The attorney general in Northern Ireland has suggested stopping investigations on over 3000 unsolved murder cases pre 1998. This is outrageous I would be livid if I were related to any victims this applied to. Yes we need to move forward but this is not the way.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-25021286

Disgusting 👿

There should never be a time when a murdering scumbag (who murdered for whatever motivation) can relax after committing such a vile crime.

Hunt them down and never forgive!

I heard this too, and did wonder how the authorities can on one hand pursue Nazi’s and post-WW2 atrocities while saying they want to ‘forget’ those from more recently.

Doesn’t feel right to me.

Cameron said BEFORE LUNCH this would not happen.

The attention seeking of the OP is what is disgusting/outrageous

I fail to see how this is attention seeking. Indeed for you to suggest this is hurtful as I have lost friends in the troubles.

My link included Cameron’s remarks

one mans soldier another mans terrorist.

I guess you have to ask what cases do you pursue, Para’s? IRA? UDA? etc which are criminal, i.e. drugs, guns, and which are “terrorist”/”war of independence”?

did wonder how the authorities can on one hand pursue Nazi’s and post-WW2

we won in case you hadn’t noticed, history is always written by the victors, where are the prosecutions over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Dresden, etc. Not trying to lessen what happened at Aushwitz just pointing out that the view point can change your idea of acceptable.

You’ve got to laugh at cynical-al’s indignant post.
He obviously believes everything politicians say [or is it just the PM], or doesn’t understand how politics works at times.

May I suggest a quaint old programme called ‘Yes, Minister’ as a starter, before moving on to ‘The Thick of It’ – hopefully he won’t be too disgusted/outraged.

Also, suggest name change to ‘gullib-al’

Similar thing come up now and again in Spain ref’ the civil war. A pact of forgetting (el pacto de olvido/el silencio) was established, basically an agreement to say nothing until everyone connected to it is long dead. I guess its a valid idea, to try and put the past to the past and concentrate on the future… Sometimes, however, its not that silent.

The problem is… A relative shooting someone and throwing them down a well is easier to forget than a relative being shot and thrown down a well, esp if you drive past it everyday with them still down there.

The things people do 😐

Truth and reconciliation’s got a lot going for it. It’s not forgiveness, sometimes removing the blame/punishment element is just a really helpful thing to do in order to get to the truth. And when it’s not very likely that you’ll get a prosecution never mind a conviction, maybe that’s worth it?

I don’t know, don’t have an opinion either way here I think but I can see why it’s not stupid.

evidence is the key issue if there was a pile to work, convictions maybe forth coming. But its not there.
Maybe pardoning those who confess, may bring some closure to the families. Better than nothing, which is what they have now.

Wasn’t the suggestion made because its getting harder and harder – and more and more expensive – to actually bring a case to the courts and that police funding could be better directed at more recent crimes?

Either way, all parties seem to have condemned the idea.

Either way, all parties seem to have condemned the idea.

i suspect that despite the condemnation, most of the events will not be prosecuted.

Interesting timing for the suggestion though
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24987465

There should never be a time when a murdering scumbag (who murdered for whatever motivation) can relax after committing such a vile crime.

Hunt them down and never forgive!

Truth and reconciliation’s got a lot going for it. It’s not forgiveness, sometimes removing the blame/punishment element is just a really helpful thing to do in order to get to the truth. And when it’s not very likely that you’ll get a prosecution never mind a conviction, maybe that’s worth it?

The two quotes above represent the essential extremes of this discussion (so far here on stw anyway, I’m sure we can and will take it to further extremes)
You have to ask yourself, which approach is most likely to lead to further killing and misery?

There should never be a time when a murdering scumbag (who murdered for whatever motivation) can relax after committing such a vile crime.
Hunt them down and never forgive!

have a look at Yugoslavia, the middle-east, even Ireland to see where that gets you. Generation after generation of killing. At some point someone has to say enough.

Investigate and punish all the soldiers involved and then you have to investigate and punish all the paramilitaries involved. And some of those appear as senior politicians on our TVs. Do that and the far-from-irreversible peace may disappear.

People who advocate some of the more aggressive retribution need to grow up and think whether they would rather have vengeance for their already dead relatives, or be able to enjoy the future with their children not dying the same way.

I also doubt whether there would be any stomach from the mainland UK citizens for a greater future troop involvement. Many of us are tired of the mindless Orange/Loyalist rhetoric, and would rather see Northern Ireland cut out of the UK than that happen. Even the republican community might begin to think it is better to be linked to the rest of the UK than the financially strapped “celtic tiger” to the south.

you have to assume then that the same chap would stop the DLT etc cases

you have to assume then that the same chap would stop the DLT etc cases

Why, one bloke? v hundreds of years and generations of revenge? Does it really compare!

And from what seems to be emerging on the news, what do we do about the British troups who seem to have operated as death squads? I assume they were carrying out orders? How high the chain did those orders come from, Westminster???

Do we really want to destroy what peace there is so someone can have their personnal revenge? There are plenty who are not happy with the peace as it is, it wouldn’t take much to end it!

where are the prosecutions over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Dresden, etc.

Eh? Since when were these events war-crimes?

Interesting timing for the suggestion though
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24987465

Indeed. Something stinks a bit.

where are the prosecutions over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, or Dresden, etc.

Eh? Since when were these events war-crimes?

If you read the 1949 Geneva Convention part 4 i think, no civilian targets. ( yes i know 1949 is afterwards) if you read the history there are plenty, and many of them involved, who regarded Hiroshima as uneccessary. If you regard killing upto 140,000 mainly civilians as acceptable practice, fine. But it is very easy to argue that it is a war crime and if it was japan who dropped the bomb, not the US then it is very likely prosecution would have happened.

As i said, history is written by the victors, never believe what you read 100%

The attention seeking of the OP is what is disgusting/outrageous

I am not sure that the timing stinks too much – I initially thought that when I heard the story this morning but (at least as far as the latest allegations go) these happened way way before 1998.

Now, had they said anything pre-1980 then yes fishy and pre-1998 is an interesting choice as the means that Omagh could and should still be pursued.

Issue is, Belfast in the late 60’s, 70’s and 80’s was a warzone and much wrong was done by all parties. Yes prosecutions could be pursued for ever and I can see the argument for this.

But at some point things do need to properly move forward in a meaningful way and at least exploring some kind of moratorium on prosecutions may be useful.

Long before this thread was started, it was already a non story.

This month’s cover story on the Amnesty International is on Northern Ireland, and there was a biggish conference on the subject in Dublin a few weeks back. Amnesty have a new headline campaign on the go,
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/issues/Northern-Ireland
so maybe that is a clue to the timing, or perhaps other unpublished stuff has prompted their campaign.

On the Panorama thing, I remember similar revelations coming out in the late 80s, but the story then seemed to focus on the SAS. Death on the Rock, the Gibraltar killings were very well publicised in 1988. Similarly, the Corporals killed at the IRA funerals raised the issue the same year. I’m expecting this new Panorama to be a fleshing out of that story, perhaps we were allowed to believe it was all SAS before for news management purposes.

As for the stopping of prosecutions, I can’t see that getting much support in real life, intellectually I can see how it would help, emotionally I can’t let go.

This proposal is totally abhorant. It strikes of summary clensing and an ideal solution to those that now control power in office who once fought on the front line killing and maiming innocent people.
FUnny as this story broke it comes to task that the MOD will continue to prosecute MOD employees involved in any, regardless of time limits, act against innocent citizens (IRA included)

Totally awful for all families and Politics in general.

That’d put the MRF in the clear then.

Timing is everything.

Issue is, Belfast in the late 60’s, 70’s and 80’s was a warzone and much wrong was done by all parties.

I’d have to disagree on this,not having a pop at you, just wanting younger folks who don’t remember it from real life to get the wrong impression. A lot of bad people did a lot of bad things, but I don’t remember anyone at the time considering it a war zone. Murders were always referred to as murders, and daily life was more or less normal. There were certainly no go areas for the RUC, but let’s not equate it to Beirut or Yugoslavia. There was never a time when forces of whatever side went toe to toe with another, it was all underground stuff, aside from the odd stunts at parades and funerals, and those guys never stood around for a fight, but melted away again when the land rovers arrived.

The woman on the news this morning who thinks her husband was shot on the shoot to kill policy. How does she know for sure?

I imagine there will be Solicitors meeting in their meeting rooms right now discussing tactics on how to contact people etc to set up ‘truth and retribution’ for the victims. Of course all altruistic.

How do you move on and continue the healing? It isn’t done by keeping it all open. Move on.

‘truth and retribution’

Ahem, ‘truth and reconciliation’ is preferred if it’s not going to get messy again.

I think the Attorney General is right. It worked in South Africa, so why not NI? Once the threat of prosecution has gone, you’ll probably find out a lot more about certain deaths and the families will get closure. With the time that has passed, we are unlikely to get any more prosecutions, whereas right now we just have a stalemate situation.