“Here is equal participation, the truth will remain buried with those who refuse to speak.”
The Troubles Legacy – Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn wants to find the truth about The Troubles. Noble goal, but after 30 years of failure, we should ask why the current approach won’t work.
Here’s the uncomfortable reality: of 3,600 deaths during The Troubles, over 90% were caused by terrorists. Yet terrorists rarely participate in truth-seeking. They’ve melted into the shadows, and their political allies—now sitting in government—keep their secrets locked tight.
The system is fundamentally unbalanced. The Ministry of Defence must hand over records and produce witnesses. Sinn Féin, the IRA’s political wing, does neither. Neither do loyalist parties connected to paramilitaries. This creates a process biased against the army and RUC—the only participants actually cooperating.
Consider what happens to soldiers who do cooperate. Two soldiers were promised no retribution by the McCann family for helping find closure. They told the truth about shooting an IRA leader during an arrest. Their reward? Five years of prosecution before acquittal. Dennis Hutchings endured seven years of legal torment and died during the trial.
The message is clear: cooperate and face years of legal hell. Stay silent and walk free.
Benn’s “new” framework isn’t new—it’s the same adversarial court system that’s failed for three decades. Defence lawyers will advise clients not to engage, creating no admissible evidence. Meanwhile, security services hold files and recordings that could reveal the truth, but refuse to open them.
If we genuinely want the truth, we need equal participation. Political parties linked to paramilitaries must share what they know, or be excluded from demanding investigations. Until then, this process will continue targeting military and police who kept records and cooperated, while the real secrets remain buried with those who refuse to talk.
#TheTroubles #NorthernIreland #LegacyIssues #Veterans #BritishArmy #RUC #SinnFein #IRA #MilitaryJustice #PeaceProcess #Terrorism #VeteransRights #HilaryBenn #NILegacy #ArmedForces
Links:
- The Legacy of the Troubles: A Joint Framework between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland
- Gay history – Kate Hoey speech
- The Critic – Hilary Benn is repeating a failed approach to The Troubles
Kinsella’s Overisght by Tommy Dwyer is a riposte to ‘Butcher’s Dozen’, a poem written by the Eire establishment poet Thomas Kinsella. It commemorated the thirteen people killed by the Para at a pur4ely peaceful demonstration in January 1972, organized by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in Derry City, against the continuation of internment without trial. As the introduction says, “If the poem also commemorated the innocent Protestant dead, and worked up emotions against the political process which killed them, it would be as useful a contribution to the cause of progress as a bourgeois poet could make in this day and age.” Kinsella abuses the Ulster Protestant as Britains … ‘rubbish … slaps and scraps …,’ and works up purely Nationalist hatred for the ‘Brits’ and especially the Ulster Protestant community. Despite this Kinsella says “They, even they, with other nations have a place”.