At a hearing today on Capitol Hill, former US Special Envoy to Northern Ireland, Ambassador Richard Haass, Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Baroness Nuala O’Loan, along with victims of Northern Ireland’s violent history said that mechanisms in place to help deal with the recent past are “inadequate” jeopardizing confidence in government systems and possibly undermining lasting peace.
“The challenge for Northern Ireland is to find a way to deal with the past so as to enable the present and the future,” said Baroness O’Loan who courageously served as the first police ombudsman in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement was reached in 1998. “Any solution must be fully compliant with the Rule of Law and all national and international obligations.”
“I would add a sense of urgency,” said Ambassador Richard Haass, the former U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland and the independent chair of a recent effort to address the lingering problems of the past. “The passage of time will not by itself heal Northern Ireland’s society or make it more normal or bring it together. To the contrary, absent political progress, the passage of time will only create an environment in which social division intensifies, violence increases.”
Chairman Chris Smith, who has held 15 hearings on peace and justice in Northern Ireland said that “without accountability, it is difficult for people to support or participate in new government systems or have faith in equal justice under the law.
“The many previous denials and time that has passed have drained public confidence in the peace process and diminished respect for the rule of law in Northern Ireland,” said Smith who has also authored legislation to enhance human rights in Northern Ireland. “There is no statute of limitation on murder. Reconciliation and justice are critical to building a just and lasting peaceful society.”
Smith noted that both Haass and O’Loan are strongly recommending a singular, independent commission with “full investigative power that would eliminate the overlaps, contradictions, confusion and waste of resources that often have borne little or no results for the victims’ family members.” Smith added: “Lady O’Loan’s emphasis on the need for an unimpeachably independent agency in order to win the trust of both communities cannot be overstated.” Click below to watch or read Smith’s opening remarks.
O’Loan who oversaw what Smith called a “rising tide of confidence” during her painstaking work as Police Ombudsman up until 2007, said she knows from experience that “accountability leads to confidence in legal systems” which must be there for a civil society to succeed.
Eugene Devlin, a New Jersey resident and businessman who as an unarmed civilian survived a drive-by shooting by British Army officials in Belfast in 1972 said, “It was a shock that someone who didn’t know me would try to kill me.
Devlin, now an American citizen said: “The Troubles erupted during my teenage years. I had neither art nor part in the Troubles, but on the night of the 12th of May 1972, the Troubles came to me.
“The most disturbing thing about this,” Devlin said. “Is that the army, which had been sent in, in 1970, to restore order, and to protect us from sectarian (or other) violence, had become transformed into an army of occupation, with elements of that army operating outside even their own law and regulation.”
Devlin said he continues to “suffer physical effects” from the shooting and believes that in the “interest of Truth and Justice” those who participated and sanctioned the death squads should be required to explain what they did and why.Click here to read Devlin’s opening testimony.
Smith also turned attention to the 1989 murder of human rights attorney Patrick Finucane as he sat at his dinner table with his wife and children.
“I remain in awe of Geraldine Finucane who continues to fight for justice for her husband Patrick,” Smith said. “While Prime Minister Cameron has, after much denial by the British government, finally admitted to “shocking” levels of collusion between the state and loyalist paramilitaries in the murder of Patrick Finucane, and apologized to the Finucane family for it, this does not substitute for a full exposition of the facts behind the British State’s involvement in the murder. Rather the steady increase in the amount of evidence being revealed publicly that the British State colluded with the killers has made honoring that commitment more important than ever.
“The failure to address the case of Patrick Finucane in the manner promised by the British Government provides a readily available propaganda tool for those who would abuse it to further their own ends. In our view, this represents yet another reason why the Finucane case is one of the most important unresolved issues in the peace process,” Smith said.
“There can be forgiveness, but that does not mean justice,” Smith said. “Accountability is the pathway to justice and we are here to seek justice for those who suffered horrific acts of cruelty. There is no immunity for these acts and we will continue to seek to keep these matters in the public square and work to obtain answers for the victims and their families,” he said.
The witnesses testimonies as well as video of the hearing can be found at: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing/joint-subcommittee-briefing-and-hearing-northern-ireland-peace-process-today-attempting-deal
