ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE ACADEMY ROUNDTABLE
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE INTERNATIONAL PEACE ACADEMY ROUNDTABLE NEW YORK FRIDAY, 7TH MAY, 1999
Tá áthas an domhain orm bheith anseo libh inniu. Tá ard-mheas agam, le fada an lá, ar shaothar Acadamh dirnáisiúnta na Síochána, agus is mór liom an obair a dhéanann gach duine agaibh ar mhaithe le coimhlintí a réiteach ar fud an domhain.
I have been greatly looking forward to coming here today to participate in what I hope will be a vibrant and informative exchange of views. Through its important work - of which the ‘Roundtable’ is a vital part - the International Peace Academy is making a real contribution to our understanding of the nature of conflict and to our ability to overcome it. This is no small undertaking, and I warmly commend your efforts.
Irish people have long attached considerable importance to the search for peace, justice, human rights and democracy throughout the world. Since the foundation of the State we have sought to play as full a role as possible on the international stage – through organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union; through our participation in peace-keeping operations in many different countries; through our commitment to the developing world where our many well-respected NGOs are carrying out important work, often building on the foundations laid by Irish religious who went before them.
Our approach to such matters is, I believe, shaped and moulded by our own experiences and history. We, too, have long struggled with managing and accommodating difference - different traditions, different cultures, different expectations and politics. Conflict - frequently bitter and often violent - is a tragic part of the legacy of our past in Ireland. The search for its resolution is the greatest task we currently face.
In recent years Ireland has entered a new era of hope. We are enjoying increased economic prosperity, fewer of our people are leaving to seek opportunity elsewhere, we have a vibrant cultural life and a stronger confidence in our abilities. Most importantly, we have the greatest opportunity that we perhaps have ever had to overcome the divisions of the past and to commit ourselves to build a new future together where we can celebrate and embrace difference as the dynamic and creative force that it can be.
The Good Friday Agreement reached in Belfast last year was a major step towards finally putting these divisions behind us. A little over a year ago the Irish and British Governments and Northern Ireland political parties from all backgrounds - unionist, nationalist, republican and loyalist - together reached agreement offering, as its opening paragraph suggests, an ‘historic opportunity for a new beginning’. It was an opportunity that so many people in Ireland had hoped and prayed to see in their lifetime. It was a truly remarkable achievement - undoubtedly a key development in the history of my country.
The Good Friday Agreement came at the end of two years of difficult negotiations during which politicians from all points on the political spectrum sat around the same table together with the two Governments. Committed to finding a way forward beyond the sterile politics of the past, and in some cases dealing for the first time with those they had long considered to be the enemy, they frequently had to challenge not only the preconceptions they held of others, but also their vision of themselves and of what was important to the communities they represented. It was, without doubt, a daunting challenge. Without a willingness to make courageous and historic compromises, they simply could not have reached an Agreement.
It is, of course, very difficult to be a political leader in Northern Ireland. It is not easy to compromise, and there are always those standing outside the door willing to denounce as a sell-out any attempt to deviate from the well-worn, tired and cliched scripts of the past. It is therefore greatly to the credit of the politicians who gathered in Belfast that they found the strength within themselves to move beyond the old comfortable certainties, to pitch their lot in together and to present the people of Ireland with the vision of a future which was not simply a recreation of the past.
As people who take a keen interest in conflict resolution, I am sure that you will agree that such great historical opportunities do not come about easily or spontaneously. The participants in the Talks were, without doubt, assisted in reaching their historic Agreement by the many unacclaimed people who down through the years had dedicated themselves to working the ground so that peace, once planted, could flourish.
As the first President of Ireland to come from Northern Ireland, I am all too personally aware of the corrosive effect on the soul of decades of division, sectarianism and violence. But I am also keenly aware that throughout even the darkest and most dangerous years there have been those who have been unwavering in their commitment to peace and who have been unflinching in facing down the dark forces which drive people to hatred.
As President, I have come across these people of vision and determination in all walks of life - in community groups, women’s groups, business and the churches. Their work empowers ordinary people, giving them confidence and hope, instilling in them the belief that it was possible to create a better and peaceful future together, bringing people to a point where they were willing to place trust in each other - trust that divisions could be overcome, that conflict could be resolved, that it was possible to create a different type of society.
The Agreement is without doubt a complex document and merits careful reading. It envisages important new institutional arrangements to properly reflect diversity of identity. It proposes an Assembly and Executive, where a requirement for cross-community support on matters of importance protects the rights and interests of both communities. It proposes a North-South Ministerial Council to bring together those who hold ministerial office on both sides of the border. It proposes a British-Irish Council to draw together representatives from Ireland, North and South, with those from Westminster and including also the new devolved institutions in Scotland and Wales. Considerable work has been carried out towards bringing these institutions into being.
But there is, of course, more to the Agreement than new institutional arrangements - important as these are. There are, as I have suggested, a set of innate values which underlie and underpin it.
Through the Agreement the Governments and the parties, and the people of Ireland North and South who have endorsed it, have sent out a clear message that our future must be a new beginning, built on partnership, equality, mutual respect and consensus. Out of the ruins of a culture of conflict which skewed our relationships creating disfunctions and disequilibrium, we are determinedly building a fresh culture of consensus, with a new language, a new way of looking at each other and working together.
We have firmly dedicated ourselves to the achievement of reconciliation and have asserted that the best way to honour those who lost their lives, or who were injured, or who lost loved ones in the conflict is through a fresh start together. We have recognised that we have experienced too much division, too much hate and too much destruction and that reconciliation is a prerequisite to true stability and political accommodation.
We have affirmed our total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving our differences on political issues.
These are no small undertakings. We are no longer thinking in terms of winners or losers, but of how best we can move forward together.
There are other values which underpin the Agreement - values of equality, of human rights. It was inevitable, given the history of the conflict in Northern Ireland, that the Agreement would enshrine these values at its very core. And the parties did not approach the issue in a narrow way. The Agreement speaks of human rights, of economic, social and cultural rights, of political rights. It speaks of the rights to equal opportunity regardless of class, creed, disability, gender or ethnicity. The participants recognise the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity. The two governments commit themselves to further strengthen the protection of human rights and the advancement of equality in their respective jurisdictions.
In institutional terms, it provides for an Equality Commission in the North, and Human Rights Commissions, North and South, with provision for a Joint Committee bringing them together as a forum for consideration of human rights issues in the island of Ireland.
It places strong obligations not only on the Governments and parties who agreed it, but also on the people of the island of Ireland who endorsed it, to contribute to the creation of a vibrant and real rights culture.
I have not forgotten that we are here today to discuss the prospects for a lasting peace in Northern Ireland, and I know that you will want me to say something about what lies ahead. Those of you who follow developments in Ireland closely, will know that while the Governments and the parties have been working extremely hard to realise the full potential of the Agreement, difficulties have been encountered in achieving agreement on how certain aspects of it are to be implemented. And it would be foolish not to admit that these difficulties are serious and they are real. I am of course mindful that we meet at a difficult and sensitive time as politicians are working under great pressure to find a way forward together.
But equally it would be foolish not to recognise the genuine change and progress which have taken place in Ireland in recent years. Through the Agreement we have committed ourselves to respect and tolerance; to the political resolution of political problems; to the promotion and protection of equality and human rights; in short, to a great project of reconciliation. In a relatively short span of time, we have also seen the prospect of peace bring real hope and prosperity into people’s lives. There were times in the past when we seemed to go one step forward and two steps back. Today that has palpably changed – today it is two steps forward and one back – the dynamic is measurably forward.
We have recognised the a peaceful future can only be brought about by slow careful work together. And yes, there is much work to be done, but as I have said there are a great many people of goodwill willing to put their shoulders to the wheel. One of the greatest lessons which we have learned from the process in which we have been engaged is that, while we cannot undo our past or rewrite our history, working together we can create a new society in which a lasting peace can grow. We need a degree of pity for each other, some degree of recognition of how much ‘the other’ has moved. The more dialogue, there is, the more forthcoming that pity, that soft heart for each other, will be.
Finally, I would like to pay tribute to people such as yourselves here today. One aspect of the peace process in which we have been engaged, and which has been a source of enormous comfort to us in Ireland, has been the continued support and encouragement of our friends in the international community. Whenever we have encountered difficulties, we have known that there were people of goodwill throughout the world who have wished us well - for this we will always be grateful.
Nowhere has this support been stronger, more vibrant and more important than here in America. You have harnessed all those values and qualities which have helped to build this great country - and applied them with generosity and commitment to the search for peace in Northern Ireland. Your support and encouragement have been invaluable and we warmly thank you for that.
Ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a ghabháil libh arís as ucht an cuireadh a thug libh dom bheith anseo libh ar maidin. Is iontach an obair atá ar siúl agaibh agus guím gach rath air san am atá le teacht.