Northern Ireland ...

As a soldier, I was served on a number of what we called 'tours' in Derry/Londonderry, Enniskillen, Omagh and finally Belfast.  My first tour was in 1989 and my last tour in 1993. 

One of the things that needs to be understood is that when I was in Northern Ireland, the Army operated under the control of the civil powers - and that it was before what we call the 'peace process'.  Bullets were fired and bombs were detonated.  I don't need to describe the aftermath, but I can tell you that I have seen it.

What was clear to me was that the politics of it all were complicated - the history even more so.  For a naive 20-year-old junior officer, my prinicple concern was to ensure that my soldiers (those who I was responsible for) were at the minimum risk while carrying out their tasks. I was given operational responsibility for carrying out tasks that often, with hindsight, appeared to be based on gathering information or observation but which had, for our masters, the advantage of placing me and my soldiers in between communities that may otherwise have ended up at each others' throats.  Paticularly in the tours in Derry/Londonderry and Belfast, much time appeared to be spent concerned with the vile gangs who the press liked to call the 'Loyalists' or 'Unionists'.

With hindsight, what is also clear is that militarily we were closing down the operations of the violent thugs - and some of their number were realising that there was no realistic prospect of their succeeding in their 'political aims' by continuing the 'armed struggle'.  All of these euphemisms irritated me at the time - but now I look on them as simply a method of attempting to describe in as neutral as fashion as possible what was in reality vile violence that could easily have descended into the hell that we later saw in the Balkans.

Lord Saville's enquiry is about to report - is has taken far too long and cost far too much.  Whatever the outcome of the report, there is little doubt that Northern Ireland is a different place to the place that I became familiar with between 1988 and 1993 and that that Northern Ireland was a different place to the place that my predecessors became familiar with in the early 70's.  If we are to consolidate the progress that has been made, we must resist the temptation to allow the report to raise the temperature again. 

Every death is a tragedy and real and lasting peace can only be built on foundations that accept the past for what it is, forgiveness for trespasses that are past and a clear intention that we move forwards rather than attempt to re-fight battles past.