Northern Ireland’s new Victims and Survivors Forum held its first meeting in Belfast today and sent out a clear message they expect the politicians to listen to them.
The 37-member body draws together those who have suffered as a result of loyalist and republican terrorism, former members of the security forces and a former IRA member. They include those who have lost loved ones and those injured themselves.
They have been tasked with saying how Northern Ireland should deal with its past, giving their views on issues such as support services, and actually trying to define a victim.
Opening the first meeting at a Belfast hotel, victims commissioner and forum co-chairman Brendan McAllister said they were deeply aware that for most of the members “the basic qualification for membership is that you have suffered from the conflict”.
He added: “We sincerely hope that in serving as a place of discussion and consultation on matters to do with the interests of victims and survivors, this forum will 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.”
There was clear hope among members they could do some good to heal the wounds of the past.
Raymond McCord said: I hope rather than talk about nationalist victims and unionist victims, they see us all as victims. Hopefully the victims here are going to decide what is best for victims instead of the politicians.“
And he warned: “If the politicians are not prepared to listen the forum will be a waste of time.”
Mr McCord’s son was murdered by the UVF in 1997. He mounted a high profile campaign to bring those responsible to justice and believed they were protected from prosecution because they were Special Branch agents.
In 2007 the Police Ombudsman’s office produced a report in which it said it believed the killers were informers and had effectively been given immunity.
Mr McCord was very clear that as far as he was concerned paramilitaries should not be classed as victims.
“I believe innocent people injured or killed by the state, unlawfully by the state, or by paramilitary organisations are victims.
“I don’t believe a man carrying a bomb or a gun who was out to kill and was shot by the security forces is a victim.
“The paramilitaries called it a war, combatants is what they called themselves, not victims - use their own words.”
Ahead of the first formal meeting the forum members spent two days tucked away in a Scottish hotel getting to know each other.
Alan McBride, whose wife Sharon and father-in-law John Frizzell were among nine killed and 57 injured when the IRA bombed Mr Frizzell’s fish shop in the Shankill Road in 1993, said he was more hopeful of success after the get-together.
PA
