Unionist fright as stage is set
BY MICHEAL MacDONNCHA
The unionist parties are currently undergoing an agonising
process of trying to come to terms with the fact that the world
is looking to them to sit down at the table with Sinn Féin on 15
September and make real peace negotiations possible.
We are told that the Ulster Unionist Party has been carrying out
a consultation process with wide sectors of society in the Six
Counties including business and the churches. Spokespersons for
that party have been ice cold about the prospect of joining in
negotiations with Sinn Féin. At the same time they have been
careful not to rule it out completely.
The DUP has placed itself firmly outside the process, pledging no
contact with Sinn Féin at all. It is hoping to make political
capital out of its cries of `treachery' against the UUP. This is
the posture Paisley likes best, the foundation on which he built
his political career. But even for him the path ahead is not
clear. It is one thing to stand apart from your opponents. It is
quite another to be left behind as history marches on.
The loyalist parties too are in a quandary. On Sunday the first
open signs of dissension within the PUP appeared with Billy
Hutchinson saying that the party should withdraw from the talks
and that there was nothing in them that the PUP could recommend
to the UVF (the paramilitary group to which they are linked).
Hutchinson said he believed his party should no longer advise the
UVF to maintain its ceasefire. This was not the line given by the
other main PUP spokesperson David Ervine. He said there was no
change in the policy of the PUP advocating the ceasefire.
In a Sunday Times interview Billy Hutchinson also said he
believed the UVF will attempt to wipe out the dissident Loyalist
Volunteer Force (LVF), the creation of loyalist sectarian killer
Billy `King Rat' Wright. It would seem to be this bitter division
with the LVF which has caused the most serious tremors so far
within the PUP. The PUP and UVF are looking over their shoulder
at the LVF which they fear will win over all of loyalism's ``hard
men''. This would explain Hutchinson's statement. Ervine on the
other hand reflects the need for PUP to advance politically. All
these contradictions have been thrown up by the talks process.
UUP leader David Trimble has been silent for most of the summer
as he mulls over the way ahead. But in an interview with the
Sunday Business Post his deputy John Taylor displayed the
arrogance and intransigence which makes political movement by the
UUP virtually imperceptible. Taylor made some extraordinary
statements which provoked little reaction from the usual sources
of condemnation of violence or those who are alleged to support
it.
Asked why he baulked at sitting down with Sinn Féin yet sat with
the loyalist parties Taylor replied: ``They never threatened to
shoot me. The IRA would shoot me, the loyalists would not.'' When
it was put to him that loyalists had shot some of his
constituents Taylor retorted: ``As a unionist they were not a
threat to me.''
The message to nationalists was that loyalists shooting them was
ok; this presented no threat to unionism. This is not new from
Taylor. In September 1993 in a week when four Catholics were
killed by loyalist sectarian gangs Taylor said: ``In a perverse
way this is something which may be helpful because they
[Catholics] are now beginning to appreciate more clearly the fear
that has existed within the Protestant community for the past 20
years.'' He refused to apologise or withdraw his remark; in fact
he said that it had won support for the UUP.
Last Sunday's interview also exposed the bigotry which is so
central to UUP thinking. He refused to accept that ``things in the
past were wrong''. Asked if nationalists were entitled to full
equality he said: ``That's a load of rubbish. Sinn Féin are 20
years out of date. Of course there must be equal opportunity for
everyone, but not equality. You cannot expect the Irish minority
in NI to be equal to the majority. They are going to continue to
be a minority... They cannot as a minority expect to have an
equal role with the majority.''
Clearly the UUP has a long way to go to reach the starting point
for real negotiations. The challenge to their leaders is not only
to fufil the expectations of their supporters who want peace, but
to confront their own attitudes as leaders, attitudes which have
fuelled conflict.
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