The Asian echoes of Belfast

A great deal of time, energy and effort went into the Belfast negotiations seeking to end conflict in Northern Ireland. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin examines the ways in which this example relates to the cause of conflict-resolution in Asia.

HONG KONG (JP): For anyone engrossed in the intricacies of Asian politics, the Belfast negotiations over the future of Northern Ireland were particularly absorbing.

First, there was the massive deployment of political firepower to secure agreement between those representing the Protestant majority and the Catholic minority, so that their political arena would no longer be a killing field.

The Irish and British prime ministers encamped in Belfast for the best part of a week. The president of the United States often projected himself into Belfast by telephone.

For over three years, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell has been acting as an unpaid intermediary and conciliator.

Second, there was the imposed deadline. Senator Mitchell produced a report, never released it to the press, and gave all parties until midnight on April 9 to reach agreement on its recommendations. When the midnight hour came, agreement had not been attained. So the clock was stopped for 32 hours until Senator Mitchell's deadline was finally met.

Third, there were the vexed problems, reminiscent of various Asian hotspots, that dictated the need for agreement,

There were the insecurities that inevitably arise when you have back-to-back minority situations -- in which Asia abounds. In Ireland the problem is not simply that the Protestants are a majority and the Catholics a minority among the 1.2 million people of Northern Ireland. Within the five million people of Ireland as a whole, the Protestants are a minority, the Catholics the majority.

There were the contrary legal constitutional problems arising from Ireland being partitioned in 1921, and the Irish constitution claiming all-Ireland as its inherent territory.

There is the fact that terrorists groups have long sought to buttress those respective positions with the law of the gun. There is the long history of almost ethnic separation between the Protestants and Catholics, even though they are of the same race, which has resulted in a political cul-de-sac of intense and irrational intransigence on both sides.

Several Asian situations bear a strong or partial resemblance to that with which the Belfast negotiators grappled.

Senator Mitchell produced a masterly 27-page document, called The Agreement, which seeks to answer every aspect of the problem.

The British acknowledge the desire to create one Ireland, and will change their legislation to make it ultimately possible for that dream to be realized but only by consent.

The Irish acknowledge that the majority of people in Northern Ireland do not yet wish to join Ireland, and will change their constitutional claim that there is only one Ireland, to allow for reunification only when a majority in Northern Ireland vote for it.

A legislative Assembly will be set up to govern Northern Ireland. Joint South-North Councils will be set up to foster South-North cooperation. And so on. Whatever happens, Mitchell deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for having covered every angle so thoroughly, so diplomatically and so cleverly, thereby giving Northern Ireland a chance to reverse the history of conflict and terrorism which has dogged its progress for so long.

Whether The Agreement succeeds or eventually fails, Ireland is no longer in the grip of ineluctable conflict.

It's not difficult to recall all the Asian hotspots where conflict still seems ineluctable.

The first negotiations in four years between the two Koreas in Beijing have taken place for the last two weeks, but predictably got nowhere. Yet when the two Koreas sat down with China and the United States a few weeks ago, they got nowhere, too. In both cases, the North Koreans expected only to get, but not to give. Neither the U.S. nor China has yet demonstrated a capacity to pressure Pyongyang into being more pliable.

The problem of the two Chinas, the PRC and the ROC, needs a Belfast-like negotiation but is unlikely to get it. The first PRC-ROC negotiations in three years are due to take place soon in Beijing but, at best, it will be merely talk about talks, minus any substantive agreement.

China insists upon reunification on its terms. Taiwan insists upon recognition of its separate democratic identity. Protracted negotiations leading to "The Agreement" on a one China spanning the Taiwan Straits are still nowhere in sight.

The United States can carefully prod but it cannot pressure for a speedy resolution of this intractable problem.

The same goes for the American role in relation to India and Pakistan. The two nations are currently eying each others missile capability with deep nuclear suspicion. The American ability to pressure for full blown Indo-Pakistan rapprochement would increase were the two sides to start the fourth Indo-Pakistan war -- but that is the very situation which Washington desperately seeks to avoid. Meanwhile too few minds anywhere see the Indo-Pakistan problem being best solved through the reunification of one India.

But the Asian situation which most closely compares with Northern Ireland is that in Sri Lanka. There is the classic back- to-back minority situation -- the Sri Lankan Tamils see themselves as a minority vis-a-vis the Sinhalese, but the Sinhalese see themselves as a minority in relation to the Tamils of both Sri Lanka and India.

The Northern Ireland conflict has taken over 3,000 lives so far, but the civil war within Sri Lanka as accounted for at least 30,000 casualties to date. The conflict is constitutional too. When the Tamils wanted a federal state, the Sinhalese were not listening. Now that the Sinhalese want a kind of federalism, the Tamils are not listening.

Meanwhile the Tamil Tigers, with their frequently demonstrated ability to blow themselves and others up, have developed into what is arguably the world's foremost terrorist organization.

At first sight Britain, because of its colonial rule, and India, because of its relatively recent military intervention, disqualify themselves as the outside powers best positioned to pressure for a return to Sri Lankan sanity. At second sight, this may not always be so. But neither Tony Blair nor Atal Behari Vajpayee have indicated that they feel history touching them on the shoulder in this way. There are too few Sinhalese voters in the United States (as against 40 million Irish) for Bill Clinton to feel that he must help bring this awful tragedy to an end.

But, in one sense, Asia was ahead of Northern Ireland.

Belatedly, in 1991-1992, Cambodia was the subject of an earlier Belfast-style negotiation as the Paris Peace Accords were hammered out in the French capital. The major powers were involved. An agreement was attained.The United Nations descended in force on Cambodia in 1993. Elections were held. Hopes were high.

But the major powers shied away from a medium to long term commitment to restoring Cambodian stability. So the evil that Pol Pot accomplished lived on, the legacy of the Khmer Rouge era is far from being vanquished, even though it was militarily defeated.

Asian conflicts will require many more Belfasts, many more deployments of political firepower, and many more Mitchell-style agreements painfully hammered out under demanding deadlines. Even then, intransigence and extremism are never easily defeated.