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12 April 2001 Edition

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April showers bring forth IRA flowers

BY MICHAEL PIERSE

Oh boy, oh boy. Some times you just have to pinch yourself when confronted by the surreal world of unionism. If it wasn't so sickening it would be comical.

Ian Paisley Junior reconvening the Assembly over the display of two bunches of lilies, the UUP's Billy Armstrong giving a horticultural lecture on the flowers threat to household pets, and the PUP's David Ervine supporting the republican display, while qualifying his support with the regret that he didn't kill more of us. It seemed like April Fools Day had been postponed for a week.

According to Armstrong, who spoke in favour of the DUP motion to banish Easter lilies from the Assembly chambers, the flower poses a health risk to househould pets that eat it - leaving them depressed or even resulting in death.

While David Ervine evaded the veterinary argument, his comments were shocking, to say the least. Seeming conciliatory, Irvine supported the right of republicans to have the lilies - a commemorative symbol of those who died for Irish freedom during the Easter Rising of 1916 and since - displayed in Stormont chambers. He recognised, he said, the significance the lily had for the relatives and dependants of dead republicans.

Then came the poison ivy. I as a unionist, he blurted, have no desire to venerate or appreciate the republican dead other than I or my colleagues may have liked to have added to the ranks of the dead.

As members of the Democratic Unionist Party slid about the Armagh desert with rolled-up DUP manifestos determined to destroy the Republican Movement, there were those of us who tried to do exactly that. I am sorry to say not with as much success as I would like to report.

Ervine's comments may have arisen from more than just a reckless tendency towards verbal thuggery. His antics may have had more to do with looking over his shoulder at the UDA than anything else, as loyalists battle for the high ground.

But despite the severity of comments from both unionist detractors and supporters of the DUP motion, Sinn Fein came up smelling of roses or lilies. Party representative Dara Õ'Hagan explained that the lily is a cherished republican symbol and, while unionists may not cherish it, they can at least tolerate its presence. I dont expect unionists to agree with that, but what I do expect is that they allow me to choose the symbol that I want to represent me. Do not tell me which symbol should represent me.

The DUP motion was defeated on the basis that it failed to achieve cross-community support - with all members of the SDLP and Sinn Fein voting against it. Again, if the dynamics of unionist politics werenÕt so sickening they might actually seem comical.

As republicans face into the third Easter following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, there is little comedy to be found in the political stagnancy that now characterises the peace process.

We have no movement on the policing issue, with the recent announcement, by the British government, that they intend on introducing an even more lethal plastic bullet into the RUC arsenal confirming their lack of sensitivity or even concern regarding this issue.

Demilitarisation as a concept, never mind an actual, physical process, has been disregarded by the same government. Commitments made last May by Tony Blair to deliver a plan of action on demilitarisation and policing have been comprehensively dropped.

And, not to break a time-honoured tradition, Blair and his Secretaries of State, Peter Mandelson and now, John Reid, have consistently defended the unionist veto - barring Sinn Fein ministers from official North-South ministerial meetings.

With the Westminster election looming, republicans are already working full out to increase their representation and put further pressure on the British. Here's to following the great Stormont Easter Lily coup with the garlands of victory.

An Phoblacht
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