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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 11.2.96
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. The Northern Ireland
peace process was blown apart by that explosion on Friday night. Can the
politicians now put the pieces back together again? I'll be talking to one of
the key figures, the Prime Minister of Ireland John Bruton. That's after the
news read by Jennie Bond.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: The dream of a permanent peace in
Northern Ireland was shattered by that bomb on Friday night and in this
programme we shall be looking at what the politicians can do now to stop the
old nightmare returning.
First though to Dublin. There would
have been no cease-fire in Northern Ireland if the British and Irish
Governments had not been working together. That makes the reaction of Dublin
to what happened last Friday absolutely crucial. The Prime Minister of the
Republic of Ireland is John Bruton and he is in our Dublin studio now. Good
afternoon, Mr Bruton.
JOHN BRUTON: Good afternoon.
HUMPHRYS: Was this inevitable?
BRUTON: No, certainly all Irish politicians
believe it was not. We had made an Act of Faith indeed that Sinn Fein's
commitment and the IRA's commitment to peace was irreversible, that there would
be no return to violence. We are deeply disappointed now to learn that
violence has returned, returned indeed at a time when progress was being made,
when the Irish Government and the SDLP were pursuing a common agenda on behalf
of the minority community in Northern Ireland to get proximity talks started so
that we could begin to make progress.
HUMPHRYS: I note you say the Irish....
BRUTON: It is deeply disappointing that in the
middle of that a bomb has been detonated, lives have been taken and we extend
our sympathy to those who have lost their lives.
HUMPHRYS: I note you say the Irish Government and
the SDLP were working together. You didn't include the British Government in
that?
BRUTON: I believe that it is important as a
fundamental principle that the two Governments should work together. We had a
common agenda and that was that we would between now and the end of February
work to clear away the obstacles so that we could have all-party talks
including Sinn Fein lodged at the end of February. We were working to that
agenda, it was an agreed agenda with the British Government. Having said that
I make no moral equivalents between acts of violence which are on a profoundly
different plane to mistakes that might be made by politicians and all
politicians make mistakes. I belive that the decision to introduce in the
middle of this process the idea that there was only two ways forward - one a
pre-condition of giving up weapons, or a pre-condition of an election; this
open and shut presentation in the House of Commons of the matter earlier this
month was a mistake.
HUMPHRYS: So, to that extent, the British
Government was culpable. Of course, as you say, no moral equivalents
whatsoever. I accept that point.
BRUTON: Let me hasten to say this. Everybody
makes mistakes. This was a mistake, but there is no moral equivalents between
using violence to achieve political ends and the mistakes that all Democrats
make from time to time in democratic politics. They are on an entirely
different plane and I think that it is very important that we make that
distinction without any ambiguity.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Well now, can the peace process
as we recognise it be rescued?
BRUTON: I believe it can, but with enormous
difficulty. Undoubtedly the Act of Faith that we made to the commitment that
Sinn Fein and the IRA had make to peaceful methods could not be reversed. That
Act of Faith has been thrown back in our face. So that makes a difficulty.
But we are still keeping lines of communication open. We are willing to hear
messages from Sinn Fein. While we are not willing to have political meetings
with them, communications can be received and will be received from them, and
even this morning people from Sinn Fein were talking to people in my office,
conveying their views. And we believe that it's only through listening to
views of that nature that we'll make progess. We are not going to get
ourselves in a position either wherein we negotiate under duress, where we're
having a meeting with somebody and a bomb goes off in the middle of the
meeting, or we agree something with somebody the day after a bomb has been
exploded, and it is presented that it was because of the bomb that something
was agreed to. Democrats can't work on that basis.
HUMPHRYS: So you are saying that unless there is a
return to the cease-fire, quite clearly there will be no negotiations between
yourself for instance and Gerry Adams, for instance?
BRUTON: I don't think that there's any
constitutionual democracy that could function on the basis that it negotiates
under threat of violence with people who are its own citizens.
HUMPHRYS: And there must be a complete cessation
of violence, to use the phrase that has been used to describe this cease-fire,
until unless, and until you return to proper talks with Sinn Fein?
BRUTON: We want to talk to Gerry Adams about
peace, we want to talk to Gerry Adams about how the Republican community can be
properly represented in the peace process and in a new agreed settlement.
We want the help of Gerry Adams in that regard and the help that we want from
him is get the IRA to reinstate the cessation of violence, to go back to the
path that was working, we were making progess - very substantial progress. In
my view, the Washington three condition had effectively been dropped as a
result of the Mitchell Report. The Mitchell Report provided a way, a
political way into all party talks. The Irish Government was making progress
with its proposal for getting people to talk in the one building, even if not
in the one room, its proximity talks idea, that progress, that proposal was
gaining momentum.
HUMPHRYS: Are you treating...
BRUTON: ...we can return to that path so long as
the violence stops.
HUMPHRYS: Are you treating the IRA and Sinn Fein
as one for the purposes of this?
BRUTON: The position is, as I understand it,
that the IRA uses violence to support the political programme of Sinn Fein.
There are two....movement and to the extent that Sinn Fein is willing to accept
the use of violence as a political method of bolstering its own political
programme, that puts Sinn Fein in a difference category to all other political
parties because all other political parties are not willing to accept violence
as a means of advancing their programme, they rely soley on their mandate.
HUMPHRYS: So there has not only to be the
cessation of violence, but there has to be from Sinn Fein, quite clearly a
condemnation of what happened on Friday night?
BRUTON: No, I think asking people to condemn
events that happened either ten years ago, or a year ago or even yesterday is
not a productive way forward. I don't believe that infact will happen. I
believe asking them to condemn is a waste of time and I don't believe that
governments should waste their time. We should concentrate on the main goal
which is stopping the violence now, getting them to get the IRA to say we're
stopping the killing. That's the objective, not verbal condemnations or words
or that sort of thing. We want the killing to stop.
HUMPHRYS: But the question is, how in general
terms, can that be done.
BRUTON: By the IRA deciding to do it and we're
offering them an incentive. We're offering them an incentive. We're saying we
will reinstate the peace process as it stood in the advanced stage it was at,
with a lot of work done, we will reinstate that. We will talk to Gerry
Adams....(interruption)...we will reinstate the peace process. We are saying to
Sinn Fein, we will reinstate the peace process at the stage that it was at, if
you will...we'll talk to you, if you will get the IRA to say: "no, we don't
believe killing people is the way to persuade people. Persuasion should rely on
argument, not on violence.
HUMPHRYS: So what you're talking about is quite
literally picking up where you left off. You would go back to them with this
proposal for Dayton (sic) style talks, getting the parties together even if
they're not literally talking to each other.
BRUTON: We believe that that is the way
forward. We regret deeply, as I say there's no moral equivalent between
political mistakes and violence. We regret deeply the lack of generosity of the
Unionist Community over the last sixteen months. The fact that they wouldn't
even talk to the Irish Government, in a process, a twin track process agreed by
their own government. The fact that they refused over the sixteen or seventeen
months to sit in the same room with Sinn Fein, even to ask Sinn Fein about Sinn
Fein's commitment to the Mitchell principles. The Unionists wouldn't even sit
with them to discuss that. That was a mistake by the Unionists. A serious
mistake from a Unionist point of view, given that the Unionists had the
assurance that the constitutionist status of Northern Ireland would not be
changed without majority support. Given that they had that reassurance, they
had nothing to fear from talking to Sinn Fein and it's very important while
making it clear that violence is wrong in all circumstances that we should be
constructive enough and humble enough to learn from mistakes that were made in
the past, rectify those mistakes so that we can return, reinforced to the path
of peace.
HUMPHRYS: But you see, even at this stage, you're
going down a different road to the British Government because what we've been
hearing from Sir Patrick Mayhew and his people, consistently over the last
forty-eight hours, is the way forward is elections, not the path that you
propose. So, even now there's this gap.
BRUTON: I believe the idea of having an election
of the kind suggested immediately after the resumption of violence would pour
petrol on the flames. I think it would be a serious mistake. It would urge Sir
Patrick not to pursue that path. To accept the advice of the Irish Government
on this matter.
HUMPHRYS: So you totally reject David Trimble's
call, he repeated it just last night, for elections.
BRUTON: Elections, let us remember, and you can
see this because electioneering perhaps has even started in your own
jurisdiction. Electioneering is about a contest, it's about doing down the
other person in argument. There is enough conflict and division in Northern
Ireland at the moment without adding to it. We don't need a contest, we need
compromise. That's why our suggestion, Dick Spring's suggestion, of getting
people together in the one building, even if they wouldn't talk to one another
directly, even though they should, and having them convenient to one another so
that gradually trust could be built up. That's the way forward. Certainly
elections will come eventually as part of the process, we've no objection to
elections but we want elections to take place in a condition wherein the
contest will be about who can be the most generous to reinforce the peace, not
the contest being about who can be the most intransigent in putting down their
opponent.
HUMPHRYS: But you've already made it quite clear
that you would not expect people to sit around the table or indeed in next door
rooms, in adjoining rooms, from people who are refusing to condemn people who
go around murdering other people. So therefore we have this awful problem
don't we.
BRUTON: No, I must correct you.
HUMPHRYS: I'm sorry, you didn't actually say that
you insisted that they condemn but what you are...
BRUTON: In fact I said that that's a cul de sac.
It's a waste of time.
HUMPHRYS: I take your point, but you are insisting
that there must be a cessation of hostilities and that is something that Sinn
Fein cannot guarantee. It fell apart on Friday night, we've seen what Sinn Fein
can and cannot do here.
BRUTON: I believe that Sinn Fein and the IRA,
who are part of the Republican Movement, who represent a point of view, a very
strongly held point of view, who represent people who have suffered immeasurably
over many years in Northern Ireland. I believe that they must change their
mind and recognise that for their own people, peace, peaceful negotiation is
the way forward, that they must recognise that notwithstanding the frustrations
that go with political progress, notwithstanding the fact that sometimes you
don't get your way in a democracy, that peaceful persuasion is the way to make
progress. And the Irish Government and Irish America is willing to help them
along that path so long as they do not use violence. There has to be that
clear distinction, violence is not part of the armoury of a democratic
politician working a democratic negotiation.
HUMPHRYS But why do you believe that Sinn Fein
can now deliver a cease-fire that has collapsed once already and over which
they say they have no direct influence. What makes you believe they can do
that? Or does it merely take from them, does it merely take from them the
assurance that they will try - is that going to be enough for you?
BRUTON: We want the violence to stop. Words
are easy to use. Actions are easier to measure. We want the violence to
stop. We're absolutely unambiguous on that. We want the violence to stop.
Then we can have negotiation. What democratic politicians can do in the
meantime is show that if the violence does stop, that a proper democratic
mechanism - not a divisive mechanism, but an inclusive mechanism - is being
created, will be agreed to by all the participants and that when the violence
stops, there will be a ready-made democratic process into which the Republican
movement can take part, in which the Republican movement can take
part. That's what the Democrats can do now, to create the conditions to show
that there is a ready-made way of moving forward, and that's what I want the
Unionists to do, that's what I want the British Government to do along with us,
create that vehicle for peaceful progress, an agreed vehicle in which everybody
is willing to travel. Then we will be in a position to say to Sinn Fein "look
here is a way forward".
Violence, anyway, whether that is
the case of not it not a way forward and that is what I say to Sinn Fein "use
your influence, you are able to speak authoritively on behalf of the IRA. You
are able to speak authoritively to the IRA. Speak to them now and say to them
- killing people does not serve your people, it doesn't serve your cause, it
is inconsistent with being a Democrat. Prove your democratic credentials by
getting the IRA to stop the violence.
HUMPHRYS: Do you believe Prime Minister, do you
believe that Sinn Fein can deliver the IRA and another cease-fire?
BRUTON: I believe that the Republican movement
as a unit - composed as it is of Sinn Fein and the IRA - can together stop the
violence. If they made the decision to start the violence, they can equally
make a decision to stop it.
HUMPHRYS: Prime Minister, thank you very much
indeed for joining us this morning.
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