D.C. conference airs old positions

By Susan Falvella-Garraty

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The parties in Northern Ireland are sticking to their guns as the peace process fizzles and it was no different in Washington, D.C., last week when representatives of a number of North political parties, U.S. officials and several legal and human rights groups met to chew over the present logjam during a conference at Georgetown University Law Center.

The conference, organized jointly by the Irish American Unity Conference and the university’s Irish American Law Association, was moderated by Prof. Sam Dash, who directed the Watergate hearings in the 1970s. But even Dash failed to draw much that was new from the main party representatives, who stuck resolutely to their usual positions on most subjects.

Anne Smith, the Ulster Unionist Party representative in the U.S., attempted to clarity the UUP position with regard to reform of the RUC. She told the conference participants that UUP leader David Trimble will not, for example, oppose the change in RUC badges that the Patten Commission recommended.

She said the real opposition in returning to government remained the refusal of the IRA to offer a timetable for, or actual decommissioning of, its weapons.

Sinn Féin assembly member for South Armagh Conor Murphy concentrated on the suspension by the British government of the power-sharing Executive.

"We used up quite a lot of currency," Murphy said in reference to getting the IRA to nominate a representative to do business with the de Chastelain commission.

Both sides offered different versions of what led up to the suspension of the Executive on Feb. 11.

Smith said Trimble has sought and continues to request to meet with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams. She said Adams refuses to do so.

During the debate, a moment of levity was offered by former Irish American Unity Conference president Andrew Somers. He said he was sick of hearing about the tenuous nature of Trimble’s leadership of the UUP.

"For months now, it’s been like ‘Saving Private Trimble,’ " he said.

Dash, who investigated the Widgery Report into Bloody Sunday and recommended reopening the investigation, reaffirmed his belief in the Good Friday accord. "It may not be the best game — but it’s the only game in town," he said.

Meanwhile, the malaise surrounding the peace process has chastened even the usual upbeat Bill Clinton.

The president, speaking at a fund-raiser in Florida last week, seemed downcast. "In Northern Ireland, where the people voted overwhelmingly for peace, the leaders are still so in the grip of their problems they can’t get along," he said, departing from his prepared remarks.

The president wasn’t being gloomy, only pragmatic, said a White House spokesman.

"The president just wishes to remind the party leaders that they must abide by the will of the people who voted overwhelmingly for the Good Friday accord," said presidential spokesman Mike Hammer.