Tories aware of secret report, but despite fears pardoning of soldiers for crimes would damage reputation of UK and legitimise IRA campaign, they still passed legislation last year
Long before the government legislated to give an amnesty for all Troubles crimes, its own files show it had been warned an amnesty for soldiers would damage the UK abroad and legitimise the IRA campaign.
Documents at The National Archives in Kew show almost 24 years ago a retired civil servant was asked to examine the implications of abandoning Troubles prosecutions.
Former senior NIO official Sir Quentin Thomas was asked to do so as Tony Blair’s government sought ways to allow IRA fugitives back to Northern Ireland without being prosecuted — a key Sinn Féin demand before the Provos moved closer to decommissioning.
A draft copy of his report was delivered in November 2000, setting out ways an amnesty could be implemented — but it contained warnings about the risks.
Sir Quentin made clear that unless an amnesty was “an act of magnanimity in victory, it can serve to legitimise, at least partially, what was done in challenging an undemocratic or oppressive regime and at the same time, particularly if applied to the security forces, to delegitimise that regime”.
“The implication, as in South Africa, is that the nature of the regime was such that both its opponents and servants were driven to act outside the rule of law.”
He said the views of the IRA on the proposal were “crucial” because if it wasn’t prepared to accept it, then it was essentially a waste of time.
In conclusion, he said: “In a zero sum game an amnesty is a dumb play. That is because it has a relatively low positive value for the republicans and a high negative value for unionists and most others.”
It would be “a Christmas present for anti-Agreement unionists, to be opened with bitter glee”, making it harder for David Trimble to survive unless it was clear the IRA were “going out of business”.
While that report was delivered to the Blair government, we know it was read by the Tory-led government after it took over in 2010. When a ‘letter of comfort’ to IRA fugitive John Downey led to his trial collapsing in 2014, it almost collapsed devolution and prompted a series of investigations inside and outside government, during which Sir Quentin’s report was unearthed.
Yet, several years later, the government passed the Legacy Act, which not only gives a de facto amnesty, but prevents even civil claims by individuals in an attempt to discover the truth.
The declassified files show how legally and morally the government struggled to deal with the question of whether an amnesty should just apply to terrorists, or also to police and Army.
On December 14, 2000, Secretary of State Peter Mandelson sent a ‘secret and personal’ letter to Blair.
He said Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams was expecting “a piece of paper from us” setting out plans for on-the-runs.
He said: “There are two broad models. One would involve a change in law so that, unless they were active terrorists or supporters of organisations not on ceasefire, OTRs could not be prosecuted for pre-Good Friday Agreement offences.
“The other would involve a commission as we had for the [Good Friday Agreement] early release scheme, which would grant immunity to people on the same criteria with a greater element of conditionality.
“Both would require us to decide whether to include members of the security forces.”
Mr Mandelson said he did not think they needed to immediately decide which model to pursue, but stressed “both are deeply unattractive politically”.
He continued: “The commission model has the potential to be made more attractive, if it could help expose the truth of past events for victims, but we now know this would be unacceptable to Sinn Féin.
“We are therefore faced with the unattractive choice between a somewhat mechanistic commission and a carte blanche prohibition of prosecutions in cases of this kind.”
In a confidential May 4, 2001 letter to the Prime Minister, Secretary of State John Reid asked for permission for officials to begin work on possible amnesty legislation to be introduced in Parliament after the election.
He said: “The legislation should exclude members of the security forces from the amnesty arrangements, though we should not underestimate the difficulty of holding this line in Parliament in the face of an inevitable press campaign.
“In the Hillsborough statement of 8 March we accepted publicly for the first time that it would be a natural development of the early release scheme to discontinue the prosecution of pre-Good Friday Agreement offences allegedly committed by supporters of organisations now on ceasefire.
“The words were hedged around and have attracted less attention than we might have feared.
“What they mean, though, is that in any big deal on decommissioning after the election, Sinn Féin will want a firm commitment on the substance and timing of amnesty legislation, (unless the prosecuting authorities were to change their present view of the public interest in all the outstanding cases).”
He said “the most difficult question will be what to do about the police and the Army. There is unlikely to be a clever way of drafting this scheme so that it conveniently draws a line around soldiers and police officers”.
“So if we want to exclude them we shall have to do so explicitly on the face of the bill. I have enormous difficulty with this personally — on grounds of fairness and equity, and considering our responsibility towards those who risked their lives to combat acts of terrorism which are now to be set aside.
“However, on the merits of both principle and the future of Northern Ireland, I have been persuaded that it is the right approach.”
Justifying that decision, he stated: “It is a key principle for us that the security forces operate within the rule of law. To do anything which undermined that position or which implied some equivalence between their actions and those of the terrorists would be very damaging, including internationally.
“All that said, there is a makings of a very difficult and dangerous press campaign and public perception here — ‘our lads still to stand trial while murdering b******* get off’. We should not underestimate the parliamentary passion.
“Despite the arguments of principle against equivalence, the crude press attack will be that the amnesty should either be for everyone or no-one.
“Defeating this line of argument in Parliament will require a huge effort, even in the right context.”
Four days later, Mr Blair’s private secretary replied to say that the Prime Minister agreed “the policy steer” from Mr Reid “seems broadly right”, but he did not want to close off any options.
by Ah_here_like
3 comments
I hate Tony Blair and his fake grin,……. Bastard.
Tony blAIR
Tony blIRA
To be fair that could have included soldiers since the British army are in fact terrorists