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Northern Ireland celebrates the 25th anniversary of the peace deal, the Good Friday Agreement which ended three decades of violent conflict in Northern Ireland in which more than 3500 people died. Peace is celebrated, but between unionists and republicans the political stalemate continues and London has increased the level of terrorist threat in the country to the maximum.
“Courage, persistence and imagination”. These were the qualities that Northern Ireland’s political leaders showed 25 years ago, when they signed the peace agreement, said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today, leaving a message to current party leaders to break the political stalemate.
Northern Ireland has been without a government for over a year and the political stalemate between Republicans and Unionists lingers, the latter refusing to form a government.
The Democratic Unionist Party initiated the boycott, in protest against the post-Brexit trade deals. The return of regional institutions continues without a set date and this impasse is not only overshadowing the anniversary but also putting the peace process at risk. The police raised the alert level for the risk of terrorist attacks.
At stake is the activity of dissident republicans, known as the new IRA and who never accepted the agreement reached 25 years ago. But the danger also comes from the so-called loyal paramilitary militias, for defending the union with the United Kingdom.
When US President Joe Biden lands in Belfast on Tuesday to mark the anniversary, he will be greeted without the fanfare you’d expect.
Biden will certainly ask political leaders to restore regional institutions. But unionists fear that ceding now on the commercial border with the United Kingdom will result in the medium and long term in a political integration of the territory in the Republic of Ireland.
Precisely what made them fight for 30 years until the 1998 peace agreement.