[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 16 (Tuesday, February 15, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1410-S1411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            JOHN HUME--LEADER FOR PEACE IN NORTHERN IRELAND

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is with great honor that I submitted 
this resolution, S. Res. 45, paying tribute to John Hume. Throughout 
the long and difficult years of civil strife and turmoil, John 
dedicated himself to achieving a peaceful, just, and lasting settlement 
of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

[[Page S1411]]

  I have known John for over 30 years, and he has always been one of 
the people I have admired most in the world. I have consistently been 
impressed by his insights, his commitment to peace, and his dedication 
to the people of Northern Ireland. He is truly a profile in courage, 
and he won the Nobel Prize for it in 1998.
  I first contacted John in 1972, shortly after he founded the Social 
Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland. I was planning a trip 
to Western Europe for a NATO meeting in Bonn. I was concerned about the 
violence erupting in Northern Ireland, and I was told that John Hume 
was the best person to see in the North. So I called him in Derry, and 
said: ``Mr. Hume, it's Ted Kennedy. I understand you're the person to 
talk to about what's going on over there.'' He didn't believe it. He 
said: ``Pull my other leg.''
  I resisted though and told him that I would be in Bonn for the 
meeting of NATO. He graciously agreed to meet me there, and it was the 
beginning of our extraordinary friendship over the years.
  John has been an indispensable voice for peace and reconciliation in 
Northern Ireland. His call for respect for both the Catholic and the 
Protestant traditions has been eloquent and historic for more than 
three decades.
  In a very real sense, it was John who, in large part, became the glue 
that held Northern Ireland together, halted the descent into anarchy 
and civil war, and produced realistic hope for peace and further 
progress.
  In 1983, largely as a result of John's efforts, the principal 
political parties in Ireland and the SDLP in Northern Ireland 
established what was called the New Ireland Forum. It developed new 
ideas for peace, and prepared a landmark report that laid the 
groundwork for an unprecedented, new initiative on the North between 
Britain and Ireland, culminating in 1985 with the signing of the 
historic Anglo-Irish Agreement by Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain 
and Garret FitzGerald of Ireland.
  That in turn led to the cease-fire by the Irish Republican Army in 
1994, the famous Good Friday Agreement in 1998, and the further 
progress that has brought both sides so close to a permanent peace 
today.
  John has been a familiar face to many of us in the United States over 
the years. Perhaps his greatest achievement was educating Irish America 
about the conflict and the most effective way forward.
  The civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s planted 
the seed for a comparable movement by the Catholic minority in Northern 
Ireland. But, as the movement gained strength, it encountered intense 
resistance, and there was a very real feeling that violence was the 
only path to a better future. Much of Irish America agreed with that 
view, and there was a strong financial support in the United States for 
the IRA.
  John Hume changed all that. He became an apostle of nonviolence, just 
as Martin Luther King did at a critical time in our own civil rights 
movement. The violence began to ebb, and more and more citizens in 
Northern Ireland recognized that peaceful change could be achieved in a 
way that would benefit people of both communities in the North. Others 
had important roles as well, but at a critical time in the history of 
Northern Ireland, John Hume stepped up and led the way toward peace, 
and history will honor him forever for all he did so well.
  The pending resolution pays tribute to John Hume's brilliant 
achievements in the cause of peace for all the people of Northern 
Ireland, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

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