Anthony McIntyre  ✒ reflects on the proposal from the British government to call a halt to prosecutions for violent activity related to the North's political conflict pre-1998.

It is not that often that the North’s political class finds itself united. The British state decision to unilaterally impose a statute of limitations on acts of political violence pre-1998 has managed to achieve the almost impossible – create an effigy that almost everyone wants to burn in a cross-community bonfire of political vanities.

It is doubtless a superficial unity, paradoxically underpinned by what divides the political class. It is not one driven by any notion of reconciliation, but rather recrimination. At least on the part of the two main blocs.

Behind the opposition to the British proposals - masked as an ethical concern for justice for victims - lies the prospect of political advantage. Sinn Fein, with its right eye shut, sees victims of state violence while the DUP, left eye closed, sees victims of republican violence. Both parties preach aloft from their own bully pulpit playing to their own gallery, pontificating on the need for truth while in reality demanding only half of it. The DUP want Gerry Adams prosecuted for war crimes but not Mike Jackson. Sinn Fein want Mike Jackson prosecuted for war crimes but not Gerry Adams. The same old drum beat relentlessly demanding the validation of our truth about you but not your truth about us. 

All the while they exploit the victims with false promises of the pot of gold in the form of guilty verdicts at the end of the prosecution rainbow. They never tell the bereaved that were prosecutors to start investigating - for the purposes of a trial of facts - events in the period 1916-23, the difference in conviction rates between that era and the period 1968-1998 would be negligible.

The families who have lost loved ones are, through no fault of their own, ripe for emotive pickings. Such is the understandable focus on their own particular loss fed by the very real injustice inflicted upon them, many are propelled to grasp the prosecution lotto ticket with about as much chance of winning it. Jon Boutcher while opposing the Tory proposal, nevertheless, summed up the chances of success as “incredibly rare.”

Susan McKay, also critical of the British initiative, made the point that the Tory intention is to “deal with the past by erasing it. You deny it ever happened. You call a halt to history. You draw a line."

It is not in the gift of the state to be able to do that. The dead will remain dead prosecutions or not. Nothing is going to eradicate that. Bloody Sunday is not going to be erased because the prosecution of psychopathic thug Soldier F failed. In fact had the case proceeded to trial, where he would almost certainly been found not guilty of murder, that would have been much more corrosive of the truth about the Derry massacre.  Demands for prosecutions in Bloody Sunday or Ballymurphy are not wrong per se but they do allow the state the opportunity to retrieve ground lost at Saville and the recent Ballymurphy Massacre inquest, both of which left the world in no doubt as to what happened. 

A much more grounded observation made by McKay  is that the amnesty is not restricted to prosecutions:

but also all legal investigations “current and future” into pre-1998 “Troubles-related conduct”. This will include tribunals, inquiries, civil cases, inquests, and legacy investigations by the Police Ombudsman.

These are areas in which truth has been, albeit at a glacial pace, extracted. It seems beyond dispute that they have proven much more fruitful arenas for the emergence of truth than prosecutions ever have. To date not one state actor has been convicted. The likelihood is that none ever will. 

For practical rather than ethical reasons, the decision to end prosecutions is arguably the most logical. Not that the Tories did it for any reason other than that explained by Boutcher: “there is a clear agenda from the Conservative Government to protect veterans.” If process justifies outcome, there was no process involved here: just typical Tory arrogance. It would have been much better had the victims established a consensus amongst themselves that in terms of truth recovery, no prosecutions was the best way to go rather than have it - and a whole lot more - delivered by Tory fiat. 

It is not the decision to end prosecutions that presents the real obstacle to truth recovery for families right across the societal spectrum, but the distasteful vista pointed out by McKay where immunity from prosecution is also to mean immunity from investigation. For too long prosecutions have been the diversion on the road to truth recovery, where all the energy is thrown into them only to dissipate short of any effective conclusion, and where at best the grunts might be snared but never the generals. 

 ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Prosecutions Might Occasionally Snare Grunts But Never Generals

Anthony McIntyre  ✒ reflects on the proposal from the British government to call a halt to prosecutions for violent activity related to the North's political conflict pre-1998.

It is not that often that the North’s political class finds itself united. The British state decision to unilaterally impose a statute of limitations on acts of political violence pre-1998 has managed to achieve the almost impossible – create an effigy that almost everyone wants to burn in a cross-community bonfire of political vanities.

It is doubtless a superficial unity, paradoxically underpinned by what divides the political class. It is not one driven by any notion of reconciliation, but rather recrimination. At least on the part of the two main blocs.

Behind the opposition to the British proposals - masked as an ethical concern for justice for victims - lies the prospect of political advantage. Sinn Fein, with its right eye shut, sees victims of state violence while the DUP, left eye closed, sees victims of republican violence. Both parties preach aloft from their own bully pulpit playing to their own gallery, pontificating on the need for truth while in reality demanding only half of it. The DUP want Gerry Adams prosecuted for war crimes but not Mike Jackson. Sinn Fein want Mike Jackson prosecuted for war crimes but not Gerry Adams. The same old drum beat relentlessly demanding the validation of our truth about you but not your truth about us. 

All the while they exploit the victims with false promises of the pot of gold in the form of guilty verdicts at the end of the prosecution rainbow. They never tell the bereaved that were prosecutors to start investigating - for the purposes of a trial of facts - events in the period 1916-23, the difference in conviction rates between that era and the period 1968-1998 would be negligible.

The families who have lost loved ones are, through no fault of their own, ripe for emotive pickings. Such is the understandable focus on their own particular loss fed by the very real injustice inflicted upon them, many are propelled to grasp the prosecution lotto ticket with about as much chance of winning it. Jon Boutcher while opposing the Tory proposal, nevertheless, summed up the chances of success as “incredibly rare.”

Susan McKay, also critical of the British initiative, made the point that the Tory intention is to “deal with the past by erasing it. You deny it ever happened. You call a halt to history. You draw a line."

It is not in the gift of the state to be able to do that. The dead will remain dead prosecutions or not. Nothing is going to eradicate that. Bloody Sunday is not going to be erased because the prosecution of psychopathic thug Soldier F failed. In fact had the case proceeded to trial, where he would almost certainly been found not guilty of murder, that would have been much more corrosive of the truth about the Derry massacre.  Demands for prosecutions in Bloody Sunday or Ballymurphy are not wrong per se but they do allow the state the opportunity to retrieve ground lost at Saville and the recent Ballymurphy Massacre inquest, both of which left the world in no doubt as to what happened. 

A much more grounded observation made by McKay  is that the amnesty is not restricted to prosecutions:

but also all legal investigations “current and future” into pre-1998 “Troubles-related conduct”. This will include tribunals, inquiries, civil cases, inquests, and legacy investigations by the Police Ombudsman.

These are areas in which truth has been, albeit at a glacial pace, extracted. It seems beyond dispute that they have proven much more fruitful arenas for the emergence of truth than prosecutions ever have. To date not one state actor has been convicted. The likelihood is that none ever will. 

For practical rather than ethical reasons, the decision to end prosecutions is arguably the most logical. Not that the Tories did it for any reason other than that explained by Boutcher: “there is a clear agenda from the Conservative Government to protect veterans.” If process justifies outcome, there was no process involved here: just typical Tory arrogance. It would have been much better had the victims established a consensus amongst themselves that in terms of truth recovery, no prosecutions was the best way to go rather than have it - and a whole lot more - delivered by Tory fiat. 

It is not the decision to end prosecutions that presents the real obstacle to truth recovery for families right across the societal spectrum, but the distasteful vista pointed out by McKay where immunity from prosecution is also to mean immunity from investigation. For too long prosecutions have been the diversion on the road to truth recovery, where all the energy is thrown into them only to dissipate short of any effective conclusion, and where at best the grunts might be snared but never the generals. 

 ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

8 comments:

  1. They are waiting til all relevant parties are pushing up daisies.

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  2. I don't understand why this wasn't resolved 23 years ago. This issue should've been settled in 1998 by putting it in the GFA a general amnesty that any deaths prior to April 1998 would not be prosecuted and have the people vote on it.

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  3. Well, said, Anthony. And Steve and Ryan too.

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  4. The British terrorists/mercenaries who came to this country and murdered Irish men women and children at will, knowing that if they didn't get a medal from Lizard Windsor, at least they would never go to prison. The same for the Loyalist RUC/PSNI. Republicans collectively were sentenced by British 'judges' to thousands of years. Not so the PSNI/RUC who were involved in hundreds of sectarian murders. They got their amnesty decades ago, and it continues uninterrupted to this day.

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  5. Why have those responsible for the Warrington bomb not come forward ? Best to draw a double line under all atrocities & move on. 😔

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  6. Some good observations there but I don't see an equivalence between people fighting armed resistance against colonialism and those fighting to impose it. Even if the main political leaderships on each side are cynical.

    The point has also been made in an earlier comment that Republican resistance fighters have paid a huge price in jail time (as you have yourself, Anthony) and early death for many. For State-sanctioned murders, not one British soldier has even been convicted which, of course, is hardly surprising.

    The granting of immunity from further prosecution comes in tandem with the legal granting of immunity from FUTURE crimes by the intelligence service. And as you say, immunity from investigation. Therefore it is right to oppose these measures though success is unlikely. The publicity/ propaganda call it what you will is also part of the struggle.

    Finally, of course not even a middling-rank officer will ever be convicted, to say nothing of senior officers or their political masters. But a conviction of a grunt, no matter how unlikely or a scapegoat if successful, also removes the certainty of impunity from every soldier. I believe that the reassurance of that continuing impunity is an important part of the reason for this measure.

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  7. Diarmuid - thanks for that.
    The non-equivalence argument is not going to fly, not because it is wrong but because the victims constituency is not going to give it any official recognition and it is too easily sidelined by the hierarchy of victims perspective.
    British soldiers have been convicted but in very few circumstances and never as a result of legacy.
    The issue is that if we support prosecutions the only people likely to be convicted are republicans or loyalists. I don't see how I could ever support a venture that would have as its objective the prosecution and imprisonment of former IRA activists by the British in Diplock Courts.
    And if we support the measure this is where it takes us.

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