Louie Johnston was seven years old when his father, a police officer in Northern Ireland, was shot dead while on patrol in the town of Lurgan. A quarter of a century later, Johnston said his hopes that the killer would one day stand trial could be about to fade further.
The British government is planning legislation designed to help Northern Ireland draw a line under the so-called Troubles that blighted the region for three decades.
Under the plan, which is being debated in the British Parliament for the first time on Tuesday, authorities seek to address more than 1,000 unsolved murders from the era. Anyone who genuinely co-operates with investigations is promised immunity from prosecution.
Illustration: Constance Chou
The proposed bill has divided a region synonymous with tension between the mainly Protestant unionists, or loyalists, who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK, and the predominantly Catholic nationalists who want an end to British rule. Yet rather than seeing a split along sectarian lines, the divide is between families seeking justice and people who have said that it is time for both communities to move on.
Johnston, now 32, said the UK is creating a “hierarchy of victims,” where historical crimes in Northern Ireland are treated differently from those elsewhere.
“You’re not just grieving for the person, but you’re grieving for the hope of justice, which the government seems intent on burying,” he said at his home in Lagan Valley. “Criminality should be pursued no matter what the time period or whether the government wants to close the door or not.”
Much of the focus on Northern Ireland of late has been on its political and economic future as the UK faces off against the EU over post-Brexit arrangements. A Northern Ireland Assembly election on May 5 saw big gains for proponents of a united Ireland.
Like conflict zones from the Balkans to Rwanda, though, so much of the region’s prospects lie in addressing the legacy of the past.
Lawmakers from both sides of the political divide in Northern Ireland have condemned the plan as denying families justice. Indeed, it has been a rare show of unity among loyalist and nationalist parties amid tensions tied to the wider UK dispute with the EU over Brexit.
Called the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill, the aim is to ensure that former British soldiers are given immunity from criminal prosecution after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party made an election commitment to halt legal claims against veterans decades after they retired from service.
Former members of terrorist organizations also qualify for immunity as long as they also cooperate with a new, independent commission to help families find out what happened to loved ones.
British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Brandon Lewis said there is a chance the bill might become law by the end of the year. He said the opening of files to families would help provide information they need, if not prosecutions.
The issue is also that decisions made by previous governments to try to reconcile the region with its past mean “we are not on an even playing field with any other kind of crime,” he said.
“There is no consensus on this, not just between the political parties but in society,” Lewis said in an interview on Monday.
“Some people want justice. There is a point at which we as the government need to own the very difficult and, for many, painful reality, and be honest at what is achievable,” he said.
More than 3,500 people were killed in the Northern Ireland conflict. Johnston’s father, David, and a colleague were shot at point-blank range in the back of the head late one morning in 1997, a year before the Good Friday Agreement that largely brought an end to the sectarian violence. An Irish Republican Army (IRA) brigade admitted responsibility, media reports said at the time.
Anthony O’Reilly also wants justice, “if it can be got,” he said.
Nobody has ever been charged with the murder of his 15-year-old sister, Geraldine, in Belturbet in 1972. She was killed in a takeaway shop in the town when a car bomb thought to have been planted by loyalist terrorists exploded.
“She ran in to get a bag of chips, and while I was parked up, the bomb was the other side of the road,” he said. “It exploded and I didn’t know what had happened. I thought I was asleep and dreaming. When I came to a minute or so later, the car on front of me was on fire and the car behind me was on fire, and there was rubble everywhere. I went toward the chipper and called out for Geraldine and there was no answer.”
The British government revised its original proposal for the bill, which would have ended all prosecutions from the 30-year conflict, an effective amnesty.
While the adjustment to the proposed legislation was welcomed by some, others, including the human rights group Amnesty International, described the plans as a “sinister denial of rights” and a “worrying interference in the rule of law.”
That sentiment was echoed by some of the victims’ relatives.
“There is limited to no support from victims and survivors for any bill which amounts to ‘amnesty by stealth,’” Innocent Victims United spokesman Kenny Donaldson said. “We do not subscribe to trite phrases such as ‘victim-centered process.’ We must have a justice-centered process.”
Lewis, who is also a lawyer, said that the number of viable criminal trials is diminishing with time because more than two-thirds of deaths from the Troubles occurred more than 40 years ago.
For Margaret Veitch in the town of Enniskillen, like Johnston, it is also a question of selective justice. Her parents were two of 11 people killed when the IRA planted a bomb on Remembrance Day in November 1987.
The terrorist group later said it had planned to target British soldiers. The families of the victims in Enniskillen have a right to an inquiry, Veitch said.
Veitch cited the 12-year, ￡195 million (US$246 million) probe into “Bloody Sunday,” when a demonstration by Catholic civil rights supporters in 1972 turned violent when British paratroopers opened fire. Thirteen people were killed. The public inquiry, which concluded in 2010, was the longest and most expensive in UK history.
“Have I not the right for a murder investigation? Why are we treated different from a murder in London?” she asked. “Don’t ever take that away from us — that there is a glimmer of hope.”
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