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Irish Echo editorial: Irish government must protect GFA

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

While Paisley has said he is willing to play a “positive” and “constructive” role in negotiations with the two governments and, what he calls, “the democratic parties,” the DUP is still intent on excluding Sinn Fein from government.
Sinn Fein’s position as the largest nationalist party cannot be ignored. By excluding Sinn Fein the DUP knows that power sharing can never return to the North.
While the DUP’s election campaign stressed the need for cross-community government, many fear that this was merely an attempt to give the party a veneer of political respectability. In doing this, the DUP was able to attract mainstream unionist voters who previously regarded the party as being bitterly opposed to peace and stability.
It will become apparent in the weeks and months ahead that, for many within the DUP and the Ulster Unionist Party, direct rule from London is eminently more preferable than devolved government that includes republicans.
Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the UUP all maintain that the DUP is itching to acquire power. They say that Paisley, or whoever his successor is, will be forced to negotiate with Sinn Fein sooner or later. This positive outlook does not tally entirely with the reality of the DUP. Many of its members are deeply opposed to power sharing and hold nationalists and republicans in utter contempt.
The danger here is that a concerted stalling strategy by the DUP may undermine Sinn Fein’s peace strategy. The Sinn Fein leadership has invested all of its energies and credibility in a devolved government with North-South elements. If it were to transpire that unionism, in the guise of the DUP, was determined to exclude republicans from power, then the impact on republican grassroots could be devastating.
In such a scenario, both governments must ensure that everything enshrined in the Good Friday agreement remains in place. Policing reform, the equality agenda and the North-South bodies cannot be shelved at the behest of anti-agreement unionism.
In particular, the Irish government must act as guarantor of nationalist interests. It will need to impress on British Prime Minister Tony Blair the importance of sticking with the GFA and stand firm against any attempts to water down or dispose of the historic compromise.

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