Priest lost limbs fighting apartheid regime in S Africa

Father Michael Lapsley admits forgiveness is not easy when he is reminded "a million times a day" of the limbs he has lost fighting the apartheid regime in South Africa. "I grieve for the hands I no longer have," says the Anglican priest, who lost both his hands and his right eye after a parcel bomb was sent to his home in April 1990, three months after the release from jail of Nelson Mandela.

However, he says that seeking revenge will result in him becoming "a permanent victim, held prisoner" by the bombers. "I decided long ago that if I spent my life pursuing them I would be consumed by that and I'm more interested in living my life."

The New Zealand-born priest, who spoke in Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, at the weekend at an AFrI conference on "Remembering and Reconciling", believes his experience has lessons for people in other conflict situations, including Northern Ireland.

He says he has turned the atrocity into something positive. A former member of the African National Congress who had been living in exile since 1976, he recently returned to his adopted homeland to work with the Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture in Cape Town.

"Survivors can help survivors. Everybody has to walk their own journey but my belief is that you can help others to make that journey from being a victim, to a survivor, to a victor - someone who is part of creating something different."

For reconciliation to take place, he says, the cycle of victimisation must be broken. "Those who are victims tend to become the victimisers. They justify what they do in the name of their victimisation.

"We are not supposed to forget. But we are going to have to come to terms with the past and find that which is life-giving and that which is destructive - that is true for the Irish people as it is for every people. Failure to do so will mean the past will haunt us for ever."

Forgiveness, he says, is "a personal choice", one which he has had to face after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recently identified three people which it believed were responsible for the parcel bomb.

The three - all members of the apartheid government's security forces - have expressed no remorse for the atrocity and have refused to answer questions at the Commission, an offence under South African law.

Father Lapsley (48) is now faced with the dilemma of whether to seek prosecutions, pursue a civil case against them, or let the matter rest.

Ultimately, he says, he would like to see them try to make amends for their crime, either to him or to society, rather than see them punished. "In the end, I believe in the concept of restorative justice rather than retributive justice."