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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 20.2.94
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon and welcome to On The
Record. Yesterday John Major and the Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds met
in Downing Street to review the progress that's been made towards peace in
Northern Ireland since the Downing Street Declaration of last December. What
peace? What progress? I'll be asking Mr Reynolds whether it may not be time to
accept that the IRA is no nearer abandoning the bullet and the bomb than it
was two months ago.
HUMPHRYS: But first, the continuing quest for
peace in Ireland. Yesterday John Major and Albert Reynolds re-affirmed their
commitment to the Downing Street Declaration. But what does that mean if Sinn
Fein and the IRA fail to pick up what John Major once described as a gauntlet
for peace?
Prime Minister, they have failed to pick
it up haven't they?
ALBERT REYNOLDS: So far, yes, but I think we all have to
understand that there's a long and difficult and delicate debate going on
within the Republican movement. As to whether they chose the path to peace or
to continue with the armed conflict. Now I think after twenty five years any
resonable person looking at the failure of the armed conflict, where there'll
be no military victory of either side, would have to look seriously at a change
of direction away from the cul-de-sac of violence and towards a new process, a
process that can build peace for the island of Ireland.
It is true that that debate is
continuing, we haven't set specific deadlines on that debate and I can
appreciate the time that that's going to take because my own party, Fianna
Fail, was another party that was born out of civil war politics in Ireland and
that long and tortuous debate had to take place in my own party. So I can
appreciate what's happening. Maybe to outsiders they think that there should
be a much sooner response but after all, I think, it's the end objective that
matters and the fact that it hasn't been rejected and the debate continues, I
think gives grounds for reasonable hope that we'll get a positive response at
the end.
HUMPHRYS: But your Foreign Minister, Mr Spring,
said this morning they might never respond.
REYNOLDS: That's a possibility, they might never
respond.
HUMPHRYS: Strong possibility?
REYNOLDS: I don't regard that as a strong
possibility, it is one of the possibilities that are there, I don't regard it
as such, I believe there will be a response of...what it will be, I don't know.
I certainly hope, like the vast majority of people on the island of Ireland and
indeed, in Britain and in Europe and in the United States, continuously hope
for the right decision from the Republican movement.
HUMPHRYS: But you can understand people being
disillusioned, can't you, because they were given to understand that there
might even be peace by Christmas.
REYNOLDS: Well that's not what I said and if I to
correct that....
HUMPHRYS: You said there was a real hope of that,
you said that to me in fact, in Dublin.
REYNOLDS I said there was a hope for the first
step towards peace at Christmas and I believe we have taken the first step
towards peace at Christmas. We have not had a rejection of the Downing Street
Declaration. The Downing Street Declaration has engaged the minds and the
imagination of the vast majority of people throughout the world. The vast
majority of the people in the divided communities in Northern Ireland. Indeed,
where there's strong support and the momentum for peace is not abating in any
shape or form.
I think it was the Irish poet who said
"well peace comes dropping slow". I think anybody who's engaged in trying to
achieve peace in very complex conflicts, whether it's in South Africa or
indeed, between the Palestinians and the Jews, you can't expect those sort of
resolutions of conflicts to be achieved overnight. I never set out the
Declaration as a quick fix, as something that would be responded to fairly
quickly and that we would see the end of violence. I said it was a first step
to building a peace process and I still believe it is.
HUMPHRYS: But the Irish poet didn't hear what
Danny Morrison and Gerry Adams have been saying. All what they've said is
tantamout to a rejection, is it not?
REYNOLDS: No.
HUMPHRYS: Danny Morrison describes as a flawed
document.
REYNOLDS: No, I don't regard....he says it's a
flawed document, he didn't say he was rejecting the document. He may have
different views of certain aspects of that document. There were demands for
clarifications and explanations in relation to that document, to try and let
people know that the two governments were sincerely committed to the
implementation of the principles set out in that peace document and I think
what John Major said yesterday and, indeed, what Sir Patrick Mayhew has been
saying over the last couple of weeks, has been extremely helpful and should go
a long way along the road to convincing the Nationalist population in the North
of Ireland who had a question mark over the determination of the British
government to stand behind that Declaration. I think those two...yesterday's
statement by John Major and, indeed, the various statements by Sir Patrick
Mayhew, will be very helpful and go a long way to removing some of the fears
that exist in the community.
HUMPHRYS: But John Major has made it absolutely
clear that if they think it's a flawed document, that's tough, there's nothing
he's going to do about that, the document stands. He's made that a hundred per
cent clear on many, many occasions.
REYNOLDS: None of us in any negotiations are going
to get everything we want out of negotiations. I think what the Republican
movement are doing is examining what's in the document, examining the process
that can evolve out of the document that they can be participants in. They
have to decide whether they're going to chose that or to continue along the
road of the arms conflict which is not getting them anywhere and which, indeed,
has been revolted against by the vast majority of their supporters.
Eighty seven per cent of the Nationalist
community in Northern Ireland support the Downing Street Declaration - ninety
seven per cent of the Republic. That's support that no orgnisation living in
the island of Ireland can afford to turn their backs on.
HUMPHRYS: You say it's a negotiation, that's not
the kind of language John Major uses.
REYNOLDS: Not on the document itself, he does use
the words "negotiations"....
HUMPHRYS: Not with the IRA he doesn't, not with
Sinn Fein he doesn't.
REYNOLDS: ....after a cessation of violence.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, precisely.
REYNOLDS: That's right. I mean that's very clear
and we all understand that....
HUMPHRYS: But the point I made to you was that
they regard that document as fundamentally flawed, they've said so on many
occasions and since it is a document that stands alone, since Mr Major has
absolutely no intention of negotiating on that document, it means the document
falls, doesn't it, for the purpose of the IRA that is?
REYNOLDS: I don't accept that logic at all. What
I'm saying is this, that document is there. I agree with John Major, we
neogitated that document, we're not changing the text of that document. What
we're saying is this, that document provides an opportunity to get involved in
a peace process and turn away from violence. That's what it does. After
there's a cessation of violence, then we all sit around the table. They can
sit around the table - Sinn Fein - and the Republican movement in the first
instance, around the table of peace and reconciliation in Ireland, which,
indeed, has to... there's an exercise to be carried out in that regard. The
fears and suspicions that are part and parcel of the division of the people of
Ireland, of the two communities in Northern Ireland is there and it's going to
take quite some time to repair that suspicion and remove the fears that are
there.
HUMPHRYS: But in the meantime, we have this
complete deadlock, don't we, because you're saying that document stands, it
cannot be negotiated. John Major is saying precisely the same. They are
saying, the IRA are saying, we want...we will not accept this document as it
stands, therefore stalemate.
REYNOLDS: Flawed document is the words used by
Danny Morrison. I don't know what he means by a flawed document, he would like
maybe to have seen different language written in different ways or whatever.
But what we're saying is this.....
HUMPHRYS: It's more fundamental than that, isn't
it?
REYNOLDS: It's not been made very clear to me and
I read the statement in the papers this morning just the same as somebody else
but be what it may, what it is is a stepping stone towards the talks process,
towards the democratic process. They can argue the aspects of that document
that they may not agree with around the table but that document will not be
renegotiated before we have a cessation of violence and people sit around the
table.
HUMPHRYS: Even if there is still hope and it's
hard to see where it comes from, that the IRA is prepared to accept that
document. Are you not allowing Adams to set the pace by refusing yourselves to
set a deadline?
REYNOLDS: No, I think deadlines are not helpful,
deadlines are...what we have said is look, we have put a lot of time and effort
into this document, this document stands there, it is now the basis on which we
start to proceed to try and find an overall balanced political settlement of
the conflict in Northern Ireland that has afflicted our country for centuries
and, indeed, which has been the subject of an arms conflict for twenty five
years. What we're saying is this is the new starting point, the principles
laid down in that document are going to be the basis on which the new three
stranded talks process are going to resume. That's what we're saying. So the
principles are already set out there as the parameters and basis on which new
talks will take place.
HUMPHRYS: But while do you sit here waiting for
Adams and the rest of them to accept that document you're allowing him, aren't
you, to drive a wedge between London and Dublin effectively?
REYNOLDS: He won't drive a wedge between London
and Dublin, the two governments are absolutely committed and are going to be
the co-sponsors of the new talks process. We are not letting him dictate the
pace, we are working ourselves to our agenda of a resumption of the third...the
three strands talks process while at the same time saying not locking the door
to peace, not throwing away the key but saying there is a document that is the
basis for the talks process, it is a stepping stone towards that talks process
for Sinn Fein if there is a cessation of violence. That is not allowing him
to dictate the pace. People may say that but I mean we have conflict on both
sides in Northern Ireland, we have two sets of paramilitaries, if we're going
to try to get the violence out of our system in Northern Ireland, surely we
have to have patience and work it slowly, recognising that it's better off to
give time for the process to wind its way through a particular movement and,
indeed, to hopefully get a positive result than to turn off the tap and say
no. The talks process has a much better chance of success if it's in a peace
environment.
HUMPHRYS: But you're saying you won't allow him to
drive a wedge, some people would say he's already succeeded in doing that.
London, for instance, said at the outset of this process, "there will be no
clarification of this document". You've been doing little but clarify.
REYNOLDS: Sure. I have said there will be no
renegotiation of the document John.
HUMPHRYS: ....clarified and London said no
clarification, absolutely clear about that.
REYNOLDS: Because - we have to go the whole way
and quote exactly what they said, they said there would be no clarification
because we regard clarification as renegotiation. I have said there will be
no renegotiation but if somebody has genuine doubts in relation to what certain
things in the Declaration means, I am prepared to clarify them, I have done
that and I believe it's helpful to the process. I don't what to finish up at
the end of this that anybody will point the finger at me and say, you were
lapse in your responsibilities and your duties to try and get a peace process
in Ireland by being dogmatic in relation to what you can genuinely give if you
believe in the document. That's the position I have taken and Sir Patrick
Mayhew has, indeed, over the last ten to fourteen days, produced many
statements that are helpful too.
HUMPHRYS: But let's look at their actions rather
than their deeds. When Gerry Adams wrote to John Major he not only published
the letter but he sent Adams away with a flea in his ear. When he wrote to
you, you sent him a four-page reply, a very extensive reply in other words.
REYNOLDS: Yes, and I believe it was right to do
it and I believe that if that helps to bring peace to Ireland, to the island of
Ireland and to try and heal the divisions between the two communities in
Ireland it was well worth doing ....
HUMPHRYS: So John Major was wrong to do what he
did?
REYNOLDS: No, John Major took his own.....
HUMPHRYS: You couldn't have both been right.
REYNOLDS: John Major took his own view, and the
British government are entitled to do that, but he said no negotiation because
he believed clarification .....
HUMPHRYS: He said no clarification ...
REYNOLDS: ..was a stepping stone into negotiation.
I take the view that I clarified but I will not negotiate.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, well, let's look at some of the
other areas in which people say you've made concessions, and have allowed Adams
to appear the statesman which he didn't before. You've made - you've lifted
the broadcasting ban for instance, in your country now. Britain didn't want
you to do that, it was going to happen, they wanted it to happen jointly
between London and Dublin.
REYNOLDS: This is always a matter for the Irish
government to decide and indeed the broadcasting ban over here is a matter for
the British government to decide. What we did in relation to the broadcasting
ban is we took a view that as government that the broadcasting ban when it
was brought in was in a different set of circumstances. We looked at the
support that Sinn Fein command within the Irish electorate even having full
access to the print media and we find that they had about one-and-a-half per
cent. In an opinion poll taken three weeks after the broadcasting ban is
lifted their support is one per cent. So quite clearly it is not having the
effect that people feared it would have and we believed in - during the process
of debate on the peace declaration that the Irish people were entitled to hear
some justification from Gerry Adams and other Sinn Fein speakers if they
wanted to justify the campaign of violence.
HUMPHYRS: So on that basis....
REYNOLDS: They haven't managed to do that.
HUMPHRYS: So on that basis you'd say to John
Major, "This was our experience, why don't you do the same"?
REYNOLDS: No, that's a matter for John Major and
the British government. I don't tell them what to do, they don't tell me what
to do.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, something else that has allowed
Gerry Adams to play the world statesman, was that visit to the United States.
Now you could perhaps probably have stopped that. If you got on the phone to
the President Mr Clinton, and said "We don't want him to come, we're clear
about that", but you didn't, you were neutral.
REYNOLDS: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: London would have loved you to get on
the phone to Clinton and say "Don't let it happen".
REYNOLDS: I think the proof of the pudding of that
visit will come out at the end of the day when we see what decision and what
response that both Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein and the Republican movement
give to the peace declaration, because the one thing that came out of that
visit which is extremely helpful and supportive of the peace declaration
was what President Clinton said that there was widespread, and his
administration fully supported it and called for everybody to get behind it
including Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein and the Republican movement. The same goes
for all the Irish-American associations out there by and large, even some of
the hardline people that have been there over the years are fully supportive of
the peace declaration. If the end result is that that puts enough pressure on
from the United States as well as all the pressure that's been exerted in
Ireland and Europe and Britain and elsewhere, if that means at the end of the
day that we get a positive response to the peace declaration all will have been
worthwile. If we get the wrong response then I believe that the support that
was there in the United States, the forty signatories to a visa of political
leaders over there, they will just vanish like the winter snow, because they
won't be there to support a situation of violence against the peace process.
HUMPHRYS: So on that basis we're told that Adams
now wants to go to the European parliament to put his case there. You'd
support that as well?
REYNOLDS: The European parliament is a matter for
the European parliament as to whether ....
HUMPHRYS: But you've a view on it.
REYNOLDS: Pardon?
HUMPHRYS: You've a view on whether he ought to
go or not.
REYNOLDS: I don't control the European parliament.
I mean if somebody - if some member of the European parliament wants to invite
somebody to the European parliament neither I nor John Major, or anybody else
can stop them going there, that's the reality of it.
HUMPHRYS: But the other reality is that you're a
significant member of the European community. You could say, "We don't think
this is a very good idea".
REYNOLDS: Who are we going to say that to?
We can't stop the members of parliament from bringing people either into the
House of Commons or elsewhere....
HUMPHRYS": A matter for the European parliament -
do you think he ought to go, ought to be allowed to go. Do you think the
European parliament ought to welcome him?
REYNOLDS: It's a matter for the European
parliament, it's not for me to make that decision.
HUMPHRYS: But you have a view on it?
REYNOLDS: All I'm saying is this, is that there
is an over-reaction in relation to the fruits that people can think out of
these particular media trips. Naturally in the United States there was a
curiosity media. Somebody was banned from entering the United States for
twenty years. I take the view that the American people have a full view and
they'll have an opportunity to hear me on St Patrick's day over there, if
they've any wrong ideas about what the peace process is. They gave a clear
message to Sinn Fein and the Republican movement as to what they expect as a
result of that visit and if that doesn't turn out I think they'll be severe
difficulties about a return trip.
HUMPHRYS: So you've no strong view about Mr Adams
as it were, parading the world stage. You're quite happy with that?
REYNOLDS: I don't think - I think that people
today can make up their own minds in relation to it and I don't accept the view
that he's seen in the United States and throughout the world as a leading Irish
statesman. He's a member of - he's a leader of Sinn Fein. They're a political
party, they have members on the local authority councils in Northern Ireland.
That's the extent of the leadership that is there and if people want to elevate
that, it's only a very short time process. What I'm interested in at the end
of the day is that all of those trips that take place, will have the effect of
putting more and more pressure on for a response to the peace movement, and I
believe that's what the European parliament will support as well, and anywhere
else that Gerry Adams chooses to go.
HUMPHRYS: When we spoke just before Christmas,
before the signing of the declaration, you said "Peace cannot wait for a
political settlement". You very clearly put the priority on the peace process.
You now appar to have changed your mind?
REYNOLDS: No. What I said is that I would leave -
that the political settlement and the political talks in the three-stranded
process that we're about to try and get resumed, that that has a much better
chance of success if we were doing it in a peace environment, but at the end of
the day I've always said we're ready to participate in talks as long as the
basis is right and as long as the three-stranded process is resumed, because
there were many reports emanating over the last couple of weeks which suggested
that we were just going to have strand-one talks for an internal settlement in
Northern Ireland. That hasn't worked in the past, it has failed and it won't
work again.
HUMPHRYS: And you would absolutely oppose that?
REYNOLDS: Absolutely, because it won't work.
There's no point in going back to repeat the mistakes that history - that
surely we should have learned from history.
HUMPHRYS: So are you now an enthusiast for the
three-strand talks - .... enthusiast, beginning as soon as possible?
REYNOLDS: I've always said I will begin them as
soon as possible, but I believe they'll have a better chance of success if the
peace declaration was accepted. What I'm saying now is, the declaration is the
basis on which we will try and build the three-stranded talks process, that's
what I'm in favour of.
HUMPHRYS: So we're still waiting for Adams?
REYNOLDS: We're not still waiting for Adams. Sure,
the two governments and Sir Patrick Mayhew and Michael Ancram is doing all the
talks behind the scenes and hopefully as soon as all the political parties
are ready to go to the table then we're ready to go to the table.
HUMPHRYS: But you've said we're not likely to get
a lasting solution if we don't involve all the parties. Talks have a poor
enough chance anyway of the success you said, even without Sinn Fein getting
involved, even without peace.
REYNOLDS: There's another party that may not get
involved who've said so, and that's the DUP. Are we saying that we're going to
wait for them, no we're not. We're saying we're going to go ahead with the
peace process. The door is open, and if somebody wants to join it along the
way so be it. The two governments are not going to be dictated to, and indeed
we have always said that we could expect difficulties and obstacles along the
way. They have indeed put in our way, but they're not going to deter us from
our determination to push through a political settlement in Northern Ireland,
hopefully preceded by a peace or a declaration of a cessation of violence.
HUMPHRYS: But as soon as possible you want those
...that three-strand process to begin just as soon as possible, not waiting for
anybody, you want them to start, maybe tomorrow, next week, the week after.
REYNOLDS: They can start in two weeks time if
they're ready to start, but they weren't ready to start up to now. The SDLP
had made it very clear they weren't going to get involved in strand-one talks
for a purely internal solution in Northern Ireland because they knew it
wouldn't work. They wanted to know what was going to happen, the peace
declaration was about to be set aside by the two governments. All those
matters have been clarified yesterday. We now know what the basis is, we now
know how they can proceed, and it's a matter for the two governments and all
the parties to get their house in order to get back to the table.
HUMPHRYS: One of the other dangers of as it
were, waiting for Adams. I take your point that you say you're not but let me
put it in this sense. One of the other dangers of not setting a deadline on
the Downing Street declaration is that you alienate even further the Unionist
feeling in Northern Ireland.
REYNOLDS: There are two causes of the problem in
Northern Ireland. Take the Unionists for instance. Their fear has always
been - and their distrust of the Nationalists and indeed of the South - has
always been that we will coerce them in some way or another or bomb them into a
united Ireland against their will. I think the declaration deals with that
particular concern and sets it up clearly unequivocally for the Unionists...
HUMPHRYS: There many Unionists in Northern
Ireland. They treat it with great suspicion.
REYNOLDS: And if you look - they can't be
suspicious after a declaration by the two governments saying that...
HUMPHRYS: But they are.
REYNOLDS: Just a moment. Look at the support
they've given in the opinion polls for the declaration. Look at the support
that's there. We hear some voices, but I'm telling you what the momentum is on
the ground for peace.
HUMPHRYS: But we've seen an increase in violence,
we've seen an increase in Loyalist terrorist violence.
REYNOLDS: I've already said that we expected to
have difficulties along the way, that there will be people on the margins in
both paramilitary organisations who for one reason or another don't want the
peace process to succeed, who are going to intervene at various intervals, and
I deplore all that resumption of violence. I deplore the sectarian murders that
have emanated again from the Loyalist community, I deplore the killing of a
policeman, and I deplore all the fire-bombs that have been placed elsewhere.
They are in my view challenges to the two democratic governments in London and
Dublin to try and put us off our path of peace. We're not going to be taken
away from that.
I want to finish the other side of
concern. The concerns of the Nationalist community have always been that there
wasn't a recognition of their rights, that they could not pursue legitimate
political objectives of trying to work towards a united Ireland as their
political objective, that their identity was not recognised. The declaration
deals with that very extensively for the first time ever by a British
government in paragraph four, so now we have the concerns and suspicions being
dealt with, we now have since yesterday and the last two weeks, we now have the
two governments very clearly saying that they've fully determined, fully behind
the declaration and going to implement it. Let's hope that the momentum is
there, that is gathering support all the time, not losing it, gathering
support will indeed force the people engaged in violence to look towards the
peace process.
HUMPHRYS: Prime Minister, thank you very much.
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