Northern Ireland: power of the past

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/02/northern-ireland-jean-mcconville-editorial

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The kidnapping, murder and secret burial of Jean McConville in 1972 was one of the most notorious IRA crimes of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Gerry Adams, whose IRA role is widely assumed though always denied, is one of the key architects of the peace process, which is in turn one of the great domestic political achievements of the last 20 years. So the president of Sinn Féin's arrest on Wednesday in connection with the murder puts him at the place where the legitimate need for justice for the McConvilles intersects inescapably with the equally legitimate need for Northern Ireland peace – a need close to the heart of the national interest of both Ireland and Britain. The question facing every participant in this hugely important dual process is therefore how both these legitimate needs can be best satisfied within the rule of law and amid continuing public and political order.

There is no question what ought to happen in principle. The McConville case should be fully investigated without fear or favour. All those connected with the crime in any way should be interviewed. Charges should be weighed in the usual way and brought if the prosecutors think there is a good prospect of conviction. Those convicted after due process should be punished. The McConville family, whose interviews in the past 24 hours cannot fail to have touched all who heard them, should then be able to know that justice has been done and to live in peace, along with their friends and communities. That would be the best and the right course.

But things are not as simple as that in the still polarised and still violent world of Northern Ireland sectarianism – and it is naive to pretend otherwise. Michael McConville, one of the murdered woman's sons, made chillingly clear in his powerful interview that he had not and would not identify his mother's killers, even today, because of the fear that the IRA would revenge themselves on his family some time in the future. He spoke of what he knew, having been the victim of an IRA kidnapping and beating when he was just 11, shortly after his mother's disappearance.

This is not a fear that can be wished away, however much it may be hoped that a conviction for the murder should now be secured. The reality is that dissident republicans have the means and the will to kill civilians, even now. And any convictions of former IRA volunteers in such a case could add to the dissidents' numbers, and the threat. The dangers of further escalation, and the political consequences, are obvious. These considerations should not stop the investigation. But they make it harder for the investigations to succeed. And they cannot be dismissed.

So the future of the McConville investigation will not be a simple matter, whatever the immediate outcome of the questioning of Mr Adams and however much political opponents of Sinn Féin, and neutrals, may wish it otherwise. Everything connected with the Northern Ireland Troubles and peace process is politicised. Sinn Féin believe that the timing of the arrest is malicious, given the European parliamentary elections in three weeks' time. Such suspicions are not going to disappear.

That is why, regardless of the progress of the investigation, it is so important for Northern Ireland's parties and civic groups to return to the question of dealing with the legacy of the violent past. That question must surely involve a variety of means, including offering choices to victims that go beyond criminal justice solutions, as the Northern Ireland victims' commissioner argued on Thursday. These difficult matters were left unresolved when the talks chaired by Richard Haass broke down in the new year. The cost of that failure is now daily more obvious. These are hard questions and stances should not, if possible, be allowed to harden either. Compromises and flexibility, distasteful in some cases, will be an inevitable ingredient of any solution. But this is very urgent business, as riots about flags, rows about "on-the-runs" and now the current events in the McConville case all show.