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The apology made by San Francisco Mayor London Breed for the outrageous award, commending Martin McGuinness for his ‘courageous service in the military’, is welcomed by Ulster Human Rights Watch. Victims of terrorism and those espousing democratic values throughout society were rightly horrified by such offensive glorification of terrorism, and we hope that this humiliating climb down will also reverse the propaganda value of the award for those who continue to justify terrorism and large scale abuses of human rights as legitimate ways to further political agendas.

While criticism has rightly been directed over the Atlantic, we may forget that the campaign to rewrite history in order to whitewash terrorism, and particularly republican terrorism, as lawful and legitimate, and to vilify the security forces, continues apace. Ms. Breed and her award may be seen as just this – legitimising brutal IRA terrorist activity by redefining it as ‘courageous service in the military’.

By the same yardstick the UK government and authorities have acted no better in playing into this agenda – and there is no apology or change of heart forthcoming here. We have a de facto definition of ‘victims’, in the Victims and Survivors (NI) Order 2006, that makes a moral equivalence between the innocent victims of terrorism and the violent perpetrators of terrorist acts. This also serves the terrorist’s agenda in the rewriting of history, whitewashing their crimes by placing them on the same moral level as those they killed.

The proposed Historical Investigations Unit, as a new body for dealing with the past, seeks to make a moral equivalence between police misconduct and acts of terrorism. Again this is a part of the terrorist’s agenda and the rewriting of history.

The message sent from the decision of the PPS yesterday to prosecute a soldier 47 years after Bloody Sunday, while terrorists are let out of prison on license, have letters of comfort and OTRs, again sends the same message that there was legitimacy to terrorist acts which deserve to be ignored, while security forces who were there to stand between terrorists and society, must be vilified as the criminals and chased to the grave.

San Francisco’s mayor was right to apologise, and maybe she even deserves a fool’s pardon. The UK statutory facilitation of the same agenda deserves no such forgiveness and should be stopped.

We have recently received a response to our letter to the Secretary Of State. To read please follow the link:

Letter from SoS 15-02-2019 (1)

On Friday 15 February 2019 a commemorative event for the victims of the La Mon House Bombing took place in Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council attended by The Right Worshipful the Mayor, Councillor Uel Mackin.

The service of remembrance took place amidst beautiful sunshine outside Council Headquarters in front of a bench dedicated to the memory of the twelve victims who lost their lives in the tragedy.

Mr Mayor read the names of the victims and two bunches of flowers were laid on the bench and in front of it, one by Trevor, the grandson of Mr James Mills who lost both his wife and sister in the atrocity, and the other by a representative of the Ulster Human Rights Watch Advocacy Service who has been supporting the victims in their quest for truth and justice.

According to the wishes expressed by Mr William McDowell, whose wife was one of the most seriously injured and who passed away in 2013, the Advocacy Support Manager for the Ulster Human Rights Watch, Axel Schmidt, delivered a short address to the people assembled. He spoke on the basis of the last verses of the book of Ecclesiastes (Chap. 12 v. 13-14). The proceedings were concluded with the Lord’s prayer being recited by all those in attendance.

This was the 41^st Anniversary of the La Mon House Bombing, when on 17^th February 1978 the IRA planted a bomb outside the restaurant that exploded with a napalm effect. The fire spread so rapidly that twelve people remained trapped inside the building and lost their lives. Twenty-three others were injured, some very seriously. To this day the victims of the terrorist attack remain scarred physically and emotionally.

The office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI) has just confirmed that the complaint lodged by the victims in this case will be the first to be investigated as soon as an investigation team is available to do so.