The Tonic Of Peace
A besieged Bill Clinton is cheered in Ireland for America's role
in helping to end the Troubles
By Barry Hillenbrand
Northern Ireland, where the painstaking peace process has been
rocked by horrible killings in the past few months, hardly seems
a promising destination for a politician searching for a bit of
uplift and optimism. But last week after two fruitless days in
Moscow, President Bill Clinton flew into Belfast to a warm
welcome from cheering crowds and to celebrate what, despite
bombings and burnings, still looks like a major foreign policy
triumph for his Administration. "The people of Northern
Ireland," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair in welcoming
Clinton, "owe you a deep debt of gratitude. No President of the
United States has done more for peace in Northern Ireland than
you." No one would argue with Blair.
Even as the President stepped off the plane, there was another
sign of progress. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger dashed
up to Clinton and handed him a newspaper that carried a banner
headline announcing that David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster
Unionist Party and the First Minister of the new Northern
Ireland Assembly, had agreed to hold a one-on-one meeting this
week with Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, the political
wing of the Irish Republican Army. "This is the headline we
wanted to see," Berger told a beaming Clinton.
Indeed it was. Trimble, throughout the long months of the peace
negotiations, had stubbornly refused ever to speak directly to
Adams because of his affiliation with the violent I.R.A. In the
days preceding the President's arrival, Adams, after lobbying
from Clinton, made a series of crucial statements which made the
meeting possible. Adams said the violence "must be for all of us
now a thing of the past, over, done with and gone." This
fulfilled a Unionist demand that the I.R.A., through Adams,
replace their cease-fire with a permanent denunciation of
violence.
The following day Adams said that Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's
chief negotiator and a hard man, with an impeccable reputation
with the top command of the I.R.A., would become the liaison
between the I.R.A. and the international commission that is to
arrange the disarming of Northern Ireland's paramilitary forces
in accordance with terms of the Good Friday agreement. "In a few
months' time," said Adams, "when the Assembly is up and running,
people will say none of this would have been possible without
the President's trip."
But Clinton was not always assured that his visit would be a
success. On Aug. 15 a violent republican splinter group calling
itself the Real I.R.A. set off a powerful bomb in Omagh, a rural
market town in the north. Twenty-eight people were killed and
220 injured in the single worst attack in the 30 years of
fighting between Protestants and Catholics. The Real I.R.A.
hoped the outrage caused by the bomb would be so great that the
peace process would grind to a halt. Instead, the carnage
inflicted by the bomb was so indiscriminate and
terrible--Catholics and Protestants, women and children, old
people and teenagers were among the dead--that all parties to
the conflict rushed to isolate and crush the terrorist elements.
Adams, for the first time, "unequivocally condemned" a
republican bombing. With unprecedented haste and over the
objections of civil rights advocates, the governments in both
Dublin and London required only two days to pass new
anti-terrorist legislation, which will make it easier to send
terrorists to prison. The leaders of the Real I.R.A. fled their
homes in the Republic, and the organization seems to be on the
run.
The hope that some good can be salvaged from an evil act is a
painful and recurring theme in Northern Ireland. Clinton touched
on it when, out of the sight of cameras, he--along with the
First Lady, Blair and his wife Cherie--visited the injured
survivors of the blast in Omagh and then unveiled a plaque to
the dead that said simply, "May their memories serve to foster
peace and reconciliation."
Clinton's sober and, at times, tearful mood began to lift and
approach the ebullient mode when he began shaking hands along a
rope line in Omagh. The crowds, laughing and smiling, chanted,
"We want Bill! We want Bill!" By the time he spoke in the
ancient cathedral town of Armagh, the President was nearly back
to his familiar, self-confident form. "Never underestimate the
impact you can have on the world," Clinton said. "Thank you for
the springtime of hope you have given the world. Thank you for
reminding us of one of life's most important lessons--that it is
never too late for a new beginning." With American help,
Northern Ireland has begun again. No doubt Clinton would like to
have that chance.
--With reporting by Jay Branegan with
Clinton and Cliff Stammerman/Armagh
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