West Tyrone Voice  was established in 1999 to meet the profound needs of the victims of terrorist violence in the West Tyrone region of N. Ireland.  These largely ‘forgotten’ people had no one to help them, voice their concerns, or support them in their darkest hours.  Now they have such an organisation, with outreach workers who visit the elderly, widows, infirm, disabled and orphans in their homes.  WTV has already lost one of these workers and are in real danger of losing the other, because of lack of funding from the statutory agencies.

West Tyrone borders the Irish Republic, from where many of the terrorist attacks were launched, and to where the terrorists returned after their task was completed.  The region is mainly rural and agricultural, and covers an area of approximately 1800 square miles.  In this area, people still live in fear.

Terrorism in West Tyrone

In our area alone, terrorists murdered 128 people. Further, 100 people from the area were murdered elsewhere. Whilst major atrocities are remembered, the fact is that most of our deaths were either of individuals or small groups. The number of people injured physically amounts to 384, while those injured psychologically, emotionally and mentally would come to some 13,000, based on the estimates used by Sir Kenneth Bloomfield (We Will Remember Them, 1998).

These atrocities have created more than 100 widows, 300 orphans, 236 parents who have had a child murdered, and many extended families who have been affected by the campaign of terror in our area. As our work continues, we are becoming aware of more and more people who have been diagnosed as suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as a direct result of terrorist violence against them and/or their colleagues, friends and families.

In 1998, two documents led to our establishment.  Sir Kenneth Bloomfield’s Report, and the Belfast (or Good Friday) Agreement.  Bloomfield identified the ‘need for a powerful voice for victims’ interests’, while the Agreement stated, ‘It is recognised that victims have a right to remember as well as contribute to a changed society… and the participants will support the development of special community-based initiatives based on international best practice.’

WTV is non-party political, nor is it linked to any religious grouping.  Members are drawn from both sides of the community, and have denounced ALL acts of terrorist violence.

West Tyrone Voice: An Alternative For Victims

Sir Kenneth Bloomfield’s inclusive definition of ‘victim’ has done more to polarise the community than perhaps anything else.  And some victims’ organisations exist more to salve the consciences of terrorist killers than to help their victims. 

 

A number of difficult issues face us in the sector; one is the use of inclusive language to describe, or refer to, all those who self-define as victims.  Bloomfield spoke of victims as being all who were affected by the Troubles in N. Ireland.  This includes the terrorist killers who created widows and orphans.  The use of inclusive language is an attempt to hide the dastardly deeds of evil men and to make what they did legitimate and defensible.  Real victims will have nothing to do with such people or their supporters. 

 

The sad thing is that there are victims’ groups out there that have no difficulty in seeing terrorist killers as victims in the same way as we are. We find it obnoxious to be even mentioned in the same breath as those psychopaths.  We work with people who have attended events organised by groups that do not know the difference between innocent victims and guilty victims.  Victims have told us of the re-traumatisation they experienced when they found themselves in the presence of terrorist killers and their supporters.  This shows a dreadful lack of understanding of how terrorism has affected victims, not to mention the gross insensitivity shown to them.  These confused groups have caused as much hurt to victims as have the foolish politicians who have either sat in government with terrorists in the past, or will do so in the future.  It is sad to see the way psychopathic killers are now accepted and masquerade as political statesmen and peace-makers. 

 

Any organisation that embraces both terrorists and their victims as equals is either suffering from some kind of societal schizophrenia, or it is simply pursuing failed government policies. These organisations appear to exist to salve the consciences of psychopathic killers, regardless of how this affects their victims.

 

West Tyrone Voice group members have confronted IRA/SF terrorists with their murderous deeds, and taking the truth to them.  We do not recognise them as anything but the murderous thugs they are.  If they are victims in any sense, it is as guilty victims that they are to be viewed.

 

Another issue faced by innocent victims is the use of sanitised language by government, funders and the ‘do-gooders’ who claim to be working with victims.  In our visits to Glencree Centre for Reconciliation in Co. Wicklow, we are bombarded by the term ‘ex-combatants’’ to describe equally those who wore a uniform and those who wore balaclavas.  What an insult it is to the memory of those valiant men and women who died in the service and defence of our country!  This use of sanitised language is an attempt to justify the actions of IRA and loyalist ‘death squads’ that ravaged our country and held its people hostage, and to give them some kind of acceptability.

 

In fact, victims are more concerned about living life and trying to get justice for their loved ones, than they are about ‘jumping into bed’ with terrorists.

 

The fact is that organisations that claim to work with victims, and who embrace these seriously flawed ideas, have been suspected by real victims as being the ‘eyes and ears’ of both governments.  And because Bloomfield’s definition of victim includes people like Fr Jim Chesney, Dominic ‘mad dog’ McGlinchy, Francis Hughes and Messrs Adams and Maguinness, some victim’s groups accept them also as victims, but true victims feel affronted, excluded and isolated, and conclude that their suffering counts for nothing.

 

The effect this has had on the community was to promote even deeper polarisation than at any time in the past.  This is regrettable, though understandable.  You simply cannot bring together terrorists and their victims any more than you can bring rapists and their victims together, or child abusers and their victims.  It is also ‘medically wrong’ to bring perpetrators and their victims together, since it results in their re-traumatisation, and sets them back significantly.  No genuine victim will have any part in such organisations; in fact they should give a serious health warning to potential members/users.

 

West Tyrone Voice, the largest victims’ organisation in the British Isles, is based in Newtownstewart, and works with almost 2300 victims and their families right across most of the West of the Bann region.