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| PETER MANDELSON | |
 December 10, 1999  |
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Now, a Northern Ireland update. Earlier this week, Gwen Ifill talked with Peter Mandelson, the British official responsible for Northern Ireland.
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GWEN IFILL: Mr. Mandelson, Welcome. For the first time in 25 years, local politicians will finally have a say in getting to run their own country in Northern Ireland. Is it fair to say at this time that peace is at hand? |
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| Peace at hand? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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GWEN IFILL: You have just described a peace which depends entirely on a sharing of power among people who have historically been terrible enemies. How optimistic are you that that will work?
Well, on this occasion, I think this is the main feature of George Mitchell's work and the review that he undertook over the last 11 weeks, the parties were negotiating with each other face to face, and during that period, a lot of trust crept in and I think it's really because of that, because they have found their own way forward, established a how step-by-step they can build up confidence in each other and found reciprocal ways both of taking forward - devolution -- so that we have self-government in Northern Ireland for the first time after 25 years, but also seeing a start in the essential process of decommissioning of arms as well. It's those two elusive goals, which we've now been able to find a way forward with to satisfy everyone, that at long last, every aspect of the Good Friday Agreement is going to be implemented. |
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| Trust creeping in | ||||||||||||||||||||
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PETER MANDELSON: Well, that's right. I mean the... so far so good though. The steps that were originally agreed, that is that last Thursday when devolution was commenced and when the new Executive was set up and had its first meeting, by the end of the day, the IRA nominated their representative to work with the International Decommissioning Commission, which headed up by Canadian General John DeShastalaine and has two other members, one of whom is a senior American official.
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| Laying down arms | ||||||||||||||||||||
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PETER MANDELSON: I don't think you'll see that but whatever you do see will need to be agreed between the independent commission headed up by the General DeShastalaine and the representatives of the IRA and, for that matter, the other paramilitary organizations as well. The principles that they've agreed is that decommissioning is an essential part of the peace process, that it should be supervised by the DeShastalaine commission. It should be a voluntary act. Nobody can force anybody to do anything but that it should start as soon as possible. But beyond that, it's up to DeShastalaine and his colleagues to agree with the paramilitary's representatives how it should happen. I don't want to speculate on how that might be, but by whatever means it does take place, it does need to be verified to the satisfaction of General DeShastalaine and his colleagues. GWEN IFILL: David Trimble, the Protestant leader threw some water on this when he sat down an arbitrary - at least some people considered it an arbitrary February deadline. How realistic is that for the arms to be turned over?
GWEN IFILL: For it to begin. PETER MANDELSON: For it to begin. I can understand why he did that. It was not exactly within the Mitchell accord. It was a rider to it which he introduced. But he did so in order to persuade his party to go along with his leadership and to allow the devolved administration, the new executive to be set up. If he hadn't given them the opportunity to come back in February to review and take stock of the progress that has been made in decommissioning, then I don't think he would have persuaded his party to set the executive up in the first place. He judged, and I think nobody can again say this, that having made a move on his own position, it was necessary to give his party some comfort, some early comfort that progress had been made on decommissioning. |
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| A fragile peace? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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PETER MANDELSON: I think that what is being created is too robust for that. But we shouldn't dismiss the threat that is posed by some dissident Republican groups who want to disrupt the whole process. They want to derail peace because they want to plunge Northern Ireland back into armed conflict. Those are the dissident splinter groups of the real IRA, the continuity IRA. GWEN IFILL: And some who refused to meet in the meeting last week.
GWEN IFILL: We'll all be watching. Mr. Mandelson, thank you very much for watch joining us. PETER MANDELSON: Thank you. |
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PETER
MANDELSON: I think we do have peace at hand. I think that in the Good
Friday Agreement and now it's belated implementation, we have put to
rest the age-old argument which has bedeviled Ireland all these years
-- I mean for the unionist population, from the Protestant community,
the principle of consent, that is the freedom for a majority of the
people in Northern Ireland to determine their own future, that is now
enshrined. But for the nationalist community, the minority community,
they're no longer second class citizens in Northern Ireland. Their rights
are assured. They have a place in government. And I think on that basis,
as long as we have now decommissioning of arms following by the IRA,
we will have formed an unbreakable peace. 
PETER
MANDELSON: I'm optimistic that we are actually seeing the opportunity
of a generation being created in this. Because the agreement that has
finally been made to implement the Good Friday Agreement, has been an
agreement that has been negotiated between the parties themselves. I
mean there have been attempts in the past for the British government
and the Irish government, whether or not we've been backed up on those
occasions and usually we have by the American administration, to try
to create a deal over their heads to force these warring parties together,
and to get them to find a solution very much on our terms. 
GWEN
IFILL: You describe trust creeping in. It's an interesting use of terms
because it sounds like something that could just as easily creep out,
especially when it comes to this question of decommissioning disarmament,
especially from the IRA as well as Protestants. 
When
that happened, I think we were putting in place the necessary steps
to take forward both processes, both the devolved government and the
institutions were also being set up to provide essential cross border
links between North and Southern Ireland, but also as I say, the beginning
of talks between that representative from the IRA, and John DeShastalaine's
commission to agree how decommissioning is going to take place. And
both these things are essential. You know, the reason why the Good Friday
agreement took so long to be implemented, what the barrier in the road
that was holding up progress was the party's inability to agree what
should come first: The IRA giving up some of their arms or the devolved
government and other institutions being set up. What happened is the
unionists decided to modify their policy and to allow the devolved government
to be set up before decommissioning actually produced some product,
some output. But having done that, they know that the two things have
to take place simultaneously now, otherwise the whole thing will break
down all over again. 
GWEN
IFILL: When you talk about the laying down of arms, how difficult will
that be if you can't measure exactly how many arms you're talking about?
Are we going to see pictures of arms being burned on a giant bonfire?
What evidence are we going to have that this actually happens? 
PETER
MANDELSON: Well, that's not a deadline for decommissioning to have been
achieved. That is a deadline... 
GWEN
IFILL: Even optimists like yourselves consider this peace to be a fragile
one. Could one single incident of violence derail the whole thing? 
PETER
MANDELSON: They refused to meet. They refused to have anything do with
the peace process. They are committed to the use of arms. They are committed
to violence…to return to the bombing and to the murder of people
which has so shamed Northern Ireland's politics in the past. Now that
is violent course, the military strategy which has been rejected by
Sinn Fein and by the provisional IRA who are under now permanent cease-fire.
But these other dissident groups pose a threat... I don't want to exaggerate
it, but they do. They are the sort of people who should be cut off without
any support or source of succor -- certainly not the oxygen of publicity
or the sort of fund-raising that I'm afraid we've seen from some quarters
in the past, not the least in this country. 
