English translation of the article "La curación irlandesa" in El Correo, 2 October 2006

The Irish Healing

An old army barracks converted into a mountain hostel has sown the seed of the Irish peace process and is seeking understanding between victims and perpetrators of violence.

By Íñigo Gurruchaga

When someone arrives at Glencree – an old army barracks built at the end of 18th century by the British in the Wicklow mountains in the south of Dublin to contain the 1798 Rising; later converted into an orphanage run by the Catholic Church; and finally into a Centre for Peace and Reconciliation – the word which is most frequently heard is ‘healing’.

In the Centre’s reception, there are two photos of Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, with messages from the Prime Ministers who signed the Good Friday Agreement, praising the work of Glencree. In a book that records the history of the Centre, there is a very personal and appreciatory message from the Prince of Wales. And among the sponsors who make possible its survival, there are embassies and private enterprises.

Glencree has sown over two decades, but in particular since 1994, the seed of a deeper and more individualised process, than that of the political process of negotiation and the ending of violence.

Here, according to the Chief Executive of the Centre, Máirín Colleary, people think that “the process is what is important”, that “the process is the product”. Ian White, who was the inspiration for the new development in the work of Glencree in the 1990s, says that the process will last two or three decades and that “its aspiration is not to resolve the conflict, but to manage it so that is no longer violent”.

Background

The Centre has had a very important role in facilitating political encounter. In the beginning, it organised joint visits to South Africa by politicians who would become the future leaders of the Peace Process, who did not know each other and who did not share the same physical space in a Northern Ireland marked by divisions and ghettos.


Now, when the problem is the mistrust by the unionist DUP which does not want to speak with Sinn Féin, there are meetings in Glencree between members of the DUP and politicians of the Irish republican south. Frequently, it is at subleadership level, paving the way for a future understanding.

The way meetings are organised is carefully refined. The participants put forward their own agenda which is then shared and agreed. The layout of the visit, normally over a weekend, and of the discussion is supervised by those in charge of Glencree, with the help of international volunteers who reside at the Centre which doubles as a hostel. It is a prerequisite that Glencree personnel never reveal the content of discussions and that participants will not attribute to a specific person what they have heard there.

This work with politicians has allowed Glencree to become a place of international reference and to become an NGO which, according to Colleary, follows a Norwegian model, complementing the Irish government in doing what governments themselves can not reach. There are presently running programmes in Colombia, Haiti or Sri Lanka.

[The Spanish newspaper] EL CORREO attended a dinner with a former minister of the Palestinian Authority and a representative of the 'kibutzin' of northern Israel, at which Glencree members and Irish politicians elaborated on Protestant and Catholic concepts of punishment or forgiveness so as to contrast them with Muslim or Jewish ideas.

Forgiveness or pardon

If mediation with politicians projects itself into the future, the work of Glencree with victims and perpetrators of crimes inevitably begins with a look at the past.

Jacinta de Paor is coordinator of the victims programme at Glencree. One of her programmes can last between six months and a year, and each year they can take in between 200 and 300 people.

It is this experience which gives sense to the idea of ‘healing’, in a world in which words are loaded with meanings and interpretations which can be disputed. Glencree calls ‘former combatants’ to soldiers, policemen or former terrorists who arrive at the Centre, with the straight forward aim of avoiding that a particular word becomes an obstacle to the beginning of its work.

Are they seeking forgiveness as it was staged in a recent BBC television documentary in which the Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu acted as mediator? The answer is no.

De Paor gives the example of Colin Parry, whose son, Tim, died in 1993 at the age of twelve, victim of an IRA bomb in Warrington, England. When Parry is asked whether he forgives those who killed his son, he has always said that he never will. But at the same time, he has created a centre, ‘Children for Peace’, with the aim of moving on from the condition of being a victim.

The Glencree experience shows that those who have carried out crimes in Northern Ireland are not willing to ask for forgiveness; but they do express their sorrow for the loss of loved ones by those who face them.

Another outcome of their experience is that very few of the victims wish to meet the person who carried out the actual crime which cause them harm. What they are seeking, according to de Paor, is to understand.

To understand why someone joined a terrorist group, or how someone reached the conviction that they had to kill. It is in this process of understanding – in comprehending the mutual humanity of both victim and perpetrator – that the way is opened up, according to de Paor, to leave behind the paralysing condition of being a victim and to heal.

Glencree internet address: http://www.glencree.ie
Colin Parry Centre: http://www.childrenforpeace.org
Interim Commission for Victims and Survivors: http://www.cvsni.org/index.htm
Victims Unit: http://www.ofmdfmni.gov.uk/index/equality/victims-unit.htm

Photo caption:

MEETING
Victims and ‘ex-combatants’ in the Canada room of the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation