Pension pledge from victims of terrorism underlines why there must be no fudge to facilitate payment to perpetrators

We report today that some victims of terror now say that they would not accept a pension if it was paid to terrorists.

That they feel so strongly and might act on such high principle is admirable.

But it is extraordinary that society has allowed this position to arise.

It is more than 20 years since the Belfast Agreement freed paramilitary prisoners. It is almost 50 years since the Northern Ireland Troubles reached their peak.

The statistics of that terrible time are clear: of chaos amid a sudden but calculated, then sustained, terrorist threat. By the end of the violence in the late 1990s, terrorists had killed 90% of those who lost their lives in the preceding 30 years.

Most victims of this onslaught have never achieved justice or truth through the criminal courts. Terrorists became skilled at what their bombing and killing, while the UK legal system rightly insists that criminal guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a hard thing to prove.

These survivors saw not only prisoner releases, they later learned of Tony Blair’s secret On The Run scheme to placate terrorists. They have seen terrorists chase the security forces through the legal system. They have seen IRA carry out outrages such as the Northern Bank robbery, when it was supposed to have put criminality behind it.

They have endured the 2006 codified definition of a victim that equates perpetrator with victim. Now they see republicans delay already long overdue payments to genuine victims.

As Ulster Human Rights Watch, in its pensions campaign with this newspaper, and Innocent Victims United both say, this issue must not be massaged to further appease terror.

Each unionist MLA who has not already done so should now make clear that they will not acquiesce in any fudge that lets London get the matter out of its in-tray by quietly finding a way to pay perpetrators with UK taxpayers’ money.

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