Alliance leader calls for decommissioning

Republican and loyalist paramilitaries must respond to the urgent need for arms decommissioning in the crisis-torn Northern Ireland…

Republican and loyalist paramilitaries must respond to the urgent need for arms decommissioning in the crisis-torn Northern Ireland peace process, Alliance leader Mr David Ford said today.

The South Antrim Assembly member argued in his first leader's speech at the party's annual conference in Stormont that the issue of weapons remained the biggest obstacle to progress.

With the IRA being given six days by unionists to decommission and save the power sharing executive, Assembly and other institutions, Mr Ford declared: "There is a clear need for both loyalists and republicans to deliver.

"This is not because hardline unionists say they must or even because I say so but because it is part of their obligations under the Agreement and they have promised action on numerous occasions.

READ MORE

"The method does not matter - only that it is verified to the satisfaction of General John de Chastelain and his colleagues. But delivery is urgent."

Mr Ford told the cross-community party's delegates that the Belfast Agreement remained the only way forward for Northern Ireland.

However, there was an interpretation of the Agreement being promoted that it was about "two separate communities living in uncertain co-existence".

He told the conference: "There is no glue to hold society together, just a sort of Band-Aid approach, sticking over divisions rather than seeking to heal them.

"As leader of Alliance, I utterly reject the notion that we are to be forever regarded as two tribes in an uneasy truce rather a united community that cherishes true diversity."

He attacked Mr David Trimble's Ulster Unionists for failing to sell the accord to their followers, for showing a "half-heart commitment" to power sharing and for putting party unity above the need to bring society together.

While welcoming the nationalist SDLP's decision to join the 19-member Police Board, he accused the party of dragging its feet for years and condemned it for supporting designations in the Assembly which branded MLAs as unionist, nationalist and non-aligned.

There was a provision in the Agreement, he observed, for a comprehensive review of it within the next two years.

The Alliance would work to remove "the awful sectarian designations" in the Assembly, he vowed.

"We should replace the 'cross community' voting system with a simple weighted majority scheme in which all members are treated equally.

"There have to be greater incentives for the development of cross-community politics and genuine collective responsibility into the Executive."

There was also a need, Mr Ford said, to tackle sectarianism and racism in Northern Ireland society which had become more overt since the Agreement.

The Alliance leader condemned loyalist protesters picketing Catholic primary school children in north Belfast, attacking "pious waffle" that there were two sides to the problem.

"Children have an absolute right to attend school. Four-year-old girls have a right not to be abused, harassed and frightened on a twice daily basis.

"Police officers should not have pipe bombs thrown at them while escorting pupils to school. There should not be anything to discuss because the school protest is immoral and should end immediately."

Mr Ford attacked the toleration of paramilitary flags and murals on housing estates across Northern Ireland and claimed the response of the power sharing executive to sectarianism was pitiful.

The Alliance, he said, wanted greater support for integrated education and would enter talks with the main churches.

He also disclosed plans to write to the other parties and groups committed to non-sectarian politics to see how they could work together to promote those ideals.

PA