Conference tallis::celt

1308.0. "Bernadette McAliskey on Declaration - pulled from net." by KOALA::HOLOHAN () Tue Jan 04 1994 12:06

                             DECLARATION TO DECEIVE;
An Irish republican explains why the Anglo-Irish peace initiative offers only an
illusion of agreement


                            By: BERNADETTE  MCALISKEY

THe joint declaration is a fraudulent document whose political intent is to
deceive; to create illusions of agreement where none exists, and to hint at the
existence of concessions where none are contemplated.

The document in total consists of 4 1/2 foolscap pages entitled Joint
Declaration. The first page is essentially a summary and interpretation of the
declaration by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, headed A Personal
Message from the Rt Hon Sir Patrick Mayhew, QC, MP. I do not intend to trouble
you further with it, it has no value. Regardless of its contents, its legal,
constitutional and political standing is of equal merit with my personal
opinion on what might win next year's Derby.

As for the actual declaration, out of a total of 12 separate marked articles
or declarations only three are jointly subscribed to by "The British and Irish
Governments". Only these three merit attention.

    Essentially, articles 7, 9 and 10 accept the following positions:

    - Both governments accept the reality of partition in Ireland and the
existence of Northern Ireland as a singular and separate entity from the rest
of Ireland until such time as Northern Ireland, as a singular and separate
entity by majority opinion, asks for that position to be altered.

    - Both governments will work together to reconstruct the state of Northern
Ireland, which has been in suspended animation since the abolition of the
Northern Ireland Stormont Parliament in 1972.


    - Both governments will continue to exclude Sinn Fein from participation
in the process of non-violent resolution of the conflict or access to the
democratic process until the IRA joins the Quakers.

I rest my case. There's nothing new in this declaration. In fact, the verbs
used are "reiterate and reaffirm". I have always rejected these government
positions.

Those who have not read the document have probably not read the basic
political history of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland, The Orange State, by
the respected historian Michael Farrell, or the origin of the bitter conflict
in the North as explained by the same author in Arming The Protestants, but
since when has lack of information prevented people from forming opinions.

To clarify my own position, Northern Ireland is not, never was, and never
can be a democratic unit. In 1918 the majority of the people of Ireland whose
units of organisation were 32 counties voted peacefully and democratically and
overwhelmingly against union with Britain. Four of those counties whose
democratic decision was for independence were County Tyrone, County Fermanagh,
County Derry and County Armagh. In 1921 the Irish Free State and the British
Northern State were created by partition. The British Northern State was
composed of six counties. Four of those counties were County Tyrone, County
Fermanagh, County Derry and County Armagh. This is not my idea of democracy.
There never was, is not, and never will be a British Unionist majority in these
four counties. Why, in 1993, are we still stuck in the lost empire? The reason
is simple, the two Unionist counties of Antrim and Down and their minority
supporters in the other four counties by armed coercion established the
six-county unit as being the maximum territory they could secure while
maintaining an overall numerical majority, however slim.

Having established this undemocratic unit by terrorism they created the
structures of the state. They created its political and economic institutions,
its social and financial organisations. They created these institutions to
maximise their power, security and well-being and to minimise the participation
and influence of Irish Nationalists who had been coerced into the unit of the
state.

The net effect was to produce endemic deprivation, discrimination and
disadvantage in the Nationalist community who constitute 44 per cent of the
population. This ensured that emigration and/or sullen acceptance of their own
powerlessness was the only non-violent response of Nationalists to the violence
and inhumanity of their oppression.

The British government's own statistics clearly demonstrate:

    1. Northern Ireland's Nationalists are two and a half times less likely to
be in employment than Northern Ireland Unionists.

    2. Northern Ireland's Nationalists are socially and economically the most
deprived regional group in the United Kingdom, while Northern Ireland Unionists

are the third most advantaged regional group in the UK.

    3. Northern Ireland Nationalists in the four previously mentioned counties
have an average household income less than half the average income for the
state.

Unionists in Northern Ireland, given the opportunity, would not give
Nationalists daylight, never mind justice, equality, respect or democracy. To
reconstruct their artificial state is to reconstruct their power and their
abuse.

Finally, why do I oppose the joint government position on Sinn Fein and the
IRA? I believe the position of excluding Sinn Fein, which has an electoral
mandate, to be in violation of the United Nations' Declaration on Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms. The UN declaration upholds the right of people to
the political representation of their own choosing as a fundamental right which

is not conditional on the agreement of their opponents accepting that choice or

on the political expressions embodied in that choice. Moreover, I refuse to
accept the hypocrisy of the governments' position on men of violence and
political parties.

We as Nationalists in the Northern state have for generations suffered the
violence of this state both overt and covert. We have survived pogroms on an
average of every 12 years of the state's existence. We have survived
assassinations, the burning of our homes, and the violence of our humiliation.
Those responsible for that violence are already at the negotiating table.  They
are the representatives of the British government, the Official Unionist Party
and the Democratic Unionist Party.

If you do not accept this position then riddle me this? Who do the UVF, UDA,
UFF, UDR, and RUC vote for? Are the political aspirations of the British
Conservative Party, the British Unionist parties and the loyalist para-military
organisations in respect of Northern Ireland the same or not? And should
Unionists be permitted to dominate, denigrate and dictate simply on the basis
that it is part of their British tradition? I say no. This document says yes.
That is why I reject it.


  Bernadette  McAliskey  is chair of the Independent Socialist Party, Ireland.