Does Northern Ireland need some kind of truth recovery process to ensure the protection of human rights and equality, and to build improved community relations?

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 Does Northern Ireland need some kind of truth recovery process to ensure the protection of human rights and equality, and to build improved community relations?

The fact that such hatred existed for so long during the protracted conflict within Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1998, has meant that the legacy created continues to present a substantial obstacle to the political progress of this post–conflict society. For a long time there were victims from both communities who felt outraged at the very idea that members of the other community should have the audacity to also deem themselves victims.

Even today, some thirteen years after the signing of The Belfast Agreement that was created to bring an end to thirty years of conflict, there still exists marked disagreement on the issue of dealing with the past. Different opinions have been expressed as to the most effective way of doing this. The period of conflict saw a vast increase in the emergence of both pro and anti-state paramilitaries and figures provided by the Conflict Archive Service (CAIN 2011) at the University of Ulster state that these paramilitary groups were responsible for the deaths of 3,075 people. Irish Republican paramilitaries killed 2,055 people. Of these, 980 were Protestants, 446 were Catholics, and 629 were not from Northern Ireland. This is generally considered to mean that they were belonging to either the British Army or British security forces. Loyalist paramilitaries killed 1,020 people and of these, 730 were Catholics, 234 were Protestant, and 56 were not from Northern Ireland. Different studies conducted have turned out varying statistics and figures can range slightly with regard to the number of deaths.

Since the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement there has been a definitive need to try and uncover the truth behind the violence that such a large number of people were victim to.

The growth in demands for inquiries and truth commissions highlights the reality that victimhood remains a symbolically charged ideological battleground.

 The issue of how to deal with the past in a post conflict society is indeed a difficult one. It is my opinion that before one can ever say an issue has been resolved, it is imperative that what happened has been addressed appropriately and attempts have been made to help the victims come to terms with what they suffered. As someone who has thankfully never experienced first-hand any incident connected with ‘The Troubles’, it is difficult for me and I believe also for any future generations, to fully comprehend the enormity of what that was like. History is incredibly important in dealing with a situation like this. Things that have happened in the past often shape the form that the future will take, while ideas that exist currently regularly reinforce views about the past.

While both communities may state that they are in favour of a truth recovery process, it may be interesting to consider their motivation behind saying this.

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Republicans in Northern Ireland, for example, are in favour of truth recovery procedures as a way of exposing the role of the British state, even though they run the risk of exposing their own culpability; likewise Loyalists want to expose the military background of Sinn Fein politicians but try to continue to conceal the role of the security forces. It may well be that their respective support for a Northern Irish Truth and Reconciliation Commission will wane once they realise that they cannot control what truths the process discloses. (Lundy and McGovern, 2001; Smyth, 2003).

To deal with human rights ...

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