Leading victims group SEFF invites Spanish group COVITE and ETA Basque terror victims to speak at Stormont

ETA murdered more than 820 people and wounded thousands in more than 40 years of violence.

SEFF Director Kenny Donaldson said: "In March we will be hosting a COVITE delegation, including bereaved victims, who will address the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism event in Stormont on 11 March.

"We will also be working together with COVITE on a Memory Project going forward to challenge international narratives designed to engender sympathy for terrorism.

He added: “Terrorists have always worked together across nations and continents, they have shared their deadly secrets including weaponry and knowledge around its use through training camps and they have also developed networks around seeking to dominate the narrative, propagating their heinous ideologies and methods to advance fundraising for their campaigns of violence.

“SEFF and COVITE, which each celebrate 25th Anniversaries this year, share the same values system, a principled opposition to violence and its’ use in the furtherance of or defence of a political objective."

Last month in San Sebastian in Spain, COVITE honoured SEFF with its COVITE International Award for action for its 25 years of work. Previous recipients have included academics, priests, authors, journalists and activists.

Speaking about the award ceremony, Mr Donaldson said: “Our message was clear and unambiguous to the 150 plus individuals gathered from public policy, political, academic and judicial sectors as well as directly impacted victims and survivors: Spain - Learn from our mistakes, do not put perpetrators at the centre of your Peace Process, to do so is appeasement and nothing good comes from appeasement without accountability.”

COVITE spokeswoman Inés Gaviria said it was important for them to come to Northern Ireland in March.

"It is important because terrorism knows no borders, so victims’ organisations should know no borders either,” she told the News Letter. “We will continue working together with our dear friends of SEFF in Spain, in Ireland, in the UK or wherever it is required until terrorism is politically, socially, and culturally defeated and delegitimised.

“In both organisations’ 25th anniversary year, we have a moral obligation to remind Spanish, British and Irish societies that innocent victims and survivors deserve a just Peace. Their rights and needs should always be at the centre of any political or peace process.”

In September SEFF celebrated its 25th anniversary with a special dinner at the Royal Hotel in Cookstown, where chairman Eric Brown recounted the genesis of the organisation.

He was prompted to act after reading the text of the Belfast Agreement in 1998.

"There were pages upon pages about integrating convicted terrorists back into society but almost nothing for victims," he said.

He invited terror victims from South East Fermanagh to a local hall, where they each told their stories.

One woman said: "This is the first time I have ever spoken to people who truly understand what my family went through."

Mr Brown said: "That really filled our tanks with fuel."

SEFF began soon after on a voluntary basis and with no funding. Today it has 32 employees based in NI, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland serving innocent victims of violence from across the political spectrum.