Traditional unionist Voice Vice-chair Keith Harbinson has called on the British Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to do more for the real victims of IRA terror.

 

Mr Harbinson said “Whilst the change in position by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in adding his backing to the calls for compensation from Libya in respect of IRA terrorism is welcome, it seems somewhat hollow given the fact that the British Government facilitates the perpetrators of countless atrocities in the Government of Northern Ireland.”

 

“There is absolutely no question that the real victims of decades of IRA murder are entitled to be compensated for their loss, however no-one seems to have any regard for the fact that these same victims must live with the daily injustice that those who rendered them victims now sit within the Stormont Executive.”

 

Mr Harbinson also rounded on the DUP saying

“Grand statements of good intentions from Jeffrey Donaldson and his party colleagues over proposed payouts by Libya are somewhat tainted by the fact that by their will, Sinn Fein/IRA sit around the executive table. If Mr Donaldson was sincere in his efforts to deliver for victims of IRA terrorism, he would not only be heading off to Libya to fight their corner, he and his party would be heading out of terrorist-inclusive government at Stormont.”

 

“The fact that Sinn Fein/IRA sit in our Government is of course not the only slur on victims delivered by the DUP. We have seen appointed under their stewardship, a victims commissioner whose brother was killed on ‘active service’ for the Provisional IRA, and we now have a victims forum that has included in its membership Michael Culbert a former IRA prisoner who was sentenced to 16 years for killing a Police Officer. These bodies cannot deliver for real victims whilst their views are polluted with a representation of those responsible for creating victims.”

 

Mr Harbinson further added-

“When all of this is cross-referenced with the fact that the DUP by acquiescence or agreement bought into a definition of a victim that as Martin McGuiness boasted recently ‘recognises that the relatives of IRA volunteers killed on active service are absolutely equal - absolutely equal - to the relatives of Crown forces personnel killed by the IRA,’ then the needs and feelings of real victims are clearly being sidelined in a pursuit of Political expediency to sanitize Sinn Fein/IRA and wash from the face of history their role during the darkest days of this country.”