Remarks by Andrée Murphy
Peggy Whyte 40th Anniversary
Shaftesbury Recreation Centre
12/04/2024
I want to begin by acknowledging the family of Peggy Whyte this evening.
The video we have just viewed has given us a glimpse of the extraordinary family she left behind and her living legacy. (The video can be watched in full here Peggy Whyte 40th anniversary).
A husband who was devastated in shock yet able to clearly and coherently take part in a media interview, giving forensic details of not one but two life changing traumas. When asked the outrageous question as to whether he might have moved house, he gently and purposefully answers the question with truth and clarity, and with the voice of his murdered wife.
We hear two sons, at different points, speak to us about the horrifying questions and matters of public interest which the murder of their mother raise. They point us to matters of sectarian division fostered by the state and state sponsored collusion in Peggy’s murder. Three voices of a husband and two sons which all tell us who special and remarkable Peggy Whyte was.
The matter of collusion between the state and non-state actors should be the matter of an extensive, far-reaching public inquiry. It should be examined for its particular role as an accelerant and sustainer of conflict. As part of that inquiry the relationship between the state and loyalism in South Belfast should be the subject of that public inquiry.
It was rooted in sectarianism – as Ivan Little’s question to Peggy Whyte’s husband indicated – did you not think of moving home? As though her murder was her own fault because she dared to live in that particular house. Ivan Little does not think he is sectarian. But that question betrays sectarian assumptions.
But the policy of collusion was about those roots of community division serving the British state and its purposes. In South Belfast we have seen only the murders of 11 people examined and a public report – those of 11 citizens examined by the Police Ombudsman’s Office in Operation Achille, published in 2022. Two years ago in this building the relatives of those 11 citizens read in detail how the state acted in concert with loyalism, receiving information, weapons and free passage to procure murder and terror. What the report does not state is why.
The report also does not tell us why the state so clearly did not protect the life of Peggy Whyte, because it was outside of the terms of this discreet investigation. Peggy’s life and the circumstances of her killing go without proper investigation because we fail to examine our past in meaningful ways. Meaningfully dealing with the past would ensure that all victims in this area where collusion is suspected or evidenced, would be considered that can secure accountability.
We will talk about sectarian killings and look at them individually, or in small pockets, without examining public policy or, most importantly, securing accountability.
Why do we have reports which evidence collusion in the killings of Patrick Finucane, Loughinisland, the North West and South Belfast, up to and including resulting statements of apologies from a Prime Minister in Westminster, yet there is a consistent line that there is no overarching policy of collusion. And a consistent absence of accountability?
From the very beginning of this conflict the British state has used its proxies when it could not be seen to engage in direct military actions. It has created anLS����
