Almost a month has passed since
politicians reached a new agreement on Northern Ireland’s political future. For
the victims of the conflict, though, ‘Fresh Start’ is a false start. If the
politicians were serious in addressing the legacy of the past, then the
agreement represents another glaring and ignominious failure.
The latest accord was fairly comprehensive; it encompassed
welfare ‘reform’, paramilitarism, cross-border crime, corporation tax and other
financial measures. Rather embarrassingly it even addressed the issue of tax
credits (whose planned introduction was abandoned by the Conservative
government within days). But there was no agreement on our violent, often
shameful, history.
The past is a rock that no one
wants to look under. Not the British government. Not the paramilitaries. Nobody
except those who lost loved ones; those who were injured or maimed; those who
believe in truth and justice; those who believe in the primacy of law and the
importance of democracy. Nobody who matters.
The truth is that any of the
protagonists could act unilaterally and address the past. They won’t. They
could choose to shed some light on one of the darkest periods in our history.
They won’t.
That shouldn’t surprise us where
paramilitary organisations are concerned; neither should it surprise us where
the British government is concerned. But, it should concern us.
When the Secretary of State,
Teresa Villiers, Harry Potter-like draws the invisibility cloak of ‘national security’
around her, we are entitled to wonder what secrets have lain buried for up to
45 years and, even yet, cannot bear scrutiny? We are entitled to wonder where
national security ends and criminality begins?
Where a democratic state is
concerned, its involvement in criminality is not something to be hidden. It is
something to be investigated and exposed; that is the mark of a true democracy.
And past misdeeds are not something to be traded off in negotiations; that
would continue and compound the initial wrong done to victims.
Some will feel that the State
should never divulge the secrets it is withholding. Others believe it should
only do so in the context of a wider process involving paramilitary
organisations. Are they happy to draw equivalence between the State and
‘terrorists’?
The State cites ‘national
security’ as its excuse for non-disclosure and non-investigation. National
security? National self-interest, more like.
Sadly, the past will linger like a
bad stench along the corridors of Stormont. It will permeate the corridors of
Westminster, too, although those who frequent them don’t seem to notice any
more.
In the meantime, we remain stuck between
a rock and a hard place. Relatives of the dead will visit lonely graveyards;
victims will struggle to cope with their disabilities; and people in this part
of the world will continue to lecture those elsewhere about the importance of
democracy.
Democracy? Hypocrisy.
