The Human Consequences of Armed Conflict
by Marie Smyth
From: A Farewell to Arms? From 'long war' to long peace in Northern Ireland edited by Michael Cox, Adrian Guelke and Fiona Stephen
By June 1998, an "initial support package" of expenditure on victims was announced. The money was to go towards establishing a trauma unit for young people affected by the Troubles, and towards supporting local groups, including Survivors of Trauma, WAVE and Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT). The total expenditure came out of the initial £5m announced in May 1998. The allocation of money to FAIT, a group specialising not in service provision to victims, but in campaigning against punishment attacks by paramilitaries, drew the fury of one Sinn Fein assemblyman, who complained of its political nature. Anyway, the funding allocated to FAIT was subsequently withdrawn following disclosures of irregularities and conflict within the organisation.
Sporadic violence continued. Three young brothers were killed in July, in a petrol bombing incident when their home in Ballymoney was attacked. Mo Mowlam wrote an article for the Belfast Newsletter on 14 July 1998 in which she addresses the tragedy of their deaths, but went on to the image of "David Trimble and Seamus Mallon standing together to condemn the killing and pledging their commitment to finding a resolution to the parades issue." The goal of peace was still worth striving for. Yet the sectarian attack on the family was conducted by those in a section of loyalism that, increasingly, would have no truck with such images, nor with the peace process itself.
The media debate on early releases of prisoners continued. By early August, such newspaper headlines as "he lost five loved ones in the troubles yet he is for the releases"continued to pose the issue of prisoner releases alongside that of victims' feelings and experiences.
On 12 August, Adam Ingram announced the launch of a £250k educational bursary scheme to provide educational assistance to those who had lost a parent in the troubles, and a memorial fund with matching funding of £1m. Ingram also announced a formal review of the compensation scheme, which had been recommended in the Bloomfield report.
On 20 August 1998, a massive explosion in Omagh town centre killed twenty eight people, a twenty ninth was to die later, and two unborn children. The bomb had been planted by the Real IRA. Shock and revulsion overcame the political process and Omagh was to become the focus of attention on the issue of victims for a considerable period. Ministerial visits to Omagh were followed by announcements of various public investments in the town and surrounding area over subsequent months. The Omagh fund was established, and fund raising for it was widespread. The Omagh bomb provided a clear focus for concern about victims; furthermore, there was political unity in condemnation of the bomb. It was reasonably clear what was needed in Omagh, and government and other public figures could do something positive about the victims issue. The scale and recency of the suffering of the people in the Omagh bomb served to temporarily sideline all other victims' concerns. This atmosphere prevailed, supported by events such as President Clinton's visit to the town and by continued fund raising activities.
A growing number of new groups, FAIR (Families Acting for Innocent Relatives) and HURT (Homes United by Republic Terror, later changed to Homes United by Recurring Terror) for example, had been formed over the previous months, many of them in the border regions. Many adopted 'exclusive' approaches to membership, claiming to represent 'innocent victims' 'victims of terrorism' or 'victims of nationalist terror'. These groups began a round of meeting politicians and voicing opposition to prisoner releases. By November 1998, FAIR had been invited to join The Touchstone Group, a group established under Bloomfield's recommendations to advise the government on victims' issues, although they did not take up their seats. From another quarter, the Victims Liaison Unit had already been under pressure to include prisoners in their remit, but with the increasing pressure from other quarters this became increasingly less likely to happen.
|
