As the pressure builds to silence the victims and others including the UUP who voice concerns about the Devolution of Policing and Justice we send out this message to the Government – we do not believe your set up opinion polls, we will not be bullied by your threats and we will not be bribed by your attempts to withhold funding. We will not be bought or browbeat and the politicians will not achieve what terrorists failed to do in over four decades.

Just as Sinn Fein/IRA tired to destroy us for over four decades now we see a fresh attempt to destroy victims groups at present. We have been informed of a serious attempt to undermine groups and deny them funded needed to survive. The plan is to starve groups of funding at this time to distract them from other issues and to finally remove them altogether. The recent double act of Patricia McBride, sister of a PIRA terrorist, Victims Commissioner and Jimmy Spratt of the DUP is clear evidence of a political attack upon the victims sector.

Simultaneously we see Government funded channelled into Republican areas and interests from Irish Language which gets over £20 Millions to the ex-prisoners and others who get more funding that the entire victims sector. We have fought hard to represent victims, to lobby for funding and to secure help, however we now see that we are back to the situation we were in 1998. Government funding has been frozen for over seven years now, despite the talk of millions being given to the Victims.

Much of this money has made its way to former terrorists, much has been used to fund government itself and more wasted on beurocracy and consultants little has went to real victims. It is a disgrace that now after starving victims of funding we see an attempt to suffocate them. FAIR has gown incredibly in size and we have had to deal with a new wave of recent victims of Dissident Republican Terrorism however we have received no new money.
We have been patient, we have believed our politicians, and we have taken a more positive constructive stance. Our patience has been used to undermine us, our trust has been broken and our positivity been taken for weakness. Sadly victims will have to take to the streets as we have done in years past and take our case to the very doors of certain politicians. We have been left with no choice, as we are snubbed time and time again.

Advocacy has always been a problem within the unionist community and now when a group like FAIR is willing and winning in this issue there appears to be those in Sinn Fein/IRA and sadly our own political parties which have a problem. Victims have asked for very little while Republicans have been given the Saville, Nelson, Finucane, Hamill and other Inquiries costing over £400 Million we have seen nothing in terms of Kingsmills, Darkley, Tullyvallen or the hundreds of other murders in our area. No Republican atrocity or mass murder has been properly investigated and justice has never been done.
Security has been stripped from us at a time when the Republican Threat rises, the police cannot cope, a fact best proven by the shocking revelation that the car used in the Newry Bombing and burned out was not found and secured by the police for over two days. By the time they got round to getting to it the scrap man had already lifted it – we can only guess how impossible convictions will now be. This is one example of the failure that we now survey, and the record of broken promises and wasted opportunities that has led us to where we are at today.

Victims now send out this clear message to our politicians and the Government – we will not be bullied or bribed, we will continue to fight for justice and for the rights of victims. We will not be ignored let alone illuminated and the sooner certain individuals realise this, the better! Others have tried and failed and we are quite ready to carve out another political headstone for those who now seek to destroy us – what the terrorists failed to do over four decades politicians will not achieve now.

Victims will be making their voices heard at Stormont tomorrow, and we will be releasing the results of our own opinion poll carried in the Belfast Newsletter on two Saturdays. The results will rock the foundations of the Hillsborough Deal and will force any unionist politician to rethink their position. If community confidence is the test we have an important message for the Government from our community!