Belfast Agreement

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The Belfast Agreement (also known as the Good Friday Agreement and, more rarely, as the Stormont Agreement) was a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process. It was signed in Belfast on 10 April 1998 (Good Friday) by the British and Irish governments and endorsed by most Northern Ireland political parties. It was endorsed by the voters of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in separate referendums on 23 May 1998. The Democratic Unionist Party was the only large party that opposed the Agreement.

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[edit] Main provisions

  • The principle that the constitutional future of Northern Ireland should be determined by the majority vote of its citizens.
  • One commitment by all parties to "exclusively peaceful and democratic means".
  • The establishment of a Northern Ireland Assembly with devolved legislative powers.
  • Introduction of the cross-community principle for any major decision taken by the Assembly.
  • Creation of a 'power-sharing' Northern Ireland Executive, using the D'Hondt method to allocate Ministries proportionally to the main parties.
  • Creation of a North-South Ministerial Council and North-South Implementation Bodies to bring about cross-border cooperation in policy and programmes on a number of issues.
  • Creation of a British-Irish Inter-governmental Conference (replacing the former English-Irish Conference, established by the Anglo-Irish Agreement), which give a consulting role to the Irish Republic concerning not devolved matters.
  • Establishment of a British-Irish Council, composed of representatives from the governments of the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, to discuss areas of common concern.
  • Conditional early release within two years of paramilitary prisoners belonging to organisations observing a ceasefire.
  • Establishment of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission
  • A two year target for decommissioning of paramilitary weapons.
  • The repealing of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 by the British Parliament. [1]
  • The abolition of the Republic's territorial claim to Northern Ireland via the modification Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution.
  • New legislation for Northern Ireland on policing, human rights and equality.
  • Normalisation of security measures, e.g. closure of redundant army bases.
  • Police reform, undertaken by the Patten Commission (1998–1999).
  • Equality of social, economic and cultural rights of all ethnic communities e.g. official recognition of the Irish and Ulster-Scots languages as equal to English.

Vague wording of some of the provisions (described as "constructive ambiguity"), which helped ensure acceptance of the agreement at the time, served to postpone debate on some of the more contentious issues — most notably paramilitary decommissioning, police reform and normalisation. A date of May 2000 was set for total disarming of all paramilitary groups. This was not achieved and delayed the establishment of the Assembly and Executive, because one of the four main parties in the Assembly — Sinn Féin — was "inextricably linked" to the largest paramilitary group, the Provisional IRA, and unionists refused to share power with this party, while the PIRA remained armed.

The Assembly and Executive were eventually established in December 1999 on the understanding that decommissioning would begin immediately, but were suspended within two months due to lack of progress, before being re-established in May 2000 as Provisional IRA decommissioning eventually began.

Aside from the decommissioning issue, however, ongoing paramilitary activity (albeit relatively low level compared to the past) by the Provisional Irish Republican Army — e.g. arms importations, "punishment beatings", intelligence-gathering and rioting — was also a stumbling block. The loyalist paramilitaries also continued similar activity.

The overall result of these problems was to damage confidence among unionists in the Agreement, which was exploited by the anti-Agreement DUP which eventually defeated the pro-Agreement UUP in the 2003 Assembly election. The UUP had already resigned from the power-sharing Executive in 2002 following arrests of Sinn Féin personnel on charges of gathering intelligence for use by terrorists. (These charges were eventually dropped in 2005 on the controversial grounds that pursual would not be "in the public interest". Immediately afterwards, one of the accused Provisional Sinn Féin members, Denis Donaldson was exposed as a Government agent.)

In 2004, negotiations were held between the two governments, the DUP, and Sinn Féin on an agreement to reestablish the institutions. These talks failed, but a document published by the governments detailing changes to the Belfast Agreement became known as the 'Comprehensive Agreement'.

On 26 September 2005, however, it was announced that the Provisional Irish Republican Army had completely decommissioned its arsenal of weapons and "put them beyond use". Nonetheless, many unionists, most notably the DUP, remain sceptical and agreement on how to restore the power-sharing assembly has still not been reached as of July 2006. Of the loyalist paramilitaries, only the LVF have decommissioned any weapons [2]

[edit] Referendums

In May 1998 there were separate referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to endorse the Belfast Agreement. The "No" vote in Northern Ireland came predominantly from unionists opposed to perceived concessions being made to nationalists and republicans. However opinion polls suggest a slim majority of unionists may have voted "Yes". In the Republic of Ireland the electorate voted upon the Nineteenth Amendment. This amendment both permitted the state to comply with the Belfast Agreement and provided for the removal of the 'territorial claim' contained in Articles 2 and 3. The Republic of Ireland voted upon the Amsterdam Treaty on the same day. The results of the two, simultaneous referendums on the Belfast Agreement were as follows:

Yes No Turnout
Northern Ireland 676,966 (71%) 274,879 (29%) 81%
Republic of Ireland 1,442,583 (94%) 85,748 (6%) 56%

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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