Written evidence submitted by Aileen Quinton regarding the effect of paramilitaries on society in Northern Ireland inquiry (PNI0001)
My mother Alberta Quinton was murdered in the Poppy Day Massacre in Enniskillen 1987.
I am making this submission because I am tired of the terrorists, any terrorists, winning. If the pandering and pussy footing round them continues, then at least I will have tried to stop it.
At the time of my mother’s murder, we had a lot of politicians coming out with the expected platitudes that, for the most part, turned out to be worse than meaningless. They included “no stone will be left unturned to bring those responsible to justice”, “We will not give in to terrorism” and “Terrorism does not pay”. There has been no justice. They did and do, give in to terrorism and it is being an innocent victim who does not turn to violence, that doesn’t pay. The failure to take a moral stand on terrorism is still being played out leaving us with the problem of terrorist criminal groups and the mostly blind eyes being turned to them.
There has always been a fig leaf of justification put up in an attempt to justify treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK, “historic unique history blah blah blah” which always really meant and continues to mean “the IRA murdered enough people and those threats matter more than democracy and rights”. My vote, anyone’s vote, should always carry more weight than all terrorist threats put together.
This all was codefied most strongly in the Belfast Agreement. Prisoner releases, however one attempts to justify them, was pandering to terrorism and a reward for murder. The message sent internationally was “if you are going to murder make sure you murder enough people” and don’t worry, if you keep it up long enough, someone somewhere will say “we should talk to them like was done in Northern Ireland”.
However, it goes further than what was explicit in the Belfast Agreement. It was with the Belfast Agreement that the notion of acceptable terrorism and unacceptable terrorism really started to became mainstream. My mother, and so so many others were murdered by the good cuddly terrorists. When BNP won a few council seats in England people were nearly having a canary at the idea. I despise the BNP but why is it worse that it has a few councillors when the terrorist Martina Anderson got to be an MEP with hardly an eyebrow raised – at least amongst most MSM commentators? Decent people raised eyebrows but as we weren’t also prepared to raise weapons, we could be safely ignored.
It should be a basic requirement for being in public office, or a group being in receipt of public money that the terrorism, INCLUDING pre 1998 be explicitly accepted as wrong and unjustified. Such an announcement does not necessarily mean that the person or group is fit for public office. They may not mean it. However a refusal to say it and indeed actually eulogise the terrorists, necessarily means they are not so fit.
No decent person should have to be confronted with terrorists/supporters in government. It is even worse that innocent victims should be, particularly when trying to advocate for their needs. It is disgraceful that terrorists should be accepted in NI as victims and not only entitled to support specifically for victims but that they should be allocated places on the Victims Forum. These things are retraumatising. It was shameful that Jackie Nicholl had to leave the Forum
What an evil system where innocent victims are treated in this way.
For a time the only “Victims group” based in GB in receipt of public money, was one which had given a platform to Martin McGuinness, the unrepentant mass murderer to speak. Many victims based in GB, including myself, found the notion of putting ourselves in the hands of such an organisation repugnant and retraumatising. Retraumatising victims never seems to matter much to governments, not when they can be pandering, directly or through others, to those that made us so.
There are so many examples of putting innocent victims in invidious positions. I remember hearing about a journalist who was being intimidated by Loyalist terrorists. He put his head above the parapet and was invited by the NIO to an official reception. Guess who had also been invited. The hoods who were intimidating him of course. They weren’t being invited specifically because they were intimidating him. They were invited because they were terrorists though.
The main drive of course, in my opinion, has always been to appease Republican terrorists. However, to give a gloss of “balance” the odd bone (usually financial) is also thrown to Loyalist terrorists. This in turn makes it easier to give SF/IRA more of what it wants. I think some people think if they slobber over SF/IRA and then slobber over PUP/UVF then that makes it somehow 1 - all. It isn’t. It is 2 nil for terrorists. This is also part of the “they were all at it” thinking. Well no. We weren’t all at it. Even those of us at the receiving end of it weren’t at it. It wasn’t just our government that was pandering to terrorists. Loyalist terrorists were invited to play golf with the RoI President’s husband. I never got asked. I never tried to murder anyone. Clearly that was where I went wrong.
Terrorism being rewarded or terrorism being seen to trump votes encourages terrorism. NO outcome, bar anti terrorist measures, should EVER be decided, in a democracy, by who has the scariest terrorists. It encourages the other side to get scarier. A leader of a country expressing concern about a terrorist threat if option A is delivered, accompanied by a firm determined vow that such a threat will not be allowed to dictate whether option A is decided on, is fair enough (if sincere). Expressing concern about a terrorist threat if option A is delivered as part of your campaign against option A is a disgraceful example of giving terrorism a veto.
Every so often we will get the “We can’t do X, Y or Z”. because it will “threaten peace”. Terrorists threaten peace. Opting for a legitimate course of action that terrorists won’t like doesn’t threaten peace. Doing or not doing something so as not to upset terrorists both threatens peace and indicates that there isn’t real peace in the first place. If you pay hoods protection money, they may not thrash your business, but you haven’t got law and order.
Of course it is not considered “progressive” in Northern Ireland to have a problem with terrorists. We get the “it’s in the past” or the “just because you have a past doesn’t mean you can’t have a future” mantra. It is in the present that so many people still eulogise terrorists. It is in the present that terrorists are refusing to disclose information to the police about what they did, or others did. Martin McGuiness never denounced the terrorism he committed or ordered others to commit but still he was lauded and the comments when he died, were a disgrace to any decent society. We were subjected to a stream of pap that sanitised his evil, including talk of how he ended up as a “friend” and about his “journey”. A journey to a police station to hand himself in would have been welcome. . The thinking seemed to be that being elected and being Deputy First Minister somehow wipes clean being an unrepentant mass murderer. I write as someone who visited an ex IRA murderer in prison, on the basis that he had repudiated both IRA terrorism and the IRA as an organisation.
Part of this softly softly with terrorists and terrorism is use of the euphemism “paramilitary” I was quite frankly, disgusted at the title of this inquiry "The effect on Paramilitaries on society in Northern Ireland". This makes you part of the problem, pandering to their sick sense of their validity and importance. They are thugs, terrorists etc. They are NOT “Paramilitaries” no matter how much they want to justify themselves with the title. They are not to the legitimate military, what paramedics are to the medical profession.
My mother was not murdered by paramilitaries. She was murdered by terrorists. Adam Lambert was not murdered the next day in “revenge” for the Poppy Day Massacre by paramilitaries. He was murdered by terrorists. People are not still being intimidated etc and criminality honed to a level just below what might result in headlines, by paramilitaries. It is done by hoods, gangsters and terrorists.
Salt is rubbed in the wounds when I hear of these people getting public money without having to unequivocally denounce terrorism and their terrorist organisations. Giving these evil people euphemistic labels does the same job.
I am all for doing what you can to rehabilitate offenders and giving them a chance if they reform. It has to be on the basis that criminality past and present was WRONG. It is a disgrace that any public money goes to fund any “ex” terrorist/prisoner groups who can still justify their past participation in criminal violence. The notion that we should pay these people off to stop them being terrorists is the most obscene version of “Treats for Cheats”.
Then there is the trend to excuse terrorists. Putting the blame on politicians who fired them up and then left the poor wee souls to do their dirty work. Anyone, including politicians, who call for violence should be held accountable but having your mother murdered would be more of an excuse for murdering someone else, than listening to a few fiery speeches. It still would not excuse it. I was not brought up to consider that a space around our dinner table excused me creating one round someone else’s. It would be good if successive governments had endorsed my parents values, instead of undermining them.
When the BA agreement was first made public, I was invited to be in the audience as I said that I was totally opposed to it. My question didn’t get answered as when I was ready to ask it and raised my hand, Dimbleby asked “who has any doubts?”and put my hand down again as my autistic self reasoned that I didn’t have any doubts. I was certain I opposed it. By the time I asked it, there wasn’t time left for it to be answered. My question – “in the brave new world envisaged by those championing this, who will be most welcome and accepted, an unrepentant terrorist advocating a “yes” vote, or someone opposed to terrorism across the board, advocating a “no” vote? I now ask a variation on that theme. Who matters more the terrorist/supporter or the innocent victim who refuses to salve your conscience for appeasing them? You can pretend all you like that continued criminality, rackets and intimidation is not linked to the Belfast Agreement and, in particular, the thinking it solidified but the truth it that the explicit compromising of justice and implicit retrospective justification of pre 1998 terrorism has played and is playing a key part. You can try and put a wee circle round this “just keep it out of the newspapers lads, that’d be grand” criminality but it is fostered and encouraged by the wider pandering to and acceptance of terrorism and terrorism idolatry.
It has led to the most horrific mainstreaming of tolerance of terrorists and terrorism. Parties who have traditionally presented as being strong on law and order can indulge in wistful nostalgia of terrorists as referenced in
In a decent society we would not lower our standards just so that terrorists and supporters will accept them. It is a sad state of affairs that re Northern Ireland it is the terrorists and supporters who have lines in the sand that they stick to, whilst The Powers That Be don’t seem to consider the moral merits of an issue and just go for what they think they can get away with. The basic principles of Justice and Democracy should be above base horse trading with terrorists or fellow travellers. We should have red lines. We should have a clear boundary of what is acceptable and terrorists should have to move toward them and indeed come inside. We can light the way, plot a verifiable part, call encouragement from within those boundaries. What we should never do is move those boundaries to meet terrorism. We should never split the difference between good and evil or even between acceptable and evil.
Why would terrorist groups give up their justifications and their rackets etc. They haven’t done so because there have been no penalties for them not doing so. Why do they take public money and continue with their rackets and intimidation etc? Answer - Because they can.
The impact of the acceptance of terrorists, hoods and thugs affects many victims and can often retraumatise. It is something that your committee needs to explore further and not just pay lip service to. I would strongly urge you to call SEFF to give you the wider picture on the retraumatising of innocent victims by terrorists and those who continue to excuse and/or pander to them.
May 2022