Ireland peace offers example for world

Ireland
peace offers example for world
…………………………………………………………………

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News Staff

The president of Ireland said the Good Friday Agreement
offers “tremendous hope” not just for the people
of Ireland, but for people “in every part of our troubled
world where lives have been hopelessly twisted and skewed
by the atrocities of war.”

Speaking at
the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy April
19, Mary McAleese, who was elected the eighth president
of the Republic of Ireland in 1997, shared her views on
conflict resolution and the lengthy efforts to reach the
Good Friday Agreement.

That agreement
was a peace settlement signed in 1998 by the British and
Irish governments to end three decades of civil war in Northern
Ireland.

“Although
more than 3,000 people died and tens of thousands were injured,
these grim and appalling statistics do not even begin to
show the enormous human cost of the tragedy and its devastating
effect on people’s lives,” McAleese said.

“As a people
that have known the devastating consequences of conflict
and division, the Irish have always, as a nation, maintained
a deep commitment not just to achieving peace in our own
island, but to promoting the ideals of peace and conflict
resolution throughout the rest of the world,” McAleese
said. “This is part of our national identity, a part
of which we are deeply proud.”

Describing the
peace process that led to the Good Friday Agreement as “long
and painstaking,” McAleese said it was not started
by any single overwhelming incident or turning point. “It
was instead born out of the vision of those who looked at
the grinding, ongoing demoralization and destruction caused
by a seemingly endless, senseless cycle of violence and
knew that it simply could not be allowed to go on.”

Communication
from all sides of the conflict was critical. “Through
the process of negotiation, and often for the first time,
parties on all sides sat down together and at least tried
to develop a better understanding of each other’s positions,”
McAleese said.

“The negotiations
did not shy away from difficult and most divisive issues
— human rights, policing, justice, the demilitarization
of society and the resolution of the question of arms held
illegally. The talks recognized the importance of these
issues and how failure to successfully address them had
long undermined efforts at peaceful resolution.”

The core of
the Good Friday Agreement, McAleese noted, was the recognition
of the multifaceted nature of identity and of the vital
importance of complex sets of relationships: those within
Northern Ireland, within the island of Ireland and between
both islands. The negotiations would not permit changes
in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland unless
the people clearly wished for such changes.

Today, various
institutions are in place to address the needs of the people.
In Northern Ireland, for example, nationalists and unionists
are working together on an equal basis in the Northern Ireland
Executive and Assembly to serve all the people of Northern
Ireland. And government ministers from Ireland, north and
south, are working together in the North-South Ministerial
Council to develop cooperation in areas of practical importance,
such as cross-border trade.

McAleese acknowledged
that a “one size fits all” template for conflict
resolution does not exist because no two conflicts are the
same. But the successful resolution of conflict elsewhere
can inspire hope for peace.

“Indeed,
the European Union itself, built from the ruins of postwar
Europe, is one of the greatest examples of how it is possible
for old, bitter enemies to come together and forge new relationships
built on mutual trust and respect,” she said.

“Our experience
has taught us a lot about humankind’s capacity for
perpetuating hatred and destruction, bigotry and revenge,
generation after generation in a seemingly endless cycle
of tit for tat,” McAleese said. “Because of our
experience, we attach a very high value to conflict resolution
and to peace, and I congratulate James Baker and his colleagues
here on the important work you are doing in this area.

“Just as
we in Ireland owe much to the patient and ever-present support
of the United States in assisting our peace process, we
in turn are aware of our own role and responsibility in
sowing the seeds of peace elsewhere in the world where ethnic
conflict prevails,” McAleese said.

All parties
involved in the Good Friday Agreement continue to work to
ensure its implementation. Sometimes the parties disagree
on interpretation and points of emphasis, but they are making
progress toward peace, step by step.

“We are
more conscious than ever of the need to promote and encourage
the reconciliation, mutual understanding and respect that
are so essential to consolidating peace,” McAleese
said. “There is no greater prize, no more difficult
task and no greater satisfaction than to begin to heal the
wounds of history and the scars of intolerance.”

Rice President
Malcolm Gillis presented welcoming remarks to the crowd
of approximately 400 Rice students, faculty, staff and other
guests of the Baker Institute attending the lecture by McAleese,
who was introduced by former secretary of state and Baker
Institute honorary chair James A. Baker III.