The fact that Northern politicians continue to be exercised over the “on the runs” affair long after – a week being a long time in politics – it has been discounted in the Republic confirms that, for all the talk of peace-process transformation, the basic attitudes of many in the political mainstream in Northern Ireland remain obdurately resistant to change.
The Democratic Unionist Party promises that the royal pardon issued to Gerry Kelly in 1986 will be kept to the fore in the contest between Kelly and DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds in North Belfast in the May 7th Westminster election. The “on the runs” issue could run and run. It matters little that Kelly and Sinn Féin are not only right on this one but publicly on-the-record right.
Kelly, now a junior minister at the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister, fled to the Netherlands in 1983 after escaping from the Maze/ Long Kesh, where he had been serving two life sentences and 20 years for his part in the 1973 Provisional IRA bombing of the Old Bailey. He was arrested in Amsterdam. The British authorities demanded his extradition to serve the rest of his Old Bailey sentence and to face trial on charges arising from the escape.
Political bombing
The Dutch supreme court ruled the Old Bailey bombing had been “political” and that they could not – as opposed to would not – order his extradition. The British side agreed to rescind the Old Bailey charges in order to facilitate his transfer back to the North. The only mechanism for achieving this was a pardon.
The ruling was widely published and generated animated discussion. There can be no excuse for anyone who was around at the time and who has not yet become doddery to affect surprise about the “revelation”. But pumping up outrage is par for this particular course.
The “letters of comfort” that have now been the subject of two British inquiries are separate from the Kelly pardon by 20 years and common sense.
The letters were issued following the failure of the Northern Ireland Offences Bill introduced at Westminster by Tony Blair’s government on November 9th, 2005, with the prior approval of Sinn Féin. The Bill would have amnestied Republicans, loyalists and members of the security forces found to have committed Troubles-related crimes prior to the signing of the Belfast Agreement. Rushed through the Commons by Labour whips, it passed its second reading on November 23rd by a majority of 310 to 272. But that’s as far as it got.
Letters of comfort
Relatives of victims of the Troubles objected to a measure allowing the killers of their loved ones to escape scot-free. From the point of view of Republicans, the key moment came when members of the Bloody Sunday families who had been pursuing prosecution of the soldiers responsible for the Derry killings told senior members of Sinn Féin in what might be called no uncertain terms that if they accepted the Bill – which the British believed they already had – they’d be “denounced from the rooftops”. Republican leaders went back to Downing Street and explained that they couldn’t deliver. Another mechanism had to be devised. Hence the “letters of comfort” to “on the runs” who the leadership certified were supporters of the agreement. “Dissidents” didn’t make it on to the list.
The fact that IRA fugitives had been amnestied was obvious. Volunteers who had gotten offside years ago were now to be seen out shopping with their families or socialising in local pubs or whatever.
The reason the scheme was crucial arose from the fact that the IRA regarded its army council as the legitimate government of Ireland and its volunteers as soldiers fighting a just war properly authorised by a competent authority. The notion may seem fanciful to many. But it provided the “legal” and moral basis for the armed campaign. For the IRA leadership to have ended the war without bringing all its soldiers home would have been unthinkable and, in one reasonable perspective, dishonourable. They would have been done for as far as its rank and file was concerned.
This would not necessarily have prompted the Provos to return to “armed struggle”.Blair is just wrong about that, as about so much else to do with the North, not least his own significance for the making of the agreement.
But in the short term at least the absence of an amnesty would have made the construction of the Stormont machinery of governance even more difficult than it turned out to be.
None of this will be in any way surprising to anyone who has taken the trouble to find out how these things work and how in this instance things did work. But there’s none so ill- informed as those who are determined not to know. Twitter: @eamonderry