Tom Peterkin on the price of peace

It is almost a year since I left Northern Ireland where I worked for three years. I missed the worst excesses of the sectarian conflict that blighted that fantastic part of the world. By the time I arrived there were more tourists than soldiers on the Falls Road and the Shankill. Nevertheless, I discovered that the place had not lost its ability to surprise.
The brutal murder of the Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson after he was outed as a British spy, the decommissioning of IRA arms and the extraordinary deal that saw Ian Paisley go into government with Martin McGuinness were just some of the events that I covered.
Ulster is back in the news today (Wed). There were angry scenes in Belfast with the launch of a report dealing with the legacy of the Troubles by Lord Eames, the former head of the Church of Ireland, and Dennis Bradley, the vice-chairman of the policing board.
The fury was caused by the recommendation that all victims' families - including relatives of republican and loyalist paramilitaries - should receive a £12,000 payment.
Paying the families of gunmen and bombers is a perverse way to come to terms with Northern Ireland's troubled past.
One contributor to the Belfast Telegraph's letters' page told readers that his young police officer brother was shot dead in 1977. Two of the people that killed him are now dead - one on hunger strike and the other killed by his former colleagues.
"How can it be right that the family of the two murderers who shot my brother receive the same as my mother who was left bereaved by their murderous sons' actions?" the letter writer said.
"Have Lord Eames and Mr Bradley no concept of how insensitive and contemptible it is?
"If everyone would just forget who did what to whom, forget Bloody Sunday, forget Bloody Friday, forget Omagh, forget every every damned thing we ever did to each other and live their lives in peace, then maybe we could move on."
The contributor acknowledged that "the families of these terrorists feel their loss just as grievously as the families of the innocent victims".
But he added: "The fact is, there is a hierarchy of victims and no matter what anyone says or does, a dead terrorist will never be seen as a victim by decent people from either community who can tell right from wrong."
Perhaps it would be better for everyone to forget in order to escape from the horrors of the past. But that is far from easy. The monstrous acts of violence that characterised Northern Ireland's recent past mean that far too many courageous and decent people are still seeking answers about the atrocities that have ruined their lives.
This unpalatable £12,000 so-called "gesture of goodwill" will not provide any answers to those seeking justice for their dead loved-ones. Sadly, one suspects that the scars caused by 35-years of senseless violence will remain for some time.