Skip to main content

Unshackling the Past

Image
By
US diplomats Richard Haass and Meghan O Sullivan are currently conducting intensive and inclusive negotiations to deal with outstanding aspects of the Good Friday and other Agreements. These include the legacy issues arising from the conflict.

Everyone who has an interest in building the peace knows that the past cannot be allowed to be an obstacle to building the future. So, there needs to be a measured and inclusive debate on all of the issues involved.
Today the north’s Attorney General John Larkin has put forward his ideas on dealing with one aspect the legacy of the past - the issue of prosecutions. He has expressed a view that there should be no prosecutions, inquests or inquiries for incidents before the Good Friday Agreement.

Mr. Larkin has also said that the current position favours non-state forces. That is not the case. The British government is in breach of international agreements and commitments in respect of the Pat Finucane Inquiry and the Dublin and Monaghan bombs. And to all intents and purposes there is an amnesty for the British state forces and their allies. While over the years thousands of republicans and innocent nationalists have served very lengthy prison sentences.
I have not had the chance to read the Attorney General’s full remarks on this issue. But I think it is a good thing that the Haass talks have encouraged people - he has had several hundred submissions – to express their opinions, including victims.

Our wider society needs to have this debate. We need a sensitive, measured, reasoned and intelligent debate on these issues which recognises that any mechanism put in place must be victim centred and that it has to be done on the basis of equality.
The conflict is over but the legacy of conflict remains with us. The pain, suffering and the tragedies from decades of conflict are, for many, as real today as they were when they first occurred.

Sinn Féin believes that if legacy issues are located in the framework of conflict resolution and of the broader peace process then these matters will be addressed in way which will heal divisions, consolidate the peace and become guarantors for the future. Truth recovery and acknowledgement are critical to dealing with the past and can become a powerful dynamic in the quest for reconciliation.

Sinn Féin has proposed that an international, independent truth recovery process underpinned in legislation should be established. Others have different ideas of how this issue should be dealt with and that is fair enough, but we need to take this opportunity to move the process forward in a way that looks after the victims but also builds the future for the survivors.

It is necessary that in coming to the issue of truth and reconciliation that we all recognise that there are many different narratives to this story. All of these narratives have their own truth. There is no single voice for victims. Some want truth. Some want judicial processes.
There are also different perspectives on the causes of the conflict, what happened and who was responsible.

I am an Irish republican. British government involvement in Irish affairs and the partition of this country are in my view at the core of the problem but I recognise that others, for example, the unionists have a different view and their own sense of truth, Fine Gael may have its own analysis. Or Fianna Fáil and others including the British government. We need to set all of these narratives side by side and respect them all.

How do we encourage such a debate? The starting point must be a recognition by the Irish government that this is a crucial matter and that as a co-equal partner with the British government it has a responsibility to look after everyone on this island including our unionist neighbours.

In this context I am looking to the government to encourage a joined-up inclusive, thoughtful discussion aimed at unshackling us from the past. We need a process that can ensure that the past is never repeated and which is aimed at forging a more hopeful future for the people who have survived the conflict and for our children and grandchildren.

In this respect I am very conscious of the upcoming state visit by the President to Britain. It is important that these seismic changes can be measured by people not just in the palaces but also in the laneways and hillsides across this island.

Finally in our submission to the Haass talks Sinn Féin submitted a paper ‘Addressing Legacy Issues – Building a Common Future’. We have also made submissions on Flags and emblems and on parades. All of these are available at www.sinnfein.ie

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turf Lodge – A Proud Community

By
This blog attended a very special celebration earlier this week. It was Turf Lodge: 2010 Anois is Arís 50th Anniversary. For those of you who don’t know Turf Lodge is a proud Belfast working class community. Through many difficult years the people of Turf Lodge demonstrated time and time again a commitment to their families and to each other. Like Ballymurphy and Andersonstown, Turf Lodge was one of many estates that were built on the then outskirts of Belfast in the years after the end of World War 2. They were part of a programme of work by Belfast City Corporation known as the ‘Slum clearance and houses redevelopment programme.’ The land on which Turf Lodge was built was eventually bought by the Corporation in June 1956. The name of the estate, it is said, came from a farm on which the estate was built. But it was four years later, in October 1960, and after many disputes and delays between builders and the Corporation, that the first completed houses were handed over for allocation...
2 comments
Read more

Slán Peter John

By
Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy, Fergal Caraher’s parents, Mary and Peter John, and Sinn Féin Councillors Brendan Curran and Colman Burns at the memorial in South Armagh dedicated to Fergal Caraher It was a fine autumn morning. The South Armagh hilltops, free of British Army forts, were beautiful in the bright morning light as we drove north from Dublin to Cullyhanna to attend the funeral of Peter John Caraher. This blog has known Peter John and the Caraher family for many years. A few weeks ago his son Miceál contacted me to let me know that Peter John was terminally ill. I told him I would call. It was just before the Ard Fheis. Miceál explained to me that Peter John had been told he only had a few weeks left but had forgotten this and I needed to be mindful of that in my conversation. I was therefore a wee bit apprehensive about the visit but I called and I came away uplifted and very happy. Peter John was in great form. We spent a couple of hours craicing away, telling yarns and in his c...
2 comments
Read more

The Myth Of “Shadowy Figures”

By
Mise agus Martin and Ted in Stormont Castle 2018 The demonising of republicans has long been an integral part of politics on this island, and especially in the lead into and during electoral campaigns. Through the decades of conflict Unionist leaders and British governments regularly posed as democrats while supporting anti-democratic laws, censorship and the denial of the rights of citizens who voted for Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin Councillors, party activists and family members were killed by unionist death squads, o ften in collusion with British state forces. Successive Irish governments embraced this demonization strategy through Section 31 and state censorship. Sinn Féin was portrayed as undemocratic and dangerous. We were denied municipal or other public buildings to hold events including Ard Fheiseanna. In the years since the Good Friday Agreement these same elements have sought to sustain this narrative. The leaderships of Fianna Fáil, the Irish Labour Party, the SDLP and...
Post a Comment
Read more