THE annual conference of the Methodist Church in Ireland has been told that decommissioning of arms should not be a "precondition" to the talks process.
Dr David Gallagher, lay secretary of the church's Northern executive, told the conference in Derry yesterday that prior decommissioning smacked of "humiliation" and did not foster an atmosphere conducive to engaging in negotiation. "Few, if any, in Irish history have decommissioned", he said.
Dr Gallagher asked how many UVF guns from 1914 had been handed over or made obsolete. How many attending the conference could tell tales of where those weapons were?
It was more important to tackle the motivation for using weapons. "Each generation can produce enough recruits to replace the old warriors whose fingers become too arthritic to pull the trigger", he said. Tackling the causes of violence was more important.
Dr Gallagher spoke of the need to begin a process of bridge building between the communities. He encouraged unionist politicians to be "more generous" towards Sinn Fein representatives. Sooner or later, unionist politicians would have to come to terms with the fact that Sinn Fein was the third largest political party in the North and represented "a very large section, if not quite the majority, of the nationalist population".
Just as nationalists needed to "hear" the fears and pain of the unionist people, "so we must hear their experience, equally borne out of fear and pain", he said.
Dr Gallagher said there was a need for structures and mechanisms which would enable the communities to engage in dialogue "towards accommodation and agreement on ways of peaceful co existence". There was also a need for nationalists to understand unionist fears and insecurities, he said, and a need for unionists to understand the depth of hurt caused to nationalists when their religion was insulted "by bands, marchers, or even religious statements from pulpits".
There was a need for the loyal orders to address publicly the paramilitary trappings often associated with their marches and there was a need for nationalists to explain clearly what was for them an "acceptable level of marches".
Dr Gallagher asked the conference whether it had "seriously" worked for peace. What, he asked, had members in attendance done about combating sectarianism "on the ground, from our pulpits, in the workplace?"
