FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU TURKEY AND THE KURDS

FIFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS
(catholic) nationalists and republicans, the Women’s Coalition and the locally based
Labour Party occupied rooms on the second floor.
On the third floor were the offices of the British government, including the Secretary
of State and the offices of for the independent chairs (facilitators). The top floor also
contained the large room set aside for the negotiations. There were also small conference
rooms on each floor.
All the negotiating teams had administrators, legal advisers, researchers, secretarial
backup and public relations resources.
After the adoption of the Mitchell Principles most of the unionist parties began to
participate directly in the talks, although the then largest unionist party (UUP) refused
to engage with Sinn Fein. The first major achievement was the adoption of a
procedural motion which saw the formal establishment by the two governments of
the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning of arms; the establishment
of two sub-committees, one on decommissioning and one on confidencebuilding
measures; agreement on a comprehensive agenda for the commencement of
substantive talks; and acceptance that a business committee should meet as required
to co-ordinate the progress and procedures of the negotiations.
By contrast, the peace process in Spain and the Basque Country had no formal structure.
Indeed there was hardly an acknowledgement from Madrid that there was a
peace process at all. Meetings that took place between the Spanish government and
ETA were generally secret and held outside of Spain. There was no transparency at all.
Negotiations between Batasuna, ETA’s political wing, and other political parties in the
Basque Country were equally problematic. Because Batasuna remained banned and
their leaders politically tainted, other political parties were not prepared to engage
with them publicly. Direct engagement did take place, but secretly. When the peace
process unsurprisingly collapsed, leaders of parties who were known to have engaged
with the Batasuna leadership, including the respected President of the Basque Country,
were prosecuted.
The citizenry should, through civil society organisations, be involved in peace initiatives
at as many levels as possible.
As I have already mentioned, the political negotiations in South Africa were constantly
under threat due to ongoing violence initiated in the main by hard line members
of the security forces who were opposed to the democratisation of South Africa.
Although the formal and structured negotiations played a major role in sustaining
the peace process, it is more than possible that South Africa would have erupted into
full scale war had it not been for the timely establishment of the National Peace Accord.
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