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27 May 1999 Edition

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Violence fills vacuum

UUP refuses to honour promises


BY SEAN BRADY

     
The vacuum which the UUP stand has created is being filled by loyalist death squads, who are obviously taking encouragement from the lack of progress. Today's statement is a re-run of the UUP unilateral decommissioning precondition which is no part of the Good Friday Agreement.
This week marked the first anniversary of the referenda which endorsed the Good Friday Agreement by a huge majority of Irish people on both sides of the border. Ninety-five percent in the 26 Counties and 71.2% in the Six Counties voted for political change.

The huge Yes vote in the Six Counties was particularly significant because for the first time since the partition of Ireland, nationalists and unionists there both voted in large numbers for a change to the status quo, and in particular for constitutional change.

The majority of the unionist electorate, who decided that things could no longer be imposed upon their nationalist neighbours, gave their political leaders the cue to build a new political future in partnership with nationalist representatives.

For a year now, the Ulster Unionist Party has refused to deliver on its mandate and has made itself a prisoner of those anti-Agreement forces who were rejected by the people in referenda and in elections to the Assembly.

On Tuesday, the UUP Assembly party said it reviewed the current political situation and released a statement which indicated no movement in their position.

On 14 May, UUP leader David Trimble joined with the Irish and British governments, the SDLP and Sinn Féin in agreeing a process by which progress would be made on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. The party leaders agreed to go back to their respective parties and this was kept private at Trimble's insistence. It was, however, crystal clear at the conclusion of the discussions that this proposal was an agreed and final text and that it was complete and sufficient in terms of its clarity and substance.

The new Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle met the following day and despite its reservations, gave approval to the Downing Street proposition. David Trimble subsequently denied any agreement and the Ulster Unionist Party refused to stand by the process agreed in Downing Street.

Despite this situation, throughout the following week Sinn Féin leaders maintained a dialogue with everyone concerned, including the Ulster Unionist Party, aimed at a getting the progress which was mapped out at Downing Street.

Sinn Féin Assembly member Alex Maskey revealed this week that at the weekend David Trimble told Gerry Adams that in his absence, Reg Empey would meet with him and continue the dialogue between both parties. In the three days since, Empey has refused not only to meet Gerry Adams but to even speak on the phone.

In its statement on Tuesday, the UUP Assembly Party said that ``Members deplored the continuing faulire of Sinn Féin/IRA to honour their obligations under the Good Friday Agreement to commence a credible process of decommissioning''. It went on to say that ``An executive that includes Sinn Féin members without decommissioning will be inherently unstable and unworkable.''

Reacting to the statement from the Ulster Unionists after their review of the political sitiation Alex Maskey said: ``Today's talk of obligation from the UUP lacks any credibility. The UUP has blocked progress since the Good Friday Agreement was reached, especially in the establishment of the institutions.

``The vacuum which the UUP stand has created is being filled by loyalist death squads, who are obviously taking encouragement from the lack of progress. Today's statement is a re-run of the UUP unilateral decommissioning precondition which is no part of the Good Friday Agreement.

``One year on from the May referendum, the UUP refuses to honour the promises it made and the mandate it received to implement the Agreement when it fought that campaign.''

The political vacuum is increasingly being filled by loyalist violence and the perpetrators include those supposedly on ceasefire, particularly the UDA. The finger of suspicion has been pointed at the UDA for the attempted mass murder on Belfast's Falls Road on 20 May, when a grenade was thrown at a packed bar, and for a shooting in Snugville Street off the Shankill Road on Friday night, when loyalists attempted to murder a Catholic community worker who had given a lift to a local girl. There has now been, on average, a gun or bomb attack against nationalists every four days since Christmas.

 

London hears of Agreement crisis



BY FERN LANE

The newly-formed British-based group, The Friends of Ireland, held its first major event on Wednesday 19 May in the grandeur of the Palace of Westminster's Committee Room 10, an invitation-only gathering to discuss the current state of the peace process.

It was, perhaps, symbolic of a more general malaise at Westminster when it comes to matters Irish that whilst the rest of the room was crowded to capacity, most of the seats reserved for British Members of Parliament remained empty until the meeting chair, John McDonnell MP, invited the public to make use of them.

Representatives from all of the parties to the Good Friday Agreement, with the exception of the Ulster Unionists, were present, John Taylor having been called to an emergency meeting of his party. This absence, however, only served to highlight further the UUP's isolation amongst the pro-Agreement

parties in its insistence on prior decommissioning. Also notable was the lack of rancour and personal insult which characterises much of the debate when unionists of any shade take part in political discussions.

Various speakers indulged themselves in long and complicated metaphors to describe the peace process, including assorted vehicles, architecture and football, but the essential view amongst those present - Sinn Féin's Martin Ferris and representatives of the SDLP, the Alliance Party, the PUP and the Women's Coalition - was that decommissioning could not legitimately be used as an obstacle to the setting up of institutions.

The PUP's David Ervine, amidst veiled threats about ``collapsing democracy to defend democracy'' should things go further than he and his decree is acceptable, nevertheless summed it up rather nicely when he said:

``The Good Friday Agreement does not include decommissioning; not in spirit, not in letter, not in any way. I'll take on the world's top legal experts to argue that.''

Gerry Adams, who together with Martin McGuinness came to the meeting directly from another seemingly unproductive session in Downing Street, pointed out the absolute necessity for the British government itself to push forward with the fundamental changes required by the Good Friday Agreement, saying:

``If Unionism - because its genuinely afraid, or malicious or uncertain, or for whatever reason - is unable to move, then the government has to be the engine. I'm not saying that the government should deliver unionism because, after all, the unionists are the same as us; they don't like be ordered about, especially by an English government. So it isn't possible to just deliver them, but you have to put down a very clear message.

``There's no point in all of us saying `this is the way forward' - the government has to insist that it is going to move in this direction. Unless there is a volume of opinion of this island which wants to see the type of changes which are required on our island, then it [the Agreement] is going to fall somewhere in the middle.''


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