Brown offers support to IRA victims
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been forced to offer his support to IRA victims seeking compensation from Libya.
Outrage greeted the revelation that he had first told them it would not be “appropriate” for him to get involved.
Mr Brown has now said he would provide dedicated Foreign Office staff to assist the victims and diplomats at the British Embassy in Tripoli would accompany and advise them when they travel to Libya to seek direct talks with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi within the next few weeks.
Speaking in Berlin, where he was holding talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr Brown said: “I care enormously about the impact of IRA terror on victims and their families and on our communities.”
Successive governments had raised the issue of Libyan support for the IRA – including the supply of Semtex which was used by republican bomb-makers in their campaign of terror in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s – over the past two decades, said Mr Brown.
But he said that the government judged that the most effective means of seeking compensation was not through direct official negotiations with the Libyan authorities, but by supporting the families in their legal battle.
Earlier DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson had urged the Prime Minister to speak up for IRA bomb victims and push for compensation from Libya.
Mr Donaldson said: “I want to know and the people of Northern Ireland will want to know why Gordon Brown doesn’t have the same desire to stand up for the victims of IRA terrorism as George Bush showed in standing up for the American victims.
“He got a multi-billion dollar deal in terms of compensation from the Libyans.”
Jeffrey Donaldson is part of a cross-party group of MPs preparing to travel to Tripoli for face to face talks with Libyan authorities about compensation for victims of IRA violence.
He had talks with Foreign Office officials last week in preparation for the trip on which he is expected to be joined by party colleague, Nigel Dodds.
His comments followed the revelation that Gordon Brown declined to press Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for compensation for IRA bomb victims out of concern that a ministerial intervention might upset relations with Libya.
Jim Allister, the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice, said the revelation was “yet another shameful kick in the teeth for victims”.
