If British forces are to be tried, so too must terrorists

I am grateful as a Great Britain-based survivor that I will have opportunity to respond to the current NIO legacy consultation. Without the help from South East Fermanagh Foundation and other victims and survivors I feel my voice would not be heard.

Legacy in human terms, for me, is not only a connection with the terror of the past but how you cope. As the widow of a member of the British armed forces, (John Gibbons) who was killed in a cowardly manner in South Armagh in 1973, I have lived for decades knowing that persons planned and executed this horrendous end of my husband’s life.

The only explanation at the time was that the Provisional IRA were responsible.

I have always understood the need to try to find peace. However if British forces are to be investigated and tried for historic actions then so too must terrorists.

The legacy issues continue for me as a war widow who had to surrender her pension upon remarriage which left me feeling stripped of my war widows’ status and my husband’s sacrifice deemed forgotten. Three years have passed since the pension rules changed leaving behind a group of widows who are struggling.

My hope for the success of legacy discussions is for the issues to be resolved as part of an overall solution, reaching out into all aspects of our lives that were changed through no fault of our own.

All I and others desire is to be properly acknowledged, to be supported as we should have been without being made to feel like beggars.

Linda McHugh, Isle of Skye