Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-139)
MS AVILA
KILMURRAY AND
DR DUNCAN
MORROW
9 FEBRUARY 2005
Q120 Chairman: What about the terminology?
What about "reconciliation" and "truth recovery"?
Presumably your definition of "victims" is the same
as Avila's?
Dr Morrow: Well, let me say that
after the quality impact assessment on the core funding scheme
we asked for guidance on what a victim was and we were told from
the Northern Ireland Office that it was anybody. There was no
definition provided, exactly as Avila said.
Q121 Chairman: Do you agree with Avila
that "reconciliation" and "truth recovery"
themselves are divisive and sectarian?
Dr Morrow: It is not as simple
as that. It cuts across in ambiguous ways. Some people want truth
for reconciliation. Some people want truth because they think
it will lead to a judicial process. Some people want no truth
because they think it will simply leave them more vulnerable because
they will not get it, etc. So it is divisive. There is no consensus
but it is not a simple sectarian division.
Chairman: Very good. Thank you.
Q122 Reverend Smyth: Can I just explore
a little when you speak about victims and there is no distinction
between victims, do victims then include ex-prisoners?
Dr Morrow: They can do, exactly
as the Memorial Fund has looked at these cases. The core groups
that we deal with take their own definitions and none of them
are directly led by ex-prisoners but there will be among them
people who have prison records.
Q123 Reverend Smyth: Yes, I understand
that aspect of it. I want to just be clear because I know that
there are some folk who are strictly victims and they feel rather
sore that there is more money being spent on ex-prisoners than
on victims. Would you agree or is that just a false perception?
Ms Kilmurray: At present in terms
certainly of the European funding that would be a false perception.
There is a specific measure for victims and, as Duncan says, some
people who have been ex-prisoners will have been shot or bereaved,
or whatever, so they could also be in a victims' group, but at
present I think the balance would be that there will be more money
between the core funding programme and peace for victims. It would
be fair to say that that perception probably will have come from
the sort of mid-Nineties. When I went out to look for victims'
groups when I was asked to administer funding in 1994-95 there
were then about three, the Serving Police Officers' Association,
WAVE (which was very small) and the Shanklin Stress Group, and
that was really about it. So it really took quite a lot of time
for the victims' groups to be established and then for the funding
programmes to come on stream.
Dr Morrow: We currently fund no
victims' groups which would be under the umbrella of a single
political identity. That is not to say that they do not attract
people in who are very closely identified with particular political
groups.
Q124 Reverend Smyth: When we were speaking
earlier about the terms, do you believe that continued use of
the word "reconciliation" is a helpful word in the context
because it does actually mean seeing things together and that
is asking a lot, is it not? It may be possible for some individuals,
and it has been, to be reconciled to the perpetrator but by and
large are we setting too high a goal when we use the term "reconciliation"?
Dr Morrow: I certainly think if
it is talking in terms of the victims' sector, as Avila said,
to start with victims and to put reconciliation there, to be honest
reconciliation for victims—if it comes at all, because I
have to say in real politics why should there be that for a lot
of these people who suffered enormously—must ultimately
come at the end of the process. Part of the problem with the whole
word "reconciliation" is that it can be understood at
all sorts of different levels. It can be understood as a political
deal, but it can also be understood, certainly in faith communities,
for example, as a profound personal experience and that is not
legislatable. So there is always a danger it becomes too big.
Ms Kilmurray: I actually think
it would be better to talk in terms of coming to terms with the
past rather than reconciliation. Hopefully that will lead, at
the end of a long path probably, to reconciliation. But one of
the things which concerns me, and it is not just victims although
victims are certainly core to it, is really that at the moment
I can see the next competing area of who writes the history of
the last 30, 35 years and I can even see that in projects coming
forward that is already a controversial issue and clearly is linked
in with the whole issue around truth and reconciliation, and indeed
justice.
Q125 Reverend Smyth: Avila, in 2003,
I think it was, you asked a number of your funded groups about
dealing with the past. Can you say briefly what the results were?
How this these compare with those of normal victims, for example?
Ms Kilmurray: Again, there was
a huge diversity. Some groups had very clear projects, some developed
off the shelf in terms of all history, of trying to capture their
community's experience of the past. Some groups had plans on the
shelf in terms of setting up museums, of various memorials. Others,
and I think particularly, I should say, probably on the loyalist
side were quite almost reluctant because they felt that they were
going to be stereotyped in terms of their role over the past thirty
years and were quite resistant to looking at the past. Having
said that, some of those groups have done some work over the last
18 months and are starting to have discussions with them, their
own sections. There still is an uncertainty about what this means
and I think there is a fear that the past will be used just to
justify positions rather than trying to share truths, albeit the
truths may well differ, and there is a concern around that.
Q126 Chairman: Yes. We had that last
week.
Dr Morrow: Can I say that I think
the issue of the legacy of the past is part, but the hard part
for victims which almost needs to be stated up front before any
process could be engaged in is how do we deal with the past as
we move to a shared future, which is slightly less than talking
about reconciliation but it is nevertheless the reality, which
is given that we have to live together and make this peace work
together, which I think is unavoidable, that does not make it
easy for victims and survivors' groups, but I think to pretend
that this process can be done before there is agreement that we
are going to be in a shared future leaves any process very open
to being used by any political actor on all sides to justify a
past rather than to work towards anything which might be stabilising.
Q127 Reverend Smyth: Well, if we have
to wait until then we may have to wait a long time, so can I put
it another way to you. What are the main ways which you folk who
are working on the ground think should be taken? What are the
main initiatives that will help the victims face the past and
go forward?
Dr Morrow: Well, I think first
of all, while we have been critical of the core funding, I think
the possibility of having places where victims can be together,
share, befriending as Avila said, it is almost the lowest level
stuff which is extremely important to hand over. So I would stand
over some of the core funding and small granting. I think that
core services of Health and Social Services, to a degree employment
and education, need to be made more aware of the specific needs
of victims. So there are things that the statutory services can
begin to do. I think we could encourage a discussion around the
past through culture actually. I think museums and memorialisation,
there are opportunities there which could look at complexity to
begin to tease out some of these issues of where we have seen
things differently. I think there are opportunities there.
Q128 Reverend Smyth: You say "begin
to tease it out". Are we not already trying to do that?
Dr Morrow: We are, and I think
we can continue with that. The Ulster Museum has done things.
I think museums in local communities could even begin to do this
right down at local community level. I think, as Avila said, we
could encourage institutions which have victims in their midst,
such as churches, trades unions, to begin to offer a different
language about the shared future. So if they would engage and
not necessarily make the victims responsible for everything, or
even those who were involved in actually doing the shooting, that
we could begin to talk about a climate in which we come to terms
with our past. They could be engaged. I think one of the possibilities
which needs to be explored at this stage is, in terms of justice
what justice is going to be possible in the future and I think
some discussion could be had about clarifying that. Is it simply
unrealistic to expect that these things are going to be prosecuted
into the future, or are we talking about some kind of process
where that is going to be done. Unless that is clear, victims
are left very unsure.
Ms Kilmurray: I would agree with
that, and I think what we need to start with, and I think we have
started very well today, is an acknowledgement by all parties,
not just Northern Ireland but also in terms of Britain and the
Republic of the involvement in the conflict and then to use that,
as Duncan says, to start with those, almost like a collective
reflection from various institutions about their contribution
in terms of the last 35 years. That goes from the trades unions
right across. That then almost creates a climate where those groups
which are perhaps much more sensitive in terms of bringing in
the whole justice issue, to try and then get them engaged, or
indeed the victims. In terms of the work with the victims themselves,
I think the other thing that we need to continue to do, and we
have started doing it over the last number of years, is to facilitate
them in terms of telling their story because one of the things
that I think we need to get out of any process is to humanise
the situation because I think it is only by humanising it, rather
than sort of lining up legions on either side with defensive stories,
that we can actually ever get any short of shared understanding
of what hopefully would lead towards the reconciliation that we
would like to see coming out of it.
Q129 Mr Luke: How successfully do you
think the official processes which have been in place, such as
public inquiries and the criminal justice system, have been in
dealing with the past?
Dr Morrow: I think there are two
levels of this. I think having announced them, they have to continue,
and that is the reality because once they are announced, coming
back I think would be extremely difficult. The second level is,
however, it is clear that the simple statement by a judge, "This
happened, this did not happen," does not clarify it for people.
I think the experience of the Bloody Sunday Tribunal already is
that these are expensive, they raise issues, they are not community
reconciliation processes. A judge may say this or that, but it
is left very much in the judicial realm. Part of the problem we
have here is that I think for the state, things involving the
Government where it is necessary to re-establish a trust in the
issue of law, I think there is an argument that can be made that
it is necessary to be clear about what happened in order to establish
a basis to work into the future, and that needs to be the reason
rather than believing that this is a restorative process because
I do not think it is restorative for people on the ground and
if we are talking about something which really begins to restore
people to a sense of full citizenship and of relationships with
one another then we need to think differently than just inquiries.
Q130 Mr Luke: What would be then the
advantages of community-based approaches over the official initiatives
given the different views that we can see and have seen in some
evidence we have taken in relation to the divide in Northern Ireland?
Ms Kilmurray: I think it probably
will need both because I think there is such a complexity of issues
there. I think that certainly there needs to be community-based
approaches and I am very conscious that a lot of the attention
in Northern Ireland has been on the South African models and there
are many other models in terms of truth and justice in other divided
societies. So I think we need to take a broader scan of those.
At the same time, I think there does need to be some sort of judicial
approach. Certainly, as Duncan says, the Judge Cory ones have
to go ahead. That expectation was raised so I do not think we
can change from that. In terms of looking at, I suppose, some
of the allegations that might have come from the Stevens Inquiry
and things like that, there are questions to be answered there.
But I think it will probably take both approaches. On the last
point, we are very conscious of the cost of the current Bloody
Sunday Inquiry. I think what we need to do is to take an approach
that even if it was judicial, it is cast in some sort of a framework
where it does not appear to be just—even the victims themselves,
I think, would sort of say that if that money had been spent perhaps
on some of the more community-based approaches it could be as
well spent.
Dr Morrow: Can I say, though,
that I honestly think that if it is single community approaches
rather than a collective agreed process in which communities are
interacting with one another the danger is that it will actually
just inflame, because one side will tell its truth. One of the
problems is that it is difficult to move in an incomplete way
at this stage until there is some sense that we share a common
future together, that we are going to work together into the future.
At the moment, I think we are dealing with small steps, what can
be done to mitigate, alleviate, move things while hopefully we
are waiting for some more comprehensive deal and I do not think
that community justice in this sense on its own without reference
to everything else will do it either.
Q131 Mr Luke: My last question. What
is your honest opinion on the Government's proposals on its present
initiative to deal with the past? What are the major limitations
that you can see affecting this? You were talking about the South
African situation.
Ms Kilmurray: I think looking
at it from the point of view of local groups, one of the concerns
is that when this issue comes up it seems to be an ongoing process
of almost crisis management, that we need to do something so that
we can draw the line in the sand and move on, and I do not think
that approach will work. I think, as I say, it will take a collective
acknowledgement from all the parties to the conflict, including
the Government, and then a sort of longer-term process which allows
different groups to come forward and get involved in looking at
the past. I think there is almost a sense of, all right, we have
another set of negotiations, therefore this issue bounces up again.
We need to take it on its own merits rather than seeing it as
being one sub-clause in whatever set of negotiations happens to
be going on at the moment.
Mr Luke: Thank you.
Q132 Mr Beggs: Good afternoon. Why do
the causes, context and "truth" of the Troubles need
to be explored and established in an official way?
Ms Kilmurray: From my point of
view, I think we need to explore it in order that we can start
setting out the terms whereby we are going to live with each other,
because I think if it is not explored it will continue to be a
running and divisive sore. So albeit that the initial discussion
will come from a whole range of different political perspectives,
we do need at least to try and start untangling those different
perspectives so that we can start seeing what are the things we
need to do to stop this ever happening again.
Dr Morrow: Can I just say, I think
there is a difference between the causes of conflict, which will
always remain to be reminded and disputed and some work which
is done on the motivations which drove people to do things which
we now call unspeakable and which have to stop if we are to have
a shared future. We cannot be bogged down in it, I think, but
unless we have some understanding of that motivation and at lest
some recognition that people were acting on different motivations
then I think it is actually quite difficult to access what happened
except as something requiring judicial redress. My view is that
it is only by way of saying, "These were the motivations.
It's now over," that gives us some possibility to move into
the future. So that would be my view of it, not to try some final
cause, the cause was number 42. We will not get there.
Q133 Mr Beggs: You argue that we should
aim to create a "shared" society instead of "separate
(even if peaceful) co-existence". Is this a realisable and
practical objective?
Dr Morrow: Well, I suppose my
view is the alternatives are, what, unshared and not peacefully
co-existing? The peace process to me is premised on the view that
we are moving forward to something which we collectively can work
together, which allows us to live and work in peace and live normal
lives. I think, therefore, that it will always remain the Holy
Grail of Northern Ireland politics but I think, certainly from
the Community Relations Council's point of view, it is the Pole
Star by which we orientate what we are trying to do and we think
it is the only noble objective if the alternative is simply ongoing
hostility and antagonism.
Ms Kilmurray: The rider I would
put to that—and I totally accept all that Duncan has said—is
that we are a very small population in a very small place and
even in economic and social terms I do not think peaceful co-existence
mounts up.
Q134 Mr Beggs: How can a shared society
and future ever be defined where people continue to hold fundamentally
different views both about the past and the future of their society?
Dr Morrow: Well, this is why we
are having an inquiry, I suppose, because it is extremely difficult.
My view is that we may not be able to agree that, but we can agree
the interim position that we will work together. We can agree
a rule of law. We can agree that there are mechanisms by which
those changes are negotiated between us and we can begin to work
on a social and economic policy and even, in a dream, a justice
policy around that and that that creates a quality of life which
does not continue to create victims. The bottom line measure here
is, can we have a society whose relationships are sufficiently
stable, even as we are going in different places, to agree that
we do not kill each other, that we allow ourselves to work, live
and play together and that we will sort the future our through
agreed mechanisms and run a rule of law which has a monopoly,
a balance, in the hands of the rule of law. In my view, those
are all legitimate goals. It has taken us 35 years to get here.
I am not here to say this is easy. I do think it is a noble and
necessary experiment.
Q135 Chairman: Only 35?
Dr Morrow: Yes, hundreds and 35—400,
800!
Chairman: Tony Clarke.
Mr Clarke: Dr Morrow has just answered
my question.
Chairman: Fine. Thank you very much.
That is wonderful, somebody declining to speak. You are setting
an example to us all, Dr Morrow!
Q136 Mr Hepburn: You have said that you
welcome this inquiry but you would like to see it as a much longer
and more in-depth process. What did you have in mind?
Dr Morrow: Well, to be clear,
I suppose I think you should not force yourselves to come to absolute
conclusions. My view is, the real question is what can we do now,
with the opportunity to come back to it. I suppose we are starting
the perspective. The answer, a truth and reconciliation commission
on the South African model, for my money, at the present moment
is not the answer. The answer is, there are things we need to
propose that should be done. There are questions which require
political accommodation. Should that happen, we need to return.
There are questions which the Government needs to consider about
how statutory services should be put together. All these things
can be done. We can recommend that there is a wider truth process.
We have recommended in there that it might be possible for an
international and local group to really look together at what
was the damage done in Northern Ireland, what is the legacy as
an interim model, to try to create some kind of collective ownership
of the damage, that the first memorial we put in place here is
not the redress of individual concerns but the recognition that
what happened in the past should not happen into the future and
to try to learn some lessons from that. But that is just one possible
option. I suppose the short answer to your question is, it will
not be done this time. Please do not see this as dropping it,
but as putting it off until it becomes more appropriate to be
dealt with into the future.
Q137 Mr Hepburn: Loyalist opinion seems
to be that they do not want to take any part in any truth process,
truth inquiry. How would you convince them and what do you think
the advantages of one would be?
Ms Kilmurray: I think we can convince
them by continuing to work with them at local community group
level. There are ongoing discussions among the various loyalist
groups about this issue and I think the main thing that will convince
them, certainly at the initial part of the discussion, is that
it is collective response rather than an individual response.
They have a huge concern that we are going to go straight into
a South African model where it is individual perpetrators facing
victims and that discussion taking place. One of the points they
make strongly in any of their submissions is that they feel not
only obviously at odds with the republican-nationalist community
but at odds within their own community; that they see themselves
as being scapegoated within the broader Unionist community and
are concerned that if it is a matter of individuals coming forward
that will have adverse effects in terms of not only themselves
but their families, and so forth. So I think if it can be explored
in terms of, "What was the motivation for you, as a group
of loyalists, to do X, Y and Z?" then there is more chance
that they will get involved, and indeed already have in a number
of cases.
Dr Morrow: I worked on the Sentence
Review Commission, which released prisoners, in a capacity but
it is appropriate here. What is clear is that the overwhelming
proportion of perpetrators, particularly on the loyalist side,
were young men between the ages of 16 and 25 from the working
classes. They are the infantry in normal armies. The problem we
face here is, did they act simply as evil individuals or were
they picking up signals which gave them the kind of signals from
the broader community that this is what the community wished of
them and told them to do? I have no doubt that individual responsibility
is there, what people do, what we do, so that is not what I am
arguing here. I am, however, arguing with Avila that there is
a wider context in which systems were not able to deal with each
other, in which they carried out the worst atrocities, and somehow
we have to get an acknowledgement that while everybody did what
they did, they did so within the context in which there are, if
you like, diminishing amounts but nevertheless real responsibilities
right throughout the system into the heart of our communities,
even where we do not yet recognise it. That is going to be a hard
process because I honestly believe the people who did not actually
carry out murders find it difficult to see how they connect to
it all in some way and there will be big resistance to the notion
that unwittingly and at times unwillingly we participated in creating
the climate in which this happened, and it happened for 16 to
24 year old young men in working class areas. So we either have
to come to the conclusion that they are a particularly difficult
group of people or that they were picking up signals from a wider
society and to convince them to participate they have to believe
that there is some sharing of responsibility beyond them as individuals
otherwise they will not.
Q138 Mr Hepburn: Do you think there would
be any advantage in the individual communities holding internal
inquiries?
Ms Kilmurray: I think that will
happen but not in a formal sense. That in many ways is happening.
In many ways probably it has not been captured but we have seen,
certainly working with groups within the different communities,
that discussions have taken place, or indeed internal challenges
have happened. For example, a victims' group may be based in a
republican area where local people, whose relatives might have
been shot by the IRA as informers, are coming forward to get support,
which causes that sort of internal debate. But that is the sort
of thing which takes place over time and that is why we need the
groups there in a sort of continuous sense so that we can have
that sort of discussion. That is why we talk about a process.
That really has to go alongside any sort of formal, cut-and-dried
process because that will take time as issues come up, and they
will only come up, as Duncan says, depending then on the macro-political
framework. So I suppose the challenge for your report is to try
and identify the overall framework, but then what are the things
that can happen now and then what can happen in a more sort of
positive political accommodation.
Dr Morrow: Can I add—I am
sorry, Mr Mates—that one of the problems with the peace
process in Northern Ireland today is nobody was responsible. The
really hard bit that it is difficult for people to hear is, "We
did some things, or things were done in our name, which make us
look like"—I will use a word which is extreme—"murderers
to our neighbours." The difficulty is that if nobody takes
responsibility the people who are left high and dry are the victims
because they say, "Well, nobody did anything wrong in this
community and somehow we lost relatives." The difficulty
we have at the moment is that every time somebody names an atrocity,
one group or another feels obliged to provide a rationale for
it which makes it look as if while it was terrible, it was somehow
justifiable within another wider rationale. So in my view, we
do need some political process which allows people more broadly
in Northern Ireland to accept that things were done in our name,
by us, by people acting for our communities, which we now must
recognise (a) must never happen again, and (b) actually left bereavement
and injury which we cannot justify.
Mr Hepburn: Thank you.
Q139 Mr Pound: Following on from that,
do you think that reconciliation can only advance as a process
in tandem with a political peace process, or do you think it is
possible to go ahead with reconciliation even if the political
peace process is stalled?
Dr Morrow: My view is that the
difficulty, as I say, is that it is never going to be one or the
other; it is always going to have elements of both. I have to
say the Community Relations Council's view was that we should
encourage wherever we can find people who wish to look for reconciliation
at whatever level they can act to do that, and that happened prior
to any political process. Once the political process began we
tried to support people as they tried to work their way around
in this political process from all sides to find ways to move
towards some kind of shared future, which we did not define constitutionally,
we simply wanted to define it in terms of some kind of specific
norms. Now, in the current context, I think the reality is we
are again looking for people and institutions who can work at
the grass roots level because that has to happen. Again, the push
has to come from there that we should find another way forward.
It is not either or, it is both arms, and there are steps we can
take now even while the political process is down, but it will
not be complete.
Ms Kilmurray: I would agree with
that. The Community Foundation really since about 1997 has been
bringing a lot of its grantees together and we would have some
thousand organisations, and bringing, for example, people like
Elbe Saks(?) from South Africa to talk about the important of
a Bill of Rights, people from Cambodia to talk about what they
have been through, and Guatemala. So that sort of work needs to
go on in terms of opening up options for people, to encourage
them to look at options, and that can go on irrespective of or
alongside the political process. Clearly, if there is some sort
of a political agreement or political settlement that sticks then
it means that we can take much greater steps, but I would see
the two as complimentary.
Mr Pound: Thank you very much.
Chairman: Thank you both. I think we
got a lot out of a relatively short time. We have not got six
more outside. So thank you very much for coming. We will adjourn
very briefly. Thank you, Dr Morrow and Ms Kilmurray.
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