At last Monday's public meeting of the Consultative Group, Lord Eames insisted that no report or interim report had been prepared and that no proposal on a possible amnesty for paramilitary killers was in the pipeline. So why were "sources close to the Consultative Group"– quoted in most of the local and national media – saying that an amnesty was a possibility?


Those same sources were also quoted as saying: "Some of the things we're coming across are going to have – I don't like to use the word devastating – a surprising effect, particularly within the Protestant-Unionist community." Oh really? An even more surprising effect than the source's suggestion that an amnesty; asking the participants (including the government and security forces) to apologise for any hurt they had caused; and reclassifying the troubles as a legitimate war, are just a number of the options being considered?


For the sake of argument, let us accept that the IRA are warriors rather than terrorists. And let us also accept that rather than being involved in a grubby, very nasty little terror campaign, they were actually engaged in a war. Because once you concede the possibility that it was a war you are entitled to question whether it was a just or unjust war; and the answer to that question can help determine your attitude to amnesties and apologies.

Historians, philosophers, statesmen and even warriors themselves have debated the principles of the justice of war for centuries; and there is a generally accepted convention that there can be a moral justification for war. Those principles are commonly held to be: having a just cause, the war being declared by a proper authority (which would normally reside in the sovereign power of the state), possessing right intention, having a reasonable chance of success, and the end being proportional to the means used.



Not one of those principles applies in the case of what the IRA was doing in Northern Ireland – and further afield – between 1970 and 2005. Indeed, in 1970 neither Gerry Adams nor Martin McGuinness recognised the legitimacy of either Northern Ireland or of the Dail, so set themselves to the task of bombing their way to a new Ireland. Today, as we know, the political representatives of the IRA sit in the Dail and are members of the government of a Northern Ireland that hasn't changed geographically or constitutionally.


The rules of the just conduct of a war regard it as unfair and unjust to attack indiscriminately, since non-combatants or innocents are deemed to stand outside the field of war proper. Warfare sometimes unavoidably involves civilians, but what is known as the doctrine of "double effect" offers a justification for killing civilians in war, so long as their deaths are not intended, but are accidental. Again, this does not apply to the IRA, who deliberately and systematically targeted civilians. And, given what they did in border areas, there is a very strong case to be made that they also deployed ethnic cleansing as one of their tactics; while, in Canary Wharf and Warrington the primary purpose of the bombs was to kill civilians.


So, if there is any effort made to reclassify the IRA campaign as a war, then let it also be acknowledged that the war was unjust, unjustified, unwinnable and – since they are now part and parcel of Stormont – entirely unnecessary. Individuals waging an unjust war by unreasonable means are not committing legitimate acts of war, but acts of murder. They are not merely criminals, they are war criminals: and there is no case made anywhere in the world for providing an amnesty for war criminals. Northern Ireland must not become the exception to that rule.



All of what I am arguing applies to loyalist paramilitaries as well, even though they would try and argue that they were defending their country from the terrorism of the IRA. Drug peddling, brothel-running, money-laundering, extortion, assorted racketeering and the "any-Fenian-will-do" approach to murder, seem a very odd way, indeed, of defending your country! Whatever the pretend Generals, Brigadiers and Commanders of the UDA and UVF would have us believe they, too, fall into the category of war criminal rather than warrior.


And yes, I accept that members of the security forces acted in a manner which was entirely contrary to the conventions of a just war and the just conduct of a war. If there is evidence against them then they should be brought to justice and convicted.


An amnesty implies pardon, forgiveness and a "we-can-understand-why-you-did-it" appr-oach to the past. If the Consultative Group goes down that road it will be making a very serious error of judgment and will be as guilty of immorality and illegitimacy as the people it would be letting off the hook. How do you ever come to terms with reality if you run away from unpleasant and brutal truths? How do you avoid repeating the mistakes of the past if you offer a mantle of legitimacy to war criminals?


I suspect that the vast majority of the living victims of the paramilitaries, and the relatives of those who were killed, will never obtain the justice they crave and deserve. To be told that it is now possible that an amnesty will be granted, and that the Troubles may be reclassified as a war – meaning that most victims will be regarded as the unavoidable casualties or collateral of that war – would be a grossly offensive development.


It is no surprise that Sinn Fein supports it; for as well as being the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free-card, it offers a State-recognised legitimacy to their terrorist carnage. Even more disgusting is the fact that it is being offered on the back of a hint from the "sources" mentioned earlier, that this would be a preferable option to unionists discovering aspects of the past 30 years that they wouldn't like.


I have accepted, albeit with difficulty, reservation and surprise, that Sinn Fein has an electoral mandate to be in government. And I have accepted it because I know that being in government is a clear sign that they haven't got the united Ireland they fought for. But if the price of devolving policing and justice powers to the Assembly involves an amnesty and a reclassification of terrorism as a legitimate war, then it's a price that shouldn't be paid. It would be an insult to that clear majority which has always known the difference between a war and a terrorist campaign; and an insult to that vast majority within the security forces who defended Northern Ireland under appallingly difficult circumstances.