To consider IRA members as 'victims' is insult to their victims
This week: Victims and their families are not being treated equally
RECENTLY, within two weeks, I attended very poignant events that were held in memory of two important community citizens who had been murdered by IRA terrorists. Two weeks ago, it was the 40th anniversary of the murder of Ronnie Funston. The farmer was feeding his cattle just a few hundred yards from the Border with the Republic.
He was on his tractor when the IRA members shot him in the back.
Ronnie’s mother heard the shooting, and when she arrived on the scene, she saw the gunmen running off and cheering after completing their terrible deed.
After the killing, the family sold the farm and moved.
The weekend just past, it was the 50th anniversary of the murder of primary school principal George Saunderson.
The retired Lt. Col. of the UDR was shot several times by three IRA terrorists in front of cooks in the school kitchen at the Earl of Erne School, close to the Border.
These are just two murders that I have highlighted among the 116 in Co. Fermanagh, and 3,568 deaths (figure from CAIN at Ulster University, for the period between 1969 and 2010) carried out during the period known as The Troubles.
During that time, many individuals, families, businesses and communities have been devastated and had their lives changed for ever.
The innocent victims have suffered most, and their view should be offered the greatest weight.
In terms of deaths, 90 per cent were the work of terrorist groups (60 per cent the work of Republicans, 30 per cent by Loyalists), and 10 per cent the responsibility of others, including security forces when it was necessary for them to engage terrorists.
When you factor in the 47,000 victims who were injured but not killed, this would equate to 98 per cent of victims being due to terrorist activity.
Sadly, some people are ignoring this as part of a deliberate campaign to rewrite the history of The Troubles.
Apart from the murder and destruction that has taken place during the past, one of the greatest travesties is that the current definition of a victim allows perpetrators to be classified as a victim, just the same as the people they murdered or maimed.
It is totally unfair and unreasonable that a perpetrator is also regarded as a victim, and on an equal basis to innocent victims.
There is a specific definition of terrorism contained in legislation, The Terrorism Act 2000.
This should be used and recognised within any legislation or policy dealing with the past.
It is essential that we do not lose sight of the importance of establishing a meaningful definition of a victim that distinguishes between innocent victims and perpetrators.
Terrorists are not victims. They created victims. The definition of a victim should be changed.
During the years of The Troubles, many people in Northern Ireland – including the police and the Army – displayed incredible restraint in the face of the terrorist onslaught.
They were targeted on and off duty. Some were targeted as they drove school buses or tended to cattle. As they left churches on a Sunday morning. As they shopped with their wives and children. As they sat in their homes.
One was abducted, and murdered, and his body has still not been returned. One was even shot in Germany along with his six-month old baby.
This was the IRA’S idea of how to prosecute a war. And yet they and their allies now want to talk about human rights?
There are many ongoing and continuing attempts at the rewriting of history or the promotion of a narrative that, at its core, is the sole intent of undermining the State and the security forces, in order to suit a Republican agenda and appease the IRA.
Given the fact that 90 per cent of the deaths in The Troubles were caused by terrorists, and 10 per cent by others – including the security forces – there is deep frustration at the level of support some individual families and groups receive to follow up on killings, mainly through inquiries, inquests or further investigations, compared to others.
If we take an example of the ‘Saville Inquiry’ into Bloody Sunday, the process cost approximately £200million, with some suggesting the real cost may have been a lot more.
Individual and company legal teams received a huge proportion of the costs, with some individual legal counsel receiving over £4million, one solicitor firm representing families received almost £12million, and a legal firm engaged to take witness statements collected more than £13million in fees.
Set this against the families of George Saunderson, Ronnie Funston, the Enniskillen Remembrance Day Bomb victims, the three Graham brothers, and many, many more innocent victims that have not received any such further investigations, inquiries or other processes.
It suggests significant inequity in our legacy processes.
The Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery is a process established within recent legislation, which will attempt to access information for families of Troublesrelated deaths and serious injury.
Terrorists were unconcerned about their victims and families when they took the decision and followed through to murder them, then most refused to provide any information or admit their actions.
It is unlikely that they are now willing to tell the truth to these families, even when there have been opportunities in the past to do so, to provide information – e.g. Martin Mcguinness refused to provide information at the Bloody Sunday enquiry due to his IRA code, information was refused to the Smithwick Tribunal, and the list goes on.
Therefore, there is no community confidence that terrorists, whether former or current, will provide any reasonable information to satisfy families.
Taking the statistics cited above, there is currently an unbalanced system that is investigating former security force members in an unfair proportion to that of terrorists. This should not continue.
Tom Elliott is an Ulster Unionist MLA and former MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and Councillor for Erne North.