13 November 1997 Edition
Charter for Change
by Laura Friel
A new group, Cearta, will be launching their charter this week in an initative designed to ``stimulate debate and encourage ownership of the peace process''.
The peace process has to be bigger than the talks process, said Ciaran Kearney, a spokesperson for the group. ``The Cearta initative is just one idea intended to make the peace process more dynamic and encourge greater participation,'' he said. ``Irish people living in the North of Ireland are entitled to the same full National and Democratic rights of Irish citizenship as Irish people living elsewhere in Ireland,'' states the charter. ``All people living in the North of Ireland are entitled to receive full parity of esteem and equality of treatment with one another. Delivering these fundamental rights is a prerequisite to, and is not dependent upon, any negotiated settlement.''
The steering group, which will be promoting the charter in a series of local meetings, is made up of a broad cross section of people within the nationalist community: community workers, residents groups, professional and business people as well as people with experience in campaigning for human rights.
``Although the denial of National, Democratic and Human Rights has mainly penalised the nationalist population, partition has also denied unionists the opportunity for reconciliation with the rest of the people of Ireland, within shared political structures based on agreement and a common civic identity,'' says the charter, ``This is not a statement of exclusive rights and upholds the Human and Civil rights of all people equally.''
A new group, Cearta, will be launching their charter this week in an initative designed to ``stimulate debate and encourage ownership of the peace process''.
The peace process has to be bigger than the talks process, said Ciaran Kearney, a spokesperson for the group. ``The Cearta initative is just one idea intended to make the peace process more dynamic and encourge greater participation,'' he said. ``Irish people living in the North of Ireland are entitled to the same full National and Democratic rights of Irish citizenship as Irish people living elsewhere in Ireland,'' states the charter. ``All people living in the North of Ireland are entitled to receive full parity of esteem and equality of treatment with one another. Delivering these fundamental rights is a prerequisite to, and is not dependent upon, any negotiated settlement.''
The steering group, which will be promoting the charter in a series of local meetings, is made up of a broad cross section of people within the nationalist community: community workers, residents groups, professional and business people as well as people with experience in campaigning for human rights.
``Although the denial of National, Democratic and Human Rights has mainly penalised the nationalist population, partition has also denied unionists the opportunity for reconciliation with the rest of the people of Ireland, within shared political structures based on agreement and a common civic identity,'' says the charter, ``This is not a statement of exclusive rights and upholds the Human and Civil rights of all people equally.''