UK government wants to wash its hands of atrocities carried out during the Troubles
THE explosion of emotion that greeted last week’s verdict of ‘unlawful killing’ at the Stardust inquest can never be adequately described with just words.
Forty-three years of grief, disbelief, frustration and anger all bursting forth in one deafening roar of relief. It was an extraordinary moment to witness and gave a visceral insight into the devastating impact that such an injustice can have on those left behind.
Families spoke afterwards of the significance of an official acknowledgement that every single one of those who died in that ferocious inferno, most likely sparked by an electrical fault in a hot press, was completely innocent of having any part in their own death.
Their exhausting fight for a thorough examination of the facts can now rest; they got their due process.
It means everything to them and the passing of more than four decades did nothing to dim their determination to get it. There is a large cohort of people who know exactly what the Stardust families have gone through – and they are among the many who lost loved ones as a result of the Troubles in the North.
OF the more than 3,700 who were killed during the conflict, 54% were civilians. Just over 1,500 of them were under 25. Like Stardust, in the immediate aftermath of many of the atrocities, often the victims were blamed or held in some way responsible for what had happened to them – even when it was clearly impossible for them to have been at fault.
For instance, 13-year-old Margaret Gargan was running towards her home in west Belfast to check on her brothers and sisters when she was shot by a British sniper in July 1972.
The army would later claim at the initial inquest that Margaret was an IRA gunman.
An open verdict was returned but last year, after decades of campaigning, a new inquest was opened into the Springhill massacre, where five people, including three teenagers and one priest, were killed that evening by British soldiers. It’s currently still running.
However, others still seeking justice for innocent loved ones killed during the Troubles may never get their chance to have their cases dealt with in the same manner.
Next week, on May 1, Troublesrelated civil cases and inquests that are not at their findings stage will be halted under the British government’s Legacy Act, which was passed into law last September.
There was little, if any, consultation with Northern Irish leaders about this new Act, which from next Wednesday will see the transfer of all legacy cases to a new UK investigative body, the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).
Fiercely opposed by all five major political parties in the North, in a rare show of united solidarity, the ICRIR’s focus will be on ‘information recovery’ rather than criminal proceedings. And, most controversially, it will offer conditional immunity to those suspected of committing offences during the Troubles and who cooperate with its investigations.
US politicians and human rights groups have spoken out against the act, while the Irish Government has launched a legal challenge against the legislation at the European Court of Human Rights.
AT the end of February, a Belfast High Court judge ruled that the clause on conditional immunity from prosecutions in the act is in breach of international human rights.
Judge Adrian Colton said: ‘There is no evidence that the granting of immunity under the act will in any way contribute to reconciliation in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the evidence is to the contrary.’
The British government has argued that this new system is an attempt to ‘draw a line under the events of the past’, which is another way of saying it’s an attempt to wash its hands of the atrocities of the Troubles.
It will benefit no one, apart from the soldiers who, often at the commands of their superiors, killed innocent civilians. And, of course, the terrorists from both sides, who slaughtered their fellow countrymen as well as the forces who were sent to serve in the North.
It’s often claimed that Northern Ireland is held in scandalously low regard by its central government in Westminster.
Pushing through legislation that will deny sincere amends to people who have already suffered the very worst of horrors is further proof to many that their ongoing pain barely registers with current UK leaders.
As the Stardust families know only too well, the dismissal of such hurt is often as keenly felt as the grief that was caused by a senseless death.