23 September 1999 Edition
Unionism going nowhere
The anti-Good Friday Agreement camp within unionism is setting the agenda. Nowhere was that more obvious than outside Belfast High Court this week. There stood Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, whose failure to face down the naysayers within his own party lies at the heart of the current crisis within the Peace Process.
Michelle Williamson, whose parents died in the Shankill bombing, was launching a legal challenge to Mo Mowlam's decision last month that the IRA ceasefire had been ``breached but not broken''. Williamson's motivation is more personal than political. She hopes that by halting the release of republican prisoners she can stop the release of Sean Kelly, the IRA Volunteer convicted of the bombing in which her parents died. However misguided, she believes she is fighting for ``justice for my mother and father and all innocent victims''.
For his part, Trimble claimed that the case was ``a matter of upholding the Good Friday Agreement,'' but in truth it's another attempt to dismantle the Agreement and stall any movement towards equality and democracy beyond the narrow definition of unionist hegemony. Unionists hope a successful legal challenge to the status of the IRA cessation will block Sinn Féin's participation in the Mitchell Review and any subsequent outcome.
But the ethos of the Good Friday Agreement, endorsed by the vast majority of people north and south, was inclusion, not exclusion. People across the island recognised that inclusion offered the greatest hope for building a better future and were willing to endorse that hope with their vote.
However, the Agreement cannot survive in a vacuum. The only way George Mitchell's review will work is if everyone takes it seriously. This requires a change of attitude by the Ulster Unionists and a willingness on the part of the British government to step in to end the18-month unionist filibuster. If the unionists believe that their sabotaging of the Agreement will halt the process of fundamental change that the peace process has put in gear or stymie the expectations of people throughout Ireland, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.
Michelle Williamson, whose parents died in the Shankill bombing, was launching a legal challenge to Mo Mowlam's decision last month that the IRA ceasefire had been ``breached but not broken''. Williamson's motivation is more personal than political. She hopes that by halting the release of republican prisoners she can stop the release of Sean Kelly, the IRA Volunteer convicted of the bombing in which her parents died. However misguided, she believes she is fighting for ``justice for my mother and father and all innocent victims''.
For his part, Trimble claimed that the case was ``a matter of upholding the Good Friday Agreement,'' but in truth it's another attempt to dismantle the Agreement and stall any movement towards equality and democracy beyond the narrow definition of unionist hegemony. Unionists hope a successful legal challenge to the status of the IRA cessation will block Sinn Féin's participation in the Mitchell Review and any subsequent outcome.
But the ethos of the Good Friday Agreement, endorsed by the vast majority of people north and south, was inclusion, not exclusion. People across the island recognised that inclusion offered the greatest hope for building a better future and were willing to endorse that hope with their vote.
However, the Agreement cannot survive in a vacuum. The only way George Mitchell's review will work is if everyone takes it seriously. This requires a change of attitude by the Ulster Unionists and a willingness on the part of the British government to step in to end the18-month unionist filibuster. If the unionists believe that their sabotaging of the Agreement will halt the process of fundamental change that the peace process has put in gear or stymie the expectations of people throughout Ireland, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.