Sinn Fein ‘ignored role of 3,000 deaths in damaging community relations’
A former NIO minister had launched a consultation on a new good relations strategy for NI in 2003.
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Your support makes all the difference.Sinn Fein was accused of “ignoring” the role 3,000 Troubles deaths had in damaging community relations in Northern Ireland in a memo sent to a direct rule minister in 2003.
Declassified files show the note to former MP John Spellar also said the republican party had ignored the “visceral component of sectarianism” in responding to a new government good relations strategy.
Mr Spellar, then a Northern Ireland Office minister, had launched a consultation on the “A Shared Future” document, an attempt to address community divisions, segregation and sectarianism in the region at a time when the devolved powersharing institutions were suspended.
A file at the Public Record Office in Belfast shows that OFMDFM official Chris Stewart wrote to the minister in July about a response to the document from Sinn Fein representative Bairbre de Brun.
Mr Stewart told Mr Spellar that Ms de Brun’s letter had been critical of the document and was clearly intended to “mark your card”.
He said among a number of points raised by de Brun was that “the promotion of equality is the key to improving community relations”.
His memo adds: “Sinn Fein is clearly seeking to position or align the issue of community relations within its equality and human rights agenda.
“This general Sinn Fein position has resulted in a simplistic analysis of community relations, which is flawed in its description of the causes and necessary policy response.
Sinn Fein ignores the many other factors, not least the violent conflict that resulted in over 3000 deaths
“There is of course, no doubt that a lack of equality has been a contributing factor to poor community relations.
“However, Sinn Fein ignores the many other factors, not least the violent conflict that resulted in over 3,000 deaths.
“Sinn Fein also portrays poor community relations (for nationalists) as being a purely rational response to the political situation.
“This ignores the more visceral component of sectarianism, which is all too prevalent in both communities.”
Mr Stewart continues: “To suggest, as Sinn Fein does, that the promotion of equality should be the key component of good relations policy is to ignore the key message in A Shared Future, that indirect approaches alone are insufficient to deal with sectarianism and the abnormal relationship between sections of the Northern Ireland community.”
The official recommended the minister invite representatives of Sinn Fein to a meeting to discuss the policy.
The file also contains a note about Mr Spellar’s meeting with DUP representatives Maurice Morrow and Peter Weir the following month to discuss the document.
The note says: “Morrow said he had no problem with sharing the future and suggested that the first step to that would be an election to decide who spoke for whom – though he was quick to say he didn’t want politics to dominate the meeting.”
It adds: “Weir said that the biggest step towards improving community relations would be the creation of a political environment that had the broad support of both unionism and nationalism, and the GFA (Good Friday Agreement) could not create that environment.”