Conflicting views of what constituted a victim of the Troubles, or whether the Northern conflict was really a "war", were heard in Derry last night during a meeting on how the past should be addressed.
The Consultative Group on the Past, which is charged with finding a method of dealing with the legacy of the Troubles, was meeting at the St Columb's peace and reconciliation centre in Derry - one of six meetings the group is holding around Northern Ireland this week.
There was some controversy about holding the meeting in the centre because it is on the predominantly loyalist Waterside of the city, with some nationalists arguing the Guild Hall in the mainly nationalist west bank of the city would have been more suitable.
Nonetheless, about 100 people from both communities attended last night's meeting of the group, which is jointly headed by the former Church of Ireland primate Lord Eames and Denis Bradley, former vice-chairman of the Policing Board.
Mr Bradley said the group wasn't foolish enough to believe it could take away the hurt of victims or make things better but it aspired to "make a contribution to the future" and possibly to make things "a bit better". Lord Eames was in Bangor, Co Down, attending a similar meeting.
Mr William Huston, who described himself as a unionist from Claudy, in Co Derry, where an IRA bomb killed nine people and injured scores more in 1972, said there must be no equation between innocent victims and those involved in perpetrating the killings.
Another man, whose 19-year-old brother was killed by the British army in Derry in the early 1970s, said his brother believed he "was in a war". He said he was concerned that Mr Bradley was a "go between" for the British government so that the door on the issue of victims could be permanently closed.
Mary Hamilton, an Ulster Unionist councillor, said she lost friends and her home in the Claudy bombing, and that her brother-in-law was also murdered. The killer was still walking the streets of Derry. "It is very hard when you have that sort of thing hanging over you," she said.
Hazlitt Lynch, from west Tyrone, said he represented victims of republican terrorism. He was appalled by speculation that the group might decide that the conflict was a "war" or suggest an amnesty for everyone caught up in the killings.
He said if there had been a war the British army would have "sorted it out" in the early 1970s. Equally, there could be "no amnesty for cold-blooded murderers".
DUP MP Gregory Campbell said if the group equated the innocent victims with those who carried out killings, and were themselves killed, then it would "compound the anger and anguish of victims, and make things a thousand times worse".
Seán McMonagle, a Sinn Féin member who said he was a former republican prisoner, said there could be no "hierarchy of victims".
