Friday, February 03, 2006
Unionists halting progress once more
This is just beyond ridiculous at this point.The prospect of political progress in the North is fading further today following an insistence from the Democratic Unionist Party that it will not share power with Sinn Féin unless the IRA completely disbands.
The comments were made by party spokesman Nigel Dodds last night as the DUP prepares to hold its annual conference this weekend.
The Irish and British governments want the party to enter talks on power-sharing arrangements based on the IRA's promise to end all non-peaceful activity.
The Independent Monitoring Commission said earlier this week that the republican movement was making real progress towards honouring this promise.
However, Mr Dodds said the report from ceasefire monitoring body had justified DUP caution that the IRA was as far from democracy as ever.
He asked why people in the North should be forced to put up with the IRA in any form when Minister for Justice Michael McDowell had himself said that the group's existence was unacceptable. (He must have forgotten that the Republic doesn't have a power-sharing system like the North)
This is disgraceful from the unionists. It is further proof that Paisley and his ilk do not want to see progress in the north of Ireland. They continue to object and stall.
Unionists changing the goalposts once more
It emerged last night on Hearts and Minds that the DUP won't be talking with the Irish government in the next round of talks because, according to Nigel Dodds, the Irish government has no right to comment on the 'internal affairs' of the North.
Ignoring that archaic and insulting view from the DUP, now they have gone and added a new item to their wishlist - IRA disbandment. Let's give a quick recap on the situation for those unaware of it...
The unionists asked for the IRA to decommision which they did - not good enough.
The unionists asked for the IRA to say their armed campaign was over which they did - not good enough.
Now, unbelievably, they want the IRA to disband! Even if they did it would not be good enough!
They simply do not want progress and I want all visitors to United Irelander from around the world, particularly those from Ireland's north and Britain, to see that it is unionists like the DUP who are preventing progress in the island of Ireland.
How long will these bullies be allowed to hold back the rest of us?
# posted by United Irelander @ 2:25 PM 
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