The
32 County Sovereignty Movement hold firm to the
belief that a peace process, predicated on democratic
principles and addressing the core cause of the
conflict between Ireland and Britain, can realise
a just political and constitutional solution for
all the peoples of our respective islands. However
this requires dialogue and a willingness to engage
in dialogue with alternative viewpoints. A central
and recurrent theme of the current political process
since its public inception has been one of advocating
the necessity of advancing political agendas through
'peaceful and democratic means'. Indeed this became
one of several partisan pre-conditions laid down
by the British government the acceptance of which
was cited as the 'entry fee' into political negotiations.
We in the 32CSM rejected this approach as democratically
deficient because it proved to be a mechanism to
avoid negotiating on the central issue at the heart
of the Anglo-Irish conflict, namely our right to
National Sovereignty.
Our
response was to pursue a 'peaceful and democratic
means' to highlight our analysis of what we seen
to be a deficient process incapable of delivering
a just solution. To this end the 32CSM sent representatives
to New York to lodge a submission with the United
Nations seeking international arbitration to resolve
the conflict. The response of the British government,
supported by the Irish government, was to use their
influence in seeking our organisations prohibition
in the US thus stifling our ability to pursue and
develop this 'peaceful and democratic means'. Despite
this hypocritical behaviour on the part of both
governments we remain committed to this course of
action.
In
the latter part of 2005 the 32CSM launched a strategic
initiative entitled Irish Democracy, A Framework
For Unity outlining our analysis of events as how
to best formulate a peace process capable of delivering
a durable settlement. Contained in this initiative
were submissions to both governments and the main
political parties highlighting what we believe to
be variances between their public and private positions
and also the identifying of issues necessitating
dialogue to resolve these variances. Be assured
this was not an exercise solely concerned with seeking
dialogue between the 32CSM and the various parties
and governments but to introduce a dynamic to the
dialogue between themselves. The response has been,
with the exception of an official recognition of
its receipt from both governments, silence, confirming
our view that the current peace process is predicated
on exclusion and is thus fatally flawed.
The
Good Friday Agreement is faltering principally because
it did not address at the outset the core cause
of the conflict. What it chose to do, having failed
to address the issue of Irish National Sovereignty,
was to create a series of political entities, like
the Assembly and Cross Border Bodies, to deflect
attention away from this failure. These entities,
having been portrayed as mechanisms to build trust,
political stability and confidence, have now become
pawns for the parties to retrospectively address
what should have been addressed at the outset. This
politicking has rendered the institutions sterile,
has reaffirmed sectarian politics and placed insecurity
at the heart of the political process.
A
democratic settlement cannot have democracy as a
tangent to it. Democracy must be intrinsic both
to its formulation and its practice. Political stability
requires constitutional stability which in turn
is dependant on sovereign integrity. All these essential
ingredients are missing from the current process
as evidenced by the current stalemate. In consequence
the 32 County Sovereignty Movement petition those
with any influence to use that influence to secure
dialogue with alternative viewpoints and to ensure
that those who constantly reiterate that dialogue
is the only way forward practice what they preach.
Irish
Democracy, A Framework for Unity can be viewed here:
www.32csm.org/pow.html.
