Conference tallis::celt

1207.0. "TONY BENN CALLS FOR U.N. OBSERVERS FOR THE NORTH" by KOALA::HOLOHAN () Wed Apr 21 1993 12:42

TONY BENN CALLS FOR U.N. OBSERVERS FOR THE NORTH
from the Irish People, March 27, 1993


The loyalist people of northeast Ireland should not put their faith in any
Conservative or Labour government, MP Tony Benn said on March 16th.

The former Labour cabinet minister said that the loyalists should realize that
"no British government is interested in the North" and the loyalist community
should put their faith in themselves. Earlier, Mr. Benn was criticized by the
Unionist and Workers parties when he requested the United Nations to send
observers to the North. In a letter to UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-
Ghali, Mr. Benn pointed out that since 1969 the North had seen: 33,000
shootings; 16,000 explosions, incendiaries and defusings; and 200,000 charges
with 'terrorist' offenses or detained under the 'Prevention of Terrorism' Act.

"I believe the time has come to send a UN observer team to the six counties to
report on the situation there, and to make recommendations to the Security
Council for the future. If a U.N. peace-keeping force was later to be
dispatched, it might make possible the termination of British jurisdiction in
northeast Ireland, which many believe represents the only real solution." He
said that every single policy followed by London had failed.

Benn also said that diplomats had been sent to Yugoslavia to talk to Serbs,
Muslims, Croats and Bosnians, peoples who would be regarded by the British as
'terrorists' in the Irish context. "That does not happen in the North. There is
no interest in northeast Ireland in WHitehall. The cabinet, of which I was a
member for eleven years, never discusses northeast Ireland unless there was an
explosion or a Birmingham bombing, or the Ulster workers' strike. Otherwise
they were not interested."

"And I don't think this present Conservative government is interested. My
guess is that Ian Paisley suspects that the British would like to get out. That's
what the ANglo-Irish Agreement is about. You have got to somehow break the
deadlock, and some people not directly involved may have a useful comment to
make."

"I have no solution to what we so arrogantly call the Irish problem, because I
don't believe there is an Irish problem. I think there is a British problem in
northeast Ireland, and since nobody has ever discussed the British problem, we
have not got very far."

Asked if comments about nationalists not being represented at the Anglo-Irish
talks referred to Sinn Fein, Mr. Benn said, "You cannot deny the fact that
Sinn Fein is a significant body of people, and they have been excluded on the
grounds that you don't talk to the 'men of violence'. But how was Ireland
partitioned? It was partioned by the Black and Tans, the most violent group
you would imagine."

He said it was the ultimate hypocrisy for the government to refuse the talk to
Sinn Fein, because "every government had private contact with them. In the
covert world in which we live, these contacts go on all the time."

He also said Washington was not as supportive of Britain as it used to be,
because the cold war had ended and it was no longer necessary to oppose a
neutral Ireland separating America from Europe.

"Their special relationship is a dream. Britain is an off-shore island off the
continent of Europe, and I doubt very much whether their opinion matters very
much in Washington. That's being harsh, but I think it is probably true."
Addressing loyalists, Mr. Benn said that Ireland was full of extremely
intelligent and thoughtful persons, adding, "I never found any difficulty
talking to them.

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    I hope somebody takes this up. It is a positive approach.
    
    Ren�