Assembling the jigsaw: Truth, justice and transition in the North of Ireland

Race and Class

Volumn 44, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 87-105

  Rolston, Bill ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ULSTER   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 0038024654     PISSN: 03063968     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0306396802044001590     Document Type: Review

References (50)

1. See John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, Explaining Northern Ireland (Oxford, Blackwell, 1995).
2. Liam O'Dowd, Bill Rolston and Mike Tomlinson, Northern Ireland: between civil rights and civil war (London, CSE Books, 1980).
3. John Darby, Scorpions in a Bottle: conflicting cultures in Northern Ireland (London, Macmillan, 1997).
4. th January 1972 which Led to Loss of Life in Connection with the Procession in Londonderry on that Day (London, HMSO, 1972), HC 220, section 34 (Widgery Report). See also Don Mullan, Eyewitness Bloody Sunday (Dublin, Wolfhound Press, 1998).
5. Bill Rolston, Unfinished Business: state killings and the quest for truth (Belfast, Beyond the Pale, 2000), p. 107.
6. Bill Rolston, Unfinished Business: state killings and the quest for truth (Belfast, Beyond the Pale, 2000), p. 107.
7. Ibid., p. 264.
8. Ibid., p. 160.
9. Arthur Fegan and Raymond Murray, Collusion 1990-1994: loyalist paramilitary murders in the North of Ireland (Belfast, Relatives for Justice, 1995).
10. Committee on the Administration of Justice, A Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (Belfast, CAJ, 1994), p. 18.
11. See Priscilla B. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths: confronting state terror and atrocity (New York, Routledge, 2001).
12. 'It is no exaggeration to state that the impunity issue strikes at the very heart of the limits and possibilities of democratic transitions in Latin America.' Alejandro M. Garro, 'Nine years of transition to democracy in Argentina: partial failure or qualified success?', Columbia Journal of International Law (Vol. 31, no.1, 1993), p. 28.
13. '[T]he importance of truth commissions might be described … as acknowledging the truth rather than finding the truth.' Priscilla B. Hayner, 'Fifteen truth commissions - 1974 to 1994: a comparative overview', Human Rights Quarterly (Vol. 16, 1994), p. 607.
14. See Richard Carver, 'Zimbabwe: drawing a line through the past', in Naomi Roht-Arriaza (ed.), Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice (New York, Oxford University Press, 1995).
15. Agreement Reached in the Multi-party Negotiations (1998). p. 25.
16. Ibid., p. 18.
17. We Will Remember Them. Report of the Northern Ireland Victims Commissioner, Sir Kenneth Bloomfield KCB (April 1998), p. 8
18. Ibid., pp. 37-8.
19. Ibid., p. 50.
20. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a lot of contact, formal and informal, between South Africa and Northern Ireland. Many human rights advocates have travelled to South Africa to examine progress in the peace process there; see for example, Ad Hoc Group on South Africa, The South African Experience: lessons for Northern Ireland? (Belfast, 1995). Nor has the traffic been solely one-way. For example, South African lawyer Brian Currin was one of the joint chairs of the committee charged with overseeing the release of political prisoners from Northern Ireland jails, and former ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa was one of two international observers appointed to verify the IRA's moves towards decommissioning.
21. All Truth is Bitter: a report on the visit of Doctor Alex Boraine, Deputy Chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to Northern Ireland (Belfast, Victim Support Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, 1999), p. 16.
22. See Bear in Mind: stories of the Troubles (Belfast, Lagan Press/An Cram, 2000).
23. Marie Smyth and Marie-Therese Fay (eds), Personal Accounts from Northern Ireland's Troubles: public conflict, private loss (London, Pluto Press, 2000).
24. Frank La Rue, 'Right to truth - amnesty, amnesia, secrecy', talk to human rights conference, Derry, December 1993, unpublished.
25. See British Irish Rights Watch, Justice Delayed: alleged state collusion in the murder of Patrick Finucane and others (London, 2000); also, Bill Rolston, Unfinished business, op. cit.
26. Irish News (24 January 1995).
27. An Phoblacht/Republican News (13 April 1995).
28. For example, in January 1999 when relatives of IRA Patrick Kelly, shot dead by undercover soldiers in Loughgall, County Armagh twelve years earlier, went to meet victims' minister Adam Ingram at Stormont, they had to run a gauntlet of loyalist politicians and members of FAIR. Brian McConnell, spokesperson of FAIR, referring to the night Kelly was killed, said: 'We feel that justice was served that night, but we are still waiting for our justice.' Another member of FAIR, William Fraser, said: 'It's an insult to be classed in the same category as these people.'
29. Forthcoming in 2002 (Belfast, Beyond the Pale).
30. Cited in Irish News (4 March 1998).
31. Diarmuid O 'Neill: another case of shoot to kill (London, Justice for Diarmuid O'Neill Campaign, 2001).
32. Michael Ignatieff, 'Articles of faith', Index on Censorship (Vol. 25, no. 5, 1996), p. 113.
33. All Truth is Bitter, op. cit., pp. 13-14.
34. Truth and Conflict Resolution in Ireland: a contribution to current discussion from a republican perspective (Belfast, Coiste na n-Iarchimi, 2000), p. 12. Coiste is composed mainly of republican ex-prisoners.
35. Ibid., p. 25.
36. Ibid., p. 13.
37. Ibid., p. 7.
38. Ibid., p. 6. The position of loyalists on the question of truth is much more difficult to ascertain. Although one loyalist-oriented victims' group, FAIR, has called for a truth commission, albeit in order to expose republican activities only, loyalist paramilitary groups and groups of loyalist ex-prisoners have remained silent on the matter. Given their ideological affinity to the counter-insurgency aspirations of the British state in Ireland, as well as, more immediately, the links forged through collusion, this is perhaps not remarkable.
39. In stark contrast to victims, many of whom seized the opportunity to pour out their experience in all its emotion and pain. For a moving account of their testimonies, see Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull (London, Jonathan Cape, 1998).
40. John Stalker, The Stalker Affair (London, Penguin, 1989). p. 56.
41. Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, A New Beginning: policing in Northern Ireland (Patten report) (HMSO, September 1999), section 12.12, p. 73.
42. For the full report, see 〈http://www.policeombudsman.org/main/publications.htm〉.
43. See the group's website 〈http://www.healingthroughremembering.org/〉
44. According to the Irish Times (10 November 1997), Samuel Poyntz, former bishop of Connor, called for a 'truth, repentance and reconciliation commission'. 'He had deliberately included the word "repentance" … he said, believing that as well as confession, it was essential to the achievement of reconciliation.'
45. Bernadette McAliskey, 22 June 2001. See the Saville inquiry website 〈http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk/transcripts/Archive/Tsl 12htm〉.
46. th December 1990 (1991)
47. Report of the Public Inquiry into the Killing of Patrick Shanaghan (Castlederg/Aghyaran Justice Group, 1996).
48. Broken Covenants: violations of international law in Northern Ireland. Report of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Assembly, 6-8 April, 1992 (London, Liberty/NCCL, 1993).
49. On Guatemala, see Guatemala, Never Again! (Maryknoll, New York, Orbis Books, 1999). On Brazil, see Lawrence Weschler, A Miracle, A Universe: settling accounts with torturers (New York, Pantheon Books, 1999).
50. On Guatemala, see Guatemala, Never Again! (Maryknoll, New York, Orbis Books, 1999). On Brazil, see Lawrence Weschler, A Miracle, A Universe: settling accounts with torturers (New York, Pantheon Books, 1999).