Hierarchy of perpetrators

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

18 May, 2023.

Hierarchy of perpetrators

Kenny Donaldson (May 12) writes that “diminishing the effects of terrorism is not the preserve of one section of the community”. However, Mr Donaldson would seem to suggest that ‘poking (their neighbours) in the eye’ is the preserve of the nationalist community alone. The flying of Para flags on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the spectacle of unionist politicians hobnobbing with present and former spokesmen for loyalist terrorist organisations, acting as pallbearers at funerals of convicted murderers, or selecting candidates for election who have made inflammatory and grossly sectarian statements, apparently do not count.

Mr Donaldson refers to ‘up the Ra’. chants by a young FAI women’s team and by some Armagh supporters. The infamous Windsor Park hatefest during the 1993 Northern Ireland v Republic of Ireland match, the threats to Catholic Northern Ireland players and the Billy Boy-type chanting by Northern Ireland fans over the years merit not a mention. While all sides involved in the conflict committed atrocities, and all honour their dead regardless, there was stark difference in the treatment by the state and the judiciary of various categories of perpetrators and defendants. Thousands of republicans and nationalists were convicted of offences by non-jury courts, often on foot of confessions extracted under torture, sometimes on the word of supergrasses or double agents, or as in the case of the Birmingham Six, dodgy forensics. Those convicted served thousands of years in prison. Conversely only a handful of British troops were ever charged with murder; those convicted were handed over to BA ticket of leave ‘custody’ and on ‘completion’ of derisory sentences were re-instated with back pay, even promoted.

State agents and agents provocateur involved in murder and torture and who were responsible for many of the 2,000 deaths to which Mr Donaldson refers were given immunity, spirited away and given new identities.

Just as there was a perceived hierarchy of victims, there was and is a hierarchy of perpetrators.

BRIAN PATTERSON

Newry, Co Down

With many thanks to the: Irish News letters page for the original story.

Conveniently labelled

I have only one real and direct response to Kenny Donaldson – ‘Glorification of terrorism again to the fore’ (May 12) – the only ‘terrorists’ in Northern Ireland during the period of 1921, when its parliament was set up, were, initially, the infamous B Specials, followed by the members of the RUC, aided and abetted by the British army and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. The people who were very conveniently labelled as terrorists were ordinary citizens taking direct action to achieve their ordinary civil rights denied to them by the so-called democratic process. For 50-plus years they tried that ‘process’ but the gerrymandered state that was Northern Ireland ensured that they failed at every turn.

Incidentally, whose ‘land’ was Mr Donaldson referring to in his statement that “physical terrorism ravaged our land”?

PETER PALLAS

Bantry, Co Cork

With many thanks to the: Irish News and the letters page for the original story.