The UK government’s Troubles “amnesty” offers the opposite of closure

It’s not often that the UK government surprises me, given that they seem to have plumbed the depths of what passes for humanity between dealing with the pandemic, Brexit, and their years of austerity, but their proposed amnesty for legacy killings in Northern Ireland is a new low.

Following the collapse of the Soldier F trial in July—a case around an unnamed man charged with murdering William McKinney and James Wray on Bloody Sunday, 1972—the government has moved rapidly to impose new restrictions on how and when killings carried out during the Troubles in Northern Ireland can be prosecuted. (The Soldier F trial collapsed as the Public Prosecution Service deemed the statements collected in 1972 inadmissible as evidence. )

We have heard time and again the term “vexatious prosecution” used by Unionist politicians seeking to defend the actions of the British Army in Northern Ireland, painting the pursuit of former Parachute regiment troopers as a “witch hunt” in comparison to the treatment of Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries. The trial of Soldier F is just one such case of legacy killings being dealt with by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Condescending arguments about how those in Northern Ireland should move on from what has happened, and that the proposed amnesty is in fact a blessing, are from voices beyond these six counties and those without a stake in the process. Nobody likes being reminded of the horrors that unfolded on the streets of Belfast, Derry, on the side streets of the Shankill estate or in the moonlit fields of Fermanagh, but the pain and anguish of those who remain cannot be forgotten.

The legacy of the Troubles burns a hole into the fabric of the peace process here, and always will do, until justice is served or those who are left behind are no longer around to cry for their loved ones. Many people I know, and the dozens of victim groups that have been set up since the conflict, remember the culture of collusion between state security forces and Loyalist paramilitary outfits, the framing and wrongful imprisonment of innocent men and women, and the whitewashing and stitching up of murdered young men to make their deaths seem justifiable. It’s also a huge thorn in the side of ex-combatants turned peacemakers who played an active part in the conflict, as their victims scream from an unquiet grave, demanding to be heard.

In a recent debate on the move by the government, there was universal condemnation from every political party in Northern Ireland. Every member of the Stormont Assembly unanimously rejected the proposals. Unionists and Nationalists alike were unified in their disgust at the proposed legislative measures from Number 10, which would effectively slam the door on due process for around 3,500 killings between 1969 and 1998. It would mean families that lost loved ones in Ballymurphy and Bloody Sunday could not seek justice through the courts; it would exclude the families who lost loved ones in the Enniskillen bombing, and would protect the murderers of Raymond McCord Jr from justice. Justice may be blind, but it cannot be deliberately blinkered for the sake of political expediency when facts come to light that point to one conclusion and one conclusion only.

Yes, it is highly unlikely, and nigh on impossible, for each and every grieving family to get their pound of flesh for reasons such as lack of evidence, the deaths of perpetrators, the silence of those involved and the bungling of investigations. But slim justice doesn’t mean that the process should be abandoned wholesale.

If we draw a line in the sand here, then how can we look at ourselves in the mirror ever again? With one broad brush, and one that will certainly be challenged in court, the UK government could forever close the lid on every grubby little operation that ended in the deaths of civilians, and with it any recourse to justice for those murdered by the IRA, INLA, LVF, UVF and others.