TRIMBLE HAS EMERGED AS A NO UNIONIST
Trimble has emerged as a 'No' unionist
When, in a spirit of presumed honour, the warring parties of the North hammered out the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, it was universally believed that nationalists and unionists would have to put up with some losses and gains. The principle was that there were no real losers and that all of Northern Irish society would be a winner.
However, one of the senior signatories to that Agreement, David Trimble, has spent his time since trying to rewrite it. He has, by his actions, caused the Executive to collapse and this has produced the instability wherein paramilitaries thrive. Many of his statements over the last few years have shown him a good measure short of the statesman honoured with a Nobel Peace Prize.
However, his most reprehensible trait has been his attitude to issues such as Human Rights and the Police Ombudsman's report into the Omagh bombing. According to Trimble, the Ombudsman "generated" the controversy. He told fellow Unionists last Friday: "The public will be reassured that the chief constable has demolished the argument that intelligence was mishandled and the Ombudsman's implication that somehow the RUC could have prevented Omagh. The Ombudsman may have made it impossible for her office to maintain any constructive relationship with the police."
Mr Trimble's certainty will surprise most observers, including the representatives of his own party on the Policing Board who deliberate on the issue next week. Their leader's blunt remarks seem calculated to ensure that the current dilemma, which has caused so much hurt and pain here, cannot be decided in a non-partisan fashion. That is a serious blow to hopes of relatives who were far from convinced by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, that the Omagh investigation could be given new leadership and new impetus in the hunt for the bombers.
But that has become par for the course for a politician who presents himself as a leader on the world stage and yet skulks back into a "Not-an-Inch" corner for his most truculent members. He has shown all the recalcitrance of a former anti-power sharing Vanguardist. He is regarded as a pro-Agreement unionist but that is clearly a misnomer since he objects to the bedrock of fairness in the peace process and attempts to water down many of the features of the Agreement to which he was a signatory.
Why has Mr Trimble returned to his atavistic unionist roots? The answer is simple: He was never a talented or strong enough leader within his own party (certainly within unionism), to face down Jeffrey Donaldson and the other 'NO' men and decided that if he couldn't beat them he would join them.
His political failings mean that the agreement is never any more than a week or two away from a crisis and that the assembly has lost much of the vibrancy it should possess. More worryingly, the message sent out to the unionist rank and file is that it need not change , it need not embrace reform and the cankerous and divisive ideas which led to the modern Troubles were right and proper. It is no wonder that North Belfast has been experiencing the hatred that has set it alight?
History has shown that those at the top set the standards by which the rest of the society lives. Mr Trimble would have no checks to prevent abuses of civil rights, would have the police unaccountable and would have anything torn down which dares criticise the state. In short, he would have us live under a Junta.
He has shown himself, weak, backward looking and limited. He is the wrong man to head the Executive of Northern Ireland.
When, in a spirit of presumed honour, the warring parties of the North hammered out the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, it was universally believed that nationalists and unionists would have to put up with some losses and gains. The principle was that there were no real losers and that all of Northern Irish society would be a winner.
However, one of the senior signatories to that Agreement, David Trimble, has spent his time since trying to rewrite it. He has, by his actions, caused the Executive to collapse and this has produced the instability wherein paramilitaries thrive. Many of his statements over the last few years have shown him a good measure short of the statesman honoured with a Nobel Peace Prize.
However, his most reprehensible trait has been his attitude to issues such as Human Rights and the Police Ombudsman's report into the Omagh bombing. According to Trimble, the Ombudsman "generated" the controversy. He told fellow Unionists last Friday: "The public will be reassured that the chief constable has demolished the argument that intelligence was mishandled and the Ombudsman's implication that somehow the RUC could have prevented Omagh. The Ombudsman may have made it impossible for her office to maintain any constructive relationship with the police."
Mr Trimble's certainty will surprise most observers, including the representatives of his own party on the Policing Board who deliberate on the issue next week. Their leader's blunt remarks seem calculated to ensure that the current dilemma, which has caused so much hurt and pain here, cannot be decided in a non-partisan fashion. That is a serious blow to hopes of relatives who were far from convinced by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, that the Omagh investigation could be given new leadership and new impetus in the hunt for the bombers.
But that has become par for the course for a politician who presents himself as a leader on the world stage and yet skulks back into a "Not-an-Inch" corner for his most truculent members. He has shown all the recalcitrance of a former anti-power sharing Vanguardist. He is regarded as a pro-Agreement unionist but that is clearly a misnomer since he objects to the bedrock of fairness in the peace process and attempts to water down many of the features of the Agreement to which he was a signatory.
Why has Mr Trimble returned to his atavistic unionist roots? The answer is simple: He was never a talented or strong enough leader within his own party (certainly within unionism), to face down Jeffrey Donaldson and the other 'NO' men and decided that if he couldn't beat them he would join them.
His political failings mean that the agreement is never any more than a week or two away from a crisis and that the assembly has lost much of the vibrancy it should possess. More worryingly, the message sent out to the unionist rank and file is that it need not change , it need not embrace reform and the cankerous and divisive ideas which led to the modern Troubles were right and proper. It is no wonder that North Belfast has been experiencing the hatred that has set it alight?
History has shown that those at the top set the standards by which the rest of the society lives. Mr Trimble would have no checks to prevent abuses of civil rights, would have the police unaccountable and would have anything torn down which dares criticise the state. In short, he would have us live under a Junta.
He has shown himself, weak, backward looking and limited. He is the wrong man to head the Executive of Northern Ireland.
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/0948
Published Date: 31-Jan-02
Related Images
There have been no images archived for this article.