The Current Situation

The British government is now in direct rule of the six counties of the northeast of Ireland and it has been so since December 2002. British military occupation forces in the north of Ireland number 15,000 soldiers, almost twice as many as they have stationed in Iraq.

The power sharing political institutions have been in operation for a meager 20 months of the 6 1/2 years since the Good Friday Agreement s signing in 1998.

The primary political parties and the British and Irish governments met during the week of September 12th, 2004 for talks at Leeds Castle in England supposedly to break the impasse. The fact that Ian Paisley s Democratic Unionist Party refused to even talk to the largest nationalist party, Sinn Fein, doomed the talks from the start. (See 12 September 2004 Action Alert)

In the 85-year history of the northern statelet, Unionists never had to negotiate with Nationalists regarding sharing power; never had to work out ways to rearrange their privileged positions for equality; never had to reform a judiciary, police force and economy permanently skewed in their favor. However, this Unionist attitude and the workings of the political system in the north of Ireland are not entirely their fault. The ultimate responsibility for the present morass rests with the British government.

Talks continue at various less conspicuous levels in efforts to save the agreement. But if unionism will not engage, will the British and Irish governments act in defense of the GFA? Will they drive the peace process forward without a devolved northern assembly, as they are required to do?

Today, the bottom line is, the British government is NOT implementing the human and civil rights reforms envisioned by the Good Friday Agreement and they continue to allow an ironclad Unionist Veto to thwart progress and democratic change.

Democracy is sacrificed time and time again for British political calculations outside the scope of the GFA. Political, social and civic stagnation is the result, as is the concomitant threat that the vacuum will be filled by unrest and violence as in the past.