[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 17 (Thursday, February 24, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
             JOHN HUME'S 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF PUBLIC SERVICE

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it was 25 years ago today that John Hume 
won his first election in Northern Ireland. Many of us in Congress who 
have come to know John well throughout the years know him to be an 
extraordinary man of peace. I have great admiration for his 
achievements and his leadership, and I congratulate him on his 25th 
anniversary in public service.
  On February 24, 1969, John was elected to the Northern Ireland 
parliament. In the years since then, he has also been elected to the 
European Parliament and the British Parliament.
  Throughout the long and difficult years of civil strife and turmoil 
in Northern Ireland, John Hume has dedicated his life to achieving a 
peaceful, just and lasting settlement of the conflict. As the founder 
and leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern 
Ireland, he has demonstrated time and again the success and wisdom of 
peaceful negotiations and institution-building between Protestants and 
Catholics as the only acceptable method of achieving a solution of the 
crisis in his native land.
  In the past 25 years, the violence on both sides of the conflict has 
caused the death of more than 3,000 people; many thousands more have 
been maimed or injured; and untold millions of dollars in damage to 
property has occurred.
  He is one of the greatest apostles of nonviolence of our time. 
Throughout these turbulent years in Northern Ireland, John Hume has 
never lost faith in the belief that violence and terrorism are wrong 
and a negotiated settlement is the only realistic hope for peace, and 
that ancient antagonisms cannot be settled by bombs and bullets. He has 
an enduring vision of reconciliation based on equal respect and 
recognition for both the Protestant and Catholic traditions in Northern 
Ireland. His uncompromising defense of justice and human rights has 
undoubtedly reduced the level of violence, encouraged restraint and 
reason, and served as an inspiration to those seeking peaceful 
resolution of conflicts in many other corners of the world.
  It is remarkable that a man of such deep commitment to peace has 
risen to leadership of an oppressed minority in a divided country. Yet, 
surrounded by repressive measures and bitter frustration, John Hume has 
never yielded to rancor or intolerance. He has courageously and 
constructively challenged the presumptions and prejudices not only of 
the Protestant tradition in Northern Ireland--but also of his own 
Catholic tradition
  In challenging the one-sided society of Protestant domination and 
intolerance, pervasive discrimination in employment, housing and 
education, and the constant threat of violence and terrorism, John Hume 
fashioned a nonviolent civil rights movement based on community action 
and cooperation.

  Beginning with the launching of a credit union to provide assistance 
to the minority community to purchase housing, he fought consistently 
for the rights of the members of his community. His weapons were 
effective programs and peaceful deeds--at a time when others in his own 
community increasingly urged the path of bombs and bullets. His ideas 
and eloquence lit a candle in the darkness of Northern Ireland, kindled 
an increasing sense of hope in the minority community, and created new 
possibilities for understanding between the two opposing sides of the 
conflict.
  John Hume's community activity and involvement led directly to his 
long and distinguished political career. He brought together a broad 
coalition of leaders in his community who advocated nonviolence, and 
together they founded the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Under his 
skillful guidance as leader of the Party, the SDLP has been at the 
forefront of every significant effort to achieve a peaceful settlement 
in Northern Ireland.
  Largely because of the vision and diligence of John Hume, the SDLP 
and Unionist leaders achieved the landmark Sunningdale Agreement in 
1973, an unprecedented power-sharing experiment between the Nationalist 
and Unionist traditions.
  When the Sunningdale Agreement collapsed the follow year in the face 
of extremist Protestant resistance, John Hume encouraged the parties to 
explore other avenues of peace. It was John Hume who first--and for 
many years alone--argued the necessity for establishing an ongoing 
Anglo-Irish framework as the cornerstone for institutionalizing a 
process of reconciliation to heal the divisions within Northern 
Ireland, between north and south in Ireland, and between Britain and 
Ireland.
  In 1983, largely as a result of his efforts, the main Irish political 
parties and the SDLP established the far-reaching New Ireland Forum, 
which considered alternatives for progress and whose report laid the 
groundwork for an unprecedented new dialog on Northern Ireland between 
Britain and Ireland. This dialog culminated in November 1985 with the 
signing of the historic Anglo-Irish Agreement by Prime Minister 
Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain and Prime Minister Garret FitzGerald 
of Ireland, representing the best hope in more than a decade for peace 
in Northern Ireland.
  Today, the Anglo-Irish Agreement still serves as a daily avenue of 
communication between the British and Irish Governments on matters 
affecting Northern Ireland. In implementing the agreement, the two 
governments have also established an effective on-the-ground mechanism 
to consider specific grievances of the two communities in Northern 
Ireland on a day-to-day basis.
  Britain and Ireland deserve great credit for their commitment to this 
process of reconciliation, but it could not have happened without the 
extraordinary leadership of John Hume. In so many ways, he is the glue 
that has held Northern Ireland together, halted the descent into 
anarchy and civil war, and produced the hope we see today for further 
progress.
  In recent years, and especially in recent months, John Hume has 
conducted talks with Gerry Adams, the leader of the Sinn Fein party in 
Northern Ireland. Once again, he has shown great courage by taking a 
great personal, political risk in an effort to achieve a lasting peace. 
All those who know John Hume well, know that peace has been his only 
motivation throughout his long and distinguished career and it is our 
hope that his current leadership will contribute to a permanent end to 
the violence.
  John Hume is well respected in the United States and he has had an 
important influence on United States policy and on the American 
dimension of the conflict in Northern Ireland. In his many visits to 
this country, he has been a constant ambassador of peace, urging the 
cause of reconciliation, educating the Congress and the country that 
American dollars for Irish violence are destroying, not uniting, 
Ireland.
  In sum, John Hume is a courageous leader of unusual achievement. He 
has dedicated and risked his life for the cause of human rights and 
peace in his native land. His efforts give immense encouragement to his 
supporters, who have borne a heavy burden against great odds in the 
struggle for peace, democracy and justice in their country.
  His work also serves as an encouragement to those in other divided 
societies, who suffer from oppression and violence while seeking the 
dream of democracy, economic progress, and social justice.
  I am sure that my colleagues in the Congress join me in 
congratulating John Hume on his 25th anniversary. It is our sincere 
hope that the goal of his life's work--peace and reconciliation in 
Northern Ireland--will be achieved soon.
  I ask unanimous consent that an excellent recent article by John Hume 
on the current situation in Northern Ireland which appeared in the 
Irish Times last month may be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Irish Times, Jan. 31, 1994]

                  New Ways of Coming Together in Peace

                             (By John Hume)

       There has been a lot of public discussion, a lot of 
     careless language and indeed a lot of personal views by 
     politicians, both British and Irish, about their views in 
     relation to our future or indeed their preferences about that 
     future. However, at this crucial point it is essential that 
     we concentrate on the facts of our situation in Ireland and 
     the facts of the Joint Declaration, facts which to myself are 
     very clear and facts which have already made me declare that 
     it is the most comprehensive declaration by British and Irish 
     governments in 70 years on our relationships within this 
     island.
       Let us stay with the facts. The facts are that the people 
     of Ireland have the right to self-determine their future. The 
     facts are that the people of Cyprus have the right to self-
     determine their future. The facts are that the people of the 
     world have the right to self-determine their future. But the 
     fact that gets consistently forgotten as people make 
     emotional declarations about such rights is that it is people 
     who have rights and not territory. Without people this earth 
     is only a jungle. Humanity is what it is all about and how 
     humanity settles its differences. The essence of settling 
     differences is to respect them. There is not a single stable 
     society in the world that is not based on respect for 
     diversity.
       The facts are that the people of Ireland are divided as to 
     how to exercise that right, so are the people of Cyprus, so 
     are the people in the former Yugoslavia, so are the people of 
     the world. It is the search for agreement and the means of 
     reaching agreement that is the real task facing those who 
     want to solve such problems. It is also surely a fact that 
     such agreement among divided peoples anywhere cannot be 
     solved by any form of coercion or force. Victories, as 
     history has sadly taught us, are not solutions; they simply 
     leave legacies from which subsequent generations also suffer.
       On our island the facts are that the people who share this 
     island are deeply divided. The facts are that their divisions 
     were not caused by partition; they were intensified, as 
     indeed they are intensified today by violence. The facts are 
     that the basic divisions among our people go back far beyond 
     partition and the challenge of facing up to them by reaching 
     agreement has never been faced up to by either of our 
     traditions. That is the challenge that faces us today; that 
     is the challenge that the Joint Declaration has thrown down 
     to everyone, both governments and all parties.
       Let us now look at the facts of the Joint Declaration. The 
     facts are that the British government has made clear, not for 
     the first time, that, whatever about the past, it no longer 
     has any selfish or strategic interests in Ireland. The facts 
     are that it has stated its primary interest very clearly and 
     the meaning of the word primary seems to have been ignored by 
     a lot of people. Its primary interest is not the status quo; 
     its primary interest is not in any imposed settlement. Its 
     primary interest, to quote the Joint Declaration, ``is to see 
     peace, stability and reconciliation established by agreement 
     among all the people who inhabit the island''.
       In addition, the facts are that the British government 
     makes clear its views on the rights to self-determination, 
     recognising the fact of which we are all aware that at this 
     point in time the people of Ireland are deeply divided as to 
     how that right is to be exercised. The problem cannot be 
     solved if we ignore the essential facts. The British 
     government states: ``The British government agree that it is 
     for the people of Ireland alone by agreement between the two 
     parts respectively to exercise their right to self-
     determination on the basis of consent, freely and 
     concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united 
     Ireland if that is their wish.'' In addition, ``They reaffirm 
     as a binding obligation that they will, for their part, 
     introduce the necessary legislation to give effect to 
     this, or equally to any measure of agreement on future 
     relationships in Ireland which the people living in 
     Ireland may themselves freely so determine without 
     external impediment''. Ourselves alone!
       Nothing could be clearer, and neither could the challenge 
     to both main traditions on our island to face up at last to 
     the challenge of achieving lasting stability and peace on our 
     island for the first time by reaching such agreement. It is 
     surely self-evident that anyone who genuinely wants such 
     agreement would recognize that agreement can never be 
     achieved by any form of coercion or force. The task is for 
     all involved to commit their energies to working for such 
     agreement.
       There has been the usual talk of vetoes. Again, the facts 
     are that when you have a divided people, each section of it 
     has a veto. That is the negative way of looking at it and we 
     have never had any shortage of negative attitudes on this 
     island. Surely the time has come to be positive and to seek 
     and work for agreement, the challenge of which is to persuade 
     one another that neither side wants victory but rather an 
     agreement which respects our different heritages and 
     identities, which is the only basis for stability in any 
     society.
       Indeed, once again in the Declaration the British 
     government commits itself ``to encourage, facilitate and 
     enable the achievement of such agreement over a period 
     through a process of dialogue and co-operation based on full 
     respect for the rights and identities of both traditions in 
     Ireland''. If we do not want them to impose a solution, which 
     is not self-determination, what more can they do? Indeed, 
     could we reflect on the question, when at any time in the 
     past 70 years have both governments been so committed to 
     using all their influence, energy and resources towards such 
     an objective?
       The challenge to both traditions is clear. To the unionist 
     tradition, who have a genuinely different heritage from the 
     rest of us in this island and who have every right to protect 
     that heritage, the challenge is to recognize for the first 
     time that their real strength rests in their own numbers and 
     their own geography and the problem cannot be solved without 
     them. Have they the self-confidence to recognize that and to 
     stand on their own feet, recognizing that the only people 
     that they need to trust in such a process is themselves and 
     for the first time (apart from Brian Faulkner) to agree to a 
     relationship with those with whom they share this island? It 
     is self-evident that they have consistently distrusted 
     British governments. Now they are being asked to trust 
     themselves and to recognize that the objective is an 
     agreement which must earn the allegiance and agreement of all 
     our traditions, including their own.
       The challenge to the nationalist tradition is equally 
     clear. It is people who have rights and not territory. It is 
     a particular challenge to Sinn Fein and the IRA. Have they 
     the self-confidence in their own convictions to come to the 
     table armed only with those convictions and their powers of 
     persuasion, as everyone else will have to do, given that the 
     British government is now committed not only to encouraging 
     agreement but to implementing and legislating for whatever 
     agreement emerges. Is all of this not totally in keeping with 
     the peace process defined in my joint statements with Mr. 
     Adams as involving both governments and all parties, the 
     objective of which would be agreement among our divided 
     people, an agreement that would have to have the allegiance 
     of all our traditions as well as their agreement?
       We have reached a historic moment in our island history and 
     my hope is that the moral courage will be there on all sides 
     to seize it. It is to me self-evident that no instant package 
     will end our differences forever, but whatever form our 
     agreement takes, once our quarrel is over and all the talents 
     of our diverse people are committed to working together to 
     build our country North and South, the healing process will 
     have begun and the old prejudices and distrusts will be 
     progressively eroded.
       Down the road in the future, out of that process will 
     emerge a New Ireland, built on respect for our diversity 
     whose model will probably be very different from any of our 
     past traditional models. Will Catholic, Protestant and 
     Dissenter finally come together in our small island and as we 
     approach the 21st century of our now post-nationalist and 
     interdependent world, will we at last remove the gun and the 
     bomb from our island people?

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