Originally Posted by
Two's in
After the decades of apartheid and human rights abuses, even the South African government realized you couldn't deal with the post-conflict issues using the existing justice infrastructure and set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC at least allowed the wronged to be heard and the wrongdoers to admit their roles - on both sides of the equation. Either prosecute everybody, or prosecute nobody; but to leave these individuals hanging out there to dry while actual terrorists are running around like senior statesmen is galling to say the least. The fact that these Squaddies have been abandoned by the same Government indecision and fudging that caused them to be there in the first place 50 years ago should be a surprise to nobody.
Spot on, the analogy with the South Africa situation.
The war in Northern Ireland was a similar situation, a dirty war, with the front line people daily in impossible situations. Putting them in jeopardy decades later while the responsible leaders bask in public acclaim is egregiously wrong.
England's leadership has never seen the need for a TRC, to everyone's loss.