-
FACHARBEIT
aus dem Leistungskurs
Englisch
Thema:
Peace in Northern Ireland?
An analysis of the latest political developments in
Northern Ireland
(from the 1998 Good Friday Peace Accord to the present)
Verfasser: Andrea Staicu
Leistungskurs: Englisch
Kursleiter: Frau OStRin Zängle
Bearbeitungszeitraum: Kurshalbjahre 12/2 und 13/1
Abgabetermin: 1. Februar 2001
Erzielte Note:_____
Erzielte Punkte:_____
(einfache Wertung)
Abgabe am:_________
_______________________
(Unterschrift des Kursleiters)
Table of contents
- 1. Introduction 3
- 2. Historical Background 4
- 2.1 The Plantation of Ulster 4
- 2.2 The Battle of the Boyne 5
- 2.3 The Great Famine 5
- 2.4 The Creation of Northern Ireland 6
- 2.5 The Beginning of the Troubles 7
- 3. The Good Friday Peace Accord 1998 8
- 4. The time after April 1998 10
- 4.1 Positive Developments after 1998 10
- 4.2 Negative Developments after 1998 12
- 4.3 Terrorist Activities after 1998 13
- 4.4 Further Attempts to Save the Situation 14
- 5. The Role of the US in the Peace Process 15
- 6. Statements to the Conflict 16
- 7. Personal Opinion 18
- 8. Sources used 20
- 9. Erklärung 22
1. Introduction
“Peace
process in ruins“,
“Hundreds of people injured at riots in
Northern
Ireland“,
“IRA makes zero process in giving up its
guns“ ...
People all over the world read such headlines nearly
every week in their newspapers. All these terrifying news concern one
problem which is a big burden for the innocent people who have to
live with it. The Northern Ireland Conflict
is a war between two different religious groups, the Catholic and the
Protestants, who live in the same country but support very different
attitudes towards political and religious issues. This conflict has
existed for more than thirty years and is characterized by violence
and a lack of tolerance towards people with other opinions. In the
last three decades the war killed more than 3,600 people and over
30,000 were injured, and there seems to be no end. Politicians in
Ireland and all over the world tried several times to find a solution
for the conflict, there were many negotiations between the different
parties but they never succeeded in finding a durable peace concept.
The last attempt to create peace in Northern Ireland took place in
April 1998 in Belfast. The two hostile groups signed the
“Belfast Agreement”, also known as the so called “Good
Friday Agreement” and a lot of hope was given to the Irish
people. Time passed, now we are at the beginning of the new
millennium and the question is: Have things changed in Northern
Ireland since then? Do the two different groups live in peace
together now or did the agreement fail?
On the following pages I will try to give you a short
overview of the conflict. Sometimes it is hard to understand why
people who live together in the same country and speak the same
language can not tolerate the different religious attitude of the
other group. I will try to explain what problems in the historical
background of Ireland led to the beginning of this conflict and how
the country developed in the past two years since the Good Friday
Agreement.
2. Historical Background
It is
difficult to determine exactly what the roots of the conflict in
Northern Ireland are and when the trouble started. There are some key
dates which represent important milestones in Irish history. It all
started with the year 1170, when Henry II of England tried to
attach Ireland to his kingdom. He succeeded to conquer a small area
around Dublin, called “The Pale”.
This area adopted English administrative practices, the
English language and was looking to London for protection and
leadership. In the next decades some attempts were made in order to
extend English control over the rest of Ireland but they did not
succeed until the 16th century. In 1609,
military conquest had established English rule over most of
Ireland with the exception of Ulster. The province had succeeded in
creating an effective alliance against the foreign armies but after a
lot of fights the Irish were defeated and had to give up. Ulster was
brought under English control and British colonists confiscated and
distributed the land among themselves. By 1703, less than 5
per cent of the land of Ulster was still in the hand of the Irish.
[compare 4]
2.1 The
Plantation of Ulster
The
Plantation of Ulster was unique among the Irish plantations in that
it set out to attract colonists of all classes from England, Scotland
and Wales by generous offers of land. Essentially it sought to
transplant a society to Ireland. The native Irish remained, but they
were excluded from the towns who were built by the Planters, and
banished to the mountains and bogs on the margins of the land they
had previously owned. The result of the Plantation of Ulster was the
introduction of a foreign community, which spoke a different
language, represented an alien culture and way of life, including a
new type of land tenure and management. In addition, most of the
newcomers were Protestant by religion, while the native Irish were
Catholic. So the broad outlines of the current conflict in Northern
Ireland had been sketched out within fifty years of the plantation:
the same territory was occupied by two hostile groups, one believing
the land had been usurped and the other believing that their tenure
was constantly under threat of rebellion. They often lived in
separate quarters and identified their differences as religious and
cultural as well as territorial. [compare 52]
2.2 The
Battle of the Boyne
The year
1690 is another key date in Irish history because of the
“Battle of the Boyne”. It was the decisive battle in the
struggle between former King James II of England and his successor
William III (also called William Orange) for the control of Ireland.
It was fought near the River Boyne, northwest of Dublin. James II was
a Roman Catholic and the Catholics ruled Ireland during his reign. In
1688, the English removed James from the throne and made
William III, a Protestant, king. The Irish prepared to rebel and
invited James to lead them. James borrowed troops from France. He
landed in Ireland in 1689. The English defeated him on the
banks of the Boyne on July 11th, 1690. The Battle
of the Boyne marked the beginning of Protestant control over
Catholics in Ireland. Its anniversary is celebrated by Protestants in
Northern Ireland and “Orange” became the distinctive colour
of the Protestants. [compare 23]
2.3 The
Great Famine
The
years 1845 to 1850 are probably the most tragic years
in Irish history because of the “Great Famine” which killed
more than one million people in less than five years.
“The
actual cause of (potato crop) failure was phytophthora infestans -
potato blight. The spores of the blight were carried by wind, rain
and insects and came to Ireland from Britain and the European
continent. A fungus affected the potato plants, producing black spots
and a white mould on the leaves, soon rotting the potato into a
pulp." [2; Potato Blight]
As harvests across Europe failed, the price of food rose
rapidly. Irish farmers found their food stores rotting in their
cellars, the crops they relied on to pay the rent to their British
and Protestant landlords destroyed. Peasants who ate the rotten
produce sickened and entire villages were consumed with cholera and
typhus.
On April 26th, 1849, Lord Clarendon wrote to Prime
Minister Russell: "...it is enough to drive one mad, day after
day, to read the appeals that are made and meet them all with a
negative... At Westport, and other places in Mayo, they have not a
shilling to make preparations for the cholera, but no assistance can
be given, and there is no credit for anything, as all our contractors
are ruined. Surely this is a state of things to justify you asking
the House of Commons for an advance, for I don't think there is
another legislature in Europe that would disregard such suffering as
now exists in the west of Ireland, or coldly persist in a policy of
extermination." [2; Cholera]
Landlords evicted hundreds of thousands of
peasants, who then crowded into disease-infested workhouses. [2;
Evictions] Other landlords paid for their tenants to emigrate,
sending hundreds of thousands of Irish to America and other
English-speaking countries, like Australia or Great Britain. "This
chaotic, panic-stricken and unregulated exodus was the largest single
population movement of the nineteenth century." [2; Emigration]
The combined forces of famine, disease and emigration depopulated the
island; Ireland's population dropped from 8 million before the famine
to 5 million years after. If Irish nationalism was dormant for the
first half of the nineteenth-century, the famine convinced Irish
citizens and Irish-Americans of the urgent need for political change.
2.4 The
Creation of Northern Ireland
The
following date is one of the most important for Ireland. The
partition of Ireland that took place in 1921 was a inevitable
outcome of the British attempts since the 12th century to
achieve dominance in Ireland. Throughout the centuries, insurrections
and rebellions by the native Irish against British rule had been
common. There has been pressure on the British government to grant
independence to the island and after World War I (1914-1918)
Britain agreed to limited independence. The pressure for “Home
Rule” in Ireland had been firmly resisted by Protestants in the
north who wanted to maintain the union with Britain. They feared
their absorption into a united, mainly Catholic Ireland, where they
believed their religious freedom would be restricted. Protestants
also feared the poorer economic state of the rest of the island,
compared to their own prosperous region. Most Catholics who lived in
the northern region and were the descendants of the indigenous people
who had been displaced by the settlers through the plantations,
wanted independence from Britain and an united Ireland.
The unionists threatened to use force if they were
coerced into a united Ireland and began to mobilize private armies
against such an eventuality. In an effort to compromise, the then
Prime Minister of Britain, Lloyd George, insisted that the island
should be partitioned into two sections, the six counties in the
north-east would remain part of the United Kingdom while the other 26
counties would gain independence. Each state would have its own
parliament. Irish nationalist leaders were divided over this
suggestion, but the offer was eventually accepted by those leaders
who were sent to conduct treaty negotiations with the British, as
they were anxious to avoid a return to an increasingly bloody
conflict in Ireland. It was also accepted by the unionists, although
reluctantly, as their first wish was for the whole of the island to
remain within the United Kingdom.
The decision to partition the island led to bitter civil conflicts
between those nationalists who accepted partition and those who
rejected it. Eventually, in 1923, those who accepted partition
achieved a bloody victory, and with the consent of Dublin and
Westminster the Irish Free State was formally created. The Irish
Constitution of 1937 adopted the title Eire (the Irish word
for Ireland) for the state. The state then declared itself a Republic
on Easter Monday 1949. The official title is therefore the
“Republic of Ireland”. [compare 84; 4]
2.5 The
Beginning of the Troubles
The last
important period in Irish history is the time after 1969 where
the troubles began. By the 1950s there were growing signs that
some Catholics were prepared to accept equality within Northern
Ireland rather than espouse the more traditional aim of securing a
united Ireland. In 1967 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights
Association was formed to demand liberal reforms, including the
removal of discrimination in the allocation of jobs and houses,
permanent emergency legislation and electoral abuses. The campaign
was modelled on the civil rights campaign in the United States,
involving protests, marches, sit-ins and the use of the media to
public minority grievances. The local administration was unable to
handle the growing civil disorder, and in 1969 the British
government sent in troops to enforce order. While they were initially
welcomed by the Catholic population, they soon provided stimulus for
the revival of the republican movement. The newly formed Provisional
IRA began a campaign of violence against the army. By 1972 it
was clear that the local Northern Irish government, having introduced
internment in 1971 as a last attempt to impose control, was
unable to handle the situation. Invoking its powers under the
Government of Ireland Act, the Westminster parliament suspended the
Northern Ireland government and replaced it with direct rule from
Westminster. This situation continued into the 1990s. [compare
83]
On paper the civil rights campaign had been a remarkable
success. Several of its objectives had been conceded by the end of
1970. By that time, however, proceedings had developed their
own momentum. The IRA campaign developed strongly from 1972.
Instead of the riots between Catholics and Protestants which had
characterized 1969 and 1970, the conflict increasingly
took the form of violence between the Provisional IRA and the British
army, with occasional bloody interventions by loyalist
paramilitaries. The violence reached a peak in 1972, when 468
people died. Since then it has gradually declined to an annual
average of below 100. In the early 1990's, there were signs of
weariness over a conflict that clearly no one was winning. On August
31st, 1994, a dramatic breakthrough came when the
IRA announced a “complete cessation of military operations”
the cease-fire that set the stage for peace negotiations.
Protestant paramilitary groups of Northern Ireland also announced a
cease-fire on October 13th . The peace process had begun
but although the cease-fire was a crucial step, it only marked the
beginning of a long and hard process that involved appeasing the
demands of a number of different groups. Key players in the process
included the Protestant and the Catholic political parties, the IRA,
Sinn Fein, the British government, and the Republic of Ireland.
[compare 59; 32]
3. The
Good Friday Peace Accord 1998
The Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday
Agreement) was reached on Friday, April 10th, 1998
in Belfast. It was the result of multi-party negotiations where all
people of the different parties in Northern Ireland tried to find a
way to co-operate in order to achieve a durable peace concept for
Northern Ireland after 30 years of war and terrorism. The most
important members who joined the negotiations were:
TONY BLAIR: Prime Minister of Great Britain,
SENATOR MITCHELL: Leader of Peace Talks,
DAVID TRIMBLE: Leader of the Protestant Unionist
Party,
GERRY ADAMS: Leader of the Sinn Fein, the
political arm of the IRA,
JOHN HUME: Leader of the SDLP (Social Democratic
and Labour Party) and
BERTIE AHERM: Prime Minister of the Irish
Republic.
The agreement sets out a plan for devolved
government in Northern Ireland where all sections of the community in
Northern Ireland would be prepared to participate in. It also
provided for the establishment of Human Rights and Equality
Commissions. The parties had to affirm the civil rights and the
religious liberties of everyone in the community.
- This meant the
right:
- - of free political
thought;
-
- to freedom and expression of religion;
-
- to pursue democratically national and political
aspirations;
-
- to seek constitutional change by peaceful and
legitimate means;
-
- to freely choose one’s place of residence;
-
- to equal opportunity in all social and economic
activity, regardless of class, creed,
-
disability, gender or ethnicity;
- to freedom from sectarian harassment; and
- of women to full and equal political participation.
[36]
The early release of terrorist prisoners from both sides
of the community, the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and
far-reaching reforms of Criminal Justice and Policing in Northern
Ireland were also part of the Agreement. It also proposed an
inter-connected group of institutions that form three “Strands”
of relationships. Strand One deals with relationships within Northern
Ireland and created the Northern Ireland Assembly, its Executive and
the consultative Civic Forum. Members of the Assembly are voted in by
Proportional Representation and Ministers in the Northern Ireland
Executive are appointed according to party strengths in the Assembly.
All important decisions must have the support of both sides of the
community. For further information to the election of the Assembly
and its tasks read “The time after April 1998”.
Strand
Two deals with relationships between Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland. A North-South Ministerial Council (NSMC) brings
together members of the Northern Ireland Executive and the Irish
Government. The NSMC oversees the work of six cross-border
Implementation Bodies. Strand Three deals with East-West
relationships within the British Isles. A British-Irish
Inter-Governmental Conference was established to promote bilateral
co-operation between the UK and Ireland. It replaces the Anglo-Irish
Inter-Governmental Council and Conference set up under the
Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. A new British-Irish Council was
also created that incorporates members of all the devolved
administrations within the UK and representatives of the Isle of Man
and the Channel Islands as well as the British and Irish Governments.
Its goal will be the harmonious and mutually beneficial development
of the totality of relationships among the people of the islands.
A final
section covered validation, implementation and review. It was agreed
that referendums would be held in both parts of Ireland on May 22nd,
1998. If there were public endorsement North and South, the
two governments would take all necessary legislative and other steps
to bring all the new institutions into being, and to give effect to
constitutional changes. [compare 56; 36]
4. The
time after April 1998
The agreement seemed
to solve all problems of the country if it worked like all
participants of the negotiations hoped but everybody was realistic
and knew that the implementation of the agreement would be very
difficult. There were still a lot of issues between the different
sides and all agreements reached in the past did not succeed, mostly
because of the question of decommission.
The time after the referendum on May 22nd,
where the majority of people in the North and the South voted with
“yes“ on the agreement (in Northern Ireland 71.2% of the
voters and in the Republic of Ireland 94% voted “yes”)
[26] could have been a period during which the letter and the spirit
of the Good Friday Agreement was fully utilized, a period when Irish
nationalists, unionists and the British moved towards each other in
an effort to put behind them the enmity resulting from centuries of
conflict.
It could
have been a time when former enemies gave space to each other to
learn new ways of thinking, of speaking, of trying to understand one
another. A time of certainty and decisive, forward looking leadership
to demonstrate that they had turned the corner - that a new chapter
had opened in Irish-British history - that compromise, tolerance and
the beginning of a process of reconciliation had replaced domination,
intolerance and division.
But what happened? Did the expectations come true? This
question can not be answered easily with yes or no because there were
positive developments which gave the people hope for peace but also
discouraging incidences which seemed to destroy the fragile peace
process.
4.1
Positive Developments after 1998
If you
look to the positive developments you can say: “Yes, the
expectations came true, we are on the right way!”
The
following occurrences belong to the positive ones:
Elections
took place to the new Northern Ireland Assembly on June 25th,
1998. The Ulster Unionists are the biggest assembly party with
28 seats, followed by the SDLP with 24, then the Democratic Unionists
with 20, and Sinn Fein has 18 seats. A variety of smaller parties
made up the remaining seats, for a total of 108. Looking at the
results of the election, it is a good sign, that all parties sit
together and try to find solutions for the problems.
Here
are the exact results: [26]
|
Party |
Seats |
|
Ulster
Unionist Party |
28 |
|
Social
Democratic and Labour Party |
24 |
|
Democratic
Unionist Party |
20 |
|
Sinn
Fein |
18 |
|
The
Alliance Party |
6 |
|
United
Kingdom Unionist Party |
5 |
|
Progressive
Unionist Party |
2 |
|
Northern
Ireland Women's Coalition |
2 |
|
Others |
3 |
The
first task of the new, 108-seat Northern Ireland Assembly was to
create a North-South Ministerial Council to work on cross-border
issues, including tourism and economic development. Although the
council draws members from Dublin, it is accountable to the Assembly.
A Council of the Isles, comprising delegates from Belfast, Dublin,
and London, as well as from soon-to-be-created assemblies in Scotland
and Wales, also are set up. Finally, the Irish government amends its
Constitution to remove its territorial claims to Northern Ireland.
The
Nobel Peace Price, which was awarded to John Hume and David Trimble
in 1998, gave the peace process a new momentum. The Nobel
Committee declared Hume, “the clearest and most consistent of
Northern Ireland's political leaders in his work for a peaceful
solution“. As for Trimble, the Committee notes that he “showed
great political courage when, at a critical stage in the process, he
advocated solutions which led to the peace agreement“.
The
third point which can show that things changed was something which
was also negotiated in the agreement and has already been fulfilled
is the accelerated prison release programme, which began in
September. By January 1999 over half of the qualifying
paramilitary prisoners were released. The British authorities began
the process of security normalization, gradually removing security
installations and scaling down the army presence on the ground. The
Northern Ireland Police Commission (under the chairmanship of Chris
Patten) began its work and undertook a wide-ranging consultation
exercise. [compare 31]
4.2
Negative Developments after 1998
But
there were also drawbacks in the time after April 1998 and if
you look at them, you have to say: “No! The expectations did not
came true and the months after the referendum will be remembered as a
time of recrimination, of bitterness, of the sharp word. A period of
missed deadlines, broken agreements, of unfilled opportunity. “
Here
are some good examples for such discouraging incidences, for instance
the innumerable promises of the IRA to decommission. Each time when
Sinn Fein declared that the IRA was ready to give up its guns and
stop terrorism, people hoped the troubles were over but the situation
did not change. In May 2000 the deadline for decommissioning
passed and nothing happened because the IRA did not want to give up
its guns which would have meant the lost of power. The
decommissioning of weapons has been the key stumbling block to full
implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Disagreement over the
issue led to the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly on
February 11th, 2000, which had been established
after elections in June 25th, 1998. Despite furious
last-minute negotiations, no deal was struck on decommissioning, the
“absolute deadline“ which originally was set on June 30th,
1999 and Tony Blair extended it for a few months, passed
without any results and after that, Secretary of State Peter
Mandelson signed the order to suspend the assembly.
As a reaction on the suspension the IRA announced only
four days later, on February 15th that they would no
longer co-operate with the Independent Commission on Decommissioning
because of the suspension of the assembly.
The
basic problem was that David Trimble, the leader of Northern
Ireland's largest party, the Ulster unionists, also refused to
sit on the Executive with Sinn Fein, which has links to the IRA,
until the paramilitaries began to hand over their weapons. On the
other hand, Sinn Fein said decommissioning of weapons was not a
condition of the original peace deal - and it maintained that it
could not promise decommissioning on behalf of the IRA. Furthermore,
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has given a number of personal
assurances to the unionists, including one in October 1998
that it was his view decommissioning would begin “straight
away“. [compare 63]
4.3
Terrorist Activities after 1998
Looking
at the time after the agreement, everybody had to realize that
terrorism did not stop. The following two examples show the brutality
of the paramilitary groups after April 1998 although the
leaders of all parties tried to achieve peace in Northern Ireland and
were supported by a majority of votes.
The first incidents I would like
to present happened during parades of Protestants who commemorated
King William of Orange and Catholics who tried to prevent the
Protestants from passing through their neighbourhood. The British
government sent extra troops to that area to uphold the decision of
the independent Parades Commission which decided that the parade in
Dumcree would not pass down the Garvaghy Road, a Catholic area.
After July 5th, there
was considerable violence, throughout the province, especially in
Belfast because Protestants were not allowed to march on their
traditional route. Rioters hijacked cars, blockaded streets, and
attacked security forces. Twelve Catholic churches were burned.
On
Sunday, July 12th, 1998 three young catholic
boys were killed after their home, in Ballymoney, was petrol bombed
in a sectarian attack carried out by Loyalists. The boys' mother, her
partner and a family friend escaped from the house but neither they
nor their neighbours were able to rescue the three boys.
The
bombing shocked everyone on both sides and many people called on the
Orangemen in Dumcree to dismantle their camp and go home. David
Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party also called for an
end to the protest. The Orange Order rejected these and other similar
calls.
Within the Omagh Bombing about a month later, on August
15th, the single worst terrorist incident in the history
of the troubles occurred. A car bomb exploded in a busy shopping
district in Omagh, a town approximately seventy miles west of
Belfast. Twenty-nine people including several children were killed
and more than 200 were injured. The dead and injured included both
Catholics and Protestants. A splinter group of the IRA called the
“Real IRA“ claimed responsibility for the blast. This tiny
group was opposed to the peace process altogether. After
such terrible events some people feared that these incidents would
derail the peace process. Others were determined not to let that
happen and the people hoped terrorism would stop. [compare 63]
4.4
Further Attempts to Save the Situation
Nevertheless
tried the two sides again and again to discuss the problems and come
to an agreement. On December 10th, 1998, David
Trimble and Gerry Adams held their first one-to-one meeting, in order
to find a solution of the decommissioning problem. This was the first
meeting between Sinn Fein and a Unionist leader since the formation
of Northern Ireland. The meeting took place in private at Stormont,
Belfast. Both men later described the meeting as cordial and
businesslike. Trimble said: “We discussed the issues which are
familiar to you and we examined those issues in a fair amount of
detail. I can’t say there was an awful lot of progress but we
have agreed to meet again” [19]. At the end of the meeting,
there was no concrete result because they could not deliver on
decommissioning. The following meeting also failed and the
participants finished the discussion without a satisfying solution
for both sides.
On
Friday December 18th, 1998 the Agreement on
Government Departments and Cross-Border Bodies was signed. In a
significant breakthrough in the implementation of the Belfast
Agreement, six new North-South administrative bodies and an increase
from six to ten ministries in Northern
Ireland were agreed after 18 hours of negotiations between the
Northern parties. The six North South bodies will cover inland
waterways, agriculture, food safety, the Irish and Ulster-Scots
languages, European Union funding programmes, and trade and business
development.
Furthermore
The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) handed over some weapons which
should be destroyed to the International Decommissioning Body. The
LVF was the first paramilitary group to voluntarily hand over its
weapons. This gesture was seen as a first real step of
decommissioning but afterwards nothing else happened and the other
groups still refused to give up their guns.
On
Monday September 6th, 1999, George Mitchell, former
Chairman of the multi-party talks, was in Castle Buildings to start
the review of the Good Friday Agreement. He made clear that the
review would concentrate specifically on breaking the deadlock over
decommissioning and the formation of an executive. The talks
adjourned until the following week to give politicians time to study
the Patten report on policing.
After
10 weeks of painstaking negotiations between the pro-agreement
parties in Northern Ireland, Senator George Mitchell returned to the
United States after issuing a report on his review. He concluded that
the basis now existed for devolution to occur and the formation of an
executive to take place. Before leaving Northern Ireland, the senator
was thanked during a press conference in Castle Buildings by all the
participants and parties involved.
The
British Government issued a statement, expressing gratitude for
Senator Mitchell's help in transforming the Northern Ireland
situation from one of conflict and confrontation to one of dialogue
and peace.
On
October 26th, 2000, the IRA released a statement
saying it will allow some of its arms dumps to be re-inspected.
General John de Chastelain of the Decommissioning Commission said
after this inspection that no progress had been made on actual
paramilitary disarmament. [compare 61]
5.
The Role of the US in the Peace Process
The
Northern Ireland Conflict is not only a local problem of the Irish
people, it concerns also politicians all over the world, especially
the USA. The fact that over 40 Million Americans
have Irish roots explains why the United States strove for a peaceful
solution to the Northern Ireland conflict. Most of them immigrated to
America during the Great Famine in the hope for a better life. This
Irish-Americans wanted to help their fellow-countryman who still
lived in war and so wanted a number of US Presidents and the US
Congress.
The interventions from across the Atlantic consisted of political
support during peace negotiations and practical help of the economy
and the reconciliation of the community. The US participation began
with the era of President Carter who promised financial support of a
possible agreement and its implementation and culminated with Bill
Clinton who made in 1992 during his Presidential campaign many
policy-commitments concerning his Administration´s approach to
Northern Ireland. While President Clinton pushed the rapprochement to
Sinn Fein for example by enabling Gerry Adams to visit America which
was never possible in the past he also get in contact with the
Unionists. President Clinton declared Senator George Mitchell his
„economic envoy“ to Ireland as a result of the IRA
cease-fire in August 1994. The Irish people expressed great
gratitude for the support of the United States and the also the wish
for a soon peaceful solution of the conflict through their
extraordinary welcome of President Clinton and his wife Hilary Rotham
Clinton during their historic visit of both parts of Ireland. This
journey in November 1995 was something special because it was
the first visit by a US President in office to Northern Ireland. The
President asked the Republicans for a new attempt to a cease-fire and
played an important role in the Multi-Party Talks which began in June
1996. The American Administration enhanced the search for an
agreement together with the new elected Prime-Ministers of Ireland
and Britain, Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair after the IRA declared a
cease-fire in July 1997 and Sinn Fein supervened the peace
talks in September. Without the Presidents personal diplomacy towards
the end of the talks the historic Good Friday Agreement reached on
April 10th, 1998 would not have been achieved. When
President Clinton met Tony Blair in May 1998 before the
referendum on the Good Friday Agreement he encouraged him: „we
will stand with those who stand for peace. I want to make it clear
that anyone who reverts the violence, from whatever side and whatever
faction will have no friends in America.“ This words expressed
his strong will to fight against all terrorist groups who expect to
enforce a solution with violence.
In
September 1998, the second visit of the President and the
First Lady to Ireland (North and South) occurred and ended as
successful as the first.
The
President availed of this visit and a number of more recent
opportunities to emphasize the continued commitment of the United
States to the achievement of a lasting settlement in Northern
Ireland. All these attempts of Bill Clinton to help Northern Ireland
show how engaged he was in the peace process. [compare 59]
6.
Statements to the Conflict
In
the following paragraph I will try to find out what politicians and
other people involved in the Northern Ireland Conflict say about the
Good Friday Agreement and the Peace Process as a whole.
At
the beginning there are some statements of the British Prime Minister
Tony Blair. The Electronic Telegraph quoted Mr. Blair on Saturday,
April 11th, 1998, saying: “I believe today
courage has triumphed. I said when I arrived here that I felt the
hand of history upon us. Today I hope that the burden of history can
at long last start to be lifted from our shoulders.“ He referred
to the Agreement and expressed his hope that after this Good Friday
Peace Accord it would be possible to bring the war to an end. He also
emphasized that the agreement represented an opportunity for peace
in Northern Ireland and that much difficult work laid ahead. He said:
“It will take more of the courage we have shown, but it need not
mean more of the pain. Today is only the beginning. It is not the
end. Today we have just the sense of the prize before us. The work to
win that prize goes on. In the past few days the irresistible force
of the political leaders has been focused on that same immovable
object. I believe we have now moved it.“ [13]
Peter
Mandelson, the British minister for Northern Ireland said in an
interview of the “Chicago Tribune“ on October 15th,
2000: “There has been a transformation since the signing
of the Good Friday Agreement. We have cease-fires that are largely
intact, a peace which, though not perfect, is enduring. But we have
an infant democracy, a set of political institutions that are
fragile. If these changes lose the backing of one [religious]
tradition or another, then the peace process will stop. Therefore,
the spirit of compromise has to be maintained. We're in transition in
Northern Ireland from one era to another. We haven't yet arrived.
Dissident Republicans are determined to continue with violence and
terrorism, or loyalist dissidents are determined to feud among
themselves.” [77]
US
Senator Mitchell, the peace talks chairman, was quoted in the “Irish
News” on November 30th, 1998 during his visit
in Belfast saying: “It is unrealistic to think that a conflict
which is as long and as complex as this one could suddenly be ended
with the approval of a single document. I think the direction is
set." Gerry Adams met Mr Mitchell at that time and he said in
this interview with the “Irish News”: “At the moment I
think that everyone is ready to close on the implementation of
policy-making bodies, but the senator knows that there is still a lot
of movement needed on many fronts and I will be discussing these
issues with him.” [86]
David
Trimble was quoted in an article of the “BBC news online”
from January 8th, 2000 being sceptical about the
process but he said; “I'm quite confident about arrangements and
I'm quite confident about the future. And I've said ever since the
agreement that things are not going to be easy, that there are going
to be problems and we have had problems. But we have also had
enormous progress since the agreement, and I look forward to the
coming weeks and months with considerable confidence." [7]
Education
Minister Martin McGuinness was also quoted in the same article
talking about decommissioning and he said: “We're all on board
the same boat now and we've moved away from the berthing post. We're
still in the harbour but we're moving forward - I think anyone who
jumps off at this stage will be drowned.” He added: “We've
charted a course away from the injustice, the causes of conflict and
conflict itself - we have to stay on this course.” [7]
These
few quotations show that on the other hand all politicians from
different parties and even from different countries try to find a
solution for the conflict which satisfies both sides and want to
implement the agreement as quickly as possible. On the other hand all
of them know that it is not easy to find a result for all issues and
problems. Sometimes you can hear voices saying that it makes no sense
to hope for peace and nothing will move in the problem of
decommissioning, like in the article of “The Irish Times”
published on Tuesday April 13th, 1999 where the
mood was very depressive and negative. Members of Sinn Fein were
quoted saying things like: ”We have accepted compromises in the
past for the sake of peace, but decommissioning is different. They
are asking us to surrender. You can't underestimate the emotiveness
of this subject for republicans.” [12] Another quotation which
shows how ironic some people react to the peace process is the
following, also published in the same article: ”The guns are
silent so what is the problem for the unionists and the British? They
just seem to want to rub our noses in the dirt." [12] It is hard
to explain such people what the real aims of the Good Friday
Agreement are because they are to pigheaded.
As a
conclusion you can say that all statements concerning the peace
talks, the agreement and the Northern Ireland Conflict as a whole
given by politicians and people who know the problems or have to live
with it are more or less positive and optimistic. They know that it
is still a long way till the situation will be totally different and
Northern Ireland will live in peace but all in all they will try to
find a solution.
7.
Personal Opinion
By
dealing for several months with the topic “Northern Ireland
Conflict”, I reached a better insight into the situation of
Northern Ireland. And now, after finishing my work it may be a little
bit easier to understand what is going on in this country and why all
the problems still exist for 30 years. During my investigation I
learned something about the background of the conflict, about the
differences of catholics and protestants, about the issues and
problems which have to be solved in order to achieve peace between
the two hostile groups and about the attempts which were and still
are made by politicians from both sides to find a satisfying solution
for all of them.
Although
I read very much about this topic it is hard for me to comprehend why
these people cannot find a way to make an end to this endless war.
This conflict runs so deep that a foreigner is hardly able to
understand the whole extent of the problems. In my opinion
politicians and especially the few terrorist groups who try to solve
the problems with violence have to change their attitudes. Peace can
only come if both sides learn to trust each other. Someone has to
make the first step, for example in decommissioning and the other
side has to follow. As long as decommissioning is a stumble stone in
the peace process, the war will not come to an end. Moreover people
have to learn to compromise, to be more tolerant and to accept also
other views.
The
“Good Friday Agreement” of 1998 was an excellent
beginning for the peace process, but it is still a long way until all
the points of the agreement are fully implemented and it will require
much efforts to reach the aim of the agreement. In my view it is not
impossible that the next generations will live in peace together but
the parents have to tell their children that it is not so important
to what religion you belong or what your political attitude is, but
that we are all human beings who live on the same earth and breath
the same air and we should not fight against each other because in
the end no one is the winner, there are only loosers, who share the
same sorrows.