McGuinness Presents Sinn Fein's Position Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source:Paddy Newell 10/13/97 'Foundations For a Just and Lasting Peace' Martin McGuinness 13 October 1997 [Sinn Fein's chief negotiator and Mid-Ulster MP Martin McGuinness will present Sinn Fein's position today at the strand one talks. This is the full text of his remarks.] THIS process, in which we are engaged, has the difficult task of redefining the totality of relationships between the people of this island and with our nearest neighbour. It is about leaving behind relationships which have not worked and a status quo which has proven disastrous to all our interests. We seek to slam shut the door on past failures and begin anew by building new relationships based on equality and mutual respect. As Irish republicans we will be advocating and arguing for the creation of an Irish national democracy as the best means of achieving this. The failure of British policy and partition was given graphic expression only three months ago when in July the RUC were employed to force an Orange march through the Garvaghy Road. The demand of the Orange Order to walk through a nationalist area, and the RUC battering a route through residents for the Orange Order to engage in this triumphalist display, epitomises all that is wrong with this statelet. These events, along with the RUC's enthusiastic use of plastic bullets against nationalists, underpins the widespread sense among nationalists that the northern state is beyond redemption, is corrupt, and that there can be no internal settlement based upon this failed structure. The reality is that the six counties is a gerrymandered statelet which was fashioned by sectarian power and privilege and in which wholesale suppression and discrimination was and is practised. The six county state has never been able to afford its citizens the justice and equality fundamental to a peaceful and democratic society. The consequence has been a cycle of repression, conflict and resistance. British policy in Ireland, particularly since the 17th century has depended on special legislation, martial law, special courts and coercion acts. In the 120 years from the Act of Union until partition over 100 coercion acts were passed. That was how Britain maintained control and defended its interests. Partition and the Government of Ireland Act saw the northern statelet wrap around itself a comfort blanket of enormous power in order to defend unionist domination and the union. This meant creating an apartheid state in which a very substantial minority of citizens were disenfranchised and denied social, economic, political and civil equality. The role of the Stormont government and Parliament was to maintain the status quo, to carry out on the ground the logic of the partition that had ensured a permanent majority for the unionists. One party rule was established and was guaranteed almost immediately by a system of ward-rigging and voting qualifications; proportional representation was abolished, business votes were established and the franchise was limited at local government level to rate-payers and their wives. Unionists were in control of the entire political system, and as David Irvine reminded us last week, nationalist opposition MPs succeeded in getting one piece of legislation through the Stormont Parliament during that whole period - the Wild Birds Act. As part of the control of votes Catholics were denied equal access to housing and thus to votes and were denied equal access to employment. To keep a firm lid on all of this, a strategy which successive British governments colluded in, require extensive coercive legislation. The Special Powers Act gave unionists such power that one South African Minister of Justice, Mr Vorster, spoke enviously in 1963 of his willingness to "exchange all the (South African) legislation of that sort for one clause of the Northern Ireland Special Powers Act". The northern statelet was built on a unionist ethos which permeated all levels and aspects of life. It was indeed, as Basil Brooke Unionist Prime Minister for 20 years remarked: "A Protestant Parliament and a Protestant state". It was and is exclusive, locking out all other opinions and rejecting any notion of democracy and equality and justice. Terence O'Neill, who in the 1960s was, and in some circles still is, presented as a reforming unionist, best summed up the prejudice, arrogance and condescension of unionism when he said: "It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house they will live like Protestants... they will refuse to have 18 children, but if a Roman Catholic is jobless and lives in the most ghastly hovel he will rear 18 children on National Assistance... if you treat Roman Catholics with due consideration and kindness, they will live like Protestants, in spite of the authoritative nature of their church." The many consequences of this unionist ethos were evident in the poverty, the appalling housing conditions and the very high levels of unemployment which beset nationalists. But it also had its consequences for the unionist urban and rural working class who although reared to believe that they enjoyed a privileged status, it was in fact a marginal privilege which also saw them endure bad housing, low wages, poor education provision and a low standard of living. Out of this cauldron emerged the civil rights movement in the 1960s, loosely mirrored on the black civil rights movement in the USA. It demanded, in the sexist language of the day, one man one vote, an end to discrimination in housing and in employment, and the repeal of the Special Powers Act. The unionist regime and the British government could have undermined the civil rights agitation by moving swiftly on what were, after all, normal democratic demands. They were demands which the people of Britain and of Europe and of the USA, take for granted. Yet they evoked a ferocious and violent response from the unionist government and its supporters. The statelet made it clear that it would not implement democratic reforms and we slipped inexorably into conflict - within 3 years Stormont was gone. However, the end of Stormont did not see the end of discrimination and injustice. British policy which bolstered partition, and which defended the unionist veto, was simply forced to take the front line to defend its interests. The Special Powers Act was replaced by a myriad of new laws even more draconian than before; two fair employment Acts were to be passed which have failed to challenge the culture of discrimination which still exists; the ethos of the statelet is still primarily unionist; the legacy of discrimination in housing means that Catholics disproportionately suffer enormously from a lack of housing and bear the brunt of the poor quality housing, particularly in rural areas. Unionists cannot be solely held responsible for this. Britain's policy created a sectarian state. Since the collapse of Stormont the British government has failed to effectively tackle economic and structural political discrimination against Catholics and the continuing cultural discrimination which denies Irish children their right to be taught through the medium of Irish. It is British policy which today labels nationalists as inferior and second class. The excesses of the British state in defence of the northern statelet have been well documented. Every major human rights agency in the world, from Amnesty International to Helsinki Watch, have accused Britain of torture, summary execution and extensive violations of human rights. London holds the distinction of having been found guilty before the European Court of Human Rights more often than any other signatory since 1950. The British government's role in the north has perhaps best been summed up by human rights lawyer,anti-apartheid campaigner and current South African Minister,Kadar Asmal who remarked: "The British government has shown scant regard for international opinion and international and domestic legal standards... My contention is that the United Kingdom is behaving and has behaved in the north in the same way that colonial powers exerted their sovereignty in the old fashioned empires". This then is the reality of the northern statelet. Over 75 years on a life support of oppression, injustice and inequality. It is a history of failure. The failure of a unionist one-party state which rejected basic principles of democracy, justice and equality. The failure of British governments to recognise their central role in creating conflict and division by bolstering partition and underpinning the unionist veto. It is a measure too of the failure of nationalists and republicans throughout this island, including successive Irish governments, to develop a strategy to effectively bring about democratic change. There can be no going back to the past. There can be no internal settlement. The days of second class citizenship, of unionist domination are gone. We must collectively think beyond these failed political structures and construct a new Ireland which can accommodate and celebrate the diversity of the people of this island - new constitutional and political structures to which we can all give allegiance. Irish republicans believe that any new dispensation must be constructed on this basis. Progress towards a peace settlement is dependent upon replacing the current sectarian ethos of intransigence and bigotry with a new ethos of partnership and participation; an ethos which respects diversity, accepts equality and has the political will to pursue fundamental constitutional, political, economic, social and cultural change. Equality should now be at the heart of the British government's decision making and it must underpin our deliberations around this table. It cannot be simply an illusion, it must be a fact. We need a wholehearted commitment to ensuring satisfactory political, social and cultural rights and freedom from discrimination for all citizens, on parity of esteem and on just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations for all our people. The responsibility for this rests primarily with the British government - a government which has placed human rights at the top of its international agenda. As we seek to restructure relationships this equality ethos needs to map out how we can ensure equality in employment; in economic investment; for the Irish language and culture; in education and for political representatives. It must tackle the,difficult issue of cultural symbols, of flags and emblems and of policing. Equality is not a threat to unionists. It means civil and political rights from unionists as well as nationalists and republicans. Whether it is the right to march, or the right to worship or the right to vote or the right to seek their consent - these are civil and religious and political rights which must be guaranteed and protected. We freely acknowledge that northern Protestants have fears and that there is a huge gulf of distrust and misunderstanding and suspicion between republicans and unionists. I know that bridging that gulf will not be easy but republicans want to try. What we seek are political conditions in which for the first time the people of this island can reach a democratic accommodation, in which the consent and agreement of both nationalists and unionists can be achieved, and in which a process of national reconciliation and healing can begin. Unionist participation in this is essential. We want to make peace with unionists, to work with unionists so that when we achieve a democratic settlement we will be able to accommodate and celebrate our diversity as equals. Republicans recognise that there will be no peace in Ireland if unionists are not a part of shaping that peace. Our wish is to reach an accommodation with unionism. Inequality and social exclusion are the enemies of peace. We need a partnership, based on equality, which will empower and improve the quality of life of citizens by being open, inclusive and democratic. Marginalising and demonising and refusing to talk to others reinforces intolerance and prejudice and intransigence. The imperative now must be to intensify our work towards a democratic peace settlement This will not be easy. Our starting point however needs to recognise that what has gone before has failed all of us. We need a new beginning based on democracy, justice and equality for all citizens. These are the foundations for a lasting peace. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-10.14.97-00:41:11-2972