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E-mailHillary Clinton faces a crisis on Northern Ireland visit
Sinn Fein and the DUP at loggerheads over devolution of policing and justice powers
Hillary Clinton will face a full blown crisis in the peace process when she visits Northern Ireland this weekend. Sinn Fein and the DUP
are at loggerheads over when policing and justice powers will be devolved to the Northern Irish government from the British parliament.
Clinton, who is making an historic first trip ever for a U.S. Secretary of State to Dublin and Belfast, will need all her negotiating skills to try and bridge the gap between the two sides who are deeply divided. Indeed, there are now increasing signs that Sinn Fein might walk away from the assembly if a solution cannot be found and the DUP foot dragging doe not end .
In the "Irish News" Denis Bradley,a former mediator between Sinn Fein and the British government, wrote that Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness has become increasingly concerned that the DUP are merely seeking to bring down the power sharing government.
"Up to recently the deputy first minister (McGuinness) would have worked as hard as any man could to keep it all up and running," writes Bradley
"He would have traveled through the night and the next night and the next to make sure it all held steady. He would have turned on the republican dissidents and spoken words so sharp that they would resonate in history.
"But his mood has changed. He has sensed the mood of his own people and the unchanged mood of many in the DUP and he is now as willing to walk as he is to stay."
Bradley also warns that if there is an election that Sinn Fein may well end up as largest party in Northern Ireland with McGuinness as First Minister because of deep divisions on the unionist side. He says unionism may not be able to live with that.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been trying to resolve the logjam and has the two leaders, McGuinness and Peter Robinson of the DUP to Downing Street today to try to resolve the crisis.After yesterday's meeting in Belfast, McGuinness said he had received assurances that the financial cost of devolving the powers would be met. Robinson however, denied that was so. But former special envoys are divided over whether Hillary's visit will help the process.
Paula Dobriansky, George W. Bush’s last special envoy to Northern Ireland, told the Belfast Telegraph that "Her trip is very timely.”
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