The victims of the Troubles haven’t gone away, you know

By Noel Whelan

A temporary self-imposed moral blindness has been at the heart of Irish politics for the last decade or so. In some senses the pain of the victims of the Northern Ireland troubles has been parked or buried or at least muted in order to enable the careful walk down the trail of the peace process.

It is as if sometimes we are tip-toeing around the bereaved or those who have suffered injury, fearful that recognising their pain or focusing on it at this time would only remind us of the crimes or atrocities committed or condoned by some of those now engaged in peace-making at the highest level. As we struggle, at times slowly and frustratingly, towards finalising the peace process we have had to close at least one eye and at times both eyes to the violent history, background and current disposition of some of those involved.

On rare occasions in the last few years the human stories of grief and anguish caused by the conflict of Northern Ireland have come into sharp focus. The current attention again on the plight of the disappeared is one of those occasions.

Another of those occasions was the publication three years ago of the book Lost Lives in which David McKitterick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney and Chris Thornton told the story of more than 3,600 men women and children who have died in the Northern Ireland troubles.

The authors list each of the fatal victims since 1966 in chronological order. They give the details of each victim and describe the fatal incident. Each entry also sets out any charges or convictions and the various controversies which arose from each death.

It tells a tale of lives and deaths of British soldiers, RUC members, IRA, UDA, UVF and other paramilitaries, as well as civilians killed by all sides. It is a phenomenal book a large tome that runs to 1,700 pages which does not make easy reading.

Jean McConville is listed in the book at number 699. She is described as a 37-year-old civilian Catholic widow abducted and killed by the IRA. Her entry runs to almost three pages of the book, mainly because it also tells the story of the brave campaign of her children to find out what happened to her and the other disappeared.

Any categorisation of death is controversial of course but Lost Lives attributes 1,778 of the deaths of the troubles to the IRA.

In a somewhat macabre mathematical exercise it calculates that this amounts to 48.5% of those killed up to April 2000.

In recent times the wider republican movement and its spinners have sought to recast the history of the troubles.

They strive to engender and reinforce the image of the IRA as defenders of the oppressed and embattled nationalist community. Even if there was some credence to this claim for the first months of the Troubles and there may not be any such it is worth remembering that soon afterwards the IRA went on the

offensive. It targeted and killed RUC members, British soldiers and part time and reservist security personnel.

It also killed catering workers or bricklayers "guilty" of providing services to the state authorities. In a gruesome categorisation of the value of human life the IRA deemed these "legitimate targets". Even civilians not so deemed "legitimate" were killed and, at times, killed indiscriminately by the IRA.

Of course the horror of the IRA's campaign was more than matched by that of loyalist paramilitaries and at times even by the state security forces.

Similarly, Sinn Féin is not unique as a political party which is associated with a paramilitary wing or which previously condoned violence. However, it is the largest, and because it aspires to government in the North and to political advance here in the South, Sinn Féin's position challenges our moral political compass the most.

We have to accept the bona fides of Gerry Adams and the Sinn Féin leadership when they tell us they are genuinely seeking to give the families of the disappeared closure.

HOWEVER, the current controversy about the disappeared is a real political problem for Sinn Féin and they know it. It puts real human tragedies, the historic crimes of the republican movement, in front of the current electorate. As well as perhaps sincerely seeking to help the families, Sinn Féin is also involved in a political handling exercise, carefully seeking to manage the current controversy in the sensitive climate of imminent Northern Ireland Assembly elections and elections here in the Republic next summer.

In a radio interview on Tuesday morning, Gerry Adams angrily rejected any suggestion that the party was involved in some kind of gruesome game of chess with the families of the disappeared. However, it was only when the family of Jean McConville and other disappeared managed to persuade Bill Clinton and others to take up their cause that the Sinn Féin leadership first got involved. The families initially faced open hostility in republican communities for daring to challenge the IRA and Sinn Féin for the truth.

In recent elections a growing number of voters here in the Republic have voted for Sinn Féin often on the basis of its perceived left-of-centre or civil rights persona while turning a blind eye to the party's condoning of the deployment of violent means to further its version of political objectives. However, the whiff of sulphur, which many young voters in particular find attractive about the party, is a real whiff sourced in explosions that have claimed the lives of many.

Our collective self-imposed moral ambiguity has been motivated by our search for peace. We have given the political representatives of the paramilitary movements on all sides the benefit of the doubt in the interest of bringing the violence to a permanent end. However, this has the potential to be dangerously corrosive of our political system and is not sustainable in the long term.

The peace process may manage to move beyond the current impasse towards a final peace settlement. It may also prove possible to defeat the paramilitary dissidents and to end their associated criminal activities on all sides.

The violence may finally come to an end. However, the pain and anguish of those who have already been bereaved or injured as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles will still remain.

While a successful and sustained peace process can prevent further pain and suffering, it cannot erase that caused by the violence of the past. The victims of the Troubles haven't gone away, you know.