[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 7, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S9724]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           DEATH OF MO MOWLAM

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, last month, sadly, Mo Mowlam, Great 
Britain's former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, died after a 
long and courageous battle with cancer. Mo will long be remembered for 
her leadership at a critical moment in the history of Northern Ireland. 
I first met her when she was a member of the Labour Party and her party 
was in opposition in Parliament. I was delighted when Prime Minister 
Blair came to power and named her Secretary of State for Northern 
Ireland. She was a breath of fresh air and quickly won over nearly 
every Irish American she met. She was exceedingly effective and was the 
right person for the job at the right time in Northern Ireland. With 
her remarkable abilities, she created the conditions that led to the 
historic Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Mo was fair, intelligent, and 
willing to take risks for peace.
  On a personal note, my wife, Vicki, and I will always warmly recall 
our visit with Mo, and her husband, Jon Norton, at Hillsborough in 
Northern Ireland in January 1998.
  Irish Senator Martin Mansergh, himself a key player in the Northern 
Ireland peace process, recently wrote a well-deserved tribute to Mo in 
the Irish Times, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [From the Irish Times, Aug. 27, 2005]

               Mo Was Willing To Dirty Her Hands for Peace

                          (By Martin Mansergh)

       A first memory of Mo Mowlam is of a young, newly elected MP 
     accompanying, as deputy, the British Labour Party's Northern 
     Ireland spokesman Kevin McNamara to an Anglo-Irish conference 
     in Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire.
       The British have an inexhaustible belief in country house 
     diplomacy to solve problems like Northern Ireland in an 
     atmosphere cut off from the modem world. Its efficacy was not 
     evident on that occasion.
       When John Smith died tragically in 1994, Mo Mowlam, a 
     fellow north of England MP, was a principal lieutenant of 
     Tony Blair in his leadership campaign. Her reward in being 
     appointed Northern Ireland spokeswoman marked a shift away 
     from the moderate pro-nationalist stance of McNamara and 
     Labour's formal policy through the 1980s of Irish unity by 
     consent.
       Whether Labour would ever have been active persuaders for 
     unity is doubtful. That policy was devised as a means of 
     containing pressure from the Labour left for ``troops out'' 
     and British withdrawal. By 1994, after the Downing Street 
     Declaration, Labour adjusted its position to broad 
     bipartisanship with the John Major government, both on 
     constitutional principles and tactics.
       Mo Mowlam did her homework while in opposition, studying 
     the issues, attending conferences, meeting different parties, 
     and acting as conduit to Tony Blair. Unwilling to open any 
     flank for attack that might endanger election victory, 
     Labour refrained from criticising the Tory mishandling of 
     the peace process which contributed to, even if it was not 
     responsible for, the breakdown of the first ceasefire. 
     Labour kept its powder dry, and by the 1997 general 
     election had become almost as acceptable to unionism as 
     the outgoing Conservative administration.
       Mo Mowlam became Northern Ireland Secretary of State, and 
     held office during the crucia1 12-month period that began 
     with restoration of the IRA ceasefire in July 1997. With 
     Irish help, Labour worked round the demand for immediate 
     decommissioning that was a roadblock to progress at that 
     stage.
       She kept her cool in the conference room in July 1997 and 
     gave nothing away when Conor Cruise O'Brien, sitting 
     alongside Robert McCartney on the UKUP delegation, sought 
     formal repudiation of more radical views she had once held on 
     Ireland. Further negotiations at Stormont created conditions 
     of engagement from late September in multi-party talks 
     chaired by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell that included 
     Ulster Unionists, loyalists and Sinn Fein, as well as the 
     SDLP, Alliance and Women's Coalition.
       As incoming Secretary of State, she made every attempt to 
     be even-handed, and was prepared to be as sympathetic and 
     receptive to unionist as to nationalist and republican views. 
     Her eventual decision to let the Drumcree parade through in 
     1997 (for the last time) was evidence of that.
       Much of the comment about her focuses more on style than 
     substance. Her casual manner and outspoken language were 
     something that not all British civil servants, used to the 
     traditional patrician style exemplified by Sir Patrick 
     Mayhew, appreciated. The Irish delegation had few problems on 
     that front, though occasionally she made even Ray Burke look 
     fastidious.
       She was a culture shock to the Ulster Unionist Party, as to 
     some extent was Liz O'Donnell. If Mo Mowlam ended up closer 
     to nationalists, it was because unionists left her little 
     choice, by increasingly refusing to deal substantively with 
     her.
       They bypassed her with impunity, by constant recourse to No 
     10 Downing Street--if not Tony Blair himself, his diplomatic 
     adviser John Holmes, who provided reassuring continuity for 
     them from John Major's time.
       Nevertheless, with the help of minister of state Paul 
     Murphy, and partnered on the Irish side by David Andrews, she 
     kept the talks on the road over a difficult eight-month 
     period, even if many strategic negotiations also took place 
     between Downing Street, the NIO, the Taoiseach's Office, 
     Foreign Affairs and Justice. Mo Mowlam made an important and 
     courageous decision to go into the Maze to see loyalist 
     prisoners, when their ceasefire appeared to be collapsing in 
     January 1998, following several murders.
       Not only did she hold the ring, albeit with difficulty, but 
     it was the moment the British system realised that agreement 
     would only happen if it involved a radical programme to 
     release paramilitary prisoners, however awful their 
     convictions. She well understood that to obtain peace one had 
     to be prepared to get one's hands dirty.
       In the last hours of the Good Friday negotiations, she sat 
     with the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (and this columnist) 
     listening interminably to some 77 unsatisfied demands by Sinn 
     Fein, all requiring answers, not least to satisfy large 
     backroom teams.
       While the Government had always striven for agreement 
     bringing everyone present on board, the point had been 
     reached, where, if necessary, continued Government 
     credibility would have required agreement without Sinn Fein 
     (already geared to campaign against changes to Articles 2 and 
     3).
       Mo Mowlam, like the Taoiseach, favoured retaining a special 
     electoral system, which would, most likely, have secured a 
     place in the Assembly for both the Women's Coalition and the 
     loyalists. The loyalist parties mistakenly believed they did 
     not need such arrangements to stay out of the cold, creating 
     problems to this day.
       The Good Friday agreement is Britain's finest achievement 
     so far in relation to Ireland. Mo Mowlam is entitled to full 
     credit for her part in that, as the following Labour Party 
     conference affirmed with thunderous applause. It is almost 
     always a mistake for a minister to challenge the prime 
     minister, and she was easily undermined by those who coveted 
     her post for Peter Mandelson. His main positive contribution, 
     in late 1999, was to persuade Ulster Unionists to let the 
     institutions start, however temporarily.
       Apart from her deserved place in British Labour Party 
     folklore, Mo Mowlam's courage and down-to-earth approach will 
     ensure that she long retains a warm place in the memory of 
     most Irish people.

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