Victims’ grouping: ‘Truth is, all violence was wrong’

An acknowledgement that all Troubles-related violence was wrong should be the starting point for any system aimed at delivering truth and justice, a major victims’ grouping has said.
By Mark Rainey
Published 22nd Jan 2021, 07:15 BST
The aftermath of the bomb blast at McGurk's bar, carried out by the UVF, in North Queen Street, Belfast in 1971. Photo: PA/PA WireThe aftermath of the bomb blast at McGurk's bar, carried out by the UVF, in North Queen Street, Belfast in 1971. Photo: PA/PA Wire
The aftermath of the bomb blast at McGurk's bar, carried out by the UVF, in North Queen Street, Belfast in 1971. Photo: PA/PA Wire

Innocent Victims United (IVU) was commenting following the publication of an open letter sent to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Irish premier Micheal Martin this week – calling for new legacy investigation measures to be implemented in Northern Ireland.

The 3,500 people who signed the letter, organised by the Relatives for Justice group, mainly represent those injured or bereaved by the security forces or by loyalist terrorists.

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The letter states: “We are writing to you as relatives bereaved during the conflict to seek your assurances that our human rights as victims will no longer be disregarded or denied.

“The peace process has repeatedly failed to deliver on our rights to truth, justice and accountability.”

Those behind the letter, which will appear in newspapers in Belfast and the US, are calling for the implementation of proposals agreed at Stormont House in 2014 – including a new independent investigation team to re-examine all unsolved Troubles killings and a separate truth recovery mechanism to enable families to get more information in cases where prosecutions are unlikely.

However, in March last year, Secretary of State Brandon Lewis indicated that the Government was minded to move away from the Stormont House legacy model.

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Mr Lewis proposed that after an initial paper review exercise, most of the unsolved cases would then be closed and that new legislation would be enacted to prevent the investigations from being reopened.

He later acknowledged that the government would “intensify” engagement with victims’ groups in addressing the legacy of the past.

Government ministers said the current system for releasing Troubles-related information into the public domain is not working, and that the “divisive” cycle of reinvestigations and civil court actions is failing to obtain the answers sought by most families.

Mr Donaldson said the IVU umbrella grouping, representing more than 12,000 individual victims and survivors, continues to “stand on the ground of consistency,” and will “not buy into any loaded legacy process which seeks to denigrate the UK state without barely laying a glove on those who perpetrated terrorism or the Republic of Ireland state”.

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He said: “If legacy is to go anywhere then there must be accountability of the wrongs of the past, and that “truth must be the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.

Mr Donaldson added: “Let us all first accept that before there can be a time for truth...there must be acknowledgment of the wrong of violence in the context of the Northern Ireland Troubles”.

READ: Troubles victims angered by ‘secret’ Lambeth Palace talks on legacy issues

READ: Stormont House plans are unworkable, say victims of terror

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