LONDON LETTER:The past casts a long shadow for those devastated by terrorism in the British capital
TRAINS RUMBLED overhead at the South Quay station in Canary Wharf in London yesterday as Gemma Berezag, with tears rolling down her face, stood to remember the evening 15 years ago when her life changed.
On February 9th, 1996, she had stayed at home from her cleaning job in the Midland Bank to nurse her youngest child while her husband, Zaoui, helped by their son, Farid and oldest daughter, Layla, did her shift in her place.
An IRA bomb made from ammonium nitrate fertiliser and fuel oil exploded in a small lorry just 80 yards from the railway station at 7.01pm, as her husband sat in his car outside a small shop run by Inan Bashir and John “JJ” Jeffries.
The two shopkeepers were killed, while Zaoui Berezag was left with a crippling brain injury that has left him needing 24-hour care. Dozens more were injured.
Yesterday, friends and relatives of the three men and those of others injured by the IRA’s last bombing in London – along with some of those left maimed by the July 7th, 2005 attack by Islamic extremists in the city – gathered at South Quay to remember those events, and also to plead for financial help for those struggling with their legacy.
“Today is a day that I never forget; my husband has been left brain-damaged. I look after him. I remember every day what happened to him,” said Gemma Berezag, before she delivered a message in Arabic calling on Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadafy – who supplied the IRA with the Semtex used as a detonator in the bombing – to compensate the victims.
Later, standing as white doves of peace were released by the Docklands Victims’ Association, Berezag was asked what life has been like since the bombing. “It has been a nightmare. It is a nightmare. He requires full-time care, and we don’t get anything like the help that we need.”
The past casts a long shadow not just for Gemma Berezag. Ishan Bashir, brother of Inan, was overwhelmed by the numbers who came to remember the anniversary: “They were only shopkeepers.” Standing inches from two photographs of the dead men, Bashir said: “My other brother died five months later. My mother is still at home and still doesn’t accept that he is gone. It is the story for so many other victims.”
The commemoration was organised by Jonathan Ganesh, who was just 25 yards away when the lorry-bomb went off and who had to dig himself out of rubble before going to help the injured.
Ganesh’s mother, Patricia Coll, was born in Limerick, before moving to London to find work. “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about ‘JJ’. Everybody knew him as ‘JJ’,” said a tearful Ganesh.
The docklands bombing families have come together in the years since with the victims of other atrocities, including London’s 7/7, to push for proper and prompt financial help for those affected by terrorism.
Urging British prime minister David Cameron to “help the victims”, Bashir said the Libyans had paid nearly $3 billion in compensation to Americans who lost loved ones in the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie outrage.
Col Gadafy has not, however, compensated those killed, injured or bereaved, or those who have to care for people injured by IRA-employed but Libyan-supplied Semtex – though hopes were high for a period last year that he might.
“If US lives can be compensated for, why can’t British lives be compensated?” he said. “I blame the government, particularly the previous administration. They should stand up for British victims and help the people who are suffering.”
On July 7th, 2005, Beverli Rhodes left home for her London office, where she worked as a specialist in counter-terrorism, for a security planning meeting for the London 2012 Olympics.
She was in a Piccadilly Line Tube when suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay struck.
Left badly injured and forced to take tablets “for a terrible balance problem”, Rhodes’s high-powered career is no more. She will get £13,000 compensation – a fraction of the money spent on medical bills. “Victims find it hard to make ends meet, because there are medical costs and expenses from dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. David Cameron has said that he will do what is right by the survivors. We are assured that No 10 is behind us,” she said.
In 1998, Seamus McArdle was sentenced to 25 years in jail for conspiracy to cause explosions at Canary Wharf, but murder and manslaughter charges were dropped because of British press coverage. He was released under the Good Friday Agreement in 2000. He was the only one jailed.
Willie Frazer of IRA victims’ group Fair was one of those who attended yesterday’s multi-faith ceremony, which brought together representatives of the Church of England, the Catholic Church, the Pentecostalists and the Jewish and Muslim faiths.
“What we are looking for is justice for those left dead and injured by the scum of south Armagh who came here, because that is what they are: scum. We see them every day. We know who they are,” he declared.
From the street, curious passersby looked on as they caught snatches of prayers carried in the wind before quickly moving on.
