NI POLITICS: Let's move on from failure
An analysis of the Joint Declaration
This analysis of the proposals linked to the Joint Declaration issued by the British and Irish governments, is based on that made to members of the Ulster Unionist Council by Jeffrey Donaldson, MP, and others.
What this is all about
The British Government together with the Irish Government has published a set of proposals linked to a Joint Declaration which the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have both described as representing ‘a shared understanding between the Governments and the pro-Agreement parties of how we can proceed to the full and final implementation of the Good Friday Agreement’. During a recent visit to Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic’s Foreign Minister, Brian Cowen, made it clear that the British and Irish Governments intend to proceed with implementation of various aspects of the Joint Declaration immediately and without waiting for the IRA to move. In spite of this and since the publication of these proposals, the Ulster Unionist Party’s response has lacked crucial clarity. Our credibility has been further undermined by the debacle over the future of the Royal Irish Regiment Home Service Battalions, with confusion about so-called “private assurances” given to the UUP negotiators by a civil servant. It is essential that the Party gives a clear and unequivocal response to these proposals. If our response lacks clarity, if we fudge the issues, then the Government will proceed with implementation virtually unchallenged. We have sought clarity from others, and now we must act with the same clarity on issues that, taken together, are as important as the Belfast Agreement itself. My conclusion, along with that of many other Unionists, including our previous leader, Lord Molyneaux, is that there is little in these proposals to benefit Unionism — and that is why they should be unequivocally rejected by Ulster’s Unionist party. This critique enlarges upon that opinion.
PARAMILITARY TERRORISM:
In the unanimous resolution passed by the Ulster Unionist Council on 21 September 2002, the Party reaffirmed it’s commitment that ‘we will not sit in government with unreconstructed terrorists’. Since then we have witnessed the revelation of IRA terrorist activity right at the heart of our Government in what has now become known as ‘Stormontgate’. As a result, we no longer have an Assembly and the elections have been cancelled. The IRA has been given an effective veto over devolution and the holding of Assembly elections in Northern Ireland in spite of their failure to commit to exclusively peaceful and democratic means. In over thirty years of terrorist violence we never once had elections cancelled because of the threat posed by a paramilitary organisation. Now when we are supposed to be in a peaceful environment, the Assembly elections have been cancelled precisely for this reason. Of course, we are told that this is progress and that the IRA is ‘on a hook’!
In our unanimous resolution last September, the Party pledged to ‘demand the total disarmament and disbandment of all terrorist groups including the IRA’. The question is will the Joint Declaration deliver these objectives? Whilst the document talks about all paramilitary groups actively engaging with the Decommissioning body to put arms ‘beyond use’ and describes this process as ‘an indispensable part of implementing the Agreement’, there is no timetable established for decommissioning, never mind complete disarmament and so it is left as an open ended process with periodic gestures by some of the paramilitary groups to buy more concessions as and when it suits them. Contrast this with the clear timetable for the dismantling of the security infrastructure and the amount of detail provided by the Government in terms of how it will occur. Equally, the document makes no mention whatsoever of paramilitary disbandment and talks in general terms about a ‘full and permanent cessation of all paramilitary activity’. This is couched in aspirational language similar to the Prime Minister’s speech at Balmoral during the Referendum on the Belfast Agreement. Such sentiments are laudable but lack credibility without clear benchmarks and timetables to measure progress towards total disarmament and disbandment of the paramilitary terrorist groups. The Joint Declaration lacks the clarity and certainty that we have been looking for on these crucial issues and does not therefore provide a basis for achieving our objectives.
SANCTIONS:
In an effort to entice Unionists back into government with Sinn Fein/IRA, there is a proposal in the British/Irish agreement to create an independent body to monitor paramilitary activity as well as the operation of the political institutions [see section below]. The monitoring body will include a representative from the Irish Government, one from the American Government and two representatives appointed by the UK Government. This has all the grim hallmarks of a Patten-type commission that will do the bidding of its political masters. Any Unionist who puts their faith in such a body has learned little from the damage done by similar commissions in the past. Ironically, whilst the monitoring body will have the power to recommend sanctions against a political party in the Assembly, there is no mention of sanctions being applied against paramilitary groups themselves. Without such penalties the monitoring body will be regarded by the Paramilitaries as a toothless tiger.
In any event, the process by which the sanctions are considered is so protracted that the prospect of meaningful sanctions being imposed is remote. The process still requires a cross-community vote in the Assembly and the chances of the SDLP ever voting to apply sanctions against SF/IRA are negligible. In such a situation we are told that it would be a matter for the British Government, in consultation with the Irish Government and the parties, to resolve the matter ‘in a manner consistent with the report of the independent monitoring body’. Can Unionists have any real confidence that a process like this, with such a key role for the Irish Government, will ever result in meaningful sanctions?
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS:
During the recent period of devolution the Government has made use of their power to suspend the political institutions on a number of occasions in order to prevent them from crashing each time there has been a crisis brought on by the failures of Republicans. In the Joint Declaration the Government has given a commitment to concede to a key demand by SF/IRA and to repeal this power. In addition the ‘two Governments’ state that the institutions, including the North/South Ministerial Council, should be protected against ‘arbitrary interruption and interference’. These comments are clearly aimed at preventing a Unionist First Minister from refusing to nominate SF/IRA Ministers for attendance at NSMC meetings as we have done in the past. This will severely restrict our ability to apply leverage against republicans through the political institutions in the future.
However, the most worrying aspect of the proposals regarding the political institutions comes in the form of the role given to the Irish Government in respect of the internal workings of the Northern Ireland Assembly. These proposals are set out in the agreement between the British and Irish Governments. A new independent body is to be established whose remit will include ‘a more general responsibility to consider claims by any party in the Assembly that another Party is fundamentally in breach of requirements in the Declaration of Support or elsewhere in the Agreement’. The Irish Government is to have a representative on this independent body and thus for the first time Dublin will be given a significant role in the internal affairs of the Assembly. They will be involved in adjudicating on and determining the level of sanctions to be applied against any member of the Assembly or any party in the Assembly who are deemed to be in breach of any aspect of the Belfast Agreement. As such, a role for the Irish Government in any aspect of the Assembly represents a fundamental breach of a key Unionist principle. During the talks leading up to the Belfast Agreement it was an absolute bottom line for the UUP negotiating team that this would not happen. Indeed, Sir Reg Empey as chief negotiator in Strand One made it clear time and time again that there must be an ‘hermetic seal’ between the Assembly and the Irish Government. As a result of the proposals in the Joint Declaration the ‘hermetic seal’ will be well and truly broken and Dublin will become arbitrators in determining the outcome of disputes within the Assembly. Unionists opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement because it permitted Dublin interference without our consent. If Unionists accept these proposals we will be supporting far worse Dublin interference, but this time with our consent.
SECURITY NORMALISATION:
We all want to see a normal, peaceful society in Northern Ireland. One where the Police can concentrate on dealing with the growing levels of crime and delivering effective community policing, and the Army can focus on providing civil and national defence. Given that a number of the paramilitary terrorist groups continue to pose a major security threat, it is unlikely that this scenario will prevail for the foreseeable future. Yet, what confidence can we have that it will be security considerations that will determine the policing and military profile in Northern Ireland rather than political expediency?
The Joint Declaration’s proposals to close all military bases in Counties Armagh and Fermanagh and have just one base in County Tyrone would leave the border counties in the south and west extremely vulnerable. Recently, the premature dismantling of the two watch towers in South Armagh provided a clear example of this political expediency overriding the security needs of the local community. A recent study of four Protestant communities along the border in Counties Fermanagh, Tyrone, Armagh and at Newry by the Rural Community Network found that many live in fear and the young in particular see no future for them in their home area. The proposals in the Joint Declaration will leave Protestant communities in these areas feeling even more isolated and result in a further exodus and decline in the Protestant population, a key objective in SF/IRA’s “greening of the west”.
We have seen it too with Policing and the continual drip, drip of concessions to nationalist/republican demands resulting in the operational capacity of the PSNI being continually undermined as regards capacities like Special Branch. Now the target for both SF/IRA and the SDLP is the Royal Irish Regiment. While we might well receive assurances from the MoD or the Prime Minister about the deployment of the RIR, will they be additional to the 5,000 strong “permanent garrison” outlined in the Joint Declaration? In any event, is it wise to rely on a pledge given by the Prime Minister when he has broken so many of his pledges in the past five years?
Surely, we need a written guarantee incorporated into an agreement on the way forward that will have some standing, should the Government oblige the army to renege on their commitments? That must mean negotiating a better way forward than the Joint Declaration so that we can secure these guarantees. We owe it to the men and women of the Royal Irish Regiment to achieve nothing less.
POLICING AND JUSTICE:
The Governments’ manner of dealing with the issue of ‘on the run’ terrorists is undoubtedly the most offensive aspect of the Joint Declaration package. That they are clearly linked to the Joint Declaration is evident from the very first sentence in the proposals which states that the context is ‘the acts of completion’ as outlined in the declaration. While the Government seeks to cloak their proposals with a veneer of quasi-judicial process, it is an amnesty by any other name — or as one senior lawyer described it, an ‘amnesty with a judicial face’. The Government proposes that terrorists who are on the run from justice will be able to submit their names to an “Eligibility Body” who will decide if they meet the criteria, i.e. that the organisation to which they belong is on ceasefire and they personally have not been convicted of a serious offence committed after 10th April 1998. Once a terrorist has been declared eligible they are permitted to return to Northern Ireland without risk of arrest for questioning or charge in relation to a ‘qualifying’ offence. Their case will then be considered by a Special Judicial Tribunal and the terrorist will not be required to attend in person. The tribunal will have no power to remand the terrorist in custody. The terrorist can plead not guilty to any offence with which he has been charged and if found guilty, he will immediately qualify for the early release scheme and will not serve a single day in prison for any terrorist act he has committed.
These proposals represent a calculated insult to the innocent victims of terrorism. They will undermine the rule of law in Northern Ireland still further and damage the credibility of the judicial process. When any government attempts to meddle for its own purposes with the judicial process, the rule of law in a democracy is at its greatest risk. Granting such special treatment to ‘on the run’ terrorists is both immoral and unjust. Some Unionists argue that these proposals can be opposed in parliament whilst proceeding with other aspects of the Joint Declaration. Such a proposition is hardly realistic and the issues at stake here are so important that they surely demand a more principled response than that. The best way to prevent such a travesty of justice is for Unionists to reject the entire package linked to the Joint Declaration.
RIGHTS, EQUALITY, IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY:
The Joint Declaration contains a raft of proposals on ‘rights, equality, identity and community’, most of which are further concessions to the SF/IRA wish list. The Government has given a commitment to introduce further legislation on ‘human rights’ following the consultation process being conducted by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) and Ulster Unionists have grave concerns about some of the proposals that have emerged from the NIHRC. The British and Irish Governments have also welcomed the establishment of a Joint Committee between the Human Rights Commissions on both sides of the border which is considering an all-Ireland Charter of Rights. This links in to a key nationalist/republican demand for the establishment of all-Ireland policing and judicial systems. Unionists must oppose such propositions in the strongest possible terms. The British Government has given a commitment in the Joint Declaration to establish a fund for Irish-language film and television production, and to take steps to increase the availability of the Irish Language TV Channel TG4. In contrast the Government merely commits to ‘take steps to encourage support to be made available for an Ulster-Scots academy’, and with the Ulster Scots Agency approaching crisis point because of a cut in their budget, it is yet another case of second class treatment for Unionist culture and identity! Furthermore, and ominously, the Government is proposing to take further steps to address the use of symbols and emblems for public purposes and this can only mean one thing — the continued erosion of our British identity and way of life. Finally, in this section the Government says that they will consider the outcome of the consultations on the Quigley Report on Parades but they give no commitment to implement any changes to the Parades Commission. It is clear that these proposals are heavily weighted in favour of nationalist/republicans and offer little to address Unionist concerns on such important issues.
THE WAY FORWARD:
The ‘two Governments’ have given a commitment to a review this autumn of the operation of the Agreement. This provides an ideal opportunity for Unionists to take these issues back to the negotiating table and to secure the commitments that we need to ensure that there is final closure on the conflict in Northern Ireland. That is what the people that we represent now require and if there is to be any prospect of rebuilding Unionist confidence in this process then we need something much more radical from the IRA than the anaemic proposals envisaged in the Joint Declaration. For all of the reasons outlined above, the proposals linked to the Joint Declaration are dangerous for Unionism and do not offer the prospect of a real and lasting peace and long term political stability. In fact, they are a recipe for continuing instability and strife and must be rejected.
Realistically, we will only have one more chance to restore devolution within the foreseeable future and if we fail to get it right then the credibility of the process will collapse and we are looking at a prolonged period of direct rule. Consequently, we cannot afford to get it wrong. Unionists can offer long term stability of the political institutions only if we achieve closure on the conflict. This means an end to paramilitarism but it also means an end to the constant demand for lopsided inquiries into the events of the past. We cannot hope to begin the process of healing our community until republicans cease their grotesque obsession with picking open the wound caused by over 30 years of conflict. Putting the police and the army in the dock, whilst the terrorists walk free, is completely unacceptable to all decent law-abiding people.
This process is in deep trouble and has fallen well short of delivering our party’s stated, dual objective of devolution and disarmament. Today we have no Assembly and the decommissioning process has gone nowhere. It is time to change tack and to free ourselves from the encumbrance of the Joint Declaration. Doing so will draw a line over past failures and send a clear signal to our political and paramilitary opponents that we are not going to play second fiddle to Republicans any longer. Unionism has punched below its weight for far too long and we are now living with the consequences of that. Ulster Unionism is indispensable to this process and it is time that we started to exert the leverage that this position gives us. We support an inclusive system of government in Northern Ireland, but if SF/IRA do not or can not deliver on a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means, then sooner or later we must seek to rebuild devolution on a cross-community basis with the other genuinely democratic parties. Ulster Unionism needs to unite to reject the Joint Declaration and to work for a better way forward that brings a real and lasting peace with justice and stable government for all.
Jeffrey Donaldson is the member of parliament for Lagan Valley, and along with David Burnside, MP, and Rev Martin Smyth, MP, resigned the party whip this week in response to the party leadership’s failure to reject unambiguously the Joint Declaration.
Jeffrey Donaldson, June 25, 2003 08:56 PM