Peter Hain had said at the outset of the Eames Bradley process that “This consultative group provides a platform for people to express their own views on how to address the violent legacy of the Troubles which impacted on so many across all sections of society.” Unfortunately Eames Bradley seemed to contrive to ignore practically all views apart from their own and those they deemed acceptable: never better illustrated than by denouncing and ignoring almost 90% of the written submissions they received as they were supposedly part of a campaign.
I suggested repeatedly that the process was not fit for purpose. However, when it was finally launched its ability to ignore the people who had gone to the meetings and written the letters was breathtaking. Not content with their disastrous report some in the Eames and Bradley group tried to fight back and at least one of its members made allegations which months later he has still not substantiated. After being told to put up or shut up he promptly did the latter. Whilst Bradley tried to keep faith with the report, Eames seemed to begin to admit at least some failings and tried to move on with a blatant attempt at self rehabilitation, now continuing with his appearances on Radio Ulster’s Thought for the Day on Thursday; though thankfully I only caught the end of it.

Shaun Woodward realised the writing was on the wall and dumped the £12,000 for victims’ relatives (though of course the noble Lord, Mr. Bradley and his sidekicks managed to walk away with rather more than that). The Tories may well dump the whole thing and recently as Pete has noted the Northern Ireland affairs committee has also savaged many of Eames Bradley’s recommendations especially the amnesty. I have previously questioned how Eames can pretend to see a difference between those murdered by dissident republicans earlier this year and those who died in the past.

That dishonest difference which Eames will not admit to was thrown into stark relief again this week. One of Eames Bradley’s justifications for their support for a further quango, the Legacy Commission, which would “itself make recommendations on how a line might be drawn at the end of its five year mandate so that Northern Ireland may best move to a shared future.” (translation into honest speak: amnesty) was that the preceding “Information Recovery Strand” would have five years to prosecute murders from the Troubles “taking into account the receding possibilities.”

However, in the least week we have seen the police charge and individual with one of the horrific murders of the 1980s: that of Jennifer Cardy. Now clearly the individual charged is innocent until proven guilty. What matters here is that the police are still involved in investigating the murder of a 9 year old girl 23 years ago. Clearly someone forgot to tell the police of “the receding possibilities” in this case. Indeed the police have charged someone before and are clearly willing to peruse this case if at all possible: maybe new technologies like DNA evidence will result in this child’s murderer getting his or her just punishment.

What the noble Lord needs to explain, (maybe on Thought for the Day) is whether he supports attempts to continue to investigate this 9 year old child’s murder after so many years and if indeed that investigation should, if necessary, go on for more than another 5 years. After all he seems to give the investigation of the murder of another 9 year old girl only 5 years and stresses the “receding possibilities” despite the fact that arrests have previously been made.

Going back to the proposed Legacy Commission, as I said on the NI Secretary of State’s consultation on the report

Good luck with that one, Shaun.. And don’t forget about those “patently inadequate” safeguards, nevermind whether all the groups involved will actually participate..

And it’s worth repeating what the co-chairman of the Consultative Group, Denis Bradley, told the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement

“The only door that has been closed is that of the IRA,” Mr Bradley told the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, in Leinster House.  Addressing TDs and MEPs, he added: “I think it is going to be a disgrace if the IRA stand offside.”  The former vice-chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board made a direct plea for co-operation from the terror group.  “I would appeal to the IRA,” he said.  “I know how difficult this will be because many people who were involved in the IRA want to get on with their lives and that is understandable.  “But ways must be found if any truth process is to take place in a comprehensive way.”

The lack of compulsion has been acknowleged by both chairmen.

My initial response to the proposed Legacy Commission is in the archive and as I said in July 2007

the groups he’s pointing to as being necessary participants [] include those responsible for the amnesiacs deal - and those who would have a vested interest in continuing to tip-toe round the past.

As for the historical suggestion that Sinn Féin and the DUP always intended to rely on their four Victims Commissioners to deal with those poisonous foundations..

Despite the Belfast Telegraph’s optimistic editorial, we’re already processing on..

Clearly this will come as a source of great distress to Mr. Bradley. It is also true that not addressing the past may cause future problems. However, what neither Eames nor Bradley ever admitted was that their report did not help reconciliation but instead stoked the problems. Their report will have floundered (if it does) on its own immoral, intellectually lazy and dishonest nature.

Bradley may not want to admit it but the simple fact is that dismissing large numbers of submissions because they did not tally with what he and the noble Lord wanted was not an appropriate way to deal with the past. Nor were the repeated leaks to the press, especially those suggesting how distressed the unionist community would be with the report.

The report itself of course when it came was even worse. An effective amnesty after a five year period of procrastination was utterly immoral; even more so for the deceit of denying that it was an amnesty. The idea of wiping the slate clean for the likes of the Greysteel murderers so that they could not be prevented from getting jobs and services due to their terrorist past was also an example of complete moral turpitude.

Of course the most classic and potent example of the moral wasteland which Eames and Bradley had entered was the £12,000 (or Ford Focus) for the relatives of the victims whether they were Thomas Begley or Kathyrn Eakin. That recommendation was merely the most emblematic example of the depths to which Bradley and the supposedly noble Lord had deliberately and consciously descended, dragging the rest of their group with them. Then the utterly perverse attempts to declare that there was no hierarchy of victims because of the completely meaningless and irrelevant statement: “A mother’s tears are a mother’s tears” was to dig the pit yet deeper. The attempt then by Jarlath Burns to smear unionist politicians simply compounded the problem: especially when he singularly failed to name any names.

We will wait and see whether the Conservatives do win and whether they really will dump the whole of Eames Bradley. If they do the majority of all sections of the community will breath a collective sigh of relief whilst Eames Bradley and their acolytes can be left with nothing other than the dishonour of having been involved in such an utterly iniquitous report (and of course the large amounts of money they received for it: an update for the two ex clerics on thirty pieces of sliver).
That we learned of all this at the PUP conference is maybe appropriate as only the terrorist cheerleaders like the PUP will shed any tears: if the PUP are disappointed at this prospect that merely enhances my joy. It is of course much too soon to break open the champagne (never trust a Tory) but to quote a previous Conservative leader “Just Rejoice at that news.”

There now appears to be a clear difference opening up between the noble Lord and Mr. Bradley. Bradley still seems to support the payments whereas the noble Lord has sort of come round to the position that they were a mistake. This is interesting in part because it might give additional credence to the suggestion made by a number of commentators including David Simpson in Westminster that although the report bore the finger prints of Eames it followed Bradley’s agenda. By this reading of Eames Bradley it was Bradley who created most of the toxic report and Eames was truly the Lundy: less the complete traitor more the incompetent and moral coward; though the effect was similarly disastrous both for the report and Eames’s personal credibility. Eames’s recent lack of public appearance after his seemingly ineffectual self rehabilitation programme means that we cannot establish his current position. The other committee members have also remained remarkably silent after Jarlath Burns rather incompetent attempt to blame unionist politicians for being “almost duplicitous” followed by him shutting up rather than putting up with a name.

The timing of Bradley’s interjection is interesting but is of course related to the fact that the government is publicly consulting on the paper. His comments probably have a number of purposes: firstly Bradley is no doubt a bit annoyed that his £12,000 idea has been so comprehensively rubbished with even the government dropping it extremely quickly. To see practically the whole of Northern Irish society lining up to describe the idea as foolish and having even his co chair Lord Eames accept that the idea was folly must be pretty galling. In addition, however, I have argued from the beginning that the £12,000 payment was (and is) so offensive that it may well have been a carapace to defend the rest of the report: that carapace was very rapidly blown off by the sheer weight of opprobrium it engendered. The removal of the £12,000 allows people to concentrate more on the other equally morally repugnant concepts in the report.

Just to recap on two of them:

Remember that the “Legacy Commission” would “...itself make recommendations on how a line might be drawn at the end of its five year mandate so that Northern Ireland may best move to a shared future.” fairly obviously although Eames Bradley will not admit to it there is a clear timetable for an amnesty after a suitable period of procrastination; as I noted at the time it is called “believable deny-ability”

Another part of the report which will not doubt be exposed to attack is its suggestion that the proposals of the Quigley Hamilton working group on released terrorists be given the force of law. To quote part of Quigley Hamilton 2.6“...a conviction arising from the conflict should not bar an applicant from obtaining employment, facilities, and goods or services unless that conviction is manifestly incompatible with the job, facility or service in question. The onus of demonstrating incompatibility would, in the view of the group, rest with whoever was alleging it and the seriousness of the offence would not, per se constitute adequate grounds”
and
“The report where an applicant is ruled out of consideration at any stage he/she should be given the opportunity to outline his/her perspective before a final decision is taken.”

All of these proposals are of course unacceptable to the vast majority of people here. However, I submit that the £12,000 (the Ford Focus) was designed in part to take the heat so that the rest of the document could go through relatively unscathed. Bradley miscalculated and in actual fact so appalling was the reaction to the Ford Focus of money that it was dropped very quickly. That helps expose the rest of the report and Bradley at any rate seems to understand that it will be just as unacceptable as the £12,000. Hence trying to move the debate back to the money may well be an attempt by Bradley to force people back to fighting about the money in order to reduce the attacks the other parts of the report which although less overtly obscene are in actual fact more dangerous and just as immoral.

Of course the noble Lord’s view on his co chair’s manoeuvring would be very interesting. Above I described Eames as maybe a Lundy. Cushy Glenn has recently suggested that Lundy after his actions later served bravely though I cannot find an online reference to this. Lord Eames of course could now come out and reaffirm his new view that the £12,000 was a bad idea. Indeed he could then go on to explain to us why the group ignored most of the evidence it received and explain how it managed to come up with the reviled document. Many feel that Bradley was the main instigator of the report and Eames could come out and confirm this; accept his own personal responsibility; apologise for the whole debacle and call for the report to be binned. If he did all that then actually he might find that he would again be acceptable to the reasonable people of Northern Ireland.

Whilst Eames may belatedly be beginning to realise the insulting folly of offering the survivors the financial equivalent of a Ford Focus and equating Thomas Begley and Lenny Murphy with Kathryn Eakin and Marie Wilson, he has not yet admitted to the intellectual and moral laziness and turpitude of much of the rest of his report. There is as yet no acceptance that creating a system which will provide an amnesty is unacceptable to the tenants of natural justice, to British and Irish law and to the overwhelming majority of people here. There is still no acceptance by the noble lord that wiping the criminals slates clean by accepting the Quigley Hamilton proposals is also unacceptable. Just to reiterate about Quigley Hamilton: these proposals would prevent anyone from refusing employment to murderers. However, the noble lord may have begun on a journey to understand just what a disaster his report was and remains. Hopefully the government will, following the consultation period drop the whole report where it belongs in the recycling bin (it would be immoral just to land fill that much paper).

The Group recommends that full support is given by government, the private and
voluntary sector, including the churches, to the continuation of the annual Day
of Reflection initiated by HTR, on 21st June each year.
The Group also recommends that, on or around this day each year, the First Minister
and deputy First Minister should together make a keynote address to the Northern
Ireland Assembly and invited guests. This address would provide an opportunity for
the elected leaders to lead by example by directing society to reflect upon the past
in a positive way and to confirm their commitment to lead us towards a shared
and reconciled future.

It went on to state:

In reflecting on the past it is important that an element of responsible self acknowledgement is included. Put simply, this means that, as well as reflecting
on wrongs done to us, we should consider wrongs we have done to others, or perhaps
things we could have done differently, with an ultimate focus on taking responsibility
for the future. As suggested in Chapter 2, responsibility for the future lies not only
with those who were directly involved in the conflict, but with every sector of society.
A shared and reconciled future can only be achieved by active cooperation and
participation by society as a whole, of which reflection is a necessary prerequisite.

These proposals are of course fairly typical of the intellectually lazy and morally bankrupt nature of the whole report. Yet again we see the care which is taken to avoid any hierarchy of responsibility: despite the fact that it clearly exists. There is, yet again, the suggestion that we are all responsible for the past and its wrongs. This of course avoids the overwhelming difference in responsibility between the likes of Lenny Murphy and his unfortunate victims or between those who planted the Claudy bomb and Kathryn Eakin. It also avoids the vast moral difference between those of us, of whatever political position, who never committed nor supported any of the crimes visited upon people here and the perpetrators and their supporters.

Although a day to remember the victims might not have been an unreasonable idea, Eames Bradley has of course managed to so mangle the concept that if adopted on the lines they propose it would be acceptable to no one apart possibly from the terrorists and their fellow travellers.

As an aside it is also interesting that Jarlath Burns who alleged some unionists were “a bit dishonest and almost duplicitous” never did “Name and Shame.” Instead to paraphrase fair_deal: He shut up rather than put up.

The government’s full response to the report is of course still awaited. However, hopefully the whole report will go the way of the insulting £12,000 payment and be remembered only for its folly, moral and intellectual laziness. As I have suggested all along the report is not fit for purpose.

Clearly there are bits which Eames will want the unionist community to focus on for him to “move on” from his personally disastrous report:

In a speech at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Donegal, Lord Eames said: “Future generations will look back to the conflict in Northern Ireland and will read of fear and uncertainty.

“Men and women who faced murder at their work and in their homes. Many of them still carry physical and mental scars of those days. As many of them asked us – does society really appreciate our sacrifice?”

It is unclear whether Lord Eames feels that they agree that he appreciates their sacrifice: not if the reaction of unionist politicians, victims groups or indeed the comments his group gathered are anything to go by. Of course at the time he found ways to dismiss all those comments but I suppose now a bit of rewriting of his previous actions is called for.

Unfortunately also his attempts at explanation for the report were as flawed as his attempts to air brush out equating the death of the innocent with those of their murderers.

“Our report looked at a time when united condemnation of murder and violence did not exist. It was a time when our society was deeply divided and suspicious.”

“Then came the ceasefires and the Belfast Agreement and the course of history changed.”

The noble Lord is again being disingenuous here. It is undoubtedly true that society here was deeply divided (just as it is now). However, he is again conflating two different things. The division is true as is the fact that shared government did not work (though it was tried at Sunningdale). However, there was pretty united condemnation of murder and violence. The reactions of the overwhelming majority of nationalists to Enniskillen, Teebane, Kingsmills and Darkley were disgust, revolution and unequivocal condemnation; the same reactions came from the elected nationalist politicians of the time. Yes there were a few dishonourable exceptions: but only a few. Equally the overwhelming majority of unionists were disgusted by and condemned unreservedly Greysteel, the Shankill Butchers, Sean Graham’s bookmakers and the Loughlinisland murders. Again there were dishonourable exceptions but not many

What Eames is trying to pretend, however, is that these facts did not exist. This is to allow him to gain some shred of an excuse for regarding the murders of the past as different to the murders of the present (just as I predicted he would). The only way he can carry off this deception, however, is to pretend that we were all, in some way supportive of, or in some way guilty of, the crimes of the past. A quote from Eames Bradley explains this: “A reconciling society takes collective responsibility for the past instead of attributing blame and avoiding responsibility.”

Again as I said at the time -”This sort of nonsense ignores the fact that in law and in most reasonable people’s minds ‘society’ has nothing to take responsibility for. Individuals committed very wrong acts. Lord Eames should remember that the Bible suggests that everyone is accountable before God for his or her sin, not for other people’s. ‘The Past’ in question here is actually the wrong, immoral and evils acts of the past. Any of us who did not commit crimes here is innocent. As such we have no responsibility for the actions of the past. If Lord Eames wishes to claim he is responsible for something in the past that is for his conscience: Mine and I submit almost all of ours should be clear on this matter. Let us leave Lord Eames to wallow in the self righteousness of his own self appointed guilt should he choose.”

Eames has brought to his latest comments the same intellectually lazy and dishonest attitude he brought to his whole report. Unfortunately for the noble Lord, it is not only Jim Allister who has called for his whole report to be binned. Opposition to his report seems about as united as opposition to murder always was. However, I am sure the noble Lord will not let such inconvenient truths get in the way of his campaign to rehabilitate himself: how successful that campaign will be, however, remains open to question.

As I said throughout Eames Bradley is not fit for purpose and had Lord Eames thought a little more about the true nature of the task in hand he would have realised that ages ago. That would, however, have required more lateral thinking and intellectual honesty than he has ever shown before and he shows no sign of gaining it now.

However, in their report Eames Bradley did not suggest the prosecution of the terrorists under the full rigor of the law. Let us go back to a few of the quotes from Eames Bradley’s document “The Past should be dealt with in a manner which enables society to become more defined by its desire for true and lasting reconciliation rather than by division and mistrust, seeking to promote a shared and reconciled future for all.” Then we have “A reconciling society takes collective responsibility for the past instead of attributing blame and avoiding responsibility.”

The problem for Eames Bradley is that the community is now fairly united in its reconciled desire to attribute blame to the criminals involved in these latest murders. If Eames Bradley proposed that after five years another commission should suggest an amnesty for the perpetrators of the latest outrages there would be an outcry. If Eames Bradley demanded that after any possible conviction of these latest criminals, they then be allowed to have their records wiped clean; there would be near hysteria.

There is, however, no logically consistent way by which Eames Bradley can justify differing treatment for these latest criminals than for previous murderers. There are a few by which a distinction could conceivably be drawn but they lack any semblance of logical or moral consistency.

One would be to accept the legitimacy of the previous terrorist campaigns and that indeed in the past the IRA (and I guess then the loyalists) were fighting a genuine war. That would allow them to denounce the current terrorists as murderers with no support etc. It would of course also be to buy at least in part into SF’s analysis of the conflict that then was a war which is now over. This would clearly be extremely problematic since Eames Bradley, after briefly flirting with that idea of the troubles being a war, seemed to go off it. Such a plan would also result in Lord Eames especially receiving opposition which would make David Simpson’s look mild.

Another option the noble Lord and Mr. Bradley might consider would be to suggest that the past was the past and as such “...taking into account the receding possibilities” pursuing the last lot of terrorists is impractical whereas the new ones may be realistically apprehendable. That of course goes back to the flaw I mentioned previously that in most jurisdictions murderers continue to be pursued for many years. It would also logically imply that if the murderers from last week can manage to remain at large for a few years then (according to Eames Bradley) their pursuit is pointless. Such a suggestion would again be likely to cause outrage. However, again that is the logic of the Eames Bradley proposals, as is the implicit admission I mentioned above that in the future an amnesty would be a reasonable idea.

The reality of course is that the latest murders are a carbon copy of the previous 3500 murders. There are no differences unless one accepts the republican movement’s (and loyalist’s) attempts at self justification. Eames Bradley can pretend a distinction and hence, abandon themselves to the opprobrium of all reasonable people. Alternatively they could admit that these latest murders expose the intellectual and moral vacuity at the heart of their project and that it is not fit for purpose. I suspect, however, they will actually try to keep their heads down and if necessary mumble some meaningless and intellectually lazy platitudes: no change there then. 

On pages 147 and 148 of the report the purpose and powers of the “Thematic Examination Unit” are set out. It is expressly stated that its role would be to examine “linked or thematic cases” which are defined as “cases [that] have raised particular concern or are linked by the circumstances of death, or by the possible identity of the culprits, or touch on themes, such as areas of paramilitary activity or alleged collusion”. It is inconceivable that the drawing of conclusions in such cases could do other than involve the determination of the culpability of individuals.

Indeed, the group recognises this by referring on page 148 to the need for participants to have access to independent legal advice and the right to legal representation. My point was, and remains, that the safeguards for those individuals proposed by the group are patently inadequate.

Then there’s the question of whether all the groups involved will actually participate..

That may, or may not, have prompted this comment from Pat Doherty, MP, MLA [Speaking from experience? - Ed]

Committee member Sinn Féin MP Pat Doherty warned: “Be careful that you are not used by the British government to try to block exposure of what they were up to during the conflict.”

Lord Eames denied there was any pressure from the British government on how his group carried out its work.

“the consultative group may very well have lost an opportunity to help redress the very human need people have to vent their own sentiments about personal loss, or cost, for a tribunal that would incorporate such commentary within a permanent record available to all at a time mutually agreed upon”.

The professor of history continued: “It really does not matter whether or not Boston College and the Linenhall Library directs a programme for recording interviews of the many people from all sectarian, political and avocational . . . groups who have been victims of various trauma . . . What . . . is essential is that this opportunity not be lost before the passage of time results in too few survivors.”

According to Prof Hachey: “That would not only preclude these individuals from having the opportunity to vent about, and expound upon, their own experiences, it would also deny posterity access to an archive that would be enormously helpful to future understanding of the phenomenon of victimology.”a

You can comment on individual aspects of the Eames Bradley report at Slugger’s own:consultationonthepast.org

The impact of segregation and separation, driven by sectarianism, was increasingly evident throughout our consultation. There are a greater number of so-called ‘peace’ walls now than existed throughout the conflict. The costs attached to a doubling up of services are further evidence of how the past continues to infect our public life. For many people it remains the one thing which, if not properly tackled, could drag us back into the abyss.

It is open to question for instance whether segregation and separate community development over thirty years is driven by sectarianism, or they create and sustain it. Although they are clear enough on its most undesirable effects, it is used “to justify harm, injury or death inlicted on an individual or community”, they load much of the burden for that state of play back on the churches rather than looking at specific problems that might be addressed directly through means of public policy.

In particular they name faith based education and those to whom theological difference is of over riding importance:

The Christian churches carry a particular historical responsibility, for they not only gave the language which both shaped and fuelled division, but often gave sanction to those who exploited theological disputes and diferences for political and territorial gain. Catholic and Protestant became the identifying labels of the political and national allegiances of each side of the divide. Too often the violence and bitterness of communal strife was allowed to increase the suspicion and gulf between the two Christian traditions.

Many will see this a simple call to ecumenism, or even secular education. Yet sectarianism is much wider than that.  Wikipedia’s page on Sectarianism gives this:

Sectarianism is bigotry, discrimination, prejudice or hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group, such as between different denominations of a religion or the factions of a political movement.

So how should we define the problem? And when and in what circumstances is does it become an actual problem which requires intervention, and when just a consequence of mundane living? What practical interventions can be made? Tell us over at our consultation on the past website!

By Alan McBride

Having been involved in the Victims and Survivors sector for the past ten years, I have lost count of the number of times I have heard it said, “there can be no hierarchy of victims” – I have even said it myself on more than one occasion.  At one level the statement rings true – Robin Eames, speaking at the launch of the Bradley Eames report, said that frequently during the consultation period on dealing with the past, people of all persuasions acknowledged that “a mother’s tears are all the same”.  Few could disagree with this sentiment and I do not intend to undermine that.

Indeed I have often acknowledged, in my own case of losing my wife in the Shankill bomb, that the mother of the bomber Thomas Begley hurts much like myself. In fact, it could be argued that her pain is more acute, due to the fact that she not only lost a son but that she also has to live with the knowledge that her son killed nine other people.  That being the case I believe Mrs Begley should receive all the help society can give her to help her deal with her tragedy; but I have always stopped short of suggesting that that should be monetary in nature.  There is something about money that changes the dynamic of how we view situations like this.  For example, the suggestion in the Bradley Eames report, that the family of a person who was killed planting a bomb should receive the same ‘recognition’ payment as the families of those that they killed, is just plain wrong. 

It’s wrong for all sorts of reasons; but primarily because in the eyes of most people it appears to equate the death of a perpetrator with that of their victim, and that brings me back to this question of ‘hierarchy’.  It’s the ‘elephant in the room’, the issue no one wants to address; unsurprisingly our fledgling Assembly appear to have side stepped it, preferring instead for the Victims’ Commission to deal with it once they set up the Victims’ Forum.  Whether we agree or not, a ‘hierarchy’ exists in the sense that not every one was guilty and not every one was innocent.

A lot of what happened in the Troubles was wrong and should never be dressed up in “we have all hurt and we have all been hurt” language.  This only serves to antagonise the families of those who were truly innocent, and results in the sort of angry scenes observed at the Europa recently.  I am of the opinion that it would go some way to healing the hurts of the past if we injected a little bit of honesty into the process.  Maybe it could be “one small step” to acknowledge that we are not all in the same place in relation to how we have been affected by or contributed to the conflict.  Some have caused more hurt than others and some been more innocent.

That is one reason why I am of the opinion that we should not simply blame everything on the paramilitaries: yes they were the principal contributors to the killing, yes they are responsible for what they did; and yes they should step forward and accept personal responsibility for their actions, instead of trying to rewrite history; but they were a symptom of our conflict, not the cause, and it suits many dark agendas to try to obscure that. Others played a less obvious role, be it the security forces whenever they stepped outside the law, the churches or mainland politicians whenever they turned a blind eye, local politicians who made careers out of maintaining the ‘two tribe’ mentality, and anyone else who engaged in sectarian thinking of any kind.  This does not mean that we are all equally responsible for the death and injury, but we certainly need to acknowledge that we all share some responsibility for helping society to move forward.

I suppose this is where I part company with some of the protesters seen at the Europa.  Yes there is a ‘hierarchy’ of victims, a ‘hierarchy’ of right and wrong if you like, and as such I think that should be stated.  But there can be no ‘hierarchy’ when it comes to meeting peoples needs – a mother’s tears are all the same, and as such they should receive whatever help they need in order to move on.  That should be the focus in any mechanism designed to deal with the past.

First published in the Belfast Telegraph///

Bradley’s problem, and indeed the problem of the report, is that the politicians’ response articulates profound communal division over victims and the past. Unionists, politicians and those who have voted for them, do not agree with Bradley when he proclaims: ‘we cannot wash our hands and say we were not part of the problem’. Most firmly believe in the innocent victim/perpetrator distinction.

The Eames Bradley group’s orientation to these issues was heavily influenced by the peace and reconciliation industry which has grown up in Northern Ireland under more than 30 years of direct rule and the peace process. The place of a local political class was usurped by NGOs, community groups, former paramilitaries and academics. A key characteristic of this group was an ideology that fused in different combinations local versions of liberal theology, recycled 1960s Marxism, human rights absolutism and the utopian legal theory of transitional justice.

It represents a framework for understanding Northern Ireland’s past which is structurally biased against Unionism and puts terrorist organisations on a level with the security forces. A group dealing with the past but with no historians on it and whose extensive bibliography contains not one book by an academic historian produces a poor man’s post-modernism of ‘story-telling’ where the ‘police story’ or the ‘army story’ has the same truth value and moral content as the ‘former combatants’ story (transitional justice speak for terrorists’ narratives).

The poor benighted Northern Ireland populace, the vast majority of whom never joined a paramilitary organisation, are being faced with five years of being forced to be ‘reconciled’. For a majority that essentially means acknowledging that unless they listen to the usually self-justifying narratives of those responsible for most of the devastation of the Troubles, they are in danger of being responsible for future conflicts. This is the constant refrain of a community relations industry which has already had substantial amounts of state funding without any noticeable impact on continuing sectarian division in Northern Ireland. Under Eames-Bradley, the Treasury will be asked for £100m more to fill this black hole.

Eames-Bradley is the product of the fag-end of direct rule and the peace process. The social groups and ideas that produced it are characterised by their distance from and hostility to the unionist political class which now has an effective veto on key governmental decisions for the first time since 1972. Although the British government will pay attention to what Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Dublin have to say about the report, it will be difficult to ignore the hostility of Unionism. The Group may hope that once again a British government will ignore Unionist concerns but with Brown already in debt to the DUP over its support on 42 days detention and struggling not to be engulfed by the worst economic crisis since the 1930s this may prove unfounded.

They identify collusion with the security forces as an aggrevating feature of day to day life in paramilitary run areas:

...the Group recognises that intelligence gathering is an integral part of security activity, the sense of oppression was even further increased by the numbers of people who were recruited by the State and induced to act as informers.

It recommends story telling ventures under the aegis of the Victims Commission:

Forgiveness and reconciliation need to take place within communities as well as between communities. Some of the stories will be difficult to tell and to listen to but all the more important that they be told and that they be heard. This, of course, will only happen and then only tentatively when people and communities are convinced that the conlict is over and done with and that a truly safe place exists for all.

This is not to recommend that people from within these communities publicly admit to having been recruited as agents or to having passed on information to the security forces but rather to face the truth that these communities were never completely of the same mind or conviction as to the legitimacy of what was being done. These communities were made up of people who were fallible and under enormous pressure.

Unlike the more official issues being piled into the Legacy Commission which are likely to be time bound by a 5 year period; the caveat here is this process is likely to be pretty long term and open ended. Its the type of sensitive work already being carried out by charities like Healing Through Remembrance.

In post Franco Spain they took the opposite view to Eames-Bradley and established a Pact of Forgetting. An agreement that is now slowly falling apart some seventy years later, often with locally traumatic results.

If you want to add your comment you on this post you can do so over at the Consultation on the Past site here.

Former members of the security forces and their families expressed anger arising from their belief that they are now being made scapegoats for the actions of others, when they simply did what duty required during the conflict.

Some went so far as to describe this as the ‘Ulsterisation’ of the blame. Some former members of the RUC and UDR/R IRISH (HS) believe that the British Government is trying to put the blame for alleged collusion on them and will not allow those allegations to be directed at other agencies such as the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Security Services.

For many within the local security forces there is a deep and real feeling of being as much victims of the conlict as those traditionally thought of in that category. There is also resentment that Public Inquiries and examinations of the past appear to accept that blame must inevitably fall on them.

The ‘them’ referred to here stands for state actors, as opposed to non state actors. This section focuses solely on the state’s role as opposed to, say, a range of collusive activities of individuals in public or private positions of influence may or may not have played with paramilitary/terrorist organisations.

The sole focus on state collusion is one of the driving factors behind a lot of unionist criticism of the report. Ironicially it is also the group’s recommendation that has brought the most focused criticism from Republicans too.  Under these headings, the group recommends:

...there remain serious questions to be answered concerning allegations of collusion. The Group does not think that these are best explored through normal judicial processes. Rather, they would be best examined under procedures designed specifically for the purposes of information recovery and reconciliation.

Let us have your thoughts and criticisms of the Group’s recommendations on collusion here!

Whatever the justification offered for the respective campaigns, the quantitative burden of ‘victim’ status is striking. It falls argely upon innocents, and upon those urban populations which gave rise to and sustained the violent campaigns of various paramilitary groupings.

For a precise definition of victim, Eames-Bradley turned to current law:

In Article 3, paragraph 1 of the Victims and Survivors (Northern Ireland) Order 2006, a ‘victim and survivor’ is defined as:

“(a) someone who is or has been physically or psychologically injured as a result of or in consequence of a conflict-related incident;
(b) someone who provides a substantial amount of care on a regular basis
for an individual mentioned in paragraph (a); or
(c) someone who has been bereaved as a result of or in consequence
of a conflict-related incident.”

The Order goes on to state that:

“Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), an individual may
be psychologically injured as a result of or in consequence of -
(a) witnessing a conflict-related incident or the consequences of such an incident; or
(b) providing medical or other emergency assistance to an individual in connection
with a conflict-related incident.”

The group then formulates its response terms of the ‘hierarchy of victims’ idea which as been around for much of the protracted period of the peace process. It is interesting that authors eschew the opportunity to deploy it with little in the way of intellectual, moral or legal argument. Rather they simply conclude:

The Group regrets and rejects the politicisation of victimhood. The true nature of the hierarchy of victims lies in the level of loss and suffering experienced during the conflict.

It is the difference between having your loved one killed or severely injured against having a car destroyed or your house damaged. That is the true hierarchy of victims.

The Group is, therefore, convinced that to continue the already highly politicised debate about the definition of a victim and the hierarchy of victims is both fruitless and self-defeating. It is of greater importance to respond to the needs of victims and survivors.

All submissions should be posited directly on the Consultation site, rather than on Slugger itself. This is a slow burn project, which we hope will allow us to come to useful conclusions, not simply about this report but with the wider issue of how a difficult and problematic past can be dealt with going forward. Contributions can be as general or as specific as you like.

You can respond to this post on Understanding perspectives and defining victims page.

One of the earliest segments in the report is probably the genesis of many of the problems of the public controversy it ran into. Under what we’ve called the road map to the future section, the report lays out its thinking viz a viz the authors’ favoured definitions of the past. In particular they take a fairly vigorous stance on the need for remembrance to be done publicly:

...there are also disagreements about how the past can be dealt with. Some believe we cannot change our understanding of the past. Some believe the past should be laid out for all to see and that truth should be sought and told. Others say that the past should be forgotten in the interests of the future.

As those who carry the scars of the past know, and as the divisions in our society continue to illustrate, the past cannot be forgotten.

Buried memories fester in the unconscious minds of communities in conflict, only to emerge later in even more distorted and virulent forms to poison minds and relationships. The animosity between the communities continues, as is clear not least in the politics of the Stormont Assembly. When future generations ask ‘why?’, they will, if reasons are not considered and recorded, make up their own minds about what happened based on age old beliefs of the communities they come from.

They also argue that that retelling requires a ‘listening’:

Divided communities carry diferent experiences and understandings of the past in their minds, and indeed it is this that divides them. Their accounts of the past differ deeply. They are used as a marker to determine and make positive, but more frequently negative, moral judgements on each other and so continuing the legacy of suspicion, mistrust and hatred.

These diferent moral assessments are seen most clearly in each side’s often strident retelling of their own story. If these conflicting moral assessments of the past are to change, then all sides need to be encouraged and facilitated to listen and hear each other’s stories.

This listening must then lead to honest assessment of what the other is saying and to recognition of truth within their story. In such a process it might be possible to construct a remembrance of our past which is more humane, comprehensive and rounded.

The address the underlying moral implications of their suggested process (The Legacy Commission) thusly:

To get the process of mutual forgiveness and eventual reconciliation up and running, the conversation need not result in either side admitting to being always and entirely in the wrong. In fact, given the moral imprecision for which fallible human beings are renowned, it would be strange indeed if in such cases one side were ever found to be always and entirely in the right. It would be sufficient that there is an admission that, just as rights were present on both sides, so also wrongs were committed on both sides.

It might even be sufficient for the process of forgiveness and reconciliation to begin if parties would agree that they are dealing with genuine moral agents like themselves, people who can make mistakes in their moral decisions and who also have the moral stature to move beyond them. Even on such narrow ground the seeds of future forgiveness and reconciliation can grow.

As cross-community storytelling and other forms of memorialisation proceed and increase, it is quite possible that the overall futility of recourse to arms to solve the problems of a divided Northern Ireland might begin to dawn on those who took part.

If you want to comment on this piece, please head over to the Remembrance for reconciliation section and leave your thoughts there. All comments will be pre-moderated, so there may be a delay before yours goes public.

Note: this is an entirely unfunded initiative on the part of Slugger O’Toole. It is intended to facilitate public debate on the detail of a report the detail of has been largely bypassed by the mainstream media. All opinions are welcome. Just remember to keep it relevant and civil!

There is certainly no duplicity on the part of the Democratic Unionist Party. The Shankill Butchers cannot be placed on the same level as their innocent victims, nor can the Shankill bomber be placed on the same level as those whom he killed. That has always been our position.”

Reg Empey, however, suggested that Mr. Burns’s comments might well be correct: “If a member of the team is motivated to come out and say that, then it means they are upset about the difference between what they were told privately and what is now being said in public.”

He also suggested that “Whoever they were they should own up and tell people what it was they said.” and that “I don’t know who went to see them, but I presume it shouldn’t be too hard to find out.”

I doubt any unionists will own up during the debate today. If Mr. Burns thought that his remarks would settle the situation or gain credibility for the report I suspect he is mistaken. He is now left in a situation whereby he is likely to have to name the unionist politicians in question: otherwise his, and the Eames Bradley group as a whole’s position, is likely to be even further damaged in unionists eyes.