A strange way to negotiate a peace.

  By Janine Roberts - written in 1996 - updated in 2000

My grandfather came from Belfast so I have always had some affinity with the place. Aboriginal elders in Australia sometimes used to ask me when I was going back to fight for my own people's rights. They had a point but so far life has never taken me back.

I have long hoped that when I do return there will be peace in the streets. I believe all bombing and killing must stop.

But for years I have been appalled by how patently the British authorities have been discouraging Sinn Fein and the IRA from taking part in the negotiations. One would think that the days immediately before the negotiations were to start would not have been the time to carry out major anti-IRA police raids. That was what happened. Most of those arrested were released eventually - but the IRA had stayed out of the negotiations. The strategy seemed for years to have worked.

Then there was the contradiction in UK policy towards the IRA prisoners held in UK gaols. It was discovered that many may have been framed or convicted on poor forsenic evidence. The testing laboratory that certified that tiny amounts of semtex were found in samples taken from suspects was reeking with semtex left carelessly on equipment and on the floor and furniture. It gave crucial evidence against many Irishmen.

So what then did the UK government do. It knew that many of the prisoners wanted to return to Ireland. It tells them that they may return - on conditon that they do not appeal their convictions. it thus makes seemingly generous concessions that are not concessions.

It took years until it was realised it seems that peace negotiations where one party was missing were not going to work. If they are real peace negotitions clearly Sinn Fein had to be present. While Sinn Fein continued to be denied admission, it seemed the decision was for war and not for peace. This was completely tragic.

In 1999, after the vote for pease and the surprisingly excellent Good Friday agreement, it still took months before the Unionists agreed to sit down with Sinn Fein. In early 2000 sadly the Unionists have continued to demand that the IRA disarm. The press have frequently attacked the IRA for this. Rarely has the press noted that the Unionist para-militaries are still armed and are also refusing to give up their weapons. Few also note that more killings in recent times have caused by the Unionists forces than by the IRA. Few journalists have noted that the British Army, while much less obvious in the cities, is still having military exercises and strengthening fortifications in the countryside. Yet the Good Friday agreement bound all sides to disarm. All this has made it considerably harder for the IRA to judge that it is now safe to disarm.

I hope and pray that all sides, as in the Good Friday Agreement, might now decide to simultaneously disable their weapons.
No one side should be singled out in this, no one should be humiliated.

Let peace reign for the sake of the children and the future of our people.

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