2 N. Ireland Leaders Share Nobel Peace Prize

The leaders of Northern Ireland’s main Roman Catholic and Protestant political parties, John Hume and David Trimble, won the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for the hard work and risks they have undertaken to end 30 years of sectarian violence in the British-ruled province.

In honoring a peacemaker from each of the embattled communities, the Norwegian Nobel Committee clearly intended to bolster this year’s Good Friday peace agreement against its ardent opponents and doubters.

Conspicuously absent from the Nobel Prize-winning team, however, was Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army’s political wing, without whom there would be no possibility of peace--but whose inclusion would have been contentious.

The citation also did not mention other key players, such as former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell of Maine, who mediated months of negotiations between parties who weren’t speaking to each other.

The five-member Nobel Prize committee noted the “positive contributions” others had made to the Northern Ireland peace process but said it considered Hume and Trimble to be the main architects of the agreement that recognizes British rule in Northern Ireland while establishing closer ties between the province and the Irish Republic.

“The committee has reached the conclusion that the two laureates are the two most worthy candidates,” said Francis Sejersted, head of the prize committee.

Hume, 61, the Catholic leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party, has been at the forefront of Northern Ireland politics since the 1960s human rights movement. His advocacy of nonviolence fell on deaf ears for many years before the deal between pro-British Protestants and Catholic nationalists was struck.

“John Hume has throughout been the clearest and most consistent of Northern Ireland’s political leaders in his work for a peaceful solution,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated.

Trimble, 54, once considered a Protestant hard-liner, has led the Ulster Unionist Party into the power-sharing agreement with unexpected determination, facing down dissidents from his own side to try to end a conflict that has taken more than 3,500 lives.

“As the leader of the traditionally predominant party in Northern Ireland, David Trimble showed great political courage when, at a critical state in the process, he advocated solutions which led to the peace agreement,” the Nobel citation said.

Winners Showed How to Bridge Gap

Hume and Trimble came to symbolize the possibility of cross-community cooperation during the run-up to a referendum on the peace agreement in May. They appeared on stage together dressed in their shirt sleeves and arms locked with the Irish rock singer Bono, who hailed their “leap of faith out of the past and into the future.”

At an impromptu morning news conference in his hometown of Londonderry after learning of the award, Hume acknowledged the governments and the politicians who crafted the peace agreement and the people of Northern Ireland who overwhelmingly endorsed it in a May referendum.

“I am deeply honored to have received this award today, but I see it not as an award for myself but as a very powerful international approval of the peace process in Northern Ireland,” Hume said. “I think that today’s announcement from the Nobel committee strengthens our peace process enormously because it tells all the people what the world wants to see on our streets.”

Trimble, who was in Denver promoting investment in Northern Ireland, welcomed his award but expressed caution about the evolving peace process.

“We know that while we have got the makings of a peace, it is not wholly secure yet. I hope it does not turn out to be premature,” he told the BBC.

In Washington, President Clinton praised Hume as a leader “committed to achieving peace through negotiation, not confrontation and violence,” and called Trimble a man “who took up the challenge of peace with rare courage.”

Perhaps more than any other foreign policy issue, Clinton became personally involved in an early stage of the Northern Ireland peace process. He became the first U.S. president to reach out to the province’s Protestant leaders, a move potentially unpopular with America’s large and influential Irish Catholic community. And he risked undermining relations with Britain by ordering a controversial visa for Adams to visit the United States, then receiving Adams at the White House.

Many people had thought that if a Northern Ireland prize were shared, it would be a three-way split including Adams, who has come to reject the use of violence for bringing about the Catholic nationalists’ goal of a united Ireland. Unlike Hume, Adams represents the Catholic men and women with the guns.

But the committee apparently wanted to avoid the controversy it stirred in 1994 when it awarded the Peace Prize to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for their peace agreement.

At the time, one of the five members of the Nobel committee resigned in protest over granting the prize to Arafat, whose organization had used terrorism against Israel for decades. And Benjamin Netanyahu--then leader of the Israeli opposition and now prime minister--condemned the award as shameful.

Adams would have been an equally contentious choice for many Northern Ireland Protestants, although the Sinn Fein leader has never admitted belonging to the IRA. It would have been potentially embarrassing for Trimble to accept the Nobel alongside Adams, whose hand he has refused to shake until, he says, the IRA gets rid of its weapons.

‘Big Prize Is . . . the Settlement’

Speaking from New York, Adams congratulated both Hume and Trimble and said he was “delighted that the Peace Prize has come to Ireland.” He said he hopes it will accelerate implementation of the accord.

“The big prize is the peace settlement, and that’s the prize for us all to keep our eye on,” Adams said. “The Nobel Prize is only important insofar as it aids the prayers for that bigger prize.”

But supporters in Adams’ West Belfast constituency were upset that their leader had not shared in the glory after taking the risk of peacemaking against the wishes of some intransigent IRA members.

“If they were going to give it to Trimble, they should have given it to Adams as well,” said Veronica Burns, an Adams voter from the Andersonstown area of Belfast. “Gerry Adams put his life on the line by doing what he did.”

Accolades for Hume and Trimble poured in from the prime ministers of Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern--both backers of the peace deal--and other world leaders.

Hume, a rumpled and self-effacing character who once thought he might enter the priesthood, has been a tireless campaigner for Catholic civil rights in the style of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom he frequently quotes. During the last decade, Hume has coaxed and cajoled Sinn Fein’s Adams away from violence into open politics and the peace process, frequently coming under attack from Protestants and members of his own party.

He has long argued that the democratic principle of consent must be the foundation of any settlement in Northern Ireland. He said a deal had to be supported by the British and Irish governments and ratified by referendums in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. It was.

The agreement says that Northern Ireland will remain part of Britain unless a majority of the people decide otherwise. Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority is pro-British.

Meanwhile, it established a local government of Protestants and Catholics, the Northern Ireland Assembly, whose members were elected in June. Trimble, whose party garnered the most votes, has been named acting first minister, and he is to name a Cabinet from the elected body.

Based on the proportional vote, Sinn Fein is due to get two seats in the 12-member Cabinet, but Trimble is under pressure from his own right flank to deny Sinn Fein the seats unless the IRA begins to decommission its weapons. Sinn Fein’s position is that the peace accord calls on them to work for disarmament but allows them to take their seats regardless.

The Rev. Ian Paisley, head of the Democratic Unionist Party and a seething critic of the peace accord, raised the arms issue Friday in denouncing the Nobel committee’s decision.

“I think it’s a bit of a farce because we don’t have peace,” Paisley said. “They still have their weapons.”

Paisley’s view was echoed by members of Trimble’s own party who fear that the peace agreement eventually will deliver Northern Ireland into the hands of the Irish Republic because the Catholic population is growing more quickly than the Protestant populace.

Trimble, a member of the Protestant Orange Order fraternal group who has marched alongside Paisley in the past, was elected head of the Ulster Unionists in 1995 to defend the pro-British interests. Many of his aides and allies have abandoned him as he signed on to a deal that did not require immediate IRA disarmament. However, Trimble’s greatest strength probably comes from the vast majority in Northern Ireland who have said time and again that they want peace.

The Nobel committee has sought to encourage peace in Northern Ireland before, giving the 1976 award to Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, founders of the Peace People group, which later fizzled.

The committee’s efforts to bolster the Middle East peace process also had marginal impact. Rabin was assassinated for his peacemaking, Peres lost the election to succeed him, and Arafat is still trying to negotiate with Netanyahu.

Martina Purdy in Belfast and Times staff writer Tyler Marshall in Washington contributed to this report.