Policing Board vice chairman Denis Bradley has called on the dissident republican movement to disband.
Policing Board vice chairman Denis Bradley
The former priest, who helped broker secret peace talks between the IRA and the British government, was speaking in public for the first time since he was left with serious injuries after being attacked in a bar in Derry last month.
Police have yet to hunt down the teenager who attacked Mr Bradley inside Mailey's Bar in Derry's Brandywell district, and the victim accepted that, as he had not spotted him, few others were likely to have witnessed the assault.
With his face still scarred from injuries sustained during the beating, Mr Bradley admitted he could have been killed if the blow had struck another part of his head.
However, he insisted: "I'm not a very bitter person. I suppose forgiveness is the sentiment that comes to mind before anything else. . . . I just get sad that a 16-year-old is full of anger or bitterness or whatever he's full of.
"I know that exists within our community and I'm not unrealistic either. If the police get him they get him, but it's from the point of view of stopping it happening to someone else," he said.
"I would be far more content if the Real IRA or whoever was involved came out tomorrow morning and said their campaign was over. That would be a greater victory to me than anything else."
He agreed with the assessment of Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness that dissidents had seized an advantage to strike while he was vulnerable.
In a direct message to those who have targeted him, Mr Bradley said: "The time has come for dissidents to wrap up their tent and go away.
Mr Bradley has endured a campaign of threats and intimidation over his membership of the authority, which was set up under the Patten blueprint for overhauling the staunchly Protestant police service.
He had already decided to stand down from the board next April as part of plans for a major shake-up of the 19-member scrutinising body drawn from both political and independent representatives but insisted he would not resign as a result of the recent attack.