with the Chilean
Truth and Reconciliation Corporation in Chile and writes about
confronting the past, has pointed out that the big question which
people need to have answered is "Why?" How can we understand
why things happened the way they did? How can we understand why
people did the things they did? How can we explain why something
terrible happened to me or someone close to me? When we understand
then we can start to think what is the appropriate way to move
forward and what help is needed in that process.
Those who have suffered want to know why it
happened to them and their loved ones. Were they deliberately
picked out for torture or death? What justification was there
for what happened to them? They need to be reassured that they
were not in some way to blame for what happened. Why did the perpetrator
act in this way and is there any explanation for it?
For those who have taken an active role in the
conflict or inflicted harm on others the question is still "Why"
but it takes a different form. Some find it difficult to understand
why they did some of the actions they did. They may worry that
in some situations they went beyond their own boundaries of acceptable
behaviour and they need to know why that was. Others are confident
that they can justify their actions but they want the rest of
the community and the wider world to know why they acted as they
did. This question faces both members of paramilitary groups,
the security forces and the politically active, though they may
try to push the question aside.
Society as a whole also needs to reach some
understanding of how their community became embroiled in hostility
and conflict in order to begin the process of rebuilding a society
where all sections can feel at home. Was it a war? How could ordinary
decent people tolerate and even encourage actions which were outside
the normal limits of socially acceptable behaviour. Society as
a whole does not at present have an agreed understanding of what
people did, never mind the deeper question of the motivation for
what was done, and how it was justified. If such an understanding
could be establishing we might then be able to reach some consensus
on what, in the circumstances of the time, was justifiable behaviour
What we have seen happening over the last few
years are sections of society trying to deal with the "why"
question in various ways but which other sections of the community
do not understand or accept. When we erect memorials to those
killed in the conflict we are making statements and contributions
to the debate about the past, whether it is Castlereagh Borough
Council erecting a memorial window to those killed at Le Mon or
a memorial to the Ulster Special Constabulary or the IRSP erecting
a monument in Derry City Cemetery to INLA members. They believe
that these people should be honoured and they not only do so but
try to make a statement to the wider public. Those who go to the
European Court of Human Rights are hoping for a ruling which will
justify their view of history and if the court finds in their
favour they will assert that their view has been vindicated. The
other side of the community watch what happens and are hurt and
angry if the court appears to challenge their view of history
and to them the petitioners to the court appear to be using special
pleading. So the present argumentative approach to establishing
history is not really helping to find a shared view, whether or
not such an understanding is possible.. Each section of the community
is hoping that its view will dominate and those who do not agree
will concede. They may concede publicly but the hurt and confusion
will not go away and it may fester for many years to come. So
it is worth trying to find a shared approach to confronting the
past which all sections of the community can identify with.
When Martin McGuinness made his statement last
week he neither apologised or justified. He described. At a future
point he will be questioned by the Saville Enquiry and it may
be possible to know more about why he took the action he took
and even why he was in the IRA. Some people reacted very negatively
to the information that he was a senior member of the IRA but
no one who says he should have stayed silent. It is better that
the information is now in the public domain.
It has demonstrated that explanation on its
own is the first step in jointly confronting the past. But how
can this be done. McGuinness's statement is only one piece of
the total picture. There is much more that needs to be explained
and the best way forward might be to shift away from the idea
that the starting point is the suffering of victims. Morally right
though that may be, it may be mole effective and more widely acceptable
to initiate a process for determining an authoritative view of
what has happened, focusing on the actions or inactions, and the
underlying motivations. All sections of the community should contribute:
political parties in Britain and Ireland, paramilitary organisations,
the security forces, the media, churches, trade unions and other
organs of civil society. It would be important to include the
whole spectrum of society. In relation to each group one would
want to explore as far as possible the following themes:
— an account of what each group involved
in the conflict has done;
— why it acted in the way it did, both
at a strategic and specific level;
— what was its motivation and the motivation
of its members;
— what was the impact on sections of
the community and society as a whole;
— what if any of its strategies and
actions it would now consider as beyond the bounds of acceptable
behaviour.
The primary focus is therefore not on individual
incidents but of course individual incidents would demand attention
and provide an important illumination of the overall approach
of that group. This investigation would very naturally lead to
many of the concerns of the survivors of specific incidents particularly
when consideration is given to the impact of actions and policies.
The concept might be described as a Commission
of record, which would interview representatives of all the relevant
groups and analyse their perceptions with them. It would produce
a substantial report of the process and findings and of course
the detailed records of its deliberations would remain available
for research and study. But there are of course many questions
about how such a process could be implemented What kind of body
would be able to undertake this process? It is easy to assume
the Commission would need to be a statutory body to have the necessary
authority and in particular the power to sub poene witnesses.
However if the process is devised in co-operation with all the
relevant parties and they are willing to trust the process and
make a commitment to full disclosure it might ensure a more co-operative
approach. Who would be acceptable members of such a Commission?
Would hearings be in public? The issue of immunity will also need
to be discussed. It may be difficult to obtain good disclosure
if there is no immunity for groups and their members. Would it
be possible to achieve an agreed record? The Tower Museum is one
example where the politicians on Derry City Council were able
to agree a portrayal of the history of the city including its
recent past, though there were of course some areas of concern.
That process made a major contribution to relationships in the
city. An agreed statement of the perspective of each party and
its analysis of the course of events would be possible. It is
easier to imagine such agreement when we accept that most people
across the community have acted in ways which seemed right and
honourable to them, although there have of course been wicked
acts which are hard for anyone to explain. It can be conceded
that it would be difficult to reach agreed conclusions which provide
a consensus of what was justifiable and what was not justifiable.
This is why it is not proposed that this stage of the process
of reconciliation should attempt to determine justice or assume
that it could achieve reconciliation directly. Those would be
later next steps—the search for a social consensus within
society, which we have seen is already being contested in an ad
hoc and competitive way.
It is not proposed to provide a blueprint for
how the tribunal could be established because it would function
best if it was established through negotiation with all the relevant
actors and had their support. One way to take the process forward
would be to establish a group to carry out a feasibility study,
consult widely and develop a proposal which could then be implemented.
This group should be small but have access to the political parties
and other relevant groups. It would not need statutory authority
but could be established as an independent body in order to develop
the process. The events of the last few days indicate that the
time is ripe for such a step.
7 May 2001
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