By Anne Cadwallader, PFC Case Worker, Feb 28 2015
Optimism, unfortunately, has been a commodity in pretty short supply as meetings of families bereaved in the conflict have drawn to a close in recent years. Relatives have felt their plight is an inconvenience, an embarrassment, a jolt back to a past already forgotten.
There has been huge anger and hurt, disbelief, a sense of being abandoned.
This week, however, there has been the start of the faintest glimmerings of hope. Meetings organised by The Pat Finucane Centre in Derry and Tyrone (with another in Belfast to come next week) have ended with people leaving with a lighter step than usual.
There remains deep caution though. The bereaved families have seen far too many false dawns and will wait to taste this new hope before they believe that their efforts may finally be rewarded with the independent truth-recovery process they deserve.
The "Stormont House Agreement" (SHA) and its proposals on how to investigate the past are still far from clear. Everyone says the same: "The devil will be in the detail".
The mere fact of the Agreement being on the table, however, is a step forward from the bleak future we all imagined was ahead. A future with no answers, just a deep and abiding sorrow and sense of injustice.
Timing will be key. Some families have now been waiting over four decades to be treated with respect. Delay is not an option for them. It is heartening that party leaders are meeting to discuss the SHA every Monday – indicating a certain level of urgency.
The legislation required for this jurisdiction is to be handed over to Westminster. The rationale is that it will pass quicker through the House of Commons than through the bear-pit up at Stormont.
That, however, is no panacea. There are those in London itching to disembowel any truth recovery mechanism that may expose the inner workings of MI5 and the Ministry of Defence. They must be kept at arm’s length.
Similarly, there will be those in Dublin who want to hold their noses in a tight grip and refuse to engage with the legacy of the conflict. Not a day has been served in jail by anyone responsible for the fifty loyalist murders (and dozens more injured) south of the border. Where is the truth and justice for those families?
On the plus side, the proposed "Historical Investigations Unit" (HIU) is, at least aspirationally, way ahead of the failed "Historical Enquiries Team" (HET). The HET did some good work, particularly around the "Glenanne Series" of murders (hence the book we in the PFC published, "Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland").
But it was always a deeply-flawed mechanism for truth recovery, as even its originator, the former PSNI Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde, recognised right from the start, hoping in vain that politicians would take up the baton.
The SHA says the new HIU will be compliant with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (we live in hope and wait to see what finally emerges. It will have full investigatory powers and be completely independent of the PSNI and its chief constable.
But we still are unclear who will staff it, who will lead it (and who will appoint him or her which the PFC believes should be the Policing Board) and which cases it will investigate.
If families who have already received flawed and unsatisfactory HET reports are "sent to the back of the queue" it will be grossly unfair.
We also wait to see if the HIU will investigate killings by RUC personnel (the Police Ombudsman is currently precluded unless there is already significant new evidence) and whether the Ombudsman will be able to investigate complaints against the HIU itself.
Some argue that serving and former PSNI personnel should be eligible to work with the HIU. Others will say that, as they have in all probability worked with, or under, former RUC staff they should not be considered.
Some of the Glenanne families believe that former HET staff who have already proved their mettle should be re-employed. That will not find favour elsewhere.
What is certain is that the HIU’s new staff must be investigators of skill, determination, credibility and integrity.
It may be that investigators currently working on the inquests into the 96 men, women and children who died in the Hillsborough football tragedy will be seeking new employment at around the same time the new HIU is recruiting. That would be helpful.
Another problem is the limitations put on how much truth the HIU can, once discovered in the archives, pass on to families. The SHA provides, fairly enough, that the identities of people who were never convicted should not be shouted from the rooftops with carefree abandon.
Nothing "damaging" found in the files should be passed on to families, it says. But damaging to who? Damaging to the reputation of the RUC? Damaging to the status of the UDR? The British government? Loyalists and republicans? Is censoring the official record for the purpose of sparing anyone’s blushes even the tiniest bit acceptable?.
If there was an informer or agent somewhere in the mix that led to anyone’s brutal death, be the victim a police officer, a British soldier, a republican or a loyalist – the bereaved family has a right to know.
Other questions loom out of the darkness that still wraps itself around the SHA. Who are the academics that are so trusted by all sides that they can write an agreed timeline of the conflict in a mere year? Why centralise the proposed oral archive?
What is the long-term future of the inquest system – now bogged down, and causing such pain to bereaved families, because the PSNI insist on redacting every single document that might come before the Coroner?
But the SHA is an improvement on what President Higgins told Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers amounted to "collective amnesia". A lot better than denying the pain and sorrow of victims. A lot better than nothing at all.
Let us devoutly hope the Executive’s dismal failure to appoint a Victims Commissioner for the past six months is not a harbinger of things to come. We shall all be watching closely.