[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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