Troubles victim pays tribute to Archbishop Tutu

“A MAN of peace and reconciliation” is how Roddy Hackett recalls the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who once facilitated a meeting with his brother’s killer.

Dermot Hackett, from Castlederg, was shot dead outside Drumquin in 1987.

Notorious loyalist, Michael Stone, who killed three mourners at a funeral in Milltown Cemetery in March 1988, was convicted of Mr Hackett’s murder.

Omagh man Roddy Hackett then came ‘face-to-face’ with Stone as part of a BBC programme in 2006, which brought victims and perpetrators together along with the Nobel Peace prize recipient, Archbishop Tutu.

It was a harrowing encounter for Mr Hackett and his sister-in-law Sylvia. However, he recalls the Archbishop as a “man of love and peace” who put them at ease before the meeting with Stone.

“Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a great man; he was friendly and sincere in everything he did,” said Mr Hackett.

“We were in a huge house on private land in Co Down and I was in a room that had an altar and chalices in it. Archbishop Tutu came in to pray and said to me, ‘You’re welcome to stay’. I told him, I’d leave him in peace.

“On the programme he put us at our ease. He asked us privately beforehand if we were happy to take part. Afterwards, he came to see if we were okay. He said he would say a prayer and looked to the heavens and said a prayer in his native language.

“He had a great sense of humour as well. He was very approachable and very fair and gave everyone a free rein.

“I am very sad to hear he has died. He was a brilliant man.”

Since his death over the Christmas period, the Archbishop has been hailed as a campaigner for human rights, not just in his native South Africa, but throughout the world.

A pacifist, along with Nelson Mandela, he led the fight for the end of apartheid and injustice in his homeland.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu also helped preside over South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, tasked with reviewing crimes perpetrated during apartheid. He was vocal in insisting that one could not think of justice as only ‘punitive in nature’.

He thought South Africa ‘couldn’t move on’ if trapped in cycle of punishment and retribution.

Mr Hackett feels the Archbishop’s approach to reconciliation in South Africa was ‘the right one’.

He added, “Desmond Tutu was a man of peace and reconciliation.

“He handed out love everywhere – I was very proud to stand beside him.”