THE RETICENCE concerning the way the past should be approached in Northern Ireland must be challenged, Kader Asmal, a former minister in South Africa and former head of the Irish anti-apartheid movement, said last night.
Delivering the inaugural lecture at Trinity College’s Centre for Post-Conflict Justice, Prof Asmal assessed the record of South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission and examined the prospects of such a model for the North.
“The position in the north of Ireland presents difficulties, [such as] which legal authority may take a decision and how to sift opinion in a divided society,” he said.
“One of the tasks that the centre should undertake is to question the reticence concerning the way that the past should be approached in Northern Ireland.”
Prof Asmal recalled meeting former British secretary of state Paul Murphy in South Africa when he was trying to push forward the idea of a truth commission in Northern Ireland. “My view was that unless all sectors of a deeply divided society agreed on the terms of reference, the composition of the commission and the areas of enquiry – into the role of the British army, paramilitaries and other private organisations – the process would be tainted and doomed to failure,” he said.
The reasons why the “very modest” proposals in the Eames-Bradley report received such a “lukewarm” reception should also be investigated, he added. “The question that must be answered is whether the most important political consideration is the need to maintain the unity of the power-sharing executive? Should we eschew any cause or proposal, even the proposal for a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland . . . that may lead to inter-communal differences in the executive?”