-Caveat Lector- http://www.suntimes.com/output/greeley/cst-edt-greel071.html Ireland peace coming apart
March 7, 2003 BY ANDREW GREELEY Advertisement Is anything working in the world? The Palestinian- Israeli peace process, so close to success just two years ago, is a disaster. NATO is split wide open by the French and the Germans. The Korean peace is in perhaps more danger than it has been since the end of the Korean War. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, still preaching hate. The United States seems certain to plunge into a dangerous and perhaps unnecessary war. Greek and Turkish Cypriots seem unwilling to settle their difference even, with European Union membership in jeopardy. The Turks, of all people, turn down a $20 billion bribe from the United States. Many of these crises have been generated by the inept foreign policy of a president who thinks he is Clint Eastwood. Does peace flourish anywhere? In Ireland, maybe? No. Quite the contrary. The Good Friday Agreement seems to be unraveling. The basic issue is that the IRA gave up on violence in exchange for power-sharing in Northern Ireland. There has been no IRA violence since then. However, many Unionists in the North (mostly Protestant) are unhappy that the agreement has given ''too much'' to Catholics--that is to say, more than the nothing they had before the agreement. David Trimble, head of the Ulster Unionist Party (and Nobel Peace Prize winner), is unable or afraid to stand by the agreement while facing the chance of either losing the leadership of his own party or losing control of the Unionists to the Rev. Ian Paisley, the militantly Catholic-hating leader. What kind of a man is Trimble? During his recent tour in the United States, he said several times (once at a meeting of the editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times) that Ireland was a pathetic little country bound together only by Catholicism and hatred of England. Doubtless this is how he really sees the Irish Republic and Catholics in the North. Perhaps it is not his fault that he is an arrogant bigot and doesn't notice the art, the poetry, the music, the economic prosperity. However, he is not the kind of man with whom the Irish and English governments and the Catholic leadership in the North can easily cope. How can you cope with an arrogant bigot whose cultural heritage does not extend beyond the big drums of the Orange Order parades? Trimble's strategy to keep his own people in line is to make impossible demands on Sinn Fein (the IRA political ally) and then walk out of the government, bringing down the whole structure of the agreement. Indeed, the Northern Ireland Assembly has become a revolving door out of which Trimble walks whenever he can't get his way. His most recent demands are that the IRA ''stand down'' completely and that the whole agreement be renegotiated. Sinn Fein replies that it will stand down when the whole agreement is enforced-- legal and police reforms, pullback of British troops, and a promise from the Unionists that they'll shut the revolving door. Trimble will not even discuss matters until the IRA stands down. Hence, there is an impasse. The only violence in the North is that of Protestant paramilitary against Catholics, which Trimble ignores or blames on the IRA. Trimble ignores the long-term truth that Protestant young people are leaving. Catholics could become the majority in a near election. The process is back in the lap of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. If negotiations collapse because of Unionist intransigence (always blamed on the IRA), Trimble will have the ideal solution for his Unionist supporters: no violence and no power- sharing either. What does Blair do then? Trimble, in one of his rare unguarded moments a couple of years ago, warned of an imposed solution that would be far more ''green'' than the present one. The prime minister will be faced once again with the problem that has plagued his peacemaking ventures in Northern Ireland for eight years. How do you win over the Unionist population, whose arrogant sense of superiority over the Catholics is symbolized by his comment to the Sun- Times? Find a Business By Type: By Name: City, Zip, Area Code State Find a nearby business with smartpages.com News | Sports | Business | Entertainment | Lifestyles | Classifieds Visit our online partners: Daily Southtown Pioneer Press Suburban Chicago Newspapers Post-Tribune Star Newspapers Jerusalem Post Daily Telegraph Copyright 2003, Digital Chicago Inc. Forwarded for your information. 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