A new TV series brings together Northern victims and their attackers in the presence of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But not everyone thinks it's a good idea, writes Fionola Meredith

To many victims of the conflict in the North, the idea of entering into a dialogue with the person who killed their loved one is an abhorrent impossibility: their pain is still searingly raw. More than that, the North has never been an emotionally articulate society; the brutal agonies that terror wreaks on its victims are rarely discussed openly and frankly. For many, suffering is a lonely, private experience.

In the North, "the truth" has become a dangerously loaded and contested term, buckling under the weight of conflicting narratives, competing histories and contradictory cultural mythologies. So when the BBC announced it was bringing together victims and perpetrators of the conflict in a new three-part series, Facing the Truth, it was bound to prove controversial.

Meeting in the presence of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who led South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, each of the six encounters sees people from different sides of the conflict coming face to face with each other. One episode includes a meeting between former loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone and the widow and brother of a man he is convicted of murdering.

But Belfast-based cross-community group, Healing Through Remembering (HTR), has questioned the nature of the programme. HTR chairman Roy McClelland says, "We are concerned that this series of televised encounters presenting truth recovery in this simplistic and confrontational manner will not help the wider debate on dealing with the past. Coming at a time when much work is being done to achieve long-term settlement, there is a serious risk that it could be counterproductive and raise issues and concerns that cannot be resolved or answered within the constraints of a television format". He adds, "We hope the survivors get something out of it. But the conflict covers a wide area, not just a few bad guys and their victims."

Dr Brandon Hamber, a consultant to HTR, who worked with victims testifying before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is worried the programme might fuel the public perception that a truth recovery process is solely concerned with victims meeting perpetrators.

"A truth and reconciliation commission is much wider than that - it would also explore the causes, nature and extent of the conflict. One of the international lessons is that there are no quick fixes. Dealing with the past is a process, not an event. We have to hope this programme is not reality television and headline-grabbing at the expense of victims."

But BBC executive producer Jeremy Adams sees the programme as "an extraordinarily positive event". He says, "I think there will be amazement that a dialogue of this nature is possible at all and I hope that our six encounters will lead to a wider debate here about victims, justice and truth." Anthony McIntyre, a republican commentator who served 18 years in prison for IRA activity, claims he was asked to participate in the programme, but refused.

He says, "Truth has become a weapon. It's more like truth and retribution - inflicting versions of truth on the other side."

While it seems the political will and public support for a formal truth and reconciliation commission in the North is largely absent, victims' campaigners, such as Alan McBride of the Wave Trauma Centre in Belfast, insist that some kind of truth recovery mechanism is essential. McBride, who lost his wife in the IRA bomb attack on a Shankill Road fish shop in 1993, says, "There have been almost 30 truth commissions around the world - there must be a model out there. We need a platform for victims to tell their stories and have them acknowledged. And we must consider what will happen if we don't have a truth and reconciliation commission: people will stay in sectarian mode; they will want to get redress. We need a more inclusive way."

But while catharsis and closure for victims may occur when they meet their attacker or the attacker of a member of their family, entering into dialogue isn't automatically of individual or wider social benefit. Anthony McIntyre says, "Truth itself is conflictual; there's no evidence to show that truth can reconcile . . . While it may be necessary for victims that they get hold of the truth, the holders of secrets are not going to part with them easily."

David Nicholl of the Derry-based Ulster Prisoners' Aid says, "If we are to address the conflict finally, we must move together as a community and stop looking over our shoulders at what divides us. Some people say that to talk now will only burden our children and grandchildren with what happened in the past. If we could speak as the dead, we'd say move on - live your lives."

Facing the Truth begins at 7.50pm on Saturday, Mar 4 on BBC2