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JOHN HUMPHRYS: The ruling body of the Ulster
Unionist Party - the council - is holding a special meeting at the end
of the week to decide what to do about the flagging peace process. But
the real business of the meeting is what to do about David Trimble, the
leader. The party is divided over whether to keep him or whether to get
rid of him because he has not taken a firm enough stand with Sinn Fein
and the British government. It's not the first time Mr Trimble's future
has been called into question. He was challenged for the leadership in
March by the Reverend Martin Smyth. Mr Smyth is in our Belfast studio.
Mr Smyth, what is the
point of this meeting. You're not going to get the IRA to give up its
weapons unless the peace process, the Good Friday Agreement continues and
Mr Trimble says he needs more time.
MARTYN SMYTH: Well with respect to everyone
especially the government and the United States' government, they have
entered into a scheme, a peace process which I always call a political
process, because it was not moving towards peace because right through
concessions have been made to terrorists to such an extent that the retiring
ACC responsible for Belfast has today according to the press, said he reported
in July two-thirds of this city was controlled by paramilitaries. We have
created a Mafiosi, and what we're saying to David Trimble, it's the only
way we can express our views, that you said David at the conference that
John Taylor was given three months, you weren't giving them three months.
We're asking for action, we are actually saying that it is near time that
the government saw that those we are causing the problems in Ulster and
actually adding to the economic problems with the smuggling rackets that
are going on costing the Treasury something like four-hundred-and-fifty
million pounds at least a year in lost revenue in Northern Ireland alone.
It's at that level we're
saying it's near time that the Sinn Fein - SDLP who said that if the Sinn
Fein IRA did not implement the agreement two years have gone when it should
have been implemented, we're now six months down the road and the only
thing that's happened in that six months down the road to next June's deadline
is that several arms dumps have been actually inspected. There is no inventories
actually taken, and we don't even know where they were, and it is suspected
from all accounts that they are old arms and that new weapons are now being
used.
HUMPHRYS: So what is your deadline.
Are you talking about a matter of weeks now or what?
SMYTH: I'm saying that David would
be asked I'm sure when is his deadline because the latest coming through
from some of his supporters is that they're now talking about March, not
within the three months that David Trimble spoke to us....
HUMPHRYS: And you wouldn't settle
for that?
SMYTH: I don't believe that the
country can settle for that because we have developed a Mafiosi which is
destroying our country irrespective of whether we come from a Roman Catholic
or a Protestant community, we're seeing death and destruction continuing
on the street as these men flaunt the law because the law has been soft
pedalled to try to placate terrorists.
HUMPHRYS: So, if the deadline isn't
met, the original deadline that was set isn't met and we are talking just
about weeks now aren't we, then what you are saying is that's it.
SMYTH: I'm saying that the council
will be asked to vote on a motion which I haven't yet seen, but I suspect
it will be a balanced motion. It is not about coming out of the executive,
it is not about destroying the agreement, it is actually asking people
to implement what they signed up to and to maintain proper democracy in
Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.
HUMPHRYS: But it would mean the
destruction in the end of the executive wouldn't it because what - and
indeed of the agreement because what the agreement insists on is power-sharing,
a power-sharing executive, so if Sinn Fein is slung out of it because it
hasn't given up its - the IRA hasn't given up its weapons then that is
in practical terms, that's the end of it isn't it?
SMYTH: With respect it shouldn't
be, because Tony Blair himself assured Parliament and assured the leader
of the Ulster Unionists that if it wasn't being implemented according to
the agreement then he would take steps to see that it was. And all we're
asking is that if people have not decommissioned, if they've not turned
to support the legal weapons of the state, if they're not turned in that
direction there's something wrong that two ministers from that faction
has over sixty per cent of the budget of the Northern Ireland consolidated
front at their disposal, there's something wrong and it's near time that
there was deliverance on it. It's not a question actually of destroying
the executive, the executive under the D'Hondt principle can be re-run
with those who have not lived up to their commitments. Outside it, they
are still within the assembly, they can still be on the committees, nobody's
arguing about that. We're asking for the implementation - by the way when
people will say, but the Loyalists have not decommissioned, we say, quite
right, they haven't and we've been against that as well. We say that all
weapons except the lawful weapons of the state should be out of commission.
HUMPHRYS: If David Trimble sticks
to the policies that he has already enunciated, if he doesn't do what this,
what, what you would like to see him do, then, and he is voted down, should
he resign?
SMYTH: I believe he will have to
make that decision when it comes, he may decide that he no longer has the
confidence of the Council, but if he has the confidence of his Assembly
party, he may decide to go in that direction and we would refute his allegations
that we cannot take decisions because we lost a seat in Southampton, we're
saying that we should be taking decisions, because those with whom we entered
into agreements have not fulfilled them, whereas as Unionists, we have
fulfilled ours.
HUMPHRYS: You believe clearly from,
based on that answer that the answer to my question is yes, he should go.
SMYTH: I believe that he will have
to make a decision, what he wants, if the Council actually vote against
his policy at this moment.
HUMPHRYS: And your view, of the
decision he should take is that he should go.
SMYTH: I would say that he will
have to change his policies to abide by the policies of the Council, which
they agreed and he was the one who led them in that direction and has slipped
right along the way yielding to the pressures of America, and by the way,
there are no votes for any of our constituencies really in Washington,
or in the United States.
HUMPHRYS: In practical terms, again,
it would be inconceivable wouldn't it, for a man, a leader of a party,
to say, those are my policies, vote for them, if they reject them, he can't
then say, well alright, I'll change my policy, he can't do that, can he?
So in practice, if that vote goes against him, and I gather you believe
it will go against him, that's the end of Mr. Trimble, isn't it?
SMYTH: I would say that that is
a possibility, but since he says he's not a quitter, we've got to wait
and see what happens next Saturday.
HUMPHRYS: And, just into the last
thirty-seconds that we have, would you yourself, you have stood against
him once of course, you ran him a very, very close second, would you stand
against him again?
SMYTH: I have said that I am ruling
nothing in and nothing out, and it will be up to the Council to make their
decision of what they want.
HUMPHRYS: So there is the possibility,
we are facing the possibility that Mr. Trimble will be forced out, that
you might indeed yourself, or somebody else will take over from him and
that could effectively could be the end of the Good Friday Agreement, couldn't
it?
SMYTH: Well, it was a Belfast agreement,
we get away from this emotionalism about Good Friday because the only Good
Friday agreement I am aware of was when Herod and Pilot actually joined
together to crucify the carpenter of Nazareth who I own as my Lord.
HUMPHRYS: Martin Smyth, thank you
very much indeed.
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