WHY DECOMMISSIONING IS SO IMPORTANT
Why decommissioning is so important
Maurice Hayes
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S trip to Northern Ireland, and in particular his visit to Belfast, may not, for all sorts of external reasons, have been the lap of honour which was envisaged when it first was mooted.
It has been useful all the same. It is an important punctuation mark in the peace process: a caesura in which time is given to digest the import of the first half of the line of poetry and to gather breath for the remainder.
Less than three weeks ago, in the immediate wake of Omagh, it may have been thought of as a potential disaster, but in the event he has come in on a tide of rising hope to give an additional push to movement which however slight was already taking place and to endorse the courage and sustain the hearts of those local politicians who alone can carry things forward.
In the event too, Belfast is probably a more cheerful place to be than many others he might have been in and some that he has left, and the prospects of peace in Northern Ireland are a good deal more realistic than the chance of the rouble lasting out the week.
More than presidential visits, more than any other similar single event, the Omagh bomb has been the catalyst. The sheer terror of it all, the threat to democracy, the contempt for the political process, and the shock at what was being done to very ordinary people brought it home to other very ordinary people in every town in Ireland that it just as easily might have been them. Above all, Omagh isolated the men of violence, forced an end to ambiguity, underpinned the efforts of the political leadership and spurred them to great efforts.
The subsequent developments have been described rather disparagingly as choreography, as if this was somehow a shady and shameful practice. Others would see is as conflict management and resolution. Conflicts do not resolve themselves. Few people would have considered it prudent or praiseworthy for governments, or any body capable of affecting the outcome, to sit on their hands and do nothing while the process they had midwifed was dying in the incubator.
The governments did indeed intervene, and at a high level, and very effectively too. It is of the nature of negotiations such as these that at times they resemble an elaborate minuet but of its nature too there is move and counter move each enabling the other to move a little further and a little more quickly.
Not all of it was necessarily preplanned. David Trimble's attendance at the funeral of the children in Buncrana was prompted by common decency rather than political advantage and the response of the congregation was warm and spontaneous. Yet it did help in the thaw, it changed the atmosphere, and it was an important reaffirmation of the respect for human dignity which must characterise the process. Gerry Adams statement that violence was over, finished, done with was another important milestone - even accepting the more negative emphasis of the contemporaneous statement of the IRA. The measured unionist response was also helpful as was the announcement that Martin McGuinness was accepting a role with the Decommissioning Body. The information now emerging of the likelihood of a Trimble-Adams meeting next week is another timely development that must be the sort of headline that President Clinton wanted to read as he flew into Belfast. A face to face meeting between the leader of unionism and his Sinn Fein counterpart is important, both for a potential to be seen to do business in understanding and meeting each others' concerns, but also symbolically. Symbolically, there will be more difficulties for Trimble, but it is a significant bonus on the nationalist and the republican side and particularly in those areas with a strong Sinn Fein vote.
It signifies their inclusion in the state on terms of equality, that their leaders are being treated with respect and as having an equal electoral mandate. It is a symbol that as a community they have arrived and are being accepted and can begin to make a contribution to government and administration. The visit of the President therefore occurs when movement is taking place which he can endorse and encourage. The most important event of the day was clearly the meeting with the Assembly members, and his private meeting with the party leaders. Sinn Fein having made their moves, the pressure was now clearly on David Trimble to respond, and readers of the entrails will take some comfort from the tone and content from his subsequent remarks, his welcome to every move that Sinn Fein would make towards peace, and his determination to hold them to every pledge - and particularly to the terms of the Agreement. There is a new tone, both of accommodation and self confidence in his declaration that those who take the road of peace in genuine goodwill will find him a willing leader in that journey.
The President's own key note speech contained no surprises but it was significant, not least for Sinn Fein, for the order In which he enumerated the requirements for progress In what was clearly intended to be a sequential process. What he expected first was the decommissioning of weapons of war that are obsolete In a Northern Ireland at peace. Then, and presumably only then, we expect them to move forward with the formation of an executive council. There is also a counterpoint between the development of a police force which has the confidence, respect and support of all the people with the ending of street justice and, by implication, knee-capping, punishment beatings, Intimidation and expulsions. The emphasis on the early release of prisoners and the building of a just society based on equality and human rights are a powerful endorsement of those parts of the Good Friday Agreement which were salient for Sinn Fein and their constituency.
There is clearly an expectation on the part of the President that at least some decommissioning should take place before the Executive is empanelled. It may not be a necessary condition but it would be a powerful enabling mechanism which would greatly strengthen Trimble's hand in dealing with the sceptics on his side and it would be a clear endorsement of the unity of purpose in the pursuit of peace of both wings of the republican movement. He can thus be seen to have applied a degree of pressure to both Trimble and Adams in his call for courageous leadership which applies to both as do his congratulations for the progress they have achieved.
HIS WAS not of course the only Clinton speech during the visit. On Wednesday evening Hillary Clinton made an address of great force and a presidential quality to an audience of thousands of women in the Waterfront Hall. This was a powerful appeal to women to realise their potential, to mobilise in defence of human rights and equality, to ensure the future of their children and to take their part. in politics in order to achieve change in society. This might indeed be the secret weapon of the peace process which will ensure its ultimate success. If so, it is one that should never be decommissioned.
Maurice Hayes
PRESIDENT CLINTON'S trip to Northern Ireland, and in particular his visit to Belfast, may not, for all sorts of external reasons, have been the lap of honour which was envisaged when it first was mooted.
It has been useful all the same. It is an important punctuation mark in the peace process: a caesura in which time is given to digest the import of the first half of the line of poetry and to gather breath for the remainder.
Less than three weeks ago, in the immediate wake of Omagh, it may have been thought of as a potential disaster, but in the event he has come in on a tide of rising hope to give an additional push to movement which however slight was already taking place and to endorse the courage and sustain the hearts of those local politicians who alone can carry things forward.
In the event too, Belfast is probably a more cheerful place to be than many others he might have been in and some that he has left, and the prospects of peace in Northern Ireland are a good deal more realistic than the chance of the rouble lasting out the week.
More than presidential visits, more than any other similar single event, the Omagh bomb has been the catalyst. The sheer terror of it all, the threat to democracy, the contempt for the political process, and the shock at what was being done to very ordinary people brought it home to other very ordinary people in every town in Ireland that it just as easily might have been them. Above all, Omagh isolated the men of violence, forced an end to ambiguity, underpinned the efforts of the political leadership and spurred them to great efforts.
The subsequent developments have been described rather disparagingly as choreography, as if this was somehow a shady and shameful practice. Others would see is as conflict management and resolution. Conflicts do not resolve themselves. Few people would have considered it prudent or praiseworthy for governments, or any body capable of affecting the outcome, to sit on their hands and do nothing while the process they had midwifed was dying in the incubator.
The governments did indeed intervene, and at a high level, and very effectively too. It is of the nature of negotiations such as these that at times they resemble an elaborate minuet but of its nature too there is move and counter move each enabling the other to move a little further and a little more quickly.
Not all of it was necessarily preplanned. David Trimble's attendance at the funeral of the children in Buncrana was prompted by common decency rather than political advantage and the response of the congregation was warm and spontaneous. Yet it did help in the thaw, it changed the atmosphere, and it was an important reaffirmation of the respect for human dignity which must characterise the process. Gerry Adams statement that violence was over, finished, done with was another important milestone - even accepting the more negative emphasis of the contemporaneous statement of the IRA. The measured unionist response was also helpful as was the announcement that Martin McGuinness was accepting a role with the Decommissioning Body. The information now emerging of the likelihood of a Trimble-Adams meeting next week is another timely development that must be the sort of headline that President Clinton wanted to read as he flew into Belfast. A face to face meeting between the leader of unionism and his Sinn Fein counterpart is important, both for a potential to be seen to do business in understanding and meeting each others' concerns, but also symbolically. Symbolically, there will be more difficulties for Trimble, but it is a significant bonus on the nationalist and the republican side and particularly in those areas with a strong Sinn Fein vote.
It signifies their inclusion in the state on terms of equality, that their leaders are being treated with respect and as having an equal electoral mandate. It is a symbol that as a community they have arrived and are being accepted and can begin to make a contribution to government and administration. The visit of the President therefore occurs when movement is taking place which he can endorse and encourage. The most important event of the day was clearly the meeting with the Assembly members, and his private meeting with the party leaders. Sinn Fein having made their moves, the pressure was now clearly on David Trimble to respond, and readers of the entrails will take some comfort from the tone and content from his subsequent remarks, his welcome to every move that Sinn Fein would make towards peace, and his determination to hold them to every pledge - and particularly to the terms of the Agreement. There is a new tone, both of accommodation and self confidence in his declaration that those who take the road of peace in genuine goodwill will find him a willing leader in that journey.
The President's own key note speech contained no surprises but it was significant, not least for Sinn Fein, for the order In which he enumerated the requirements for progress In what was clearly intended to be a sequential process. What he expected first was the decommissioning of weapons of war that are obsolete In a Northern Ireland at peace. Then, and presumably only then, we expect them to move forward with the formation of an executive council. There is also a counterpoint between the development of a police force which has the confidence, respect and support of all the people with the ending of street justice and, by implication, knee-capping, punishment beatings, Intimidation and expulsions. The emphasis on the early release of prisoners and the building of a just society based on equality and human rights are a powerful endorsement of those parts of the Good Friday Agreement which were salient for Sinn Fein and their constituency.
There is clearly an expectation on the part of the President that at least some decommissioning should take place before the Executive is empanelled. It may not be a necessary condition but it would be a powerful enabling mechanism which would greatly strengthen Trimble's hand in dealing with the sceptics on his side and it would be a clear endorsement of the unity of purpose in the pursuit of peace of both wings of the republican movement. He can thus be seen to have applied a degree of pressure to both Trimble and Adams in his call for courageous leadership which applies to both as do his congratulations for the progress they have achieved.
HIS WAS not of course the only Clinton speech during the visit. On Wednesday evening Hillary Clinton made an address of great force and a presidential quality to an audience of thousands of women in the Waterfront Hall. This was a powerful appeal to women to realise their potential, to mobilise in defence of human rights and equality, to ensure the future of their children and to take their part. in politics in order to achieve change in society. This might indeed be the secret weapon of the peace process which will ensure its ultimate success. If so, it is one that should never be decommissioned.
Further Information
Publisher: IRISH INDEPENDENT
Ref: II/232
Published Date: 04-Sep-98
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