The Clinton Global Initiative

Kathleen from County Leitrim was delighted to welcome us again to Rosie O Grady’s on 7th Avenue. Michael behind the bar said: ‘Céad míle failte arís.’ He always greets us in Gaelge. Sheila from Mayo brought us our lunch.

In Rosie O Grady’s the staff are well used to comings and going. The last time I was there George Bush senior was eating spuds, cabbage and bacon. No one paid him much need. They take it all in their stride. Mayo and Leitrim men and women are like that. They give you their space.

Rosie O Grady’s is across the road from the Sheraton Hotel and Towers. Among other events the Sheraton hosts the annual Friends of Sinn Féin dinner each year – this year on November 4th. Last week the Clinton Global Initiative was in town and for four days the CGI took over the lobby and several floors, including the huge Metropolitan ballroom for its series of events.

This is the sixth year of the CGI. It held its first session in 2005. The idea is simplicity itself. To provide a location where business leaders, politicians, non-governmental organisations, activists and representatives of charitable foundations, can come together, talk about issues affecting people around the world and then make partnerships and commitments to take actions than can alleviate poverty or provide health care or education or water or sanitation and much more.

This is the key to its success - forging partnerships and making commitments. But as Bill Clinton asserts repeatedly the CGI is about more than words, it’s about deeds and actions. As a consequence, at the end of last week, the CGI had generated almost 2000 commitments for its six years estimated at $63 billion. This will impact positively on some 300 million people around the world.



The CGI seeks to address four main areas of global concern; economic empowerment; education, environment and energy and Global Health.

In practice this means for example, the CGI facilitating the creation of a new partnership of organisations which will support Palestinian women-led businesses in Nablus by providing training and services to increase skills and business knowledge; other participants have committed to investing in literacy and numeracy skills to low income rural populations; still others committed to promoting health and safety support for medical professionals in Tanzania; and there was a commitment to provide infrastructure, technical and logistics support for a small gynaecological and surgical hospital in Heart in Afghanistan.

This year the focus was on empowering girls and women; strengthening market based solutions; enhancing access to modern technology and harnessing human potential.

At one session I attended a contributor, the actor Ashton Kutcher, told delegates that it is estimated that at a time when most people would have assumed that slavery is a thing of the past, there are still 27 million slaves in the world. More now than ever before in human history. Most of these are sex slaves, and most – 80% are women and girls. There are apparently up to one million sex slaves in the USA with one third of these being children under 15.

The issue of gender bias was another major area of discussion, which in developing countries often leads to rape, HIV/Aids and early death. In Sudan and on the Rwanda/Congo borders rape is a weapon of war.

Pollution, education, communications and much more were discussed and commitments made to tackle them in specific regions. The disaster in Haiti was a special cause for concern.

So too was the need to tackle preventable diseases. One business committed to providing PUR packets – one ten per cent packet purifies one 10 gallon jerry can of water – which cuts down on cholera, dysentery and other water borne diseases.

Two million people, half of them children die each year from inhaling toxic emissions from open fires and polluting stoves. The US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton described how new solar power stoves can cut the number of deaths while reducing greenhouse gases and the health risks associated with the current system. The commitment is that the US in partnership with the UN Foundation will provide 100 million clean cookstoves by 2020 at a cost of $51 million.

But CGI is much more than this. It is an inspiring event. The expertise, passion and generosity of the people involved is uplifting. Women from remote African villages share platforms with Heads of State, millionaire CEOs and Hollywood stars – and something clicks!

As a result more people are motivated to do something meaningful on the issue involved. Bill Clinton is the most compelling example of this can-do spirit. He is persuasive, informed and motivational.

Little wonder under his leadership that when the CGI ended on Thursday evening there were scores of new commitments and another $6 billion dollars raised to help those in need.




I also met the New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and the City Comptroller John Liu. My discussions centred on Pension Fund investment in the north and the opportunities for job creation.

Both Comptrollers reasserted their goal of providing additional investment for the north, over and above the pension funds already invested in business based here.

While the goal of the both Offices is to add value to the Pension Funds, Tom and John both understand the connection between investment and tackling inequality and disadvantage in the north.

So, our discussions were positive. New York Comptroller John Liu plans to visit Ireland in the next few weeks. He wants to come and see for himself the possibilities and opportunities.

I also spoke by phone to Senator Scott Brown about the undocumented Irish and in particular about the proposed E Visas which can provide a legal route for Irish people who want to work in the USA.

And finally, on Friday I was in Princeton talking about the Irish peace process, Irish unity and my view that no conflict is intractable. It was a packed audience and they listened intently and asked questions about the challenges of making peace.

That is my experience almost everywhere. People want peace. Peace demands justice. The Clinton Global Initiative makes a valuable contribution to this quest.

PLOUGHING ON.

This blog was at two entirely different gatherings this week. The first one, down in County Kildare is the biggest event of its kind in Europe. I refer of course to the National Ploughing Championship – this year The European Championship.

It’s like the All Ireland crowd multiplied a few times and moved from Croker into the countryside.

Every thing associated with rural living is on display in a huge temporary city of tents and marquees. Tractors, ancient and futuristic, low loaders and high loaders. Quads, JCBs, spades and hurling sticks, wood burning stoves, power tools. All of the latest gadgets. Wet gear, dry gear, harvesters, sowers. Cattle, sheep, henhouses. Banks, eating places, drinking places. Acres of plants, billions of bulbs. Trees, shrubs, walking sticks, cattle prods, chicken feed. Dog boxes, horse boxes, boots, wooden sheds. Handicrafts, organic cheese. Dodgems. Big wheels. Hundreds of stalls and thousands and thousands of people from all parts of Ireland and abroad. All milling about looking for ideas, freebies, distractions. A day out. And a celebration.

‘We’re culchies’ a young lad proudly announced to me ‘from Mayo’.

‘Maigh Éo, God help her!’ I smiled.



Rural Ireland! Most of us can trace our roots back a few generations to a rural place. And farming. In Ireland it could be clean and green. The demand for food never slackens. Good food. Michelle Gildernew – Agriculture Minister for the North – was on hand, full of craic and slagging, daughter of a farming family, at home here among her own.

‘Nobody needs a United Ireland more than the farmers. It’s crazy on a landmass this size that we should be divided and competing against each other. We should be united and competing against the world’.

Together we toured the tented city, meeting with the farming organisations and listening to their view of how our rural communities can be strengthened and our agricultural industry developed. Martin Ferris, a farmer himself among other things, including Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on rural affairs, joined us. He too, like Michelle is in his element.



The ploughing competition itself is keenly contested. Competitors hoping for a clean cut, turn over acres of deep black loam and leave fields of straight furrows in their wake.

These few days in Athy are proof of what we are capable of. How rural Ireland can organise and be innovative, energetic, creative and forward thinking. Leading by example.

An away day at the Ploughing Championship for the empty heads of a government bereft of any good ideas of its own could be just the ticket if it was interested in stimulating the economy instead of just the banks. But then that would mean listening to the culchies. And this government listens to no one. It treats all of us, townies and culchies, the same. As people to be talked at. Instead of citizens to be listened and talked to.

Well done to all involved in this wonderful event. You do our country proud.

Well done too to the organisers of the Clinton Global Initiative. From Athy to New York, from where this blog is posted, is a relatively short journey in these modern times. And the energy at both events is not dissimilar. And the objectives are the same. They are all about improving the quality of life for people. The GCI was founded by President Bill Clinton. This blog is pleased to come here every year to learn and to listen, and sometimes to engage in discussions on poverty issues, equality, the environment, health and education issues, and conflict resolution processes. And to renew and develop contacts in this fine city.

But more of all this another time. For now it is time to catch a flight back again. My jetlag has jetlag. And your man gave me the cold just to complicate this whirlwind trip and I gave his regards to Broadway. But then again at least I got away from him for a few days. Hopefully I will sniffle my way over the Atlantic in time for the Aontroim County Football Final at Casement? Or maybe not? It depends on the wind.

In any case Naomh Gall Abú!

UP FOR THE MATCH.

This blog loves All Ireland Sunday. The Camogie Final was great. Being at the Hurling Final earlier this month was an other world experience. And a great privilege. Hurling as an art form delivered by wizards and warriors on the hallowed turf of Croke Park. I first came to Croke Park for the football. In 1960 when the great history making Down team brought Sam across the border for the first time ever. I was twelve.

Now fifty years later here I am in the back of the car rattling away on the laptop on my way to another Down bid for the All Ireland. My uncle Paddy, a good and decent man brought me to that epic game five decades ago in a hired car. Going to Dublin in those days was a great event, an exciting excursion. It is now a more mundane occupational hazard for this blog. But the thrill of Croke Park has remained.

We were on Hill 16 that day. Me, a gasson, Uncle Paddy and two of his friends. Once a high ball dropped in our direction and all of us and most of the terraces leapt skywards in a futile effort to capture it. Whether the ball was kicked back or not, I can’t recall. It was one of those magic days. And the biggest attendance ever at Croke. Ninety thousand people, someone told me, with about twenty thousand bunking their way in.

They sang and honked car horns in a long cavalcade all the way home. Our wee group were fortified by a few pints, and red lemonade for me, in the Viscount Bar out at Whitehall. According to my Uncle Paddy the singing in our car was needed to keep the driver awake. Paddy who loved singing but never mastered the ability to hold a tune persisted in chorusing, ‘The Cups come over the border, the border, the border’.

I recall when we eventually crossed the border on that special day Uncle Paddy requested a stop at the Half Way House, a pub appropriately enough which is halfway between somewhere and somewhere else on the main Belfast Road and in the heart methinks of county Down. Or maybe on the fringe of County Armagh.

Decades later the UDR used to set up a road block regularly on that stretch of the road. It could be avoided by slipping along the side road past the Half Way House. I suppose that’s where Slip Road comes from? This blog has often meant to drop in there in these more enlightened times. In memory of Uncle Paddy. Maybe some day in the perpetual coming and going up and down the Dublin Road, now a much shorter journey, I will do just that.

Some of that great Down team were working in the building trade and were employed in Riverdale in Andytown, where my granny lived at that time. It was a great thrill for us young Belfast gaels to get even a glimpse of our heroes. I get the same buzz nowadays when I am close to the heroes and heroines of our Gaelic games.

Who is going to win today? This blog doesn’t know. Nobody does. That’s the wonder of it all. Anything can happen. And when all the talking and spoofing and slagging is done its over to fifteen versus fifteen to do the deed.

This blog will be rooting for Tír Éoghan in the Minors and An Dún in the Seniors. Tír Éoghan should do it! An Dún? They will have a lot to do. Corcaigh have something bigger than themselves to prove and they have been a long time waiting. But here’s hoping. By five o clock today we will all know.

And by five o clock Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh will have commented on his last All Ireland Final. At eighty years of age he is bowing out at the top of his game after broadcasting since 1947. This blog is a huge fan of Micheál’s. For me he is the voice of Gaelic games. A worthy successor to the great Micheál O Hehir. I have always loved his singsong Kerry accent bringing the radio commentary alive with his passion, eye for detail, humour and verbal solo runs in both Irish and English. These are now part of the tradition. As part of our little tribute to Micheál and in thanks for his work we reproduce some of these below. Maith thú Micheál. Go raibh mile maith agat.

‘He grabs the sliothar. He’s on the 50! He’s on the 40! He’s on the 30! He’s on the ground!’

‘Seán Óg Ó hAilpín …. His father’s from Fermanagh. His mother’s from Fiji. Neither a hurling stronghold.’

‘The stopwatch has stopped. It’s up to God and the referee now. The referee is Pat Horan. God is God.’

‘Teddy looks at the ball. The ball looks at Teddy.’

‘(The streaker) has gone past the centre of the field. Níl fhios agam cad as thánaigh sé. B’féidir piobaire sidh slí Gleann Molúra é. He’s dodging his way now, trying to get away from the maor. He has made a good run. He’s on the 50 yard line now on the other side of the field. He’s brought to the ground…tá an streaker ag imacht an páirc’.

‘Pat Fox out to the forty and grabs the sliothar. I bought a dog from his father last week. Fox turns and runs for goal. The dog ran a great race in Limerick last week. …Fox to the 21, fires a shot – it goes to the left and wide…and the dog lost as well.’

PS.

So did Down. By one point.

Stand Up for Peoples Rights

This blog spent Tuesday evening at the Aisling Bursary awards. The Aisling Bursaries have been around for 11 years. The idea behind them is very simple. To seek sponsorship from businesses and individuals in west Belfast to provide some financial support for third level students. These include mature students coming back into the education system. Women, lone parents. The amount involved is usually £1000 – not a lot but important when trying to make ends meet on limited resources or when you are part of a family with a limited budget.

One young recipient Amanda McAteer, a former pupil of St. Rose’s and St. Mary’s, spoke eloquently at the event of the importance of the sponsorship in helping to make her goal of becoming a teacher possible.

Since they began the Aisling Bursaries have raised over £400,000 and over 400 people have benefited from them. That is a considerable achievement and great praise is due to the Belfast Media Group and the West Belfast Partnership Board who make it happen each year; to those who organise; advertise; identify recipients; judge entrants; lobby potential donors; and raise the hard cash that this programme is about.

A special word of thanks has to go to the sponsors. There are 31 this year. These are difficult times and money is tight. But many of them from the beginning have handed over the money that makes the bursaries possible and successful. Without their big-heartedness and Aisling – vision – none of this would be possible.

Education is key to making a better future possible. In a very real sense the task of this generation is to prepare the next generation for the challenges they face and to equip them with the best tools and skills and education we can to overcome those challenges.



Todd Allen from the USA who sponsors the Eileen Howell bursary with this year's recipients.

The Aisling event is pioneering and practical because it demonstrates a commitment and investment in the education and empowerment of citizens. It also demonstrates that positive and progressive relationships can be forged between business, education and the local community.

But the 41 recipients this year, like the rest of us, face uncertain times ahead. The economic crisis is having a detrimental impact on jobs and investment and threatens our public services and communities.

In a few weeks time the British Chancellor is going to outline his governments planned cuts to public expenditure. The north is threatened with huge cuts.

Already and regrettably some politicians appear to have given up. I have heard some unionist leaders argue the Tory line that cutting public services is the right approach while other parties have simply thrown up the hands and surrendered to what they believe is inevitable.

It’s not inevitable. And no one should give up. Political leaders, the trade unions, business leaders and communities must take a stand against threatened cutbacks.

Why? Because if they have their way the Tories and the Lib Dems will turn the clock back decades and inflict huge hardship on the most vulnerable.

A succession of reports, mainly by the trade unions, have revealed that the poorest will be hit 10 times harder than the wealthy. If they go ahead the cuts will have a huge and detrimental impact on the disadvantaged and those in poverty. It will be the public services they rely on, in health and education and social services and transport, that would be hit hardest. Lone parents, the elderly and the sick are expected to suffer the most.

So, political leaders and parties in the north have to stand up for peoples rights. We have to defend public services. We need to agree a strategy which rejects savage cuts as the only answer. And we must provide alternatives.

That means demanding more fiscal powers, for tax gathering and other revenue raising authority. How can we manage the economy in the north without these essential economic tools?

The Executive must protect and defend disadvantaged communities and families by developing a strategy which prioritises investing in recovery, investing in jobs, investing in communities - not slashing and burning. Killing off businesses and jobs and stripping back public services will not revitalise the economy.

It also means working closely with the Irish government to get rid of expensive duplication which is caused by partition. There is a need for better public services.

There are two states on this island and a duplication of services, investment and job creation agencies and competing incentives for inward investment. Common sense tells you that this doesn’t make sense.

This blog believes in a new approach – an all-island approach which ends duplication and improves efficiency in the production of public services and the creation of jobs.

All of this is doable and is necessary to create the type of society in which those who received their bursaries last week have the best opportunity to use their new skills and contribute to society.



Niall Press who is off to London to study music serenading the audience with a great voice

WOMEN!

Your woman looked me with a smile in her eyes. I knew I was in trouble.
Her smile didn’t go as far as her lips.

‘How come I didn’t feature in your blog about all the good cooks?’ she asked.

‘Ah?’ I stuttered.

‘Do my tuna sandwiches not count?’

‘Tuna sandwiches aren’t exactly cooking’

Your man interjected with his usual diplomatic skill. Your woman didn’t
take him under her notice. She didn’t even ignore him.

‘Whenever you phone in here lukin someone to get you your lunch, who is
it that does it?’

‘You’ I said like a man who knows his place in the scheme of things.

‘Well, why don’t I get a mention in your blog. Do you have to go up to
Stormont before anyone takes any notice of you?’

By now her smile had stretched to her lips. I relaxed a wee bit as I
ushered your man out of the room. We were in the Sevastapol Street office.

‘Your tuna sandwiches are the best I’ve ever eaten’ I said.

And at the risk of upsetting anyone else who ever gave me a tuna sandwich
let me make clear that they are. The best that is. Unless you’re a tuna.

‘And how come I never get invited to your fancy diners club on Mondays and
Tuesdays?’

‘That’s not me. That’s your man’ I said. ‘He is the host’.

‘It’s in your office’ your woman pointed out, not unreasonably.

‘Let me have a word with him?’ I grovelled.

‘Don’t think you’ll get around me as easily as that’ she retorted.

‘Are you making any tea?’ she continued.

That sounds like an innocent enough question. But in actual fact its what
your man calls the interrogative imperative. In other words it isn’t a
simple query about my tea making intentions. Not when it comes from a
woman. On the contrary when it comes from a woman it is a direct order.
So I did what any self respecting coward does in these circumstances. I
obeyed. I went and made your woman her tea.

Afterwards your man and I discussed women and the ways they have of
getting their ways. He disapproved of my approach.

‘Are you?’ he asked me, ‘Are you a man or a mouse?’

‘That’s easy’ I said with a laugh‘ Get off my tail and I’ll tell you.’

He didn’t laugh with me.

‘Do you know you are also getting slagged because you put up a photo of
Naomh Eoghan’s camogs after they won the county championship and you
didn’t post one of Gort Na Mona after they won the junior championship?’

‘When was this?’

‘When you were on your holidays.’

‘Well that explains it’ I said.

‘Ah but what are you going to do?’ Make them tea as well?’

‘No I’m going to get their photo and post it with this. Gort are a good
club and their camogs are brilliant. It’s a great achievement for them to
win the Junior championship’.

Well done Gort.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aontroim Camogs are in Croke Park on Sunday against Port Lairge –
Waterford, in the Gala All Ireland Junior Camogie Final. It is a great
achievement for the players and their management team. Our camogs topped
the Premier Group One and narrowly held off Down to qualify for Sundays
game. Waterford will be hard to beat but the Saffrons are no mean team.
They are there on merit. This is the first time in a long for Aontroim
Camogs in Croke lets hope the big venue doesn’t put them off. Good luck
to them all. Aontroim Abú.

Update on the Camogie game directly from Croke Park where this blog is esconsed in the Hogan Stand. It is a draw. Aontroim camógs played brilliantly. A credit to our county. Na Camógs abu!

World Suicide Prevention Day

Belfast city centre was shrouded in darkness as the silent procession of families and friends from West Belfast who lost loved ones through suicide, their faces illuminated by candles and torches, made its way to the City Hall.

The crowd seemed larger than last year. It was just after six when we reached Donegall Square. Ahead of us another procession from other parts of the city made its way out of Royal Avenue. It certainly was bigger.

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. We were walking from darkness into light in an act of solidarity with all those bereaved through suicide and in an effort to raise awareness about suicide and self-harming.

In recent years suicide has taken a heavy toll across this island. Last year West and North Belfast recorded the highest numbers with 22 in the west of the City and 20 in the north. More people die each year in Ireland as a result of suicide than die in road accidents.

The human cost of this on families and communities is devastating. The reality is that all sections and all generations of our society are affected, from the very young to the very old, and in rural and urban areas. All of this was very obvious in the faces and demeanour of the people gathered at our City Hall ceremony which was led in song and poetry readings by Deborah Morrison and Jim Weir who were joined by relatives – mostly parents of victims of suicide who read poems and spoke of their loss. It would break your heart.



Self harming is also a huge issue in Irish society today. Thousands are admitted to hospitals every year as a result of self-harm which in many cases go unreported. A report in the south revealed that there were 11,700 cases of deliberate self-harm presented at Accident and Emergency departments in 2008, with the biggest increase there among men.

There has been significant work done and investment made into Suicide awareness and prevention in recent times. Most of it is a result of the hard work and dedication of bereaved families.

However as recent statistics and reports have shown the issue of suicide is as great today as it has ever been.

Prof Kevin Malone of the School of Medicine and Medical Science UCD and St. Vincent’s University Hospital gave evidence on suicide to the Dáil Joint Committee on Health and Children this week. He reported that a study he carried out into suicide in 23 countries concluded that suicide levels are significantly higher than the official statistics suggest.

While suicide is now better understood than before, and it is accepted that suicide victims and survivors should be treated with compassion and care, the fact remains that only a tiny proportion of the budget in the north and in the south is devoted to mental health.

Mental Health remains the Cinderella of the health services. This needs to be rectified.

With threats of cutbacks in services dominating the political agenda this blog looks to the Minister of Health to give a clear commitment to ring fence the existing resources for the suicide awareness and prevention strategies and groups against any threat of cuts.

The Minister should also go further by publishing the ‘North-South Feasibility Study’ which was completed 18 months ago and recommends greater co-operation between the health services north and south.

Making best use of existing resources across the island at a time of financial crisis makes sense. As the economic recession continues to bite into peoples sense of self worth and well being their mental health will suffer. Instances of suicide could increase even more.



This morning the organisers of our Walk of Life released large Chinese Lanterns into the Belfast sky. In a ceremony replete with symbolism the lanterns bobbed their way slowly up over our heads and floated gently heavenwards as the dawn brightened over our city. Beside me people wept quietly.

Let’s not let these people down. This morning also marked the formal launch of the Families Voices Forum which will bring together all those working on this issue. They deserve our support.

A Good News Story

Attending a press conference in 2006 with Arnaldo Otegi, leader of Batasuna, who is currently in prison

The announcement of a ceasefire by ETA on Sunday came after a long process of dialogue and internal discussion among Basque activists.

This dialogue also involved this blog and other Sinn Féin representatives. Sometimes the discussions were held in the Basque country, sometimes in Belfast and on a number of occasions in recent years senior Sinn Féin representatives travelled to Geneva for meetings with Basque representatives.

Given the experience of the 2006 cessation – which ended in mutual recrimination in December 06 after 9 months - there will be those on the Basque and Spanish sides who will be sceptical and cautious about Sunday’s statement and this is understandable.

But caution should not be allowed to encourage preconditions to dialogue. Caution should not be allowed to block progress.

In the Irish peace process we saw how games of scrabble were played around the use and interpretation of some words and some of these became pre-conditions which were then used to delay progress.

Some parties tried to exploit for self gain the uncertainties that accompany every peace process. They put their own party interests above those of the process.

Others, particularly within the British military and intelligence establishment, actively tried to subvert the process. And although they succeeded on several occasions in collapsing it, the process has proven more durable and stronger than they envisaged.

To succeed a credible process between the Basque people and the Spanish state has to respect democratic mandates. The electorate has the right to choose the party it wants to represent it and this decision should be accepted and respected by the Spanish government.

Sunday’s statement did not come out of the blue. It was the culmination of years of debate and discussion and strategising among Basque activists, and in the opinion of this blog it is a significant development and a genuine attempt to resolve the conflict. It has the potential to bring about a permanent end to the conflict with the Spanish state.

Many in the Basque country look to the Irish peace process for inspiration. And much of what has been attempted there in the last decade has been modelled on our experience.

Toward the end of last year and into this year an impressive internal process of strategising took place among Basque parties, trade unionists and political activists. This involved thousands of activists. The debate was about agreeing a new political strategy.

In February a conference of the Abertzale Regional Assemblies (Abertazle Left), which includes the banned Basque party Batasuna, agreed a new broad front approach. This too draws heavily from the Irish experience.

The new strategy commits Basque participants to ‘exclusively political and democratic means’ and seeks to achieve political change ‘in a complete absence of violence and without interference’ and ‘conducted in accordance with the Mitchell Principles.’ This strategy finds its echo in the weekend statement by ETA.

In its video message ETA confirmed ‘its commitment to finding a democratic solution to the conflict. In its commitment to a democratic process to decide freely and democratically our future, through dialogue and negotiations, ETA is prepared today as yesterday to agree to the minimum democratic conditions necessary to put in motion a democratic process, if the Spanish government is willing.

We also convey this to the international community and call on it to respond to ETA’s will and commitment in order to participate in the building of a durable, just and democratic resolution to the centuries-long political struggle.’

Of significance is the fact that Abertzale Left in its response to the ETA statement is describing that initiative as a ‘unilateral and unconditional cessation of military operations indefinitely’. It also speaks of its recognition that it continue to develop initiatives, making ‘commitments and compromising’ in order to make progress.

The Abertzale Left position would suggest that the Basque parties understand the need to build on this initiative. There is also a heavy responsibility on the Spanish government to grasp this opportunity for peace and progress. It needs to be far sighted, to think strategically and to ignore those voices that seek a resolution in terms of victory and defeat.

The international community too has a role to play just as it did in the Irish peace process and is currently doing in the negotiations on the Middle East which commenced last week.

There are dangers ahead. No conflict resolution process can be risk free for its participants. But the benefits of succeeding far outweigh the dangers of failure.

Peace comes dropping Slow

The Old City of Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock

The Middle East peace talks, which formally opened in Washington on Thursday, have been given one year. It’s a tall order.

In 2006 when I visited the region I spent a brief time in the Kalandia refugee camp. It was opened in 1949 and is under Israeli control. That refugee camp is home to ten thousand Palestinian refugees who for 60 years have been dependent on emergency food aid and the provision of services. Generations have grown up under occupation while living in appalling conditions of poverty and deprivation.

Kalandia was opened the year after I was born. And in every decade since that part of the world has been convulsed by one major war after another leaving thousands dead and millions more, almost all of them Palestinians, as refugees.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) estimates that there are some 5 million Palestinian refugees in the region and this excludes those who have moved further away to Europe, the USA and elsewhere.

The issues that this new process of negotiations will have to resolve to achieve a durable peace settlement have been well rehearsed during many failed previous efforts.

A viable Palestinian state; Israeli occupation of Palestinian land; the siege of Gaza; the settlements; water rights; refugees; prisoners; the Separation wall and Jerusalem.



An Israeli Hilltop Settlement overlooking Bethlehem

One of the most immediate and pressing issues is that of the settlements. Since the 1967 war when Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the west Bank, the Israeli government has constructed some 100 settlements with a combined population of around 500,000 jews. These settlements are illegal under international law.

Last November the Israeli government announced a moratorium on the building of new settlements, although this did not include East Jerusalem. The moratorium is scheduled to end in three weeks time on September 26th. The Palestinians have warned that renewed construction will bring an end to the negotiations while the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that his government will not extend the moratorium.

In addition Hamas and the people of the Gaza Strip are not represented in the talks. Hamas has been excluded from the negotiations and is opposed to the process. The killing of four Israeli settler’s near Hebron on Tuesday was claimed by its organisation the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades.

Last year on a visit to the Gaza strip this blog met with senior Hamas leaders, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Since then other Shinners have met representatives of Hamas, including Khaled Mashal, the political leader of Hamas.

The Hamas leadership have told us that they want a peace agreement with justice, stability, security and peace for Palestinians and Israelis. To achieve this they are for a comprehensive ceasefire; the opening of borders; a two state compromise and the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital on the basis of the 1967 borders and the establishment of a long Hudna (long truce) to facilitate this.

In our contribution to these conversations and in talks with the |Palestinian Authority , PLO representatives and Palestinian activists Sinn Féin representatives have stated our view that armed actions will not bring a resolution to the conflict or advance the Palestinian cause.

Dialogue, involving substantive and inclusive negotiations, is the only way forward.

All of the participants, including the Israeli government and Hamas, need to create a context in which this can happen. There should be a complete cessation of all hostilities and armed actions by all sides and Hamas should be invited to participate in the current negotiations.

Not surprisingly the media and political commentary around the commencement of this phase of negotiations has been down beat. In some instances media reports are dismissing out of hand the possibility of any agreement. It is always easier to predict failure than find evidence of hope or progress.

It is true that when you look beyond the fine words and sentiments expressed on Tuesday night in Washington at the opening press conference that there are huge obstacles to achieving a breakthrough, not least of which is the absence of Hamas.

However this blog believes that agreement is possible. Most citizens living in Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza already know its broad outline.

Achieving this will require courageous political leadership, a willingness to take risks, initiatives and to make compromises. It means Israeli and Palestinian leaders working as partners to defend the rights and freedoms of each other.

The strategic interest of Israeli and Palestinian citizens is for peace. A peace that encompasses the security, prosperity and stability of the Israeli people and of the Palestinian people. That must be the goal of these talks. We wish them well in their efforts.



The Separation Wall

BACK TO PORRIDGE.

‘And now the end is near.

And so I face the final curtain

………..’

Your man is always the one for the dramatic outbursts.

‘It’s only the end of the holidays’. I cut into his Sinatra impersonation.

‘I did what I had to do ….

‘What was the best part of this sos, this r and r, this vacation ?’ I
asked. ‘for you?’

‘What was your best bit?’ he responded.

‘There were lots of best bits. Being away. Not reading newspapers for a
while….

‘I saw you reading newspapers!’ he butted in.

‘You saw me reading the Andytown News once. Cos I cud only get it once.

But when I am on holidays I don’t listen to radio news or television news
and I don’t get the newspapers except for Andytown News which is very hard to get in these parts and on a Saturday I get the Irish Times but that’s more for the review section and the magazine. So from Saturday to Saturday I don’t know what is happening in the world.’

‘But you can’t say you don’t get newspapers!! You may not get as many
newspapers as you do at home but you do get some.’

He looked at me in a contrary sot of a way.

‘Maith go leor’ I conceded. ‘Okay. But that’s one of the things I like.
Not knowing what is happening in the rest of the world. Or here for that
matter. At least for the duration of the holiday.’

‘You said activists don’t take holidays. We just regroup.’

‘Are you in bad form?’ I asked.

‘No!’ he lied emphatically.

‘Well you’re grumpier than usual’.

‘Aye… I suppose I am a wee bit cranky’ He reflected.

‘I liked everything about the last few weeks’. he went on ‘Walking every
day. The abundance of red wine. Swimming, boating, cycling. Good food. Climbing them two mountains. The spells of glorious sunshine….

‘ Between the rain’.

‘Well this IS Ireland!! So you expect rain. But look at you. You’re as
brown as a berry. People will think you were away in Spain or …Portugal or some place warm like that.’

‘So why are you in bad form?’ I queried.

‘I nivver said I was in bad form.’

‘Okay. But you did say you were cranky.’

‘A wee bit cranky’.

‘So why?’ I hissed between clenched teeth.’ ‘Why? Before you drive me mad!’

‘Its youse in bad form’ he shot back. ‘and I know why. And it’s nothing to
do with me. It’s because the holidays is over and its back to porridge for
you!’

‘Its back to porridge for you too.’ I reminded him.

‘Aye but I don’t have to deal with all the crackpots and looney bins like
you do’.

‘Tell me about it’, I said.

But my irony was lost on him. Your man doesn’t recognise irony. If it’s
directed at himself.

‘Know what I mean?’ he continued. ‘Don’t you think I don’t care. I know
what you put up with . That is why I am behaving the way I am today. This is the last day of our break. We can’t have you going from here straight into Stormont without a wee bit of preparation. After all the bliss and harmony of recent days. God knows what you might do if you weren’t prepared. This is what I’m at. I am trying to get you ready. It’s an act of friendship.’

He sighed and stopped to gather his breath.

I sighed with him. An act of friendship indeed! He was cranky because the break is over.

Blast it! So it bloody well is.

‘And now the end is near’ I broke into song.

‘And so I face the final curtain.’

Your man ignored me. Just like a DUP backbencher.

Back to porridge indeed.