Amnesties 'have part to play in NI commission'

A debate must begin over whether amnesties should be offered in a truth and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland to those involved in murders during the Troubles, the British government was told today.

As Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy embarked on a fact finding visit to South Africa to learn from its experience of having a truth commission, Northern Ireland’s most senior policeman Hugh Orde said the question of amnesties for giving evidence had to be considered.

“It would be a very emotive issue but part of the wider debate does include that debate around amnesties,” he said.

“Amnesties have been tried in other places. Peru, for example, had an amnesty and tried an amnesty and it worked in part.

“I think that is part of the process. I think it is also looking at some sort of conciliation process, be it truth and reconciliation notions, be it storytelling.

“I don’t think there is one size which fits all here.”

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy announced on Thursday the start of a two stage consultation process on dealing with the past.

Mr Murphy said he would be consulting victims’ families, church leaders, politicians and academics but insisted the Government was coming to the process with an open mind.

During his visit to Pretoria and Johannesburg this week, he will meet former South African president F W de Klerk and leading African National Congress official, Cyril Ramaphosa.

A total of 3,633 people were killed in Northern Ireland during the Troubles between 1966 and 1999.

It is estimated around a half of the investigations into those murders remain unsolved.

Civilians accounted for 2,064 deaths (1,232 were Catholics and 698 were Protestant).

Almost a decade on from the IRA and loyalist paramilitary ceasefires, many Troubles victims’ families feel the time has come for the truth to emerge about why their relatives were killed and who was responsible.

With the Saville Inquiry into the deaths of 13 civilians on Bloody Sunday almost complete and inquiries into a number of controversial killings also on the horizon, there also have been claims that other atrocities and individual killings have been ignored.

Mr Orde said today there could be no hierarchy of death in any attempt to get to the truth about killings during the Troubles, noting that that had also been argued by Sinn Féin.

Members of the security forces accused of involvement in murder and members of paramilitary organisations would all have to play their part, he insisted.

“I think for any sort of third way to work it has to apply universally,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.

“I think everyone has to engage and in that sort of process, it is not just the security forces.

“The terrorist groups have to come to this table and everyone has to declare what went on.

“That’s why people say this is never going to happen but I don’t think that is good enough.

“I think we have to believe that one can make a difference because at the end of this there are lots of victims.

“But whatever process applies has to apply universally.

“That is not just my view. If you read the Sinn Féin document which came out in September one of their assertions is that there can be no hierarchy of death.

“There has to be a process which applies to everyone.”