Victims' group says there must be a clear distinction between victims and perpetrators after Naomi Long comments
Any future payments to people affected by the Troubles must make a distinction between perpetrators and victims – and potentials award could depend on the recipient’s willingness to disassociate themselves from past violence, a victims’ campaigner has said.
Kenny Donaldson, director of SEFF, has made the comments in response to comments by Northern Ireland’s justice minister Naomi Long – who said some people may be both victims and offenders.
Mr Donaldson says his organisation has always believed those involved in terror and their families require access to support services – but this should not be paid for from victims funded resources. He said the inability of Westminster and Stormont to deal with the definition of victim, meant individuals “who have been victimised by criminal violence have felt it necessary to apply the term ‘innocent’” to illustrate the difference. The SEFF director has said that while victims pension legislation “went some way to making a distinction between perpetrator and victim… so too must any future bereaved reparation - there are no controversial issues for circa 84% of those who were murdered/killed as a result of ‘The Troubles’ – and support should be advanced for these individuals without delay”. Mr Donalson told the News Letter: “For those who were bereaved of a loved one who was involved in terrorism as a member of a proscribed group, there is a need for another approach to be developed with appropriate arbitration functions”.
He said those factors should include terrorists killed as the result of their own bombs or lawfully killed by the security forces as they sought to steal other life; terrorists killed in disputed circumstances by the security forces; members of proscribed organisations killed by other terrorists; and members of proscribed organisations killed when they may have been caught up in attacks on civilians. He said that for families whose loved ones were involved in terror there may be merit in ensuring any award is “linked with their willingness to disassociate themselves from the violence and illegal activity to which their loved one was connected”.