28 August 1997 Edition
Unionist fright as stage is set
BY MICHEAL MacDONNCHA
The unionist parties are currently undergoing an agonising process of trying to come to terms with the fact that the world is looking to them to sit down at the table with Sinn Féin on 15 September and make real peace negotiations possible.
We are told that the Ulster Unionist Party has been carrying out a consultation process with wide sectors of society in the Six Counties including business and the churches. Spokespersons for that party have been ice cold about the prospect of joining in negotiations with Sinn Féin. At the same time they have been careful not to rule it out completely.
The DUP has placed itself firmly outside the process, pledging no contact with Sinn Féin at all. It is hoping to make political capital out of its cries of `treachery' against the UUP. This is the posture Paisley likes best, the foundation on which he built his political career. But even for him the path ahead is not clear. It is one thing to stand apart from your opponents. It is quite another to be left behind as history marches on.
The loyalist parties too are in a quandary. On Sunday the first open signs of dissension within the PUP appeared with Billy Hutchinson saying that the party should withdraw from the talks and that there was nothing in them that the PUP could recommend to the UVF (the paramilitary group to which they are linked). Hutchinson said he believed his party should no longer advise the UVF to maintain its ceasefire. This was not the line given by the other main PUP spokesperson David Ervine. He said there was no change in the policy of the PUP advocating the ceasefire.
In a Sunday Times interview Billy Hutchinson also said he believed the UVF will attempt to wipe out the dissident Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), the creation of loyalist sectarian killer Billy `King Rat' Wright. It would seem to be this bitter division with the LVF which has caused the most serious tremors so far within the PUP. The PUP and UVF are looking over their shoulder at the LVF which they fear will win over all of loyalism's ``hard men''. This would explain Hutchinson's statement. Ervine on the other hand reflects the need for PUP to advance politically. All these contradictions have been thrown up by the talks process.
UUP leader David Trimble has been silent for most of the summer as he mulls over the way ahead. But in an interview with the Sunday Business Post his deputy John Taylor displayed the arrogance and intransigence which makes political movement by the UUP virtually imperceptible. Taylor made some extraordinary statements which provoked little reaction from the usual sources of condemnation of violence or those who are alleged to support it.
Asked why he baulked at sitting down with Sinn Féin yet sat with the loyalist parties Taylor replied: ``They never threatened to shoot me. The IRA would shoot me, the loyalists would not.'' When it was put to him that loyalists had shot some of his constituents Taylor retorted: ``As a unionist they were not a threat to me.''
The message to nationalists was that loyalists shooting them was ok; this presented no threat to unionism. This is not new from Taylor. In September 1993 in a week when four Catholics were killed by loyalist sectarian gangs Taylor said: ``In a perverse way this is something which may be helpful because they [Catholics] are now beginning to appreciate more clearly the fear that has existed within the Protestant community for the past 20 years.'' He refused to apologise or withdraw his remark; in fact he said that it had won support for the UUP.
Last Sunday's interview also exposed the bigotry which is so central to UUP thinking. He refused to accept that ``things in the past were wrong''. Asked if nationalists were entitled to full equality he said: ``That's a load of rubbish. Sinn Féin are 20 years out of date. Of course there must be equal opportunity for everyone, but not equality. You cannot expect the Irish minority in NI to be equal to the majority. They are going to continue to be a minority... They cannot as a minority expect to have an equal role with the majority.''
Clearly the UUP has a long way to go to reach the starting point for real negotiations. The challenge to their leaders is not only to fufil the expectations of their supporters who want peace, but to confront their own attitudes as leaders, attitudes which have fuelled conflict.
The unionist parties are currently undergoing an agonising process of trying to come to terms with the fact that the world is looking to them to sit down at the table with Sinn Féin on 15 September and make real peace negotiations possible.
We are told that the Ulster Unionist Party has been carrying out a consultation process with wide sectors of society in the Six Counties including business and the churches. Spokespersons for that party have been ice cold about the prospect of joining in negotiations with Sinn Féin. At the same time they have been careful not to rule it out completely.
The DUP has placed itself firmly outside the process, pledging no contact with Sinn Féin at all. It is hoping to make political capital out of its cries of `treachery' against the UUP. This is the posture Paisley likes best, the foundation on which he built his political career. But even for him the path ahead is not clear. It is one thing to stand apart from your opponents. It is quite another to be left behind as history marches on.
The loyalist parties too are in a quandary. On Sunday the first open signs of dissension within the PUP appeared with Billy Hutchinson saying that the party should withdraw from the talks and that there was nothing in them that the PUP could recommend to the UVF (the paramilitary group to which they are linked). Hutchinson said he believed his party should no longer advise the UVF to maintain its ceasefire. This was not the line given by the other main PUP spokesperson David Ervine. He said there was no change in the policy of the PUP advocating the ceasefire.
In a Sunday Times interview Billy Hutchinson also said he believed the UVF will attempt to wipe out the dissident Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), the creation of loyalist sectarian killer Billy `King Rat' Wright. It would seem to be this bitter division with the LVF which has caused the most serious tremors so far within the PUP. The PUP and UVF are looking over their shoulder at the LVF which they fear will win over all of loyalism's ``hard men''. This would explain Hutchinson's statement. Ervine on the other hand reflects the need for PUP to advance politically. All these contradictions have been thrown up by the talks process.
UUP leader David Trimble has been silent for most of the summer as he mulls over the way ahead. But in an interview with the Sunday Business Post his deputy John Taylor displayed the arrogance and intransigence which makes political movement by the UUP virtually imperceptible. Taylor made some extraordinary statements which provoked little reaction from the usual sources of condemnation of violence or those who are alleged to support it.
Asked why he baulked at sitting down with Sinn Féin yet sat with the loyalist parties Taylor replied: ``They never threatened to shoot me. The IRA would shoot me, the loyalists would not.'' When it was put to him that loyalists had shot some of his constituents Taylor retorted: ``As a unionist they were not a threat to me.''
The message to nationalists was that loyalists shooting them was ok; this presented no threat to unionism. This is not new from Taylor. In September 1993 in a week when four Catholics were killed by loyalist sectarian gangs Taylor said: ``In a perverse way this is something which may be helpful because they [Catholics] are now beginning to appreciate more clearly the fear that has existed within the Protestant community for the past 20 years.'' He refused to apologise or withdraw his remark; in fact he said that it had won support for the UUP.
Last Sunday's interview also exposed the bigotry which is so central to UUP thinking. He refused to accept that ``things in the past were wrong''. Asked if nationalists were entitled to full equality he said: ``That's a load of rubbish. Sinn Féin are 20 years out of date. Of course there must be equal opportunity for everyone, but not equality. You cannot expect the Irish minority in NI to be equal to the majority. They are going to continue to be a minority... They cannot as a minority expect to have an equal role with the majority.''
Clearly the UUP has a long way to go to reach the starting point for real negotiations. The challenge to their leaders is not only to fufil the expectations of their supporters who want peace, but to confront their own attitudes as leaders, attitudes which have fuelled conflict.