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| TROUBLED PEACE | |
 July 15, 1999 
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The Northern Ireland peace process stalled today, as the Ulster Unionist party boycotted a major legislative vote. After this background report, Elizabeth Farnsworth discusses whether this will have a far-reaching impact on the prospect for peace in the province.
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And for more on all this we turn to Anne Smith, North American spokesperson for the Ulster Unionist Party, and to Rita O'Hare, representative of Sinn Fein to the U.S. Anne Smith, fill this picture out. What happened? Is it all about guns? Is that why the Ulster Unionist Party did not go into this cabinet?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Ms. O'Hare, how does Sinn Fein see it? RITA O'HARE: Very struck by the coincidence of George Mitchell being
in London and his words there, and it reminds me of a quote of his,
and he said this after the agreement was signed and just at the beginning
when the ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So explain it. If it's not about guns, what's it about? I mean what -- why are they saying it's about guns? Are you saying that the Irish Republican Army would have decommissioned, that that really -- that the refusal is not a real refusal? |
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| Decommissioning Deadlines | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RITA O'HARE: Well, let's talk about the real situation. The issue of
decommission was negotiated and agreed and signed up to in the agreement,
including by Mr. Trimble. He negotiated that. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: With the May 2000 deadline? RITA O'HARE: He negotiated with the other parties, and he negotiated with the two governments. And Sinn Fein were in there, and the issue of decommission was worked out. Remember that all the other provisions of the agreement, including the political institutions, the main one which Mr. Trimble prevented today, they were part of the enabling conditions where decommissioning can happen.
RITA O'HARE: Yes, of course because the peace process, remember, was about resolving the causes of conflict. Now, there are a lot of causes of conflict and one of the main ones was the denial of the rights of people who weren't Unionists, who thought otherwise, who thought the best future of Ireland was a united Ireland. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. So, Ms. Smith, was the President right, it's just a question of who goes first he, or whether the government sits first and then the IRA and the other groups disarm, or whether they disarm and then the government sits?  ANNE
SMITH: It's not a question just of who goes first. Of course it's not.
The basic principle here is to get the guns out of this entire situation.
And I have to correct Rita when she says that Northern Ireland has been
ruled by Unionists for the last 70 years. It has in fact been direct ruled
from London for at least the last 30 years, and Unionists have had no
more power than anyone else in Northern Ireland. What's more, they work
every day in councils around the entire North with Nationalists, with
people from Sinn Fein. They are working on a basis of equality. All the
requirements of the civil rights movement, which started this whole thing
off many years ago, have been met. People have equality in Northern Ireland,
and now we are looking to have equality at the highest level, at the governing
level in the assembly. All we need to do that is to get the guns out of
the situation. |
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| Parked or crashed? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Rita O'Hare, how serious is this? I notice that David Trimble said the peace process was, "parked, not crashed." Do you agree with that? Do you think it's crashed or parked?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So what can Sinn Fein do to make sure that it's not stalled? RITA O'HARE: Sinn Fein can do what we have consistently done throughout
this, and remember, Sinn Fein was one of the architects of the peace
process. It was out of the peace process that the agreement came. What
Sinn Fein has done, has done is that we have lived up to every commitment
that we made in the agreement, and we are absolutely determined to see
that agreement implemented and this work. The issue is not the guns.
Who was the first person who said that he wanted to take all the gun
out of Irish politics? Gerry Adams -- and there are an awful lot of
other guns than the IRA's. And I hope Anne is not being disingenuous
here, but the IRA is not the only armed group, and to say that Sinn
Fein is sitting there with a private army, it's nonsense; that's nonsense.
Sinn Fein is a political party. We are entitled to our two seats in
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Ms. Smith, just on this question of how
serious ANNE SMITH: It absolutely is not crashed, and David Trimble was very
specific when I spoke with him earlier today on that point. That was
the major reason why the Ulster Unionist Party did not turn up at the
assembly this morning when the dehaunt procedure to select the |
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| Within the Ulster Unionist party | ||||||||||||||||||||
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Just briefly, there are internal political reasons that David Trimble might have done this, too. His party's quite divided, is it not? ANNE SMITH: The party is quite divided, but the party is fairly united
behind him even as recently as last week, he is still showing 84 percent
support from the party, and they just have decided that enough is enough.
They've given and given, and they've given way on the matter of prisoner
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay, Ms. O'Hare, is the cease-fire, which has been observed by paramilitary groups on both sides, endangered by what's happened today? RITA O'HARE: Well, I can't speak for paramilitary groups, but certainly the IRA cease-fire is solid and has held. And now I think when you talk -- when there is all this fuss being made - ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But just from everything you know, is there a danger that violence could break out because of this? RITA O'HARE: Well, the danger is that in a political a vacuum, and
talks about the peace process being parked, the danger in that is that
it creates a political vacuum where the people who said that this wouldn't
work, the people ANNE SMITH: Several of them IRA people, killed by the IRA. RITA O'HARE: The ten people I'm talking about, Anne, I'm sorry, are people who are being killed by the loyalists. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, we don't have much time and I do want to get to you just on this question of whether you worry that there could be more violence, more than the 10 deaths. ANNE SMITH: Yes, I do worry about that, not from my party's point of view because we don't have any guns and we don't have a private army at our back. I do worry about it from the point of view of the IRA and the Loyalist terrorist groups who also have refused to disarm. |
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| Returning to the peace process | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RITA O'HARE: What has to happen is that yes, yes, unfortunately, because David Trimble has prevented the government structure through which the parties of the North could run their own affairs, could implement the agreement, could have a say in control has not be set up, but what has to happen is the two governments must go ahead and implement the rest of that agreement as endorsed - ANNE SMITH: The two governments cannot do this. RITA O'HARE: Oh, I'm sorry, yes they can. As endorsed by - ANNE SMITH: This has - ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And then I'll come to you. RITA O'HARE: As endorsed by 90 percent of the Irish people voted for that agreement, supported it. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So what do you think has to happen? ANNE SMITH: It has to be an inclusive process for it to work in any
way at all. We have -- all the members of the ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Well, thank you both very much for being with us. RITA O'HARE: Thank you very much. ANNE SMITH: Thank you, Elizabeth. |
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ANNE
SMITH: That's absolutely right. It's all about guns, but also about
a basic democratic principle in that we just cannot have a situation
where the representatives of an armed terrorist faction are sitting
in a cabinet in a democratic assembly next to people who don't have
a have an armed terrorist faction supporting their every move. 
evidence
started to come out of the blocking and stalling of the agreement from
the Unionists, and George Mitchell said, "They would have been
forgiven for not signing the agreement, but they will not be forgiven
for refusing to implement it." And of course this is not about
guns. What this is really about is a refusal to share power, it's a
refusal to admit and to recognize that the old days of the Unionist
rule without challenge, which went around for 70 years in the North
of Ireland, that those days are gone. And that there is a new era opening
now where everybody is going to work in partnership and has to work
in partnership and recognize the democratic rights of others.
ELIZABETH
FARNSWORTH: In other words, you're saying the government had to take
its seat before the disarming would happen? 
RITA
O'HARE: It's not going to be crashed because Sinn Fein are one of the
parties that are going to ensure that it doesn't crash. I think that
one of the aims of David Trimble and the Unionists have has been to
get the peace process and the agreement and the implementation of the
agreement parked, halted, held up, stalled. 
government, as we are entitled to our seats in the councils, and I do
think it's a very important point, and I agree with Anne. Sinn Fein
works with Unionists and councils throughout the country. So what is
the problem to sit in government? We won those two seats in government
because we got enough votes in an open election, and that was the only
criteria to sit in government. Now, if the Unionists seriously want
the issue of arms, all arms addressed, surely, then, they would go ahead
with an agreement with removing the causes of conflict. That would lead
to that, that would actually help that to happen.
executive
members was being run because he was aware that had they turned up,
there might have been a motion to expel Sinn Fein, which then very well
have led to the entire process crashing -- as it is it is now, it is
on hold, it's stalled until we can look more closely at the timetable
and the methodology for ensuring that we have some guarantees and some
commitment to peace. Someone who has a gun in his back garden but who
assures you absolutely that he's not going to use it might as well just
get rid of it. That would absolutely prove their commitment to peace.
And it would be very difficult for the members of the Ulster Unionist
Party and the Nationalist Party in the assembly to sit in a cabinet
where two of their fellow cabinet ministers have a private army at their
back, which has showed in the past it's willing to act.
who
said -- who didn't want it to work, the people who said the democratic
politics will never work in the north because the Unionists will never
let them, they're going to use this to try to destroy it. Now, all the
guns by the way, aren't silent. Ten people have died in the last year.
