Northern Ireland

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16 March 2006
Northern Ireland Peace Process Is at "Impasse," Says U.S. Official

By Jeffrey Thomas
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- A basic lack of trust between the two largest political parties in Northern Ireland has brought the peace process to an impasse, a U.S. official said at a congressional hearing March 15.

However, Ambassador Mitchell B. Reiss, the special envoy of the president and the secretary of state for the Northern Ireland peace process, also told a House subcommittee that there had been considerable progress over the past 18 months and that “hopefully, it is an impasse that will be short-lived.”

Reiss said that in July 2005 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced it would foreswear violence, and in the fall it decommissioned a substantial portion of its weapons arsenal. The IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and its leader Gerry Adams “deserve enormous credit for moving the republican movement in this direction,” said Reiss.

These moves by the IRA -- which has been designated by the U.S. Department of State as a foreign terrorist organization -- raised hopes that the 1998 Good Friday Accord would finally be implemented fully. (See related article.)

But two of the principal antagonists in the decades-old intercommunal conflict continue to harbor doubts that have stalled the peace process. Sinn Fein is refusing to support the police in Northern Ireland or to encourage its constituents -- Catholic Republicans -- to join the police service. On the Protestant side, the largest party, Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), “refuses to enter into local government with Sinn Fein, or even to talk with them at an official level,” said Reiss.

The Good Friday Accord was a major step in the Northern Ireland peace process. It calls for Protestants to share political power with the minority Catholics, establishing an elected Northern Ireland Assembly and other institutions, and gives the Republic of Ireland a voice in Northern Irish affairs. In turn, Catholics are to suspend their goal of a united Ireland unless the largely Protestant North votes in favor of such an arrangement. The agreement also contains provisions on disarmament, policing reform, human rights, prisoners and demilitarization by British armed forces.

“ENCOURAGING SIGNS, BUT ALSO DISTURBING ONES”

The week of March 5, Reiss said, the Independent Monitoring Group reported that it “believes the IRA has taken a strategic decision to follow a political path and does not present a terrorist threat.” But it also stated that the IRA was “still engaged in criminal activities and may not have decommissioned all of its weapons.”

Congressman Chris Smith, chairman of the House International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations, said in opening the hearing that the establishment of peace, justice and prosperity in Northern Ireland is yet to become a reality. “There are many encouraging signs, but also disturbing ones, and we are still not there yet,” he said.

Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, expressed concern at “the alienation of the Unionist community.”

“The large majority of decent people on the Unionist side,” he said, “are skeptical of IRA promises. They are also terrorized by their own paramilitaries. Those paramilitaries need to follow the IRA example, and disarm, and cease their criminal activities.”

Smith and other witnesses also expressed concern about the more than 3,000 unsolved murders between 1969 and the signing of the Good Friday Accord on April 10, 1998.

Smith said the British government has yet to fulfill its pledge to appoint an inquiry commission into the murder of human-rights attorney Patrick Finucane, who was killed in his home, in front of his wife and three small children, in 1989.

The Finucane murder is one of several “in which there are serious allegations of collusion by British agents,” said another witness, Archana Pyati of Human Rights First, an independent human rights advocacy group.

Pyati urged the committee to persuade the British government to initiate an independent and public inquiry into the Finucane murder. Such inquiries, she said, are “a pre-requisite to breaking the cycle of impunity that persists in Northern Ireland.”

U.S. ROLE THAT OF “HONEST BROKER”

Reiss said the Bush administration sees its role in the peace process as that of “confidential adviser and traditional ‘honest broker.’”

“While the political process is currently stalled,” Reiss said, “the peace … is going well.” As encouraging signs, he cited Northern Ireland’s growing economy, low unemployment, growing support for integrated education and increasing public support for policing in Unionist, nationalist, loyalist and Republican communities.

“Now is not the time to be complacent,” Reiss said, assuring the committee the Bush administration will continue to work hard to assist the British and Irish governments and the people of Northern Ireland “to realize the full promise of the Good Friday Agreement.”

Also testifying at the hearing were Jane Winter of British Irish Rights Watch; Maggie Beirne of the Committee on the Administration of Justice; and professor Sir Desmond Rea and Denis Bradley of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

The full texts of the witnesses’ statements are available on the committee’s Web site.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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