A WOMAN whose husband was abducted and murdered during the South African conflict has said that a truth and reconciliation commission should be set up in Northern Ireland.
Ms Mbuyi Mhiaull said the commission in South Africa had helped many families to cope and she believed a similar body could help the bereaved in the North come to terms with their grief.
She was speaking at a Remember and Change conference in Templepatrick, Co Antrim, focusing on surviving trauma. Some 200 people attended the event which was funded by the EU Peace and Reconciliation Programme. They included victims from across the religious divide.
Ms Mhiaull's husband, a teacher, and three friends were abducted after a United Democratic Front meeting. "Their bodies were found burnt and mutilated by the roadside a week later. I was also very angry, very bitter. I got no answers from the authorities about what happened my husband. I said that if those who killed him came forward, I could forgive them. They did after I testified to the [South African] commission."
Ms Hazel McCready, of the Disabled Police Officers' Association, who was wounded in an IRA gun attack in 1976, said the injured seemed not to feature on the political agenda. "Thousands of policemen and women have had their lives devastated by horrendous injuries. Yet they are not getting the practical help they need. There has to be better funding for pain clinics.
"The support services for disabled officers are abysmal. Some of the methods used by this [British] government for people claiming benefit are draconian. People injured 20 years ago are being asked to fill in 20 pages of documentation under the annual review of benefits."
Ms Christine McKay, who was seven months pregnant when her husband, Noel, a Catholic, was shot dead 21 years ago, said there should be greater funding for victim support groups. "Many of us have lived through a complete and absolute nightmare, yet there has been virtually no support. Families had to get themselves better again. That has to change."