THE VICTIMS and Survivors Forum has met formally for the first time in Belfast. Comprising those who have suffered directly as a result of the conflict, the forum will help the four victims commissioners in addressing the legacy of the Troubles and tackling new expressions of division.
Victims commissioner and forum co-chairman Brendan McAllister opened the forum’s first formal session and acknowledged that each of the 28 members came to the discussion “conscious of those you have lost and of those who have suffered around you among your family, friends and neighbours”.
Mr McAllister added he hoped the forum would evolve “as a body with a unique moral authority which informs the civic conscience of a society still struggling to deal with the legacy of the past and with new expressions of division I hope that you will find your experience of forum membership to be a period of public service about which you will feel proud”.
There has been some unionist opposition to the inclusion on the forum of former IRA prisoner Michael Culbert who was sentenced to 16 years for killing a police officer.
Alan McBride, who lost his wife and father-in-law in the Shankill bombing of 1993, said it was time to address people’s needs after the conflict regardless of their circumstances. “I have some sympathy for folk who are on this [forum] for the first time and are perhaps sitting down for the first time in a room with people they wouldn’t normally sit down with. That’s going to take time for those relationships to form, for them to gain some understanding of who else is in the room.” Raymond McCord, whose son was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries, admitted he was “not happy” about convicted killers sitting in the same room. “But I have to accept it if I want to contribute something,” he said.
Catherine McCartney, whose brother was attacked and killed in Belfast in 2005, said she was attending to help find “truth and justice” for her brother and for others bereaved by violence.