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A new victims’ forum is being launched in Northern Ireland to tackle the legacy of the Troubles.

The advisory group will include the bereaved relatives of security force members and those shot dead by republican and loyalist groups.

All have links to infamous episodes including the IRA’s Shankill Road bombing, in which 10 people died in 1993, the British Army shooting dead of 13 civilians on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972, plus the Real IRA’s 1998 Omagh bombing that claimed 29 lives, including that of a woman pregnant with twins.



The forum has been formed as part of wider efforts to address the needs of the victims of violence and will hold its first meeting in Belfast on 22 September.

One of the four Northern Ireland Victims’ Commissioners appointed to coordinate efforts to help those bereaved and injured in the conflict, Brendan McAllister, welcomed the creation of the forum.

He said members of society had differing views on how and why the Troubles occurred, and on what constituted a victim, but he hoped common ground could be found on the needs of the bereaved and injured.

‘We hope that we have designed a forum that does that, that upholds people’s individual integrity so that they are able to come into the same place without accepting necessarily everything about each other,’ he said.

‘You have people coming from opposing views, but we have sounded out everybody before they came in and we are satisfied they are going to make this work.

‘And what’s at stake here is to create a mechanism that builds confidence more broadly in Northern Ireland, that the voices of people hurt by the conflict are being heard in ways that are credible and effective.’

Members of the forum include people seriously injured by violence, while a number have also been bereaved by events.

The forum includes Michael Grimes, who lost his wife Mary, his daughter Avril who was pregnant with twins and her infant daughter Maura in the Omagh bombing.

Also on the panel is Alan Brecknell, whose father was murdered by a loyalist paramilitary gang, which included security force members, who launched a gun and bomb attack on a pub.

Willie Frazer’s father and two uncles, who all served as soldiers in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), were killed by the IRA. He now campaigns for the victims of republican violence and will sit on the forum.

The group will also include former IRA prisoner Michael Culbert, who represented other republican prisoners as the director of the Coiste na n-Iarchimí lobby group.

And Shirley McMichael, whose husband John was a leading loyalist killed in an IRA bomb attack, plus Reatha Hassan, who runs a victims’ group and served in the UDR and Royal Irish Regiment, will also serve on the panel.

While the forum includes 30 people directly affected by the conflict, it will also have nine members whose expertise in areas such tackling mental illness will help its work to aid victims.

All those involved in the forum take their places as individuals, rather than as members of groups they may have represented, organisers said.

Mr McAllister will co-chair the forum alongside his fellow victims’ commissioner Bertha McDougall.

The forum has been formed on a pilot basis and will run until June 2010 to test its success.

It will hold meetings at venues throughout Northern Ireland during that time and may also meet in the Republic of Ireland or in Britain.

Items on its agenda include the definition of a victim, the Eames/Bradley report on measures to deal with the fallout from the Troubles, while it will also consider what other publicly funded organisations need to be created to aid the bereaved and injured.

Hardline unionist party the Traditional Unionist Voice said the forum should not include individuals it described as ‘terrorist representatives’.

The TUV said: ‘The Democratic Unionist Party, sadly, has played politics for too long with the victims of terrorism, falsely raising hopes just before the European election that legislation would change the obnoxious definition of ‘victim’ which equates the genuine victim with the perpetrator.

‘They know the republican veto in Stormont will block such, hence since the election we’ve heard nothing more about it.

‘But (the) announcement of the Victims’ Forum will demonstrate just who is controlling the victims’ agenda.”

see more: http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0904/north.html