BREXIT EFFECT: NORTHERN
IRELAND (SABGA/GREEN/FELICIANO) -- FEB. 25, 2017
UPDATED
FRI. FEB. 24 330PM. TRT: 9:49
(SUGGESTED INTRO)
NEXT MONTH, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER
THERESA MAY IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN THE PROCESS OF HAVING THE UNITED KINGDOM
FORMALLY EXIT THE 28 NATION EUROPEAN UNION. WHILE A MAJORITY OF VOTERS IN
THE UK -- ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES, AND NORTHERN IRELAND -- VOTED TO LEAVE THE
EU IN A REFERENDUM LAST JUNE, VOTERS IN NORTHERN IRELAND FAVORED REMAINING, IN
PART BECAUSE THEY FEAR BREXIT MIGHT UPSET THE TWO DECADES OF PEACE BETWEEN
CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT COMMUNITIES.
NEWSHOUR WEEKEND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT PATRICIA SABGA HAS
THE STORY.
###
PATRICIA
SABGA:
The
sectarian violence that roiled Northern Ireland for decades is stamped on the
Belfast landscape. Across this capital city, murals commemorate the more than
three-and-a-half thousand people killed during the conflict, known here as The
Troubles.
PETER
HUGHES:
We’re
going to start on the Shankill Rd
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Cab
driver Peter Hughes is our guide.
PETER
HUGHES:
There’s
a process of some of the more offensive murals, stripping them away, replace
them with something a little more positive but leaving evidence then of the
old.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
It’s
a visual tempering of passions surrounding the conflict that pitted minority
Catholic political and paramilitary factions fighting to reunite Northern
Ireland with the Republic of Ireland...against Protestant state and
paramilitary forces who want Northern Ireland to remain British.
NEWS
REPORTER:
Inside,
eight political groups…
PATRICIA
SABGA:
In
the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton appointed former U-S Senator George
Mitchell to broker peace talks, which culminated in the 1998 Good Friday
Agreement that formally ended the Troubles and set up a power-sharing
government between Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationalists.. Today, 21
miles of “peace walls” still separate Catholic and Protestant communities in
Belfast. A lingering division reflected in Northern Ireland’s Brexit vote.
While
the United Kingdom as a whole voted to leave the European Union, 56 percent of
Northern Irish voters wanted to remain. The vote also split along sectarian
lines with. 85% of Northern Irish Catholics preferring to stay in the EU,
compared to 40% percent of Protestants.
Perhaps
the most contentious issue raised by Brexit is the future of the 300 mile
border dividing Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland. During The
Troubles, parts of it were heavily fortified with military features that stood
as physical reminders of Ireland’s partition by the British.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
The
1998 Good Friday Agreement transformed the border between Northern Ireland and
the Republic of Ireland. Eyesores of division like watchtowers, military
checkpoints and concrete bollards have vanished. I’m standing on the border
right now, and it’s difficult to tell where one country ends and the other
begins. But that seamlessness could very well change when Britain leaves the
European Union, taking Northern Ireland with it.
THERESA
MAY:
Nobody
wants to return to the borders of the past.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
British
Prime Minister Theresa May has tried to assuage concerns by stating her
preference for a “frictionless border.” But Gerry Adams – a towering figure
among Catholic Republicans and a key player in the peace process, isn’t buying
it.
GERRY
ADAMS:
The
European Union, quite rightly, like any other federation or any other state,
will want to protect itself. And there will be tariffs, there will be economic
penalties, and there will be physical manifestations of a hard border.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
For
34 years, Adams has led Sinn Fein, the political party historically tied to the
Irish Republican Army...which fought to separate Northern Ireland from the
United Kingdom and a British government Adams contends still doesn’t have
Northern Ireland’s best interests at heart.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
How
would you characterize their concern for Northern Ireland in a post-Brexit
world?
GERRY
ADAMS:
I
don't think they give a fig about people here. I don't think they ever have.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Sinn
Fein is calling for a referendum on re-uniting Ireland – but the immediate
demand is for the British government to support granting Northern Ireland a
special status to stay in the E-U. That would in effect move the post-Brexit
E-U border from Ireland to the rest of the UK.
GERRY
ADAMS
This
is the most successful peace process there is in the last half-century. But it
needs to be nurtured. It needs to be nourished. So the sensible, decent thing
for the British Prime Minister to do is to go for the principle of a special
deal for the North within the European Union, a special designated status.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
But
Prime Minister May’s government calls special status for Northern Ireland the
“wrong approach.” Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party agrees. Sammy
Wilson is a member of the British Parliament and the DUPs chief spokesman on
Brexit.
SAMMY
WILSON:
Our
position on that is quite clear. We do not wish to have any special status at
all, and indeed Brexit should not be used as an excuse to weaken the union.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Wilson
says fears of a return to hardened borders after Brexit are overblown.
SAMMY
WILSON:
Given
the methods that we now have of checking movements of not just people but also
of goods, it is entirely possible using modern technology to have these
virtually frictionless borders. They'll not be totally frictionless. There has
to be some checking, there has to be some paperwork, but that's all manageable.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Wilson
also dismisses the notion that Brexit could undermine peace.
SAMMY
WILSON:
I'm
fairly sure that at the end of this process we will be wondering, "What
was all the fuss about?
PATRICIA
SABGA:
The
Brexit rift between Northern Ireland’s two largest political parties is
unfolding at a time of changing demographics and growing political turbulence.
A 2011 Census showed that Protestants now comprise less than half the
population in Northern Ireland -- 48% --while the share of Catholics has risen to 45%.
Last
month, Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government collapsed over the handling
of a renewable energy project—triggering new assembly elections in March. We
saw signs of resurgent political polarization. This display of past IRA
bombings on a wall in a unionist neighborhood drew a parallel to the 2015 Paris attacks by the Islamic State.
The caption reads “IRA-Sinn Fein-ISIS, no difference.”
PATRICIA
SABGA:
When
you see something like that, what does that tell you about the current state of
peace?
SAMMY
WILSON:
The
first thing it tells me is this, that of course there has always been an
affiliation between the Irish Republicans and terrorist groups, especially in
the Middle East.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Well,
do you agree with it? Do you agree with that--
SAMMY
WILSON:
I
do. Yes, of course, I do--
PATRICIA
SABGA:
--placard
saying, equating Sinn Féin with ISIS?
SAMMY
WILSON:
Yes,
I do.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
For
many in Northern Ireland, the pain of past political violence by both sides
endures, despite nearly 20 years of peace. Belfast native Raymond McCord lost
his son, Raymond Junior to the Troubles in 1997.
RAYMOND
MCCORD:
That’s
the man actually murdered Raymond. That’s the man who gave the order.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
But
no one has ever been charged with the crime. Unable to secure justice, McCord
now campaigns for victims’ rights on both sides of the sectarian divide--advocacy
that prompted him to launch an unsuccessful legal challenge to Brexit over
concerns that he and others could lose access to the European Court of Human
Rights
RAYMOND
MCCORD:
People
like myself can’t get justice here.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
And
that’s not his only worry. McCord fears
Brexit could stir up tensions among illegal paramilitary groups that have
leveled threats against him. According to a 2015 British government report,
“All the main paramilitary groups operating during the period of the Troubles
remain in existence.” While sectarian killings have stopped, the report said,
“Violence and intimidation are used to exercise control” at the community
level, including “paramilitary-style assaults and, on occasion, murders.”
PATRICIA
SABGA:
What
will Brexit do to the peace as it stands right now in Northern Ireland?
RAYMOND
MCCORD:
It
could destroy it. Simple as that.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Paul
O’Neill, who lives in a working class Catholic neighbourhood in Belfast, also
worries about the consequences of Brexit.
PAUL
O’NEILL:
Something
like 600 people from the area were imprisoned as a result of the conflict,
PATRICIA
SABGA:
During
the Troubles, O’Neill was accused of being an IRA member and jailed for five
years, only to have his conviction overturned. Since the Good Friday Agreement,
he’s worked with former prisoners as part of the Ashton community center, which
receives funding from the E-U that will dry up after Brexit.
PAUL
O’NEILL:
The
British government promised that they would provide assistance for Republican
ex-prisoners,
loyalist ex-prisoners, and their families to readjust. Very little happened,
didn’t happen. It was European money that allowed that to happen. I mean,
there’s a whole range of projects, youth projects, ex-prisoner support
projects, various projects that wouldn’t and couldn’t have happened were it not
for the fact that we were able to access funding from Europe.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
The
EU also funds Erasmus…a student exchange program that brings together Catholic
and Protestant youth, some for the first time.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Who
here is Catholic, and who here is Protestant?
KIDS:
We’re
Catholic.
BOY:
Yeah,
Catholic.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
OK?
And who’s Protestant? And how do you get along?
KIDS:
Brilliant!
PATRICIA
SABGA:
On
a wall in Belfast, a mural stands as testament to Catholic and Protestant
children who lived together in harmony until the Troubles began….
PETER
HUGHES:
For
them, it exploded over a two day period. 1,800 families lost their homes in two
days. So at that point, these kids are separate, they’re segregated.
PATRICIA
SABGA:
Is
there any concern that Brexit could possibly lead back to that?
PETER
HUGHES:
There’s
very much a fear, an undercurrent within certain people that we could be dragged
back to those dark days. Personally, I don’t think so, but there are people of
that belief.
END
|
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER THIRD |
|
1 |
2:06 |
PATRICIA SABGA Special Correspondent |
|
2 |
4:03 |
GERRY ADAMS Sinn Fein |
|
3 |
4:46 |
SAMMY WILSON, MP Democratic Unionist Party |
|
4 |
6:14 |
SAMMY WILSON, MP Democratic Unionist Party |
|
5 |
8:30 |
PAUL O’NEILL Ashton Community Trust |
|
6 |
9:28 |
PETER HUGHES Cab Driver |