Opinion

Newton Emerson: Unionists should not squander opportunity offered by legacy proposals

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Proposals aimed at addressing the legacy of the Troubles were announced in May
Proposals aimed at addressing the legacy of the Troubles were announced in May Proposals aimed at addressing the legacy of the Troubles were announced in May

The legacy proposals in the Stormont House agreement, which had been considered pinned down, have begun unravelling in recent months due to unionist objections.

The Northern Ireland Office has extended the consultation period to cope, while the DUP, which co-authored Stormont House and copied it over into the Fresh Start agreement, is equivocating under the weight of grassroots concern.

The common theme in these objections, raised by what might be termed civic unionism, is of “rewriting the past” - by republican activism, by unwitting flaws in how the process is designed or by the inherent imbalance of state record keeping versus non-existent paramilitary record keeping.

In fact, the state has exhaustive intelligence records on paramilitaries but most have been classified for up to a century to spare everyone’s blushes - a detail still too awkward for anyone to mention.

In the meantime, the four-part legacy structure would revive the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team (HET) in all but name, alongside a new confession-for-immunity body modelled on the commission for the disappeared. The unionist fear is that original RUC investigations would be picked over and misrepresented, while paramilitaries need only confess what they want to confess, which would be precious little.

Better to leave the whole thing to historians, some have said - including unionist-leaning historians.

Yet Stormont House creates a key role for historians, with unionists given a numerical advantage in appointing them.

The third part of the legacy structure is an oral history archive of the Troubles, to run in parallel with the HET 2 and confession bodies.

This would be established by the Executive, accept voluntary contributions from anyone and appoint a panel of academics to produce “a factual historical timeline and statistical analysis of the Troubles.”

As the DUP is the largest executive party, unionists outnumber nationalists in the population and the IRA was by far the most murderous protagonist of the Troubles, any unionist fear of what this might produce is simply a fear of not getting their act together - an unreasonable concern to impose on the nationalist population.

The fourth and final part of the structure is where historians really come into play and unionists have their main advantage.

Called the Implementation and Reconciliation Group (IRG) it will oversee “themes, archives and information recovery”. Once the five-year lifespan of the other three bodies has concluded, IRG will commission a “report on themes” from “independent academic experts”.

This would in effect be an official history of the Troubles, going beyond facts and statistics to apportioning responsibility - and unionists would have most say in recruiting its authors. The 11 members of IRG will comprise a chair appointed by the first ministers, one nominee each from the British and Irish governments, plus eight non-elected persons nominated by the Stormont parties in proportion to their strength in the assembly.

That would work out at four unionists, three nationalists and one from Alliance, ensuring - if everyone did their jobs properly - a similar balance of ‘independent academics’.

Of course, academics are no more independent than the rest of us.

One arguable flaw in the design of Stormont House is that the themes report should only draw on the work of the first three bodies. So the legacy inquests unionists are also objecting to, such as the Ballymurphy inquest, would be outside its terms of reference.

Good history might seek to correct that but legal challenges could exclude it.

Why do unionists find none of this reassuring? Beyond immediate concerns about HET 2 triggering new inquiries and prosecutions, the prospect of agreeing an official history of the Troubles might seem hopeless and arcane. The bitter academic dispute that has raged for years over the IRA murder of Protestants in Cork a century ago makes it laughable to believe we could agree one narrative of the Troubles. However, we could agree two.

IRG’s structure recalls the Bill of Rights Forum, where party nominees joined members of the rights sector to draft advice for the secretary of state.

Unionist nominees disagreed with the conclusions, wrote a dissenting opinion and asked for it to be included - normal practice in jurisprudence.

Foolishly, the Human Rights Commission refused and sent off a report so laughably one-sided it doomed the entire project.

The legacy process could learn that lesson. In truth, we all re-write our own histories and Stormont House is at least a chance to do so side by side. It would be a tragedy if it was squandered.

newton@irishnews.com