Striving to expose 'state's collusion' in past injustices

By Mary Minihan

Murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane was the inspiration for a human rights centre in Derry. Mary Minihan reports on the Pat Finucane Centre's campaigning work on behalf of victims of the troubles

In Derry's Pat Finucane Centre, project coordinator Paul O'Connor is shaking his head in exasperation. He is reading some English press coverage of the decision to allow the Scots Guards who shot Belfast teenager Peter McBride to remain in the British army.

Scattered across his desk are newspaper clippings proclaiming a "moral victory for the brave guards" alongside smiling pictures of James Fisher and Mark Wright.

The centre has vowed to contest the army's decision on behalf of the McBride family, and has organised an International Day of Protest to highlight the campaign tomorrow.

Paul O'Connor thinks there are two serious miscarriages of justice connected to the death of Peter McBride.

"First there was the terrible injustice of the matter itself. The second issue is how the state has dealt with the matter. When you think about it, that's exactly how Bloody Sunday has impacted in this city," he says.

The centre, based in Westend Park in the city, has its roots in Bloody Sunday. Around the 20th anniversary of the event, the Bloody Sunday initiative evolved into two supportive but distinct groups: the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign and the centre which bears the name of the Belfast solicitor shot dead by the UDA in 1989.

Paul explains: "We thought Pat had been shot to try and silence him. We decided the best way to remember him was to name a centre after him and continually flag up issues around his death and other issues of collusion."

The centre has been involved with high-profile cases such as those of Peter McBride, Robert Hamill and Rosemary Nelson. But quieter work is ongoing away from the media spotlight with the relatives of people who have lost their lives over the past 30 years.

An informal monthly drop-in event provides these families with an opportunity to share their experiences and offer each other support.

"Some people are in a very vulnerable state. There are a lot of open wounds. For some it's the first time they've talked about their loss and the fact they've made the decision to approach us means they're dealing with it," Paul says.

He stresses that the centre workers are not counsellors, but campaigners. "It can be very frustrating and at times traumatic. We've recently had to hand over inquest documentation to a family that contained details that were very difficult for them," he says.

Paul readily admits that few of the cases taken on by the centre have come to a satisfactory conclusion.

"In terms of state violence, the state hasn't given one iota. You could get frustrated by that and you do," he says. "But an important part of the struggle is to build up documentation, make a case watertight and more difficult to walk away from it."

Serious blows to morale have come thick and fast in recent years for workers at the centre, where the murder of Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson last year is still keenly felt.

"It was a desperate body blow for many people, ourselves included. We responded the only way we could, which was to try and produce a report as thoroughly as we could," he says.

That large body of work became the widely read report 'Rosemary Nelson: the Life and Death of a Human Rights Campaigner'. Paul says workers at the centre are inspired by the families who approach them for help.

"I've seen families coming in here wanting to have a case raised again and they tell us for the first time ever they are having a wee memorial service," he says. "They say they have put a picture of the lost loved one up on the wall and printed a Mass card for the first time."

Workers at the centre say they are unfazed by outside perceptions of the group's political affiliations, while continually stressing their non-party political and anti-sectarian stance.

"Clearly we're seen as a group based within the nationalist/republican community," Paul says. "We are not claiming that we are neutral on the conflict. We have a particular view of what's right and wrong in this society and we would defy anyone to produce a group that is neutral."

Labelling groups in this way can have dangerous consequences in Northern Ireland, Paul warns. "That's precisely the way of defining people that led to both Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson getting killed. We should be taken at face value for what we are, say and do. If that makes people uncomfortable, then that's campaigning."

The centre has recently ventured into new ideological territory, adopting a policy of "experimental cooperation" with the office of the Police Ombudsman. "We've got a watchdog brief. This is very new for us. We are attempting to see if a useful relationship can be built up."

Whatever the outcome of the peace process, the centre aims to continue to operate as an "independent watchdog". Paul is aware that the Pat Finucane Centre is often accused of "stirring things up" and bringing old hurts to light. "People often ask, 'Why is all this coming up now?' There has been a dynamic within the peace process that has freed people and liberated them from this terrible silence that has hung over people for so many years," he says.

"We do not tell victims of sexual abuse to forget it, move on with your life, don't be raking up the past. The lesson that is being learned throughout the world is that you don't simply draw a line in the sand and say forget it and move on."

Pinned beside his desk is an extract from a poem by writer Maya Angelou: "History, despite/It's wrenching pain,/Cannot be unlived,/But if faced with courage,/Need not be lived again."