Ire-Peace: Confidence-Building Measures Announced


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News from the Irish American Information Service
30 September 1997

email: gkennedy@iais.org

CONFIDENCE BUILDING MEASURES ANNOUNCED
 09/30/97 12:24 EST

 A dramatic package of "confidence-building measures" including the
 removal of internment without trial from the statute books has been
 announced by the British government this afternoon. And Britain's
 Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam told the Labour Party
 conference in Brighton today that great courage was needed for the
 peace talks go forward.

 She spoke of the need to compromise if a lasting peace was to be
 achieved. She said her aim was to end direct rule from London, but
 this would only happen with the support of the people of Northern
 Ireland. She said it was unacceptable that Catholics were more than
 twice as likely as Protestants to be unemployed.

 She added: "And people are still being picketed outside their place
 of worship. It's difficult to believe that in the United Kingdom
 today there are pickets on people as they go into church. And we have
 seen in the previous year that if you drink in the wrong pub at the
 wrong time you can be kicked to death."

 She said the government planned an overhaul of legislation to be
 voted through at the next sitting of parliament. They include changes
 in policing, a new Emergency Provisions Bill which will see the
 removal of internment, the incorporation of the European Convention
 on Human Rights, and improvements in fair employment legislation.
 
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