THE LIMITS OF TELEVISION'S POWER
The limits of television's power
By DAVID YOUNG Sunday life TV writer
PANORAMA'S documentary, Who Bombed Omagh?, broadcast earlier this week, was a powerful and compelling piece of television.
But it raised more questions than it answered, and its consequences are unlikely to be the results it desired.
It was, if you like, a very superior episode of Crimewatch, with a touch of the Roger Cooks thrown in.
John Ware, the respected Panorama reporter, ran alleged malefactors to ground, confronting them as best he could with the questions he wanted answered about the Omagh bombing. The clandestine video, the taped phone calls, the scampering across farmyards, the quotes from witnesses -all the Crimewatch techniques were there.
The Panorama team clearly had access to RUC and Garda files and reports - particularly witness statements and mobile phone call logs.
Problem was, and continues to be, that the Omagh bombing was no ordinary crime. Who Bombed Omagh? carried no production credits for the team who made it. Only John Ware's name was made public.
That in itself is recognition that we are not dealing with the Kray Twins here. This thing is bigger and more vicious than mere criminality and greed could ever manage.
Panorama named four men who, it felt, had questions to answer about their actions and whereabouts on the day of the Omagh bomb.
The programme appealed to everyone who saw it to search their memories and consciences to discover if there was some scrap of information they could give the police forces hunting the bombers that would help secure the conviction of the killers.
And there's the rub. Although Northern Ireland is a small province and there is no doubt whatever that many, many people are well aware of the identities of the people who designed and delivered the Omagh bomb, no one will bear witness.
Northern Ireland is small enough for me to say that there are undoubtedly people among the families bereaved by the bombers - not the immediate families, but among the aunts and uncles, in-laws and cousins -who know more about the identities of the bombers than they care to broadcast from a witness box. And that is the power of fear.
It may be that they are biding their time, and that years from now, someone will meet an untimely end in apparently innocent circumstances - but for now, lips are sealed. But memories are long.
John Ware spoke the final words of Who Bombed Omagh?: "Whoever bombed Omagh, and those who know they did it, also have a terrible burden to live with, their consciences."
And that's where I have to disagree. In the kind of vicious, ingrown society we have here, appeals to the power of conscience have no meaning. - And what use is the Crimewatch approach, when the perps feel no shame, and are convinced that acts done out of love for Ireland are beyond good and evil?
Who Bombed Omagh? was a product of understandable frustration: but it will not alter the climate of fear that protects the bombers.
By DAVID YOUNG Sunday life TV writer
PANORAMA'S documentary, Who Bombed Omagh?, broadcast earlier this week, was a powerful and compelling piece of television.
But it raised more questions than it answered, and its consequences are unlikely to be the results it desired.
It was, if you like, a very superior episode of Crimewatch, with a touch of the Roger Cooks thrown in.
John Ware, the respected Panorama reporter, ran alleged malefactors to ground, confronting them as best he could with the questions he wanted answered about the Omagh bombing. The clandestine video, the taped phone calls, the scampering across farmyards, the quotes from witnesses -all the Crimewatch techniques were there.
The Panorama team clearly had access to RUC and Garda files and reports - particularly witness statements and mobile phone call logs.
Problem was, and continues to be, that the Omagh bombing was no ordinary crime. Who Bombed Omagh? carried no production credits for the team who made it. Only John Ware's name was made public.
That in itself is recognition that we are not dealing with the Kray Twins here. This thing is bigger and more vicious than mere criminality and greed could ever manage.
Panorama named four men who, it felt, had questions to answer about their actions and whereabouts on the day of the Omagh bomb.
The programme appealed to everyone who saw it to search their memories and consciences to discover if there was some scrap of information they could give the police forces hunting the bombers that would help secure the conviction of the killers.
And there's the rub. Although Northern Ireland is a small province and there is no doubt whatever that many, many people are well aware of the identities of the people who designed and delivered the Omagh bomb, no one will bear witness.
Northern Ireland is small enough for me to say that there are undoubtedly people among the families bereaved by the bombers - not the immediate families, but among the aunts and uncles, in-laws and cousins -who know more about the identities of the bombers than they care to broadcast from a witness box. And that is the power of fear.
It may be that they are biding their time, and that years from now, someone will meet an untimely end in apparently innocent circumstances - but for now, lips are sealed. But memories are long.
John Ware spoke the final words of Who Bombed Omagh?: "Whoever bombed Omagh, and those who know they did it, also have a terrible burden to live with, their consciences."
And that's where I have to disagree. In the kind of vicious, ingrown society we have here, appeals to the power of conscience have no meaning. - And what use is the Crimewatch approach, when the perps feel no shame, and are convinced that acts done out of love for Ireland are beyond good and evil?
Who Bombed Omagh? was a product of understandable frustration: but it will not alter the climate of fear that protects the bombers.
Further Information
Publisher: SUNDAY LIFE
Ref: SL/108
Published Date: 15-Oct-00
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