Letter: Integrity of the past must be paramount for new legacy structures

It was encapsulated in his classic phrase, ‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past’.

In an appalling coincidence for my family, 1984 was also the year the Provos murdered my brother near the Donegal border.

The battle to control the legacy of our violent past continues, and it is clear the Provisional movement will not accept anything other than a structure that will condemn the British government, the security forces and unionism.

The Stormont House Agreement met their needs and they saw it as a format that will indeed manipulate history in a way that would be acceptable to them.

The new Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill does not offer them the same opportunities.

Michael McDowell, who was the Republic’s Minister of Justice as recently as 2007, had stated that “… as far as this state [RoI] was concerned, a line was drawn across the page of historic Provisional IRA criminality in Northern Ireland.”

He further elaborated that this had been an agreed policy within his government.

They have been true to their word ever since, failing to support the families of the bereaved during the Kingsmill inquest and other cases where families sought truth and justice, including my own family.

Yet we now are to understand that the Republic’s coalition government are threatening to take legal action against the UK over its new legacy legislation.

The dynamics in the Republic have changed with the threat of a future Sinn Fein government, so the present coalition feel obliged to act in a manner that they have a newfound concern for the victims and survivors of terrorism.

Posturing and speaking with a ‘forked tongue’ is nothing new for politicians. We are now 25 years post the Belfast Agreement, and it almost appears as if time has stood still.

Despite hundreds of millions being spent on legacy, the same battle lines are drawn.

In those 25 years, there has been a virtual zero desire by either the Republic or British governments to prosecute those terrorist organisations responsible for the 30 years of death and destruction, whilst the republican movement continues to attempt to depict the security forces as the prime mover throughout.

Probably the biggest issue for the new legacy structures will be the factual historical timeline, and the integrity of the past must be paramount.

Without it, Orwell’s words will resonate once more.

Ken Funston, Armagh