Britain, Ireland Agree on Ulster Peace Document

Britain and Ireland agreed here Wednesday on a historic declaration designed to bring peace to Northern Ireland after 25 years of violence in the troubled province.

Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds, standing near a Christmas tree outside No. 10 Downing St., Major’s official residence, announced that they are prepared to bring the rebel Irish Republican Army to the peace table if the group ends its violence.

“Our message is clear and it is simple,” said Major, standing in the bitter cold. “There is no future in violence. There is a fair and democratic future for all those who want to enter the political process.

“We believe that it is now up to those who used or supported violence to take that opportunity. The door is open to them. They won’t have a better opportunity, and they don’t have a better option.”

Major, who also spoke to the House of Commons and to the nation in a televised address late Wednesday to explain the details of the Anglo-Irish declaration, said preliminary talks with supporters of the IRA could begin within three months of a permanent cease-fire.

More than 3,100 people have been killed in sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, also known as Ulster, and 219 more in Britain since “the troubles” began in 1968, mainly between Roman Catholics and Protestants, with the British army vainly trying to keep order.

“This is a historic opportunity for peace,” Reynolds said. “. . . Our central message is that both communities can fulfill their ideals and aspirations through the democratic system, that there is absolutely no need for violence which only deepens divisions between the communities.”

Although the document offers no immediate solutions, it was issued in the hope that it will promote an early end to the violence and improve the negotiating climate between pro-British Protestants and Irish-nationalist Catholics in Northern Ireland.

The declaration essentially says that Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority may stay in the United Kingdom as long as it wants, while inviting the IRA to lay down its weapons and participate in the democratic process to pursue its goal of a united Ireland.

But the agreement also meets some IRA demands by stating that Britain has no long-term strategic interest in Northern Ireland and will not oppose union with Ireland if the majority wants it. “The British government agrees that it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone,” the declaration says, “by agreement between the two parts respectively, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, north and south, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish.”

The document indicates that the Irish government is willing to amend its constitutional claim to the territory of Northern Ireland as part of an overall political settlement. And it avers that the Republic of Ireland, in the event of a settlement, would change its constitution to take in Protestant “consent” in Northern Ireland, a reference to the divisive issues of divorce and abortion.

The agreement was the result of weeks of talks, public and private, among officials in London, Dublin and Belfast, including meetings between British intelligence and the IRA. Also involved in their own talks were Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing, and John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party, the main Catholic party in Northern Ireland.

The final version was hammered out after long discussions between British and Irish officials about its precise wording. The language was calculated not to upset Northern Ireland Protestants while at the same time satisfying the Irish government’s desire to hold talks among all the parties on the future of Ulster.

But the seven-page declaration is also notable for what it does not contain: There is no change to the constitutional status of Ulster, no weakening of United Kingdom sovereignty over Northern Ireland unless the people there desire it, no talk of power-sharing and no timetable for attainment of a united Ireland, or even recognition that this might be desirable.

Most parliamentarians--including Labor opposition leader John Smith--welcomed the declaration.

But many Ulster MPs expressed reservations. The Rev. Ian Paisley, a fierce Unionist, denounced the declaration as “treachery” and accused Major of dealing with the IRA. “You have sold Ulster to buy off the fiendish Republican scum,” Paisley said. “You have consulted Dublin, but you have not consulted the people of Ulster.”

Some anti-Major members of the Conservative Party complained that the British government was leaning too far in favor of Dublin, which ultimately wants to see all 32 counties of Ireland united under Republican rule.

And in Ulster, Sinn Fein Chairman Mitchel McLaughlin declared, “The general reaction among many nationalists is one of disappointment.”

But the Archbishop of Westminister, Cardinal Basil Hume, head of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain, said the agreement is “balanced,” adding, “I fervently hope and pray that the subsequent talks envisaged in the declaration will lead to a satisfactory settlement for all communities.”

David Trimble, a leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, said he was heartened that Britain had not promised to nudge the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland toward Irish union.

But he complained that Reynolds had not made concessions on repealing articles in the Irish constitution that claim Northern Ireland as part of the Irish Republic.

Despite the intense labor that went into the document, diplomats here said the declaration was the “easy bit” and that a long, grueling effort lies ahead to persuade extremists on both sides to abandon violence and come to the negotiating table.

And it was too soon Wednesday to determine whether the IRA and the Protestant paramilitary groups in Ulster will decide to renounce their violent activities.

But Reynolds urged them: “We cannot have winners and losers if we want lasting peace. It is fair to all and threatens nobody. It represents an opportunity to everybody.”

Political observers said extremist reaction might be indicated soon by whether the IRA launches another pre-Christmas bombing campaign, as it did in London last year.

President Clinton welcomed the agreement Wednesday, saying the United States would “contribute in any appropriate way” to its implementation. The pact “creates an historic opportunity to end the tragic cycle of bloodshed,” he said.