Written evidence from FAIR
I write to you on behalf of the victims in Northern
Ireland who have suffered the worst effects of terrorism for almost
four decades. We have given much to secure peace and that is our
earnest desire, however we will not accept peace at any price.
Peace must be genuine, it must be grounded on the protection of
rights and it must secure justice. These are fundamental and international
requirements for any process that purports to deal with the pain
and problems of the past.
Many of you will have witnessed the pain played out
at the launch of the Eames Bradley Report, and that best sums
up victims response to this document. It was the final insult
after years of injury and we say to you today it is unacceptable.
It contains the seeds of future conflict not the promise of reconciliation
and lasting peace and it is not an automated rejection that motivates
us but rather an inspired vision for a better future. We have
tried to contact the group since they released their report but
to no avail therefore we ask that you our elected representatives
raise these matters of concern. We have warned that the Group
was not representative and that this would led inexorably to a
flawed partisan report. Sadly our predictions have come true and
once more victims are excluded and insulted. However as you are
equally aware we do not take such treatment lightly and we will
ensure that this report is unworkable.
Our desire is that even at this late stage the
process could be salvaged, and our constructive proposal is that
victims of terrorism whose views have been so clearly excluded
would be given the time, space and resources to add their views
and that with this balance included government would consider
the product afresh. We have spent our time money and resources
to canvass the opinion of those the Group have so studiously ignored.
We have spent this year meeting with groups and individuals, hosting
an international conference to which experts from across the world
contributed and putting our views to Eames and Bradley. When we
write to you we write on behalf of not only FAIR but the Northern
Ireland Network of Victims of Terrorism Groups—Northern
Ireland Terrorist Victims Together.
We include our concerns about those chosen to
form the Consultative Group and the Groups lack of balance by
not including a victim's representative. Secondly the process,
which in good faith we participated in however we would question
what, happened to our contribution. Many of our groups and members
attended the various public meetings, we met the Group itself
and we made our views and papers available to them. However we
fail to see where they have been reflected in the report. Our
feedback from the public meetings is clear that the majority of
opinions supported our position, yet they have been actively ignored.
Therefore we see the views of thousands or the
real victims and especially those in border areas ignored in preference
to Republican opinions which we see repeated time and time again.
To take the example of Collusion—the group accepts in its
entirety the Republican mantra on this matter. It actively ignored
the issue of Irish Government Collusion, which has been proven
by the Irish Courts in 1970 during the Arms Trial and is
currently under investigation in the Breen and Buchanan Inquiry.
This failure points to the real ethos of the Report and we must
conclude that it is at best misleading at worst totally partisan
and disingenuous. We appeal to you now to stop this Report before
it does any further damage to victims and community relations
at large.
We have spoken to the Victims groups many of
which responded, to the Consultative Group even meeting them face
to face and hundreds of individuals who attended the public meetings.
Further we have contacted local council such as Ballymena who
are listed; as well as representatives from the main churches,
the Orange Order Independent Orange Institution, Bands Association
and a range of other community based groups. In each case they
are very clear that the views contained in the Eames Bradley report
do not reflect their principles, opinions policies or preferences,
and that they would not support the present Report.
We further enclose an open letter to the people
of Northern Ireland from the Innocent Victims, and a summary of
our analysis of the Report. The Report stands condemned by its
ethos and contents alone however the Group itself must bear the
responsibility and we include exposes on a number of them to underline
how unacceptable they were and are to victims and how wholly unrepresentative
the group was.
In conclusion our concerns are
1. The Consultative Group was not representative
and as a result chose to ignore the "... impassioned arguments
that there should be no equivalence between victims and perpetrator"
and rather accepted the Republican mantra that "…there
must be no hierarchy of victims."
2. That based on the erroneous definition contained
in the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 the
Group have established a process which degrades victims.
3. By placing Justice under Reconciliation they
create a contradictory dynamic that will ensure Justice is denied
and those who continue to seek it will be portrayed as the aggressor.
4. In the words of the Inkatha MP Abraham Mzizi
who described South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
as the "Truth Revision Commission", we believe this
report will see terrorism airbrushed out of our history and blame
shared which would be a lie and an insult to our loved ones.
5. The Report also plans for a de facto Amnesty
based on a guillotine on historic cases after five years, and
immunity from prosecution through a process where victims will
be forced to choose either truth or justice.
6. The Report is partisan in that it accepts
Republican rhetoric on issues such as collusion and ignores the
Irish Government, while putting in place the mechanics for a witch-hunt
against the state and security forces. It also attempts to deny
the Unionist Community Inquiries and similar process which Nationalism
have enjoyed.
7. It is unprincipled and impractical such as
the sickening £12,000 payments to the families of terrorists
or the ludicrous notion that these issues will be resolved in
five years. The blood money as victims have termed the payment
is a smokescreen to hide the more systemic flaws and we have no
doubt will be dropped.
8. Forced top down initiatives such as "mutual
forgiveness based on a sharing of blame" institutionalised
reconciliation through events such as a day or the sanitisation
of history will not work and will be counter-productive destroying
years of hard work on the ground.
9. Create a dangerous precedent and double standards
in terms of terrorism at a time when the United Kingdom faces
a real threat.
10. By ignoring victims and their advice the
government will waste millions only to find themselves no further
forward in five years.
We ask that you listen to our genuine concerns
and take this opportunity to question the Group on the issues
listed. We all hope to deal with the past but that will take time
and effort and we are willing to invest in it. We all seek peace
as we are those who have paid more dearly for it than most however
it must be a genuine peace.
23 February 2009
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