We must do better this time
Forum report by Micheál MacDonncha
Two gatherings were held in Dublin Castle on successive days last
week. The juxtaposition has been little noted but it was heavy
with irony. On Friday 5 December Taoiseach Bertie Ahern convened
the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. The next day he hosted a
reception on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the
foundation of the Irish Free State.
Significantly, the invitation to the latter event (from which
Sinn Féin invitees absented themselves) did not use the word
`celebrate'. It was a very muted anniversary - a reminder that
the `official' birthday of the 26-County state is fraught with
memories of Civil War and the present reality of partition.
``This [partition] arrangement has been a disaster for all the
people on this island. We must do better this time.'' So said Sinn
Féin's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness in his speech to the
first meeting of the Forum since the end of the first IRA
cessation in February 1996.
Speaking to journalists McGuinness criticised the calls for
Articles Two and Three to be amended and the unionist
identification of them as a cause of conflict. The real cause has
been inequality and repression in the Six-County state, he
asserted.
In his contribution Bertie Ahern still spoke of changes in the
Articles but said, ``we are talking about the amendment or
deletion of Section 75 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920
which explicitly states that the sovereignty of Northern Ireland
is vested in Westminster without any reference to the principle
of consent''.
There was more fall-out from Foreign Minister David Andrews'
statement on executive powers for cross-border bodies ``not unlike
a government'' which he later amended after unionist hyterics.
This embarrassing semi-retraction was bad enough, but was it
really necessary for Bertie Ahern to say at the Forum:
``I am glad that the clarification was speedily accepted and that
people did not dwell on it''? This sounded like thanking the
unionists for not carrying on their tantrums.
In the main part of his speech Martin McGuinness said it was
``time the British forces called a cessation''. He called on the
Dublin government to ``show greater initiative in releasing
political prisoners in Portlaoise jail, as to date only seven
have been released, extradition proceedings are continuing
against four republican prisoners and there has been no serious
attempt to address the circumstances of the 40-year men.''
McGuinness asked: ``The continued vindictive detention of Roisín
McAliskey must concern us all. Is Roisín to spend a second
Christmas in detention - this time with her infant child?''
•The Forum is not due to meet every week as previously, but every
two to three months. Caoimhghín O Caoláin TD who was a member of
the Sinn Féin delegation, repeated his party's call for meetings
of the Forum to be held outside Dublin.
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