British Prime Minister Tony Blair today (February 10, 2005) apologised for the
"ordeal and injustice" suffered by the Conlon and Maguire
families, who were wrongly jailed at the height of the conflict
in 1974.
Blair issued a public apology today to the families whose
relatives were imprisoned by a hostile British judiciary on the
basis of evidence falsified by police.
The movie "In the Name of the Father" dramatised the experiences
of the families, including the tragic death in jail of Guiseppe
Conlon.
Blair said the families "deserve to be completely and publicly
exonerated".
Daily Ireland, February 10, 2005
The Issue of Apologising
By Danny Morrison -
How does one define an apology? Is an apology meaningless if you qualify your
expression of regret; or still adhere to the belief that what you did in the
past was justified, thus reducing the apology to a gesture?
Some of these issues were discussed the other morning on BBC Radio Ulster’s
‘Sunday Sequence’. The subject arose in the light of Tony Blair’s imminent
public apology to the Conlon family over the wrongful imprisonment of Gerry
Conlon (of the Guildford Four) and his father, Giuseppe, who died in custody
in 1980.
Both, along with several others, were falsely accused of bombing public bars
in Guildford and Woolwich which resulted in the deaths of four soldiers and
a civilian. They were jailed and remained in jail despite members of an IRA
active service unit, which was arrested in London’s Balcombe Street in 1975,
exonerating them and admitting responsibility for the bombings.
I was a panellist on ‘Sunday Sequence’ along with the Reverend David
Clements (a Methodist Minister), David Ervine of the PUP and Dean Nicholas
Frayling (author of the book ‘Pardon and Peace’).
David Clements’ father, William, was a Methodist lay preacher who was in the
RUC and who was killed by the IRA outside Ballygawley barracks in December
1985. I had friends who were killed by the RUC and I was jailed three times
by the RUC. To me the RUC conjures up a huge canvas of images from the baton
charging of civil rights protestors, to attacking Catholic homes in August
1969, to prisoners being tortured and framed, to collusion with loyalists in
the assassinations of nationalists.
But I very much doubt if that is what David Clements has in mind when he
thinks of the RUC, his father, his colleagues and their cause. I have to
allow that those were never his perpceptions of the force and that to him
the killing of his father was ‘murder’ and ‘a crime’.
On ‘Sunday Sequence’ he and I had an exchange when I mentioned that three
years ago the IRA had apologised to the families of those people,
non-combatants, innocent bystanders, whom it had killed. Some of the
relatives of the dead welcomed the apology; others were lukewarm or hostile.
The Reverend Clements argued that this wasn’t a ‘proper apology’. He said:
“The IRA didn’t apologise for the murder of my father. He was an Irishman
and a Godly Christian man. Because he wore a police uniform they regarded
him as a legitimate target.”
From the Rev Clements’ remarks I understand that a ‘proper apology’ would
have to involve ‘repentance’ (a complete turning away from one’s actions). I
agreed that the IRA had not apologised for killing his father though it did
acknowledge the grief and pain of the relatives of those whom it considered
enemy combatants, and whom it wilfully killed. I pointed out that I would
not expect the British army or the RUC to apologise for having killed IRA
Volunteers or anybody involved in combat, even though I hold British
interference in Ireland to be the ultimate cause of the conflict.
I believe that apologies, even if they are gestures, are important and
useful, especially, for example, if Tony Blair’s helps alert the British
public to some of the shameful things done in its name. Or, if the IRA
belatedly admits to having wrongly accused and killed someone as an alleged
informer.
Historically, and throughout the conflict, many wrongs were perpetrated by
all sides, especially Britain, its forces and agents against the Irish
nationalist community. However, there will never be a ‘proper apology’ for
the British conquest of Ireland - which has bequeathed us our current
difficulties. Nor will unionist leaders properly apologise for unionism’s
systemic mistreatment of nationalists under Stormont, or for their many
apologias for state violence which in turn helped fuel the IRA campaign.
This refusal is easy understood and applies also to the Republican Movement
which was responsible for a large share of the killings. To repent, to
repudiate the legitimacy of one’s past is to risk invalidating the
legitimacy of one’s current position. To surrender the historical narrative
to the enemy is to weaken one’s position and surrender political opportunity
to the enemy.
For Britain to show repentance and admit that it had grievously wronged
Ireland would be to admit that its republican enemy had a case and on
occasion acted understandably, even legitimately.
People, organisations, governments might admit to individual mistakes but
not to being wrong in general or the prime cause of conflict. Only one party
– Ian Paisley’s DUP - refuses to apologise for its catalogue of offences.
Until it can bring itself to apologise it will never bring itself to share
power in a spirit of reconciliation with a people whom it so
self-righteously despises and has for so long insulted.