BELFAST AGREEMENT:The Belfast Agreement was signed 10 years ago. Throughout this week, key signatories will reflect on it and their role in achieving the breakthrough. If the agreement can be said to reflect the vision of one person above all others, it is that of John Hume, former leader of the SDLP who shared the Nobel Prize for Peace with former Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble. Today, JOHN HUMEintroduces the series
A DECADE ago the signing of the Belfast Agreement signalled the beginning of a new dawn in Irish history. After years of conflict and disagreement, an agreed Ireland was finally reached by the representatives of both main traditions. Ten years on, it is apt to reflect on how far we have travelled and on the way that lies ahead.
The agreement heralded a new order where the people of this island could work together on the basis of mutual recognition and respect. It provided a framework of partnership through which their elected representatives could govern in the best interests of all of her people. That template received the democratic approval of the vast majority of the people, North and South, in the referendum held shortly afterwards. While there have been difficulties along the way, the intervening period has not diminished its importance as a political and constitutional compass for our island.
The restoration of the institutions last year has finally allowed us all to begin to fully harness the potential of the Belfast Agreement in a durable way. The elected representatives of people throughout the island can now get on with the real work of transforming our country, North and South, for the better.
At last, the people of Northern Ireland can be assured that the powersharing institutions endorsed by them in 1998 will remain up and running. Ministers from both sides of the border are working together in the North-South Ministerial Council across a range of issues. Meanwhile, administrations throughout these islands are working together in the British-Irish Council to address common problems.
Obviously, I regret that past intransigence prevented us from reaching this point sooner. We have lost many opportunities along the way to improve the lives of people on the ground. For that reason, we must redouble our efforts to harness the potential that the institutions now present.
Our path has not been without its dark times and its false starts. We had difficulties along the way towards agreement and in realising its implementation once agreement was reached.
We in the SDLP argued consistently for the creation of democratic institutions that would both respect our legitimate differences and allow us to work together in our common interests.
Our analysis went to the heart of the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974, which provided for powersharing in the North and for effective North/South bodies.
It is a tragedy that both the DUP and Sinn Féin opposed the Sunningdale Agreement and helped to bring it down.
Those who did so consigned the entire community in Northern Ireland to many lost years, countless lost opportunities and, worst of all, thousands of lost lives.
In making the agreement work now with the SDLP and Ulster Unionist Party, the DUP and Sinn Féin are working the same basic institutions and arrangements they worked to undermine more than 30 years ago and refused to accept until very recently.
Séamus Mallon presciently referred to the agreement as "Sunningdale for slow learners".
Towards the agreement and adhering to it afterwards, we were relentless in our approach. We identified the three strands that were at the root of our problem and which therefore held the key to unlocking the impasse. For any talks to succeed it was essential they addressed relations within Northern Ireland, within the whole island and between Ireland and Britain. It was also clear that the British and Irish governments should work together with all parties to achieve agreement.
We suffered opposition, abuse and attack from various quarters for advocating this way forward. Confident in our position, we always said the defining word on any agreement should come from the people and not from politicians.
The endorsement of the Belfast Agreement by the people of Ireland in 1998 put the onus back on all democratic parties to implement their will.
The people demonstrated how passionately they believed in peace. But they also showed that they wanted the agreement to form the cornerstone of a shared future. They not only voted for the absence of violence, but for a sophisticated set of institutions and principles that could harness the very best of the genius of the people of the entire island.
Before the agreement, I consistently said that the institutions would be the framework for the real healing process in our society. Now, as we begin to form our new politics, these are the building blocks from which can rise lasting peace and future prosperity.
The agreement points to a future where equality will be protected, human rights will be vindicated and partnership will be a given for future generations. This island can be a beacon for the recognition and respect of diversity throughout the world.
This vision encapsulates the spirit and purpose of our agreed Ireland. Each and every one of us has a responsibility under this covenant of honour between our traditions to promote true partnership. That covenant will help all of our children to fulfil the promise of their potential. In a new departure, this will be achieved working in partnership with our neighbours rather than in contest against them.
We have seen significant progress. While political progress was delayed, it was not the institutions that failed. It was the process of politics which failed outside the institutions.
Nevertheless, there has been consistent and impressive progress in the realm of policing reform. My party sought to have policing included in the negotiations, but for their own reasons other parties did not support that approach.
Consequently, we were determined that the parties should agree to an independent commission being established. People on the ground have been impressed by the reforms which have been put into place. The change which has been delivered since the Patten report is a shining example of what is possible in Northern Ireland. I would especially pay tribute to everyone who has served the community so well on the policing board and the district policing partnerships, often in the face of intimidation and attack.
Following on from Patten, the policing board already directs and oversees the work of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. But legislative control over law and order is a fundamental responsibility of government.
As Mark Durkan said recently, the ability of the Assembly to legislate comprehensively on the matters already within its remit is affected by that missing suite of power.
I firmly believe that the four parties in government, already sharing control over a budget of £15 million on social and economic matters, can deal with those issues. And its delivery of those other responsibilities would be enhanced by this last remaining piece of the devolution jigsaw.
When we review the progress that has been made, particularly in the past year, we must remember that for many the tragedy of our past remains an enduring source of pain. The promises made to victims and survivors have not been kept.
I can understand victims who feel as politicians talk about moving forward that they have been forgotten.
While victims welcome the progress that has been made, they have mixed feelings over whether their needs are being respected.
Wider society needs to take victims into account. I trust that a way forward will be found which has the wishes and needs of victims at its heart and that they, in their diversity, will be central to decisions affecting them.
In this, the 40th anniversary year of the civil rights movement, I am pleased that there are at last local Ministers in the North taking decisions on the social and economic problems that affect our whole community. It is a matter of pride for me that the Social Development Minister is an SDLP colleague, Margaret Ritchie, and that she has already introduced an innovative and exciting social housing strategy in a tough budgetary environment. Such work honours the very purpose of the institutions that were agreed a decade ago. I hope that in many other areas too the rights which we marched for four decades ago will be vindicated by those in new positions of responsibility.
It is timely to recall that there is more business left unfinished from the agreement. The North-South Parliamentary Forum is yet to be established. This would provide a political space in which the elected representatives of parties throughout the island, in government and in opposition, would be able to come together for the very first time in our democratic history. I believe that this would be a wonderful arena in which to exchange experiences and drive forward new ideas which would be of tremendous benefit to us all. It can both complement and shape the work of the North-South Ministerial Council.
In Northern Ireland, work is progressing on a Bill of Rights. I look forward to its adoption as a substantial guarantee of rights in law. Likewise, I await in earnest the creation of a charter of rights for everyone on the island, as envisaged in the agreement.
The time is right for Ireland, North and South, to play its rightful role in Europe and the wider world.
This country should be an example to men and women of all colours and creeds, where aspirations and achievements are realised through the promotion of ideals and where every citizen is afforded respect and opportunity.
Our agreed Ireland will in future fulfil a partnership where we wage war on poverty and inequality - extending prosperity where it does not yet reach. We will reach out the hand of friendship to the disadvantaged and dispossessed throughout the land. We will build a shared future that can be as good as our hopes, dreams and imaginations can conceive.
In providing us and our children with that hope, the agreement will retain its vitality and its importance as our road map to a better Ireland.