ON social media platforms this week there was a concerted effort by some Tory MPs to assert the victimhood of British soldiers who are being asked to account for their actions during the conflict. Portraying them as victims, the slick and well-funded campaign is designed to undermine the rights of those bereaved and injured and asks us to have sympathy for those who wore uniforms and “protected us”.
Of course this appeal to jingoism and some sense of patriotism flies in the face of the established facts: British soldiers who took lives, injured and tortured with impunity for the duration of the conflict still face soft-soap forms of non-accountable conversations with non-human-rights-compliant “investigations” and only in rare and absolutely incontrovertible cases might face the rigour of the law.
Not once in this campaign do bereaved relatives have any representation. Rather their solicitors and support groups are diminished and portrayed as bad actors. It is as bare-faced an example of state propaganda as you will ever see, but that does not diminish the pain it causes to families who live with trauma that is re-triggered by the lies and spin that has protected state actors since the day they took the lives, ordered the injuries and carried out the torture.
This lack of care for victims can be seen across a spectrum of commentary where we see a new British Secretary of State, when asked about the Legacy Act, assert that “all sides will have to compromise on legacy”. Bereaved relatives, affected by all actors to the conflict, would be forgiven for a furious response, but they would also be forgiven for shrugging their shoulders, as this is the type of nonsensical insulting commentary they have heard from Day 1. What exactly do they have to compromise as they visit graves, dust aging photographs and see increased impacts of transgenerational trauma in their homes manifesting in ever evolving ways?
Throughout the Peace Process victims and survivors have been treated as after-thoughts and problematic, even at times hearing their rights described as “toxic”. It is a scandal that is ever simmering and only occasionally taken seriously. The fact that the ICRIR continues to pay out exorbitant salaries as its governance is seriously questioned, its human rights compliance remains non-existent and its lack of delivery to bereaved families is self-evident is a scandal that should stop the clocks; that it does not tells us everything.
The statement from Chris Bryant last week that he would not consider extending the Payments Scheme for the Injured beyond August 30 is another case in point. A scheme that has been problematic from its conception, has been difficult to navigate and has retraumatised in the process, was found to have been erroneous in its description of eligibility at the end of May. Before the court challenge, swathes of hidden and silenced victims had been told they were ineligible. Victims of paramilitary-style attacks, sexual violations and feuds might now consider applying, but they have days left. It is disgusting that they can be dismissed again so easily in the first real act of the new British Secretary of State.
But he hides behind the Executive, which has zero authority but carries all of the cost for the scheme. These victims and survivors are now once again told they are not worthy, after decades of a peace process that has not delivered for them, or for victims and survivors overall.
