Belfast Agreement

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The Agreement, most often referred to as the Belfast Agreement (Irish: Comhaontú Bhéal Feirste; Scots: Belfast Greeance) or the Good Friday Agreement (Irish: Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta) (Scots: Guid Fridæ Greeance), and occasionally 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. On 23 May 1998 the Agreement was endorsed by the voters of Northern Ireland in a referendum. On the same day, voters in the Republic of Ireland voted separately to change their constitution in line with the Agreement. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was the only large party that opposed the Agreement.

Contents

Provisions

The Agreement's main provisions included the:

The Agreement also marked the end of a dispute between the two states over the names of their respective states: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ireland. 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 Irish Republican Army (IRA), and unionists refused to share power with this party, while the IRA 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, smuggling, organised crime, "punishment beatings", intelligence-gathering and rioting — was also a stumbling block. The loyalist paramilitaries also continued similar activity although as they were not represented by a significant political party, their position was less central to political change.

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 Ulster Unionist Party (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 a Sinn Féin member, Denis Donaldson was exposed as a British agent.)

In 2004, negotiations were held between the two governments, the DUP, and Sinn Féin on an agreement to re-establish 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, remained sceptical and agreement on how to restore the power-sharing assembly still had not been reached as of July 2006. Of the loyalist paramilitaries, only the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) had decommissioned any weapons.[4]

As of summer 2007, a Power Sharing Executive has again been established to govern Northern Ireland in devolved matters. The second Northern Ireland Executive consisted of the DUP and Sinn Féin, with the Rev. Dr. Ian Paisley of the DUP as First Minister and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin as Deputy First Minister. Although Dr. Paisley was the head of the government, he and Martin McGuinness held equal powers within the Northern Ireland Assembly government.

Dr Paisley, getting on in years, retired from the office of First Minister and from the leadership of the DUP on 5 June 2008 and was succeeded in both functions by Peter Robinson. In the third Northern Ireland Executive the same political relationship now exists between Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness as existed formerly between Dr Paisley and Mr McGuinness.

Referendums

Main article: Northern Ireland Belfast Agreement referendum, 1998

In May 1998, there were separate referendums concerning the Belfast Agreement The referendum in Northern Ireland was a direct vote on the Agreement while the vote in the Republic of Ireland was a vote to amend the Irish constitution in line with the Belfast Agreement.

The result of these referendums was a large majority in both parts of the island of Ireland in favour of the Agreement.

In the Republic only 85,748 (3% of the electorate) voted 'No' but approximately 40% of the electorate did not exercise their franchise.

In the North, when normal combined voting strengths among both nationalist and unionist communities are superimposed on the Referendum result, it is clear that pre-polling opinion polls and exit polls on the day were correct in showing that a majority of the unionist voters voted 'Yes'. The DUP claim to have been at that point 'a majority of the majority' was clearly difficult to substantiate although in later events they succeeded in so becoming.

In the Republic of Ireland the electorate voted upon the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution of Ireland. 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:

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

See also

References

  1. ↑ Article 3, Anglo-Irish Treaty
  2. ↑ Northern Ireland Act 1998
  3. ↑ Address by Mr David Andrews, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs at the Exchange of Notifications ceremony at Iveagh House, Dublin, 2 December 1999
  4. ↑ BBC News | Latest News | Paramilitary arms destroyed

External links

Steps in the Northern Ireland peace process

Sunningdale Agreement (1973) • Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985) • Downing Street Declaration (1993) • Establishment of the IICD (1997) • Belfast Agreement (1998) • Amendment of Articles 2 and 3 (1999) • Establishment of the Independent Monitoring Commission (2003) • IRA Ceasefire & Decommissioning (2005) • St Andrews Agreement (2006)