In Northern Ireland, peace driven by economics
Two fierce adversaries agreed to a power-sharing government just hours before a London-set deadline.
By Mark Rice-Oxley and Michael Seaver | Correspondents of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the March 27, 2007 edition
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LONDON; AND DUBLIN, IRELAND - Northern Ireland took a major step towards reconciling antagonistic Protestants and Catholics in devolved government Monday when two of the oldest adversaries involved in the province's 30-year "Troubles" finally met, talked, and agreed to share power in six weeks' time.
In a striking piece of political choreography, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, two lifelong opponents who disagree fundamentally on whether Northern Ireland should remain part of Britain, held face-to-face talks for the first time and agreed to work together in a government to begin May 8.
The deal, struck just hours before a deadline imposed by Britain was due to expire, will restore power-sharing for the first time in more than four years, only this time the key players will be the sectarian hard-liners who won elections earlier this month, not the moderates who previously held sway.
The most pressing challenges facing them will be economic rejuvenation, links with Ireland, and education issues, not to mention trying to ensure the government doesn't collapse amid mutual recrimination, as it did in 2002.
Seasoned commentators hailed Monday's deal as hugely symbolic, as well as auspicious, even if the tables had to be arranged so that Messrs. Paisley and Adams did not sit side by side, but rather across a corner from each other.
The pair have for decades represented two irreconcilable ideas. Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party are vociferous proponents of tethering Northern Ireland and its Protestant majority to British rule. Adams, thought to have once been an IRA commander, is a longtime agitator for reunification with Ireland.
The idea of them sharing power was unthinkable as recently as two years ago. The spectacle of them meeting was as remarkable, if not as geopolitically significant, as the first handshake of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, or Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
"Even though I expected a deal to be done, when you see something like that it's symbolic," says Henry Patterson, an expert in Northern Ireland's political process at the University of Ulster in Belfast, Northern Ireland. "Effectively, there is a government now. The fact that it won't function for six weeks is not that important," he says, adding that the parties will spend the coming weeks drawing up a program.
"The fact that Paisley and Adams are sitting down together, albeit at the corner of tables rather than side by side, is incredible, enormous," adds Michael Kerr, an expert in conflict resolution at the London School of Economics.
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