Summary
Northern Ireland's largest cross-community victims' group, Wave Trauma Centre, has written to Boris Johnson opposing the idea of a “de-facto amnesty” for Troubles-related prosecutions, after the cases of two Army veterans facing murder charges were dropped. It follows reports that the government has been considering a ban on all prosecutions prior to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement under a statute of limitations, focusing instead on information retrieval for the families of those killed. Most people will never be in a position to understand the pain of losing a loved one unlawfully. How do we weigh their need for justice, against the need to build a lasting peace in the community? Many families regard immunity from prosecution as an insult to victims on all sides, and a betrayal of those who are committed to justice. While others believe it is time to put future peace ahead of past injustice, with an 'amnesty' that centres on 'truth recovery'. Are prosecutions always central to any notion of justice? Does the pursuit of justice or peace always require trade-offs or is it impossible to achieve one without the other, as the anti-racist slogan “No Justice, No Peace” suggests? What role, if any, does forgiveness play? What lessons can be learned from post-conflict societies around the world? With Brian Rowan, Sandra Peake, Bonny Ibhawoh and Selina Stone.
Producer: Dan Tierney.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:03.6 | You can download many more BBC Radio 4 programmes for free. |
| 0:07.7 | Find these at BBC.co.com.uk slash radio 4. |
| 0:12.2 | Good evening. Northern Ireland was my first war. |
| 0:15.1 | Not that it seemed that way, when as a newspaper reporter younger than most of the squodies, |
| 0:19.4 | I watched the army being treated like |
| 0:21.0 | saviors in the Catholic areas of Belfast in 1969. It certainly looked like a battleground |
| 0:26.8 | in the 70s and 80s when as a BBC correspondent I was there week in week out. The Saracens |
| 0:32.3 | patrolling the city centres had their turrets locked down. Bombs punctuated nearly every |
| 0:36.7 | hour of the day. Deaths were counted |
| 0:38.4 | in thousands and we all wondered how it would ever end. The Good Friday Agreement brought peace |
| 0:43.5 | of a kind, but not justice, and nearly a quarter of a century on, there are those who say justice |
| 0:49.3 | has been sacrificed to try to keep things quiet. There are already strict limits on how historic paramilitary, |
| 0:55.8 | we used to say terrorist crimes, are investigated and punished. |
| 0:59.7 | Another case against British soldiers for killings dating back nearly 50 years |
| 1:04.0 | collapsed last week. |
| 1:05.8 | There are now reportedly plans to stop all prosecutions |
| 1:08.5 | for crimes committed before the agreement in 1998. |
| 1:12.1 | The idea seems to be to replace justice by truth and reconciliation, as in South Africa, |
| 1:17.9 | another uprising I spent years covering. |
| 1:20.5 | It was said to have healed wounds, though I can still hear the sobbing of the black family |
| 1:24.8 | listening to a white policeman describing how he burnt their |
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