James Dingley: The quest for ‘balance’ in dealing with the legacy of the Troubles can end up equating good and evil

In the past the idea of balance had a more objective meaning than today, ie one balanced the evidence for and against so as to come to an objective conclusion as to cause or culpability and establish the truth.

Today balance is used emotively to placate all sides as a political diversion from truth and to appease (theoretically) everyone.

Consequently it undermines truth and rationality for cheap, emotive confidence tricks. And it is this modern misuse of balance that is so disturbing in the current ‘legacy’ prosecutions, which effectively end up equating terrorist murders with legitimate killings and undermine all moral standards and responsibility.

And morality is the foundation of all civilised society.

Currently, it is said that historic prosecutions are ‘balanced’ if they are a proportional representation of the killings from republicans, loyalists and security forces, based on the numbers each group killed.

This immediately implies their equivalence, to be judged and processed in the same way, implying the same degree of collective and individual responsibility for acts of killing.

Yet this is surely wrong since virtually all of the security force killings were legally conducted and within the laws of international armed conflict as well as national law.

Even deliberately targeted security force killings are lawful if designed to prevent the murder of innocents either as collateral casualties or as potential direct victims of terrorist assassination.

Against this must be balanced objectively the fact that every single killing by a terrorist organisation is murder, non-legitimate in national and international law. In addition, every single act of a terror organisation is illegal and an abuse of human rights and the international law of armed conflict.

The security forces, especially the army, were only there to maintain and uphold the human rights about to be violated by the terrorists and maintain the rule of law, without which there are no human rights.

Of the 361 killings by the security forces (2,152 by republicans, 1,112 by loyalists) only four were found to be unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights, and only one of those found to be a substantive legal violation. However damages were not awarded in the exceptional case since the complainants were terrorists, which is significant because it recognises the fundamental illegality and abuse of human rights that terror implies – all their killings were unlawful.

Meanwhile, the security forces had to operate according to both national and international law.

This implied wearing recognisable uniforms, carrying their arms openly, operating within a formal command and control system (so as to hold individuals accountable for their actions) and being accountable to a legitimate constitutional authority.

This made them open, visible targets for terrorists to stalk furtively, masquerading as ordinary civilians, to murder and then run away.

Every single terrorist murder was conducted like this, except when they stalked and murdered ordinary civilians they disliked.

The wonder is that so few members of the security forces lost their discipline and didn’t shoot more often, despite provocation on many occasions.

When the security forces shot, it was not indiscriminate, but directed at specific targets identifiable as a threat to life. Meanwhile, because they operated openly they were in constant fear of their lives against an invisible enemy deliberately out to murder them.

When acting as Nato instructor on terrorism I was often called upon to explain the success of the UK’s countre-terrorism in Northern Ireland and the point I had to continually stress was the emphasis on non-violent tactics and rule of law. Not shooting terrorists was the key tactic, unless there was specific cause, which usually implied a political decision at the top or immediate danger to life.

The security forces quickly learnt that every time there was an incident it had to be followed by due process of law, which opened up a field-day for republican propagandists and their fellow travellers, since a smart lawyer will always be able to find some legal or procedural technicality to fault or raise spurious questions. But more important was the ability of terrorists to gather intelligence on counter-terrorist operations from open court cases.

Terrorist victims were not in the business of exploiting information from open court. But now their murderers are claiming some kind of balance with those tasked to defend their human rights and civil liberties.

Perhaps this all goes back to ‘parity of esteem’ in the Belfast Agreement, another of those vacuous (especially morally) terms that undermine real balance, rule of law and civilised conduct, along with armed terrorists in government and a ‘peace process’ designed to placate terrorists.

• James Dingley, is a former international lecturer and NATO Instructor on terrorism and editor of: Combating Terrorism in Northern Ireland