Speech at Belfast City Hall Rally August 2007 - March For Truth

On August 8th 1993, I – like so many of you here today – marched to this very same City Hall. Up until that time the basic right of free assembly for nationalists and republicans to march in their own city had been denied – a right freely enjoyed by unionists.

Just prior to this republican women, many of them victims of state violence, showed courage and leadership when they organised a series of marches aimed at breaking the ban and eventually securing our right to free assembly at this spot.

The gathering of nationalist and republicans here in 1993 signalled an end to unionist/British domination.

As we left here on Sunday August 8th 1993 many of us knew that a price would be paid for asserting our rights that day– indeed Mick Conlon walked home with Sinn Féin Councillor Bobby Lavery and they had this very discussion.

Historically within this state whenever nationalist and republicans made political gains and/or sought to secure their rights the terror tactics of the state were switched on in a bid to thwart that change. This was policy.

Later that evening loyalists attacked the home of Val and Bobby Lavery killing their 21 year-old son Sean.

It wasn’t the first time the Lavery home had been targeted by loyalists or that the death squads claimed a family member –Bobby’s brother Martin had been shot dead by loyalists in his North Belfast home as he wrapped Christmas presents with his children on December 20th 1992.

Bobby and Val Lavery’s home on the Antrim Road was opposite a British army military base with surveillance cameras – the British army, with similar surveillance cameras, also occupied the flats in the New Lodge overlooking the back of the Lavery home.

The RUC and British army threatened the Lavery’s – they harassed them – they passed on their personal details to loyalists – and they then told them that their lives were in danger. This was policy.

Bobby Lavery and his family were denied access to the Key Persons Protection Scheme because he was a republican – This was NIO policy.

No one was ever prosecuted for the murder of Sean Lavery – it was practice to protect the agents within the death squads in which Special Branch directed murder investigations into murders they sanctioned. This was policy.

Virtually the entire UDA/UFF death squads responsible for the killing of Sean Lavery, and up to 100 other murders across this city in a six-year period have since been exposed as being agents of either RUC Special Branch or British Military Intelligence. This practice too was policy.

The weapons used to kill Sean and Martin Lavery were part of a consignment of weapons imported into the North under the direction of British Military Intelligence MI5 – these weapons have been used to kill approximately 300 people – including Protestants. This was policy.

In the hours after the murder of his son Sean, Bobby Lavery addressed the media – He said: ‘ I don’t blame the people who shot my son – they are told to hate Catholics – I don’t have hatred for the killers’

‘Responsibility for the murder of Sean rests with those who armed and controlled the killers  – those who sent them to my door to target my family and me – I blame the British government.’

The policy makers in the NIO – Whitehall and Downing Street – the senior people in Special Branch and British Military Intelligence – that’s where culpability rests.

These same faceless people decided who would live and who would die – these same people control the perfunctory investigations, courts and prosecution service.

This is policy – as was recently witnessed with the PPS decision not to prosecute any of the 24 members of RUC Special Branch and the M15’s Force Research Unit, which were involved in widespread collusion.

These same people now peddle the notion that truth is bad and we should draw a line under the past. This is part of the new policy of now burying the truth about their policy of collusion and state sanctioned murder.

The families demand the truth about pre-planned, premeditated shoot-to-kill operations – the regular use of lethal force especially against unarmed civilians and children – The use of rubber and plastic bullets, the technology of terror and political control – The families want the truth about state killings that claimed just under 400 lives with impunity masquerading as ‘due process’ – the truth about infiltrating, structuring, training, arming, controlling and directing the death squads that claimed approximately 1,100 lives across this country.

However - the truth about these actions cannot be achieved in institutions controlled by those responsible for designing, implementing and carrying out the policies of state violence that led to the deaths in the first instance.

The British state is able to hide the truth and deny justice for these human rights violations because we seek truth and justice within their system.

We need to look beyond their system to one that can deliver universal truth for all victims equally. The British state’s policies of collusion and shoot-to-kill are only vulnerable to being exposed when they are not in control.

That is why we need an independent, international truth commission that can, for the first time, uncover the truth and hold to account those who pulled the strings of the state death squads - the faceless people who designed and drafted the policies and oversaw their implementation.

Truth also establishes acknowledgment and recognition for families- it is essential to healing. It is about historical clarification on the nature, causes and extent of the conflict. It is about positively righting the wrongs of the past in a transitional framework that contributes to moving the bereaved, injured and society collectively forward in the full knowledge that what took place over four decades cannot be distorted or airbrushed out of history nor a hierarchy of victimhood maintained. Truth is necessary for transforming and shaping the emergence of new political and civil dispensations to everyone’s benefit.

Truth is neither about revenge nor retribution – Bobby Lavery clearly expressed that view in the hours after Sean’s murder – much like Emma Groves, blinded by a rubber bullet and who forgave the British soldier responsible despite being denied justice. Bobby showed great courage and leadership in the midst of pain, anguish, devastation and loss. He understood precisely where culpability rested. The Lavery family, like thousands of other families, have an inalienable right to the truth about the murders of their loved ones.

We need to narrow the permissible amount of lies, propaganda and misinformation about the murders of our loved ones – The British state must face up to its responsibilities for its actions during the conflict. A truth commission can achieve this.

There are equally challenges for our community regarding truth but our community has met its challenges with courage and we will be vindicated, as what we do is morally right and we do it with integrity. The British government must now stand up and meet its obligations and match that integrity.

The challenge for us all is to deliver on truth.