Alex Maskey MLA Motion 42
Published: 29 February, 2008
Alex Maskey is the party spokesperson on Policing and Justice and a member of the Policing Board.
Republicans have no problem acknowledging the role we have played in the conflict. The British State has yet to come to this point.
The IRA were engaged in armed struggle against the British State in Ireland for over 25 years.
At times this war was brutal, it was dirty and as with any conflict victims and indeed heroes have been created on all sides. We only have to cast our minds back to the events of this week 20 years ago. The IRA lost seven Volunteers in the space of days. The two Brendans in South Armagh, Mairead, Sean and Dan in Gibrarltar and Kevin McCracken in Belfast. Caoighain MacBradaiagh died in Milltown alongside two civilians Thomas McErlane and John Murray. Two undercover British soldiers also lost their lives.
The British Government have never acknowledged their role in this conflict. They still hide behind the lie that they were somehow honest brokers between two warring tribes. They were not. They were an occupying army engaged in a war on our streets.
Their forces directly murdered innocent people on our streets. Indeed we are joined here this evening by relatives of those killed in the Ballymurphy massacre.
As time has past the extent to which their dirty war stooped has become clearer and clearer.
When Sinn Fein first began to expose the true nature of the British governments collusion policy it was dismissed by a compliant media as republican propaganda.
Because of the efforts of many of the families of those killed through that policy and the gradual opening of a can of worms the true nature of the extent to which the British government controlled and manipulated loyalist death squads has been exposed.
Indeed can I say that for many years people believed that only people from within our community fell victim to this policy. Nothing is further from the truth. Many ordinary decent unionists were murdered and their deaths covered up in order to protect high level agents within loyalist gangs. Tonight we are joined by one of those unionists who has courageously demanded the truth about the murder of his son by the UVF in 1997. Raymond McCord Snr is joined here tonight by representatives of those murdered at Loughinisland and by members of Relatives for Justice. They are all very welcome.
Can I also say that Martin Mallon, nephew of Roseann Mallon was scheduled to speak as an RFJ speaker this evening, before the horrific bus crash earlier this week which has left his niece Nicola Murray dead and another young niece Grannie Mallon seriously injured. I would wish to send the best wishes of this Ard Fheis to the Mallon and Murray families at this difficult time.
Republicans have nothing to fear from a genuine truth recovery process. Indeed it was Sinn Fein who first proposed this idea. But such a process is doomed to fail if it is constructed by the British government or has its terms set by it. That is why the current Eames/Bradley approach is so flawed. For a truth process to succeed the British government have to be there as participants in the conflict not bystanders to it., that means an international dimension. It must also examine the root causes of the conflict.
So far the British have given no indication that they are up for such a challenge.
But that must not deter us. The genuine need for reconciliation and building a new future on this island based on truth and justice requires Republicans to press ahead in addressing in a complete way the legacy of the conflict we have all lived through.
I commend Motion 42 to the Ard Fheis.
The next three speakers in this section are Raymond McCord, Carmel Quinn representing the Ballymurphy families and John Loughran representing Relatives for Justice. I would invite the Ard Fheis to welcome them all.
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