Madam, - The innocent victims of terrorist violence in West Tyrone are dismayed at the way Sinn Féin/IRA has rejected the proposals to ensure transparency in decommissioning of all illegal armaments table recently by the UK and Irish governments.
Members of the innocent victims' community have taken courageous steps for peace in Northern Ireland during the past 35 years. They accepted the disbandment of the B-Specials in the early 1970s in an attempt to get peace, but none came. They accepted the disbandment of the UDR for peace, but it eluded them. They had to put up with the removal of the RUC in order to get peace, but it never materialised either. Many of them accepted the Belfast Agreement of 1998 in a further bid to get peace, but this was answered definitively by republicans the following August by the Omagh bomb, and by the numerous terrorist-related incidents that have dogged our steps even since.
Innocent victims have yearned for real and lasting peace more than many people believe or admit. They and their families have paid a very high price for peace in our land. But this sincere desire has not been reciprocated by those who murdered and maimed their loved ones.
The republicans say that having photographic evidence of decommissioning has been suggested as a means of "humiliation." But they do not know the first thing about what humiliation is.
Humiliation is about getting word that your loved one has been murdered by the PIRA. It is walking behind a loved one's coffin with the full knowledge that the murderers are rejoicing in a job well done.
Humiliation is about having your right to justice removed from you. Humiliation is seeing images of your murdered loved one in the press and broadcast media. Humiliation is learning about the torture your relatives experienced before they were mercilessly murdered by PIRA.
Humiliation is hearing how republican lies have been listened to and believed by gullible people at home and abroad. It is about witnessing the security of your country being dismantled piece by piece, and seeing on the TV screen the triumphalism of those who attacked the country. Humiliation is having to live in fear in isolated border areas, knowing that your protection has been removed to facilitate the terrorist murderers.
Humiliation is having to check under your car and around your house on a regular basis. It is living in virtual fortresses because of death threats from republican terrorists. Humiliation is living with pain and the loss of a dear father, spouse, brother or sister, son or daughter, and knowing that terrorist criminals have been rewarded and elevated by governments.
Mary Harney, TD has weighed in behind the UK, Dublin and US governments, as well as the innocent victims' groups in Northern Ireland, and her statement in the Dail to the effect that "humiliation works both ways" is most welcome. Every party in Northern Ireland, with the exception of IRA/SF, supports the need for photographic confirmation. This is yet another ploy by the terrorists to further humiliate the innocent victims as well as every decent person who lives on this island.
And if Mr Ahern proceeds with his plan to release the terrorist killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe, victims will be humiliated yet again by such crass insensitivity to their needs. But he and Mr Blair do not seem to care that they are humiliated, so long as IRA/Sinn Féin are not. - Yours, etc.,
Dr J.E. HAZLETT LYNCH,
Project Co-ordinator,
West Tyrone Voice
(Victims' organisation),
Newtownstewart,
Co Tyrone.