Examination of Witness (Questions 280-299)
DR BRANDON
HAMBER AND
MS KATE
TURNER
19 MARCH 2008
Q280 Chairman: Do you share that
perception?
Dr Hamber: I would share the view
that there are organisations out there that have that perception
of Sir Kenneth Bloomfield.
Q281 Chairman: Do you share that
perception yourself? Is it your perception?
Dr Hamber: My perception is that
Sir Kenneth did his job in a certain way, he went forward with
it, certainly there is a report in which there are two paragraphs
on state violence and I can understand why certain organisations
would look at that and interpret it in a certain way. I do not
really have a specific opinion about whether he is biased or not
in relation to this issue.
Q282 Chairman: You have come to Northern
Ireland, you have set up this organisation and are acting as our
tutor in these matters, surely you have a view.
Dr Hamber: I take exception to
the fact that you are describing me as having set up this organisation,
which I have not, this organisation was set up by a range of people
across this society. I also take exception to the fact that you
describe me as trying to tutor people. I have never tried to adopt
that role in Northern Ireland, I have simply said if people want
to hear information about my experience I will put it on the table.
Q283 Mr Fraser: Sorry to be pedantic
about this, but you say here, unless these quotes are wrong, which
I suspect they are not: "Despite the inclusive mandate and
definition of victims, only two paragraphs of Sir Kenneth's report
discussed those killed by state violence" and that this,
together with other factors, "contributed to the strong perception
of bias by the nationalist community". That is not them saying
that, that is you saying that.
Dr Hamber: That report is a report
which was written by at least 20 people.
Q284 Mr Fraser: Yes, but you are
here representing that organisation.
Dr Hamber: I am indeed representing
that organisation.
Q285 Mr Fraser: In most of your answers
you have either said, "I give my personal view" or the
view of your organisation. You are here as part of Healing Through
Remembering and I hope your personal view is in line with what
the view is in your chairmanship job surely.
Dr Hamber: Indeed. The quote as
you read it out is that there is a perception within the nationalist
community that his report was biased, that is what that was saying,
it is not actually passing a specific judgment on it.
Q286 Chairman: I accept, of course,
that there is a perception out there, but what I am asking is
do you share that view? Is it your view as well?
Dr Hamber: My view is that there
is a perception that that report had a limited focus on victims
of state violence.
Q287 Chairman: Do you personally
think that report was biased, yes or no?
Dr Hamber: I think it probably
could have had a wider focus at a personal level. This is not
the view of the organisation. At a personal level, it probably
could have had a wider focus on the issue of state violence. I
think this is a minor point. I am not here to basically come out
and say whether I think his report is a biased report or not.
It is a job which has been put on the table, issues have been
placed on the table and the process is moving forward from that.
Ms Turner: What was important
and what the group was saying when they wrote those first sections
about the situation, and it is a very diverse group coming together,
they were saying to each other, "What are the problems around
this area? Why was it even difficult for us to sit down and have
this conversation together?" These were some of the issues
that came up and they said, "Look what has happened, there
is a report that has been written about these issues and there
are two paragraphs in it about what matters to us", and other
people in the room were saying, "Now that you explain that
to us we see that, we understand how that has made you feel not
part of this debate and suspicious about any initiatives that
come from the state". It was not about the people in that
room saying, "Yes, we all agree that this report is biased",
or "That chairman acted inappropriately", because that
is not what we are trying to do in Healing Through Remembering,
coming to these big judgments about people. We are trying to work
out how do we deal with these issues in a way that we can hear
each other, engage with other and trust each other. The people
in that sub-group, and they are listed in the back of the report,
they have written their own biographies, you can see the diversity,
started sitting down together in 2004 when it was very hard for
them to even be in the room together. They were identifying to
each other why they were not able to talk about these issues.
In putting this down in the report they were saying to each other,
"We understand where people are having difficulties".
We have taken ten minutes now having a debate as to whether or
not that report was biased, but that is not the issue, the issue
is people perceive that and it limited the dialogue and engagement.
We need to have more engagement, more dialogue. We need to answer
the fundamental questions about dealing with the past, one of
which is there are people in our society who have already suffered
the most and we have a duty to meet their needs and what should
we be doing as a society to meet their variety of needs whether
or not they are perceived within hierarchies. The other point
is we are a society that went into conflict and has come out of
conflict, hopefully. We have an enormous range of versions as
to why that happened and how it happened and the trouble is we
are in danger of those versions being embedded within communities.
The reason that people are involved in Healing Through Remembering
is they come to meetings once a month, they sit with people it
is hard to be in a room with, they listen to opinions that they
find hard to hear and address things which they find upsetting
to remember, but they do it on a month-by-month basis because
they think unless we deal with these issues there is a danger
we are just papering it over and the conflict could re-emerge.
They do not agree on how we can do it but they agree we need to
talk about how we do it. Maybe we do not do a big truth recovery
initiative, but let us not do it because we know that not doing
it is the best way of it not happening again and serving the needs
of individuals, not because we feel that people will not take
part or it will cost too much. Let us examine it along with the
other initiatives. Healing Through Remembering is about those
five areas and a Truth Commission is just one part of truth recovery.
Q288 Mr Hepburn: There are a lot
of Sir Kenneths about and, with all respect, Dr Hambers, academics
who are telling working class people in the Falls Road and Shankhill
Road what they need. Can you tell me why you think that your way
out is what these people actually need?
Ms Turner: Because in Healing
Through Remembering Groups Brandon does not make the decisions
about the organisation. I am called a Project Coordinator, not
a manager or a director, and I do not make the decisions about
what the organisation does, they are made by the members within
the group and they decide what research they want to do, whether
they want to hold a conference, right through our submission to
Eames-Bradley. We brought the members together and they had a
debate and discussion about what they thought were the principles
around dealing with the past, which was what went into the report.
The decisions are not made by the academics in the room, they
are not made by the staff, they are made by the people together
having those conversations over a period of time. It does mean
we have not come up with the magic solution for dealing with the
past, and when we meet people they keep asking that, but we have
found a space where people can talk to each other from a whole
variety of backgrounds as to what might actually work and that
is a slow process and about building trust and hearing these difficulties.
Q289 Mr Hepburn: You would say that
you are reflecting the views of what I would say are the working
class people, and I keep saying in the Falls Road and Shankhill
Road but that is the crux of the matter. You reflect the views
of what those people want.
Ms Turner: We are reflecting the
views of a diverse society. I would not say I could sit here and
say we are representing the views of working class or middle class,
it is a range of people coming together that includes—
Q290 Mr Hepburn: It is the people
in those areas who have been affected most by the Troubles, is
not?
Ms Turner: Yes.
Q291 Mr Hepburn: You might go to
Bogside or whatever, but it is those people. I am not being critical,
I am just asking, you could put up a fair argument to say that
your way is the best way to help those people and you basically
came to that conclusion because of your discussions and research
and whatever to get that.
Ms Turner: I am not sure I would
put it quite like that, but yes.
Q292 Mr Hepburn: Do you understand
what I am saying?
Ms Turner: Yes. We are not academics
or experts coming and saying, "This is the answer",
it is the people. Healing Through Remembering is largely people
from Northern Ireland but each sub-group has people from the South,
from England, Scotland and Wales because we see the conflict has
had an effect on people across these islands. It is a bottom-up
approach from the ground, people saying, "We're discussing
this, we're debating what we want", with the luxury of having
international experts and local academics sitting in the room
as well as people who are saying, "It's all very well saying
that, but that organisation is not going to do that and this is
the reality", or "Victims that I know are not going
to accept that", people speaking with authority from organisations,
groups or collections of people. Not speaking for them, everyone
is there as an individual but there is an authority in their voice.
Q293 Mr Hepburn: You say you are
a bottom-up approach from the grass roots up. How would you compare
that with Sir Kenneth's report?
Ms Turner: Sir Kenneth was looking
at one individual issue ten years ago in terms of the victims,
and we are not a victims' organisation, so I cannot compare us
like-for-like. If you are asking me to compare it with something
that is set up by Government or—
Q294 Chairman: Would you say he was
a grass roots, bottom-up person?
Ms Turner: No, it was clearly
set up from formal structures to carry out his Commission at that
time.
Q295 Mr Murphy: Have you a view on
whether there should be an amnesty?
Ms Turner: No. There is discussion
in this document on it and discussion within the sub-group. It
is one of those circular debates because you cannot discuss whether
or not there should be an amnesty separate from your discussion
about what it is you are trying to achieve in terms of truth recovery.
Q296 Chairman: Do you have a view?
Ms Turner: No, the organisation
is still discussing that.
Q297 Chairman: Do you have a view?
Ms Turner: No.
Q298 Chairman: You do not.
Ms Turner: No, I am here as a
member of staff of the organisation.
Dr Hamber: As Kate said, in terms
of the organisation it has a debate that has gone round and round.
In terms of some of the earlier discussion it is important that
we go back to what the organisation actually does, which is this
type of debate with a range of different people, and we have shown
that works, that it is possible to get people together to talk
about these issues despite their very diverse opinions. In terms
of my own view, I do not think I have a specific view at this
point about whether there should or should not be an amnesty.
If we did go down any route of looking at questions of incentivising
different people to engage in a process it might be some sort
of debate we would need to have, but I do not have a hard and
fast view on this.
Q299 Mr Murphy: Without an amnesty
would you see former paramilitaries coming forward to tell the
truth?
Dr Hamber: That would be one of
the biggest challenges of any type of process, how to get individuals
to come forward. I think there are two ways of approaching that.
Either one approaches it in an individual way, which is what is
the way that one might incentivise individuals to engage in the
process, or the other way of doing it might be to say how would
you engage various political groups who might have sway over individuals
engaging in the process. My personal view would be that one probably
has to engage in more of a political debate about is this something
which various political groupings feel is necessary and important.
If there was some sort of a green light at a political level that
would probably facilitate the process better than making some
sort of individual type of trading process, but that is an incredibly
complex and difficult endeavour.
Ms Turner: It is not a black and
white issue, like everything in this there are grey areas. In
the patchwork of initiatives that are happening at the moment
one of them is stories in the media and books and autobiographies
and journalists say to us they have individuals coming to them
saying, "I think my story needs to be told. I don't want
to stand up in a public arena and say what I did but I am going
to talk to you as a journalist so you have information" and
journalists are saying, "I don't want this information, what
am I going to do?" I am not certain that is a lot of people
and it is certainly people from a range of different backgrounds,
so it is not just there are a lot of people who need some incentive,
for some people the incentive is, "If my story is going to
be used as a way of there being peace for future generations".
For some it needs to be not public. There are some people who
want to get the information out and some people who never will
and there are people in-between.
Chairman: I must bring Mr Wilson in,
he has been pregnant with speech for at least 20 minutes!
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