The name Jean Charles de Menezes should mean a lot to the people of North Belfast. Mr de Menzes represents a tragedy that many people across the North of Ireland have suffered.
Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian citizen was murdered by members of the British security forces. They apparently thought that this innocent man was a "suicide bomber".
He wasn't, and he didn't get an opportunity to tell anyone this. Those members of the public who questioned the actions of the police were treated as liberal do-gooders and not worth listening to.
In the hours after his murder the police and government spun a story that he may possibly have been involved in the attempted bombings in London. Yet as time told, he wasn't involved in anything other than going about his business.
However, as described in the words of the British media "to avoid a diplomatic incident" Tony and his mates realised that they were involved in one major mess and low and behold they apologised to the de Menezes family and the people of Brazil.
Of course that was the least that they could do and was the correct and decent thing. The action of the London Met raises a lot of questions and was compounded when sources disclosed that they were operating on a "shoot to kill" policy.
Well, well. Shoot to kill. That sounds a bit familiar to those of us in the North of Ireland. Hundreds of people died at the hands of the security forces and before someone whinges about my selectivity, yes, the paramilitaries killed thousands of people. One particular case comes to mind and I hope that you will bear with me if I focus on only one at this time.
Peter McBride, from the New Lodge area was murdered by the security forces. These killers were convicted in a Belfast court of his murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. They didn't spend long in prison, in fact they were released after a couple of years (not under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement) but at the whim of the Secretary of State and worse still were reinstated back into the British army, where one of them was promoted.
I can't get the images of these two smiling murderers on TV after their release.
It sickened me to my stomach then and I feel even sicker and angrier now. Why you may ask? Because the government obviously considered people from this land to be expendable, not worth worrying about, not worth an apology, not worth granting justice to.
But Mr de Menezes' death must rekindle a fire in our bellies, a fire that demands justice for Peter and the countless others who suffered a fate similar to his, a fire that demands an unreserved apology to the families of our murdered and the perpetrators to be treated as they should, as murders.
It is time for British ministers to stop avoiding all of the issues that the people here hold dear. Rightly so the Provos and all paramilitaries need to go away, cease to exist and so on. Garnerville estate and the boys and girls in the red, white and blue, in East Belfast shows this need very clearly.
But complete peace is needed, not just paramilitary-related peace and to achieve that requires the British government making amends to the people of the North.
We do matter as much as the de Menezes family and we deserve better from the landlords from London who take our money, make our laws, control our freedom and rule from another island.
Peter Mc Bride deserves to finally rest in peace and his family deserve to know that he can rest with justice being seen to be done. The two soldiers who killed Peter did exactly what a policeman in London did – murdered an individual in cold blood.
While it is no consolation to Mr de Menezes' family that the British apologised, it was something. Why oh why can't they do the same here?
There was more than one form of terrorism that stalked the streets of north Belfast. One of those was members of the security forces who have left many families without loved ones.
I feel for the people of London who have suffered due to a twisted evil ideology but I feel equally, if not more so, for the families of the North who will not rest until the British government apologises for their crimes against this corner of Ireland and its people.
Mr Blair must not be allowed to forget the names de Menezes and McBride. Together they suffered at the hands of Whitehall.
