Prosecutions over Troubles should end: Ex-Northern Island secretary

A former Northern Ireland secretary in the British government has called for an end to all prosecutions related to the crimes committed during ethnic clashes known as “the Troubles,” including the killing of some 3,000 people.

Peter Hain said Sunday that everyone allegedly involved in the violence during the Troubles should be exempt from prosecution.

The Troubles refers to the violent thirty-year ethno-nationalist conflict that began in Northern Ireland with a civil rights march in Londonderry on October 5, 1968 and came to an end with the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998. The constitutional status of Northern Ireland is said to be at the heart of the conflict, which spilled over into England, the Republic of Ireland and even into parts of Europe.

“I think there should be an end to all conflict-related prosecutions… This is not desirable in a normal situation. You would never dream of doing this in England, Scotland and Wales – but the Troubles were never normal,” said Hain.

The former secretary also said he understood the proposal would make the victims of the Troubles “desperately angry;” however, ‘a de facto amnesty was needed in order to allow Northern Ireland to put the past behind it.’

Last month, Hain called for a similar amnesty to those involved in the Bloody Sunday massacre of 13 civil rights marchers by the British army in 1972.

Hain is the latest official to propose an amnesty for those involved in crimes committed during the Troubles.

Northern Ireland Attorney General John Larkin’s proposed last November to end the Troubles-related prosecutions. The proposal sparked anger among the families of the victims of the conflict.

New revelations showed that an undercover unit of the British army was sanctioned to carry out a shoot-to-kill policy in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, in the 1970s during the Troubles.

The UK army unit, dubbed the Military Reaction Force (MRF), admitted for the first time that its forces had killed an unspecified number of the Irish Republic Army (IRA) members regardless of whether the latter were armed or not.

The MRF also admitted to killing unarmed people on the street in drive-by shootings without any independent evidence showing they were part of the IRA.