An email massage from Jacinta de Paor, Co-ordinator, LIVE programme, Glencree.

"Let me say how much I appreciated not only your being here last weekend but also your very deep contribution at what had to have been a very difficult time.  I was very moved by this and I am sure that I was not alone in that.

 

On the heels of this it saddens me to hear that people still find it acceptable to interfere with what is an obvious memorial wreath.  You had said that you expected this but somewhere I’d hoped that this time it wouldn’t happen.  I do hope that the spontaneous response of sympathy you received here from fellow participants at the weekend, will go some way to easing the insult of what are small minded people."

 

Glencree

Glencree Centre for Reconciliation is in County Wicklow.  We have attended conferences and discussions at Glencree for several years.

Below are several items of interest from our previous attendances at Glencree.

Glencree: A Place for Peace

This was an article written by Hazlett for inclusion in a book on Glencree, published in 2004.

Dr James Edward Hazlett Lynch was born outside Donemana in Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and lived and was educated for some twenty years within five miles of the West Tyrone/Londonderry border with the Irish Republic.  He later lived and worked on the South Armagh border for almost nine years.  He was ordained into the Christian Ministry in 1979, trained as a teacher and then as a counsellor.  He is currently the project co-ordinator/director of victims’ group, West Tyrone Voice.

 

 

I have been working with the innocent victims of terrorist violence in my capacity as a minister and as project co-ordinator of victims’ group, West Tyrone Voice, for the past almost 30 years.  My youngest brother, Kenneth (22), a policeman, was murdered along with two colleagues by a Provisional IRA (PIRA) murder squad on 2^nd June 1977 in republican dominated East Tyrone.  Many of my close friends were murdered by the Provos, and very few perpetrators were made amenable under the law for their acts of terrorism against a peace-loving, law-abiding community.  I have now lost count of the number of funerals of those who were murdered by PIRA killers I officiated at or assisted in, or attended as a neighbour and friend.

 

My current work is in a support capacity for those who have been similarly bereaved or injured by terrorists during the 35 years of ethnic cleansing of the Protestant/ Unionist community in N. Ireland.  I work in the border region along the Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh border with the Irish Republic.  In West Tyrone alone, some 230 people were assassinated, were either originally from West Tyrone, or were murdered in West Tyrone, by these psychopaths.  Our work is emotionally demanding, but we do it because it is essential in promoting the recovery of victims, and establishing reconciliation in our beloved land. 

 

I got involved with Glencree about four years ago, after having been contacted by Jan De Vries about one year earlier.  Initially, I was hesitant about getting involved because I did not know very much about the organisation.  I was concerned that because of the all-inclusive orientation of Glencree, and given the life-threatening and deathly experiences of victims at the hands of paramilitary terrorists, the thought of meeting with murderers was just too much.  The Glencree policy of treating terrorists on a par with their victims, does nothing to help build trust with those who have suffered. 

 

However, I considered that it might be expedient for my wife, Margaret, and I to go to Glencree for a weekend to see it for ourselves – which we did, and were quite impressed with what was on offer, so far as facilities were concerned. 

 

Later that summer, I took a mini-bus load of members to the Centre for a weekend, to meet with staff and to see for themselves what Glencree was all about.  We enjoyed the experience, though to be fair, we were the only group there at that time.  The peacefulness of the setting, its remoteness, its picturesque scenery, the lovely walks, and the proximity to Enniskerry and Bray, made it a lovely place of rest and calm for people who need the respite.

 

As to the programmes, let me start with the LIVE programme.  This victims’ programme offers victims from the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic the opportunity to meet and share their experiences of terrorist violence, how it has impacted on them, what it has cost them, and how they have coped, or not coped, as a result.  It was a privilege to meet with people from widely different backgrounds who have felt the destructive impact of evil people, and to hear their stories.  Glencree has undoubtedly assisted in facilitating these meetings, and giving victims the opportunity to display their non-sectarian credentials.  At one such meeting, the unanimity that emerged was striking, and those in the group were from widely different backgrounds – an Irish Catholic from the Republic and one from N. Ireland, an Irish Catholic from England, and a Protestant/ Unionist from N. Ireland.  Our views on truth, justice and reconciliation issues were barely distinguishable, and that was pointed out in the group.  Protestant and Catholic victims have no real difficulty in supporting each other, for evil murderers who succeeded in doing what they set out to do inflicted our suffering on us. 

 

It has also been of particular significance to hear victims of terrorism from GB saying that if it were not for people like ourselves, they would not bother coming to Glencree.  They feel we can and do empathise with them in their pain and suffering, and have an experiential understanding of what it is like to have loved-ones and close personal friends violently murdered and/or severely maimed by godless thugs who have acted outside the law, and have done so with impunity.

 

While we had hoped that it would have been to some degree useful to meet with terrorists and confront them with what they have done, the opposite has been our experience.  They either do not turn up for sessions, or, when they do, they leave us with more questions than we had at the start.  They just will not give us answers to the sincerely held questions that we have.  They prevaricate continually; they try to tell us who we are, or who we should be, they give us lectures on their mythological version of history (British and Irish), but they will not give us answers as to why they have murdered our loved-ones, and maimed our relatives and friends.  We wanted to know what benefits they got from their murderous campaign against us, but they have no answer. 

 

Add to this the deliberately disinfected language that is used at Glencree to make terrorist killers out to be better than they really are.  They talk of ex-combatants, thus equating them with the legitimate forces of law and order who were prepared to wear a clearly recognisable uniform, unlike the terrorist who lurked in the shadows, targeted their victims, could not face them head on, melted into their environment chameleon-like, and got the support and protection of their own community.  These cowards are not worthy of being spoken of in the same breath as those who, within the law, protected our country. 

 

Further, I have experienced attempts by Glencree staff to protect these hardened terrorists from physically disabled men and elderly, sometimes injured, women.  We were expected to treat terrorists with respect, regardless of what they had done, presumably because Glencree staff believe that what the terrorists did was legitimate and defensible.  They had caused incalculable suffering to us, but we must not ask them difficult questions or put them ‘on the spot’ about what they have done.  That would never do.  But what effect did this have on the victims?  It left them frustrated, angry, disillusioned, and asking why on earth they are involved with an organisation like Glencree at all?

 

The insensitivity of Glencree to the feelings of victims leaves much to be desired.  For Glencree to have as a guest the serial murderer, Desi O’Hare, the ‘border fox,’ who has somewhere in excess of 30 murders to his name, plus many attempted murders, one of them on friends of mine, was most hurtful.  To defend it by saying that they were asked to have him by the Republic’s government, or one of its agencies, was no excuse.  Was Glencree looking for cheap headlines at the victims’ expense?  Was it prepared to overstep the mark in order to attract international funding for its developing global work? 

 

Another observation I have made on the Glencree setup is the criteria it uses to include people on its regular ‘junkets’ to foreign lands.  It appears that you do not even have to be involved with Glencree to ‘qualify’ for these trips.  People who are involved with the Centre are left ‘cold’ when they see ‘strangers’ to its programmes, and establishment people, who have not been involved at all being taken on these trips.  What is this all about, victims ask?  Are victims’ programmes being run simply as a fund-raising gimmick to help pay the revenue costs of the Centre, but has precious little to so with victims?  Are victims’ being ‘used’ by Glencree in order to help it pursue its own agenda – which has nothing to do with victims?  Are victims being ‘used’ to give credibility to Glencree programmes?

 

And tied in with this, there seems to be a partnership between Glencree and the governments of the UK and RoI.  Glencree is much too close to the prevailing political trends for it to be helpful to hopefully recovering victims, or even trusted by them.  Victims ask me, To what extent is Glencree simply promoting government policy, given that it has embraced the inclusivist definition of victim?  Is Glencree the ‘eyes and ears’ of the respective governments?  Government policies are not necessarily conducive to the recovery of traumatised victims, not least their understanding of what a victim really is.  For victims and terrorist perpetrators to be lumped together by this mis-definition of victim, is to re-victimise the victims.  Yet, who cares?  This is a massive disappointment to victims, and to those who care enough for victims to work with and support them.  I suppose it comes down to the fact that only a real victim really understands what it is like to have a loved-one targeted for death by psychopathic killers who now masquerade as political statesmen and peace-makers.  It is also ‘medically wrong’ for perpetrators and their victims to be brought together, since it only results in their further re-traumatisation, and sets them back significantly.

 

The impression is given at Glencree, and at other conferences that seek to deal with the peace and reconciliation issue, that there is serious antagonism between Protestants and Roman, or Irish, Catholics, is wide of the mark, for this is not necessarily the case.  The antagonism is between those, of whatever religious persuasion or none, who want to live at peace with their neighbours, and those who continually agitate the community for their own nefarious ends.  The vast majority of the population in N. Ireland are happy to live at peace with each other, and will continue to do so.

 

But these good people have a serious problem with a situation where guerrilla terrorists can, for decades, murder and maim decent people who were simply doing their day’s work, or spending time with their families.  Seeing them getting into government in our country was simply unbelievable.  Neither the UK, RoI, or USA governments would tolerate this situation, but anything is good enough for N. Ireland.  They only got where they are today because they shot and bombed their way into government, and our leaders did not have the courage or political will to resist them.  It is an outrage to see killers as ministers of the Crown in a British government in N. Ireland. 

 

Yet these same people are welcomed to Glencree, and treated like Royalty.  Victims see this as totally unacceptable.  They and their supporters are welcomed on the same terms as their victims.  It would be lovely to see Glencree acting in a more mature manner, and with greater sensitivity to the feelings of those who suffered at the blood-stained hands of their murderers.

 

The role played by the Roman Catholic Church in IRA terrorism is also a cause of concern for victims.  There are at least eight RC priests known to us as having been actively involved in terrorist activities.  Add to this the fact that their bishops were also in the know about these ‘priestly’ activities, and relocated the priests elsewhere when this became evident.  The church also accorded the full rights of their religion to IRA volunteers who were killed on active duty, either by the security forces or by their own bombs, etc.  It was at Glencree that I learned from a Roman catholic friend that within Roman Catholicism in Ulster, a deceased parishioner could hardly get even a curate to perform their funeral service, whereas dead IRA terrorists usually had a cohort of officiating clergy, ranging from curates right up to Archbishops and Cardinals.

 

This does nothing to help peace-loving people trust their RC neighbours.  Surely Glencree ought to be calling loudly and persistently on the RC Church to apologise wholeheartedly for the hurt they have caused in its capacity as the religious wing of IRA/SF.  If reconciliation is important, then a professedly Christian Church can have no real reason for not acceding to this request.

 

On the reconciliation issue, the impression is also given that it is the victims who have to be reconciled to the terrorists, and this has caused immense hurt to victims.  But given that the vocabulary of peace and reconciliation comes from the rich biblical source of the Judeo-Christian tradition, namely, the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, it is vitally important that the meaning of reconciliation is understood.  In the Bible, it is always the offended party who calls for the offenders to be reconciled to it, never the other way round.  This is what victims have been doing through their involvement in Glencree and other agencies involved in this work.  Of all people in N. Ireland, it is the victims who want peace and reconciliation, for it is they who have suffered most during the genocidal years of terrorist violence.  The ‘peace and reconciliation industry’ is actually re-crucifying victims when it implies and even at times suggests that the offended (that is, the victims) must be reconciled to the offenders (that is, the perpetrators).

 

The point must be made that the offended party (the victims), became such by the disobedience and lawlessness of the offender (the terrorists); by extension, this means that for reconciliation with the offended party to be established, the offender’s attitude must be changed to one of obedience.  But it is not just obedience per se.  The obedience that is required for true reconciliation to be effected is such that is acceptable to the offender.

 

Further, reconciliation is an act of sheer grace shown by the offended party to the offender.  Victims are prepared to be gracious to the offenders.  In fact, they have shown unbelievable mercy to those whose purpose in life was to murder them.  Victims are prepared to take risks for peace, and have done so.  They have met with perpetrators, engaged with them, challenged them, confronted them, and sought answers to their sincerely held questions.  But what did they get in return?  Avoidance, evasion, denial, no remorse, no sign of sorrow for what they did, no apology – nothing.  Victims are not holding up the peace process in N. Ireland – the perpetrators are, as has been demonstrated by their refusal to reciprocate.

 

So far as the conditions for reconciliation are concerned, the perpetrators have not met these.  The offended party looked for some positive response from the offenders, but none was forthcoming.  They looked for commitment to make peace, but this was absent.  They have prostituted language, and used it for their own ends.  The spin doctors have evacuated language of its meaning by disinfecting it of its more unpalatable aspects.  They are the masters of sanitisation of language.  In order to hide their evil deeds, they refuse to describe themselves as terrorists, but as ex-combatants, thus placing themselves on a par with the legitimate forces of law and order.  This term was adopted to conceal the fact that they acted outside the law.   So long as the offenders retain the right and the means to murder and maim their targets, their commitment to peace is suspect, if not altogether absent.  By their activities, they have created distrust and uncertainty, and have undermined any commitment they claim to have to pursuing peace. 

 

For reconciliation to be effected, there must be repentance on the part of the offender (accompanied by actions that are in keeping with repentance, practical demonstrations of their repentance), and steps taken to build trust and acceptance by the offended.  This means, of necessity, that the new relationship must be based on diligent and actual law-keeping by the offender, something that will instil confidence in those they have hurt.  There must be genuine and observable commitment of the offender to the offended, for reconciliation to be real.  Implicit in this is the requirement that service will be rendered to the offended party out of gratitude for the gift of reconciliation that has been offered and received.  This does not need to be any form of servitude, but a responsible attitude of trying to make good the damage done in the past.  It is about the reconciled party doing everything it can to ensure that good relations follow, and are maintained.  This will demonstrate the genuineness of the offender to embark on a journey that will lead to true peace and reconciliation.

 

Essentially, reconciliation is a gift given by the offended party to the offender.  By definition, victims are peaceable and peace-loving people who want to get on well with their neighbours; they certainly do not want to have to live in fear of attack by their neighbours, or in fear of being ‘set up’ by their neighbours for attack by others.  By their peaceful disposition, they have offered the hand of friendship to their enemies, only to have that gesture rebuffed. 

 

This point can be illustrated by two incidents that occurred at Glencree.  One summer when I was there, a member from the broad protestant community was so afraid to return to N. Ireland by train with known republican terrorists that he asked me to take him to the train station in order to get an earlier train home.  Fear of attack was uppermost in this man’s mind.  In fact, he told me that if he was on the same train home, he might not even arrive in Belfast.  He was so scared for his life.

 

The other case was during a conference which had amongst its participants people linked with both republican and loyalist terrorist.  The unreality of any progress towards reconciliation was seen in the fact that the loyalist, for their own safety, had barricaded themselves in their bedroom for fear that the republicans might attack them during the night.  Reconciliation?  Does this speak of progress towards peace?  You decide.

 

Reconciliation is also about at-one-ment, a state of being ‘at one’ for people who were formally estranged.  It’s about the offended party taking steps to bring the offender back into favour again.  That being the greater thing, the offender must undertake the lesser - to maintain this new relationship at all costs.  But it is frightfully difficult to see where this is happening within the ‘reconciliation industry.’

 

Victims know that there are real benefits for them when reconciliation is established, hence their willing involvement in this work.  The main benefit is the restored relationship with a former foe, and all that that entails.  It means a renewed friendship that has the potential of becoming permanent.  It means all the benefits that come from good neighbourliness, the helpfulness, the support, the generosity of spirit, the understanding, and the deep happiness that relationships have been mended.  Because the offended party has taken the initiative in bringing about reconciliation, he will place no permanent obstacle in the way of being gracious to the repentant offender, even when he messes up at times.  There will be a ready forgiveness and restoration when this happens, because the offender will see that what he has done has had the effect of disrupting the relationship, and will seek forgiveness immediately, so that the relationship will be mended and not remain broken.  The fact that repentance and trust-building are active, points to the prior work of grace that was shown to the offender by the offended.  The entire future then depends on the maintenance of the relationship of trust at all costs. 

 

Maintaining this new relationship becomes the modus operandi for everything that follows.  It will have such a high value that every care will be taken to ensure that this relationship will never be broken ever again.  The focus must be on this prime work, and not on anything that will rupture the relationship.  But forcing one section of people into something that they do not want will disrupt the relationship, so this will not even be contemplated. 

 

Now it is accepted that human frailty and inbred prejudice is capable of manipulating the situation so that it becomes all but impossible for the offender to satisfy the terms of the offended.  This need not be the case at all.  It has been argued earlier that where the offended party accepts the conciliatory overtures of the offender, that gracious attitude will ensure that the offender’s obedience, albeit imperfect, is accepted, where genuineness is demonstrated.  The offended has no more right to stifle reconciliation than the offender has to refuse to be reconciled.

 

Victims of terrorism have reached out hand to their enemies, but, sadly, their gesture has not been reciprocated.  This can be seen very clearly in the voting trends that are discernible in the N. Ireland.  These trends are also one of the most disappointing aspects of the situation.  The pro-British electorate in N. Ireland have moved decisively and deliberately away from parties linked with paramilitaries, but unfortunately, the pro-Irish community in the province has moved significantly towards support for parties with fully operational private armies behind them to support them.  The meteoric rise in electoral support for IRA/SinnFein has increased distrust, and has had a deleterious effect on the confidence of the pro-British community, believing that there are few from the other community in whom they can have confidence.  This is having a most negative and damaging effect on the reconciliation process, an effect that few are prepared to acknowledge.

 

For Glencree to be the force for good that it aspires to be, it must take the needs and concerns of the silent suffering community much more seriously than it has done in the past.  If the Centre is attempting to bring terrorists to repentance, well and good.  But if not, then the future for work with victims is being jeopardised.

 

In conclusion, my identity is Ulster Scots and my orientation is British, something I wish to retain.  I have no intention of resigning my identity to become an Irish citizen, or to live in a monolithic and basically sectarian nation.  The freedoms I enjoy at present are much too precious to me.  Anyway, we have paid too big a price for any of us to give up our unspeakable privileges at the end of a gun barrel.  As the words of the theme song of the On Eagle’s Wing musical puts it:

                                    They’ve taken our land

                             We were killed at their hands

                                    They’ve taken our homes away.

          But while we shall live           

Our spirit’s shall give

                             The strength for the fight to stay.

 

This articulates well the conviction of people in my community, and no matter what organisation tries to wean us away from this, will be resisted.  We are still committed to pursuing peace and reconciliation in N. Ireland, and we hope our fellow-countrymen come to see the futility of trying to force an arrangement that will not be acceptable to real victims.  Coercion and reconciliation are mutually exclusive.  Reconciliation cannot be established by force of arms.  We can share the six county province known as N. Ireland with out fellow-countrymen, and we want to do this.  Our desire as victims is that everyone settles down, and lives with mutual respect for each other’s right to exist in N. Ireland.  Glencree, and other similar agencies, need to learn this lesson, and seek to facilitate, not the eventual re-unification of Ireland, but the re-unification of the British Isles for the good of all.

 

 

 

 

How can we be heard by policy-makers, and what must we do to ensure that policy-makers hear us?

Presentation to Glencree LIVE Conference, June 2003 by Dr J. E. Hazlett Lynch

 

As a victims’ group, WTV, which works with approx. 2200 victims’ including their families, has taken every opportunity to meet with policy-makers to inform them of our needs.  We have listened to them and have tried to understand where they are coming from.  Our experience has been that it is very difficult to get a proper hearing from policy-makers. They ‘say’ they understand, but do they?  They ‘commend’ us sometimes for the work we do, but do they mean it?  They ‘say’ they treat innocent victims fairly, but we see things very differently.  They ‘claim’ that victims are a priority for govt, but they have never told us where on its priority list victims are?  In fact, given the funding levels that govt has set, it is clear that victims are not a priority for govt. 

 

In trying to get our message across to government, we face a number of barriers.

 

Barriers that we face:

§        We do not know what the policy-makers are saying.  They are sending out conflicting messages.  For example, Mr Blair gave five hand-written pledges to the people of N. Ireland – some of which have been broken by him – something the proverbial ‘dogs on the street’ know.  Yet former Secretary of State, John Reid, told me that the PM had not broken these pledges.  Q  How are we to make sense of this?  It appears that our govt. and the victims are speaking very different languages.  I recognise that several languages are spoken on this island – English (spoken by the great majority who live here), Irish and Ulster-Scots (spoken by a few), and other minority languages.  Then there is the language of Politics invented by Lewis Carroll, where “a word means what I want it to mean – no more and no less.”  This is the language of Govt, hence, we do not, and can not, know what policy-makers are saying.  We use the same vocabulary, but a different dictionary.  Seamus Close, Alliance Party, last Saturday on BBC Radio Ulster said that we are being given “a drip feed of lies and propaganda from the Govt.”  If this is how he feels, how are we to feel?

 

§        We do not know who is articulating Govt. policy.  Both the Security and Victims’ Ministers have commended us for our good work, yet the NIO has cut drastically the level of funding we need to sustain our work in a steadily growing innocent victims’ organisation.  Q.  Who is speaking for Govt?  What is Govt saying?

 

§        The PSNI visit and tell members that they are under terrorist threat from PIRA in West Tyrone, yet police chiefs deny that there is any particular threat against anyone.  35, now 36, of our members have been given death threats by paramilitaries, the most recent one being last weekend, yet this is denied consistently by police chiefs and by PIRA.  Q.  Who is articulating the policy?  We do not know.  We are getting conflicting messages from Police and Army.  Policy vs. facts.

 

§        Govt using victims’ money to fund the govt depts.  Money voted by govt for victims was merely transferred from one govt dept to another.  E.g, OFMDFM allocated £3m for ‘victims,’ but victims never got any benefit from this money, for it went to the various depts.  Also, when two members received gifts from benevolent organisations, the DHSS claimed that money back.  What is happening?  Govt is using victims’ money to run the health service.  And we cannot seem to be able to get through to them.

 

§        Sectarian murders by terrorist organisations.  E.g, Claudy, Enniskillen, Omagh, Teebane, Darkley, Tullyvallen, Kingsmills, Greysteel, La Mon, Loughinisland, Bloody Friday, Dublin, Monaghan; these are massive barriers to us getting our voice heard, because it is the people with the guns who are listened to by govt before their victims are.  Victims are second class citizens.

 

§        Policy-makers are jeopardising the peace process.  By their actions, policy-makers are alienating and re-traumatising victims and undermining the peace-process.  There is a departure from seeking genuine ‘reconciliation’ to engaging in ‘social engineering.’  E.g, they pay us to come together with perpetrators without an apology from perpetrators, or even any sign of remorse from them.  Victims want genuine reconciliation.  Current policies effectively close the ears of victims, and that’s a barrier we face.

 

Barriers for policy-makers:

§        We have met with senior policy-makers, e.g, NIO ministers, party leaders, and funders, in our offices, but there is no evidence that they have listened.  Their own political philosophy – whatever it is - stands as a barrier between us and them. 

 

§        Policy-makers do not know the difference between those problems faced in the ‘city’ and those of the ‘country,’ the rural/urban divide, and this despite visits by them to our group. 

 

§        They do not want to know the difference between ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator,’ that is, between those who had no choice and those who did.  While they stick to this policy, they cannot make themselves heard by innocent terrorist victims.  To be heard, they must change.

 

§        Policy-makers do not really listen to victims because they believe that only they have the expertise to provide the care victims need.  They have had 33 years to prove their ability and commitment, and they’ve failed.  They still haven’t understood us.  They are concerned about upholding govt. policy regardless of its effect on victims.  That’s a barrier.