By Bronagh Hinds, Senior Associate with DemocraShe
THE Women’s Coalition engaged fully in the tough negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement.
We nudged larger parties to adopt an inclusive approach to introducing the talks agenda. We put forward a novel agenda of issues.
We talked with all parties and acted as a channel of communication, when some would not speak to others. We challenged demonising language and obstructive behaviour.
Sadly, recent debates played out in the media undermining the Good Friday Agreement have been unsettling.
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Often these voices come from people opposed to the inclusivity of the 1996-98 negotiations and lukewarm at best to the Agreement.
Yet the Agreement has been successful – 20 years of peace, if not political coherence, is testimony to this.
Many conflict-ridden regions would settle for the peace we have.
The Women’s Coalition went into the negotiations in 1996 determined to reach an accommodation that would deliver a stable and peaceful future.
The Coalition defended and practised inclusion consistently, whether it was in relation to Sinn Fein and the loyalist parties being excluded due to ceasefire breakdowns, or Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party walking away from the talks, or the Coalition itself remaining in the Political Forum (running alongside the confidential talks) when facing extreme misogyny and abuse.
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Thankfully, the Agreement is an international accord registered at the UN which cannot be lightly discarded. It received the overwhelming consent of the electorate in referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
“Consent” is not a word to be easily dismissed.
A major element in the Agreement was unionist and nationalist acceptance of the concept of consent. The Agreement is not a settlement, rather it recognises the legitimacy of freely exercised choice on Northern Ireland’s status in the context of continuing and equally legitimate different political aspirations.
In return, the Irish Government gave up Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution which exercised a claim over Northern Ireland.
Twenty years ago both governments and the political parties committed to the interlocking and interdependency of the institutional and constitutional arrangements.
The totality of relationships and arrangements was made easier by British-Irish partnership within the European Union.
The Assembly and the North/South Council on the island of Ireland – with an evolving agenda of cooperation and implementation in agriculture, transport, environment, waterways, inland fisheries, tourism, education, health, social security/social welfare, urban and rural development - were regarded as ‘so closely related that the success of each depends on that of the other’.
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While the focus of the Brexit debate has been on a hard or soft border between the two parts of Ireland, concerns underpinning peace in the Agreement are much wider and deeper than this: border crossings, a vibrant unrestricted economy, implications for policing (a major success of the Agreement), identity and security of rights.
Our European identity and the Agreement’s totality of relationships freed us up to express our identity as British, Irish or both.
In a conflict steeped in past denial of and current challenges in rights and opportunities, both the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights are needed to provide people with the confidence that their rights and equalities will be respected.
Northern Ireland’s political leaders must now face up to several challenges. People need an Assembly and an Executive that truly govern for a shared society.
Attention and resources must be devoted to dealing with the legacy of the past, and women must be equally included in the framing and outcomes.
The Civic Forum, conceived by the Women’s Coalition and committed to in the Agreement but which has never been properly established, should now be instigated to bring together economic, social and cultural actors to support the Assembly’s leadership in moving forward.
Northern Ireland must retain an effective relationship with the EU.
Bronagh Hinds, Senior Associate with DemocraShe, was involved in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement. A founder of the Women’s Coalition in 1996, she was their chief strategist for the talks.
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