SECTION 10

THE GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT 1998

In 1987, SDLP leader John Hume established a dialogue with Gerry Adams, which was eventually to result in the IRA cessation of military activities on 31st August 1994. This dialogue is thought to be the origin of the present peace process. Thus John Hume is regarded as the architect of the peace process that has led to relative peace and stability in Northern Ireland for the first time in thirty years.

The peace process led to the Good Friday agreement of April 1998, and the SDLP collectively are regarded as the main architects of that agreement. The current leader of the party, Mark Durkan, and his deputy, Brid Rodgers, were the main players on the SDLP team that entered those negotiations with the other parties.

The weakness of the Agreement, as seen now, but anticipated to be its strength in 1998, was that it allowed Sinn Fein and the DUP into the government of Northern Ireland without asking them to commit themselves fully to the project. This has led directly to the growth of support for these parties since they have been able to portray themselves as opposition parties, with all the ensuing luxuries of free speech and action without the responsibilities of government, while they are in fact in government.

Indeed both these parties have laboured to undermine the Agreement at every available opportunity.

Sinn Fein have failed to deliver on decommissioning and policing whilst being aware that they are undermining the entire project of the SDLP. Do they care? The answer is a resounding “no”.

The Agreement also creates a demographic boxing ring by asserting that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland can only change after a referendum.

Within months of the Agreement, Sinn Fein were already using this as a means of raising morale in the Nationalist community, consequently causing extreme fears in the unionist community.

The Agreement has become a two-horse race to find which of the communities can either see the most advantage or the most threat from it. Unionists are increasingly seeing a threat, and Nationalists are increasingly seeing an opportunity. These two positions feed off each other, and thus Paisley and Adams somehow endorse each other and increase the level of support for their own positions in this way.

The North is now effectively a battlefield on which Paisley and Adams struggle to see which of their fundamentalist positions are correct. This may be the position in the medium term. It will most certainly be the position while the Agreement is in place.

The Northern Ireland state was founded on a sectarian headcount, and republicans anticipate that it will be defeated by a demographic strategy that will reverse that initial headcount. This is a sad and sick state of political debate. It can only result in conflict.

Unionists will never accept the verdict of a referendum if it is driven by the very leaders who organised the killing of their people for so long. That is a natural reaction, and it is one that may lead to civil war in the end.

Repartition is a highly likely outcome of a Nationalist majority in a referendum conducted after years of a Sinn Fein demographic strategy. That may happen together with or after a civil war.

Thus, the Northern Ireland state has no meaning any longer other than to contain a battle between the two communities that will inevitably result in some form of civil war. Repartition is the most likely outcome of this civil war.