Society has a hierarchy of victims, with families like mine underneath it

Jane Donaldson, Belfast Telegraph, October 28th, 2024

Remembrance is omnipresent at this time of year. In the Christian calendar, October ends and November starts with All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day. It mirrors the old Celtic festival of Samhain, when our world and the spirit world may be almost conjoined. For many others in our society, November also heralds Remembrance Day.

At 15 years old, Denis Hanna was recruited by the British Army despite being underage and against his mother's wishes. Like many others in the First World War, he was killed in the fields of France.

His family, my ancestors, received a memorial plaque known as a Death Penny. More than one million of these plaques were presented by the British Government to families who lost loved ones as an acknowledgement of their sacrifice.

My father, Denis Donaldson, was named after his great uncle Denis Hanna.

Since my father was murdered in April 2006, my family has only ever received one formal letter from the British Government. That was emailed after office hours on Friday, October 11, 2024, from the new Northern Ireland Secretary, Hilary Benn.

Despite publicly declaring that he wanted to engage with victims of the conflict about dealing with the legacy of the past, Mr Benn rejected my family's request to meet with him.

The NI Secretary also wrote: “The Government does not intend to widen the scope of the (Legacy) Act, which would enable your father's murder to be considered by the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR)”.

While future reforms to the ICRIR are still debated, this decision denies that option to many families. It also contradicts the approach of Senator George Mitchell, chairperson of the Good Friday Agreement talks.

Last year, on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, Senator Mitchell publicly acknowledged all of those murdered as a result of the conflict in our society. He specifically referenced more than 164 murders since April 10, 1998, in a minute's silence for all lost lives.

The Agreement states that: “...it is essential to acknowledge and address the needs of victims of violence as a necessary element of reconciliation…”

Nowhere in the Agreement does it say that this should be denied to victims of conflict-related violence from April 11, 1998, onwards.

Those victims speak volumes about our imperfect peace. For some, that's an awkward truth. So, too, is the role of informers and agents.

According to Denis Bradley, former vice-chair of the Policing Board, between 800 to 1,000 informers helped state agencies.

The full extent of their involvement in more than 1,200 unsolved conflict-related murders is unknown.

Successive British Governments have sought to hide this behind a policy of neither confirm nor deny (NCND).

Yet, judges and coroners have scorned NCND, defining it as a political policy, not a law. It is not a veto against disclosure in truth recovery.

Adding insult to irony is the record of Mr Benn's predecessors as Northern Ireland Secretary.

They have cited my father's murder to support NCND in warning about risks of disclosing an informer's identity.

However, 18 years after his murder, the Northern Ireland Secretary has yet to admit how secret information about my father's identity as a state agent was leaked by state agencies and officials into the public and the hands of his killers. In 2022, the Police Ombudsman upheld my family's complaint that there was a “corporate failure” by state agencies and officials in safeguarding my father's rights under Article 2 European Convention of Human Rights.

That is a failure for which Mr Benn and his colleagues have yet to account.

Nor have they accounted for the fact that British agent Stakeknife was being sheltered in west Belfast by state agencies and others before being shepherded to safety, while my father was thrown to the wolves.

Irish State agencies also have questions to answer. The Irish Government calls for an Article 2 compliant approach to legacy cases, but denies that to my family.

My father's inquest has been adjourned 27 times. The Garda murder investigation has plateaued.

Their Chief Commissioner refuses to return my father's journal to my family on security grounds. The Minister of Justice has rejected a judge-led commission of investigation.

No Irish minister has been willing to meet my family.

Contradictions of the past haunt the present and hinder reconciliation. As John F Kennedy said, “sincerity is always subject to proof”.

Mr Benn will stand to remember Denis Hanna and others fallen in the First World War, but wants to forget Denis Donaldson and disregard my family.

Our society has a hierarchy of victims, with families like mine underneath it.

If we want to respect the dead, we can begin by respecting the living, including all victims of conflict.

Jane Donaldson's father, Denis Donaldson, was shot dead by the Real IRA in Co Donegal in April 2006