Belfast Agreement Anniversary Update

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton have been invited by the US-Ireland Alliance to a series of events in April that will mark the 10th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement and contribute to efforts to prevent suicide on the island.

Since May, the Alliance has been quietly building a unique event, which will bring together, on one stage, the negotiators of the Belfast Agreement. Among those who have already accepted: Senator George Mitchell, General John de Chastelain, John Hume, Sir Reg Empey, MLA, David Andrews, Liz O’Donnell, Paul Murphy, M.P., Monica McWilliams, Lord Alderdice, Dawn Purvis, MLA, and Davy Adams.

Trina Vargo, President of the US-Ireland Alliance noted that the DUP, which did not support the Belfast Agreement, has also been invited to participate: “We hope that representatives of the DUP will join with other political leaders not only to share their perspective on the past, but also to discuss recent positive developments in which they played an important role.”

Ms. Vargo also announced that Noel Smyth’s property development company, Alburn, will be a major sponsor, along with the US Government, of the events in Northern Ireland. Mr. Smyth is also an active supporter of 3 T’s (Turning the Tide of Suicide), a charity founded to combat the growing suicide rates on the island. In conjunction with the Belfast plans, the Alliance has invited Clinton, Ahern and Blair to a dinner in Dublin, which Mr. Smyth will organize the following evening to raise money for suicide prevention on the island. The issue of combating suicide is known be important to all the political leaders.

The event with the negotiators of the Belfast Agreement will be moderated by BBC journalist and Hearts and Minds presenter, Noel Thompson. The audience will consist of the nearly 100 alumni of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship program and their peers (young leaders between the ages of 22 and 35) from Northern Ireland and Ireland. Mary Lou Hartman, Director of the Mitchell Scholarship program, said that this event “will help to fulfill the program’s vision to connect the next generation of leaders.” The event will be recorded and produced by Tyrone Productions for later availability on the internet. Ms. Hartman noted that those involved in the event want to make sure that anyone who wanted to witness this historic event would be able to do so.

The dinner following the event in Northern Ireland will include performances by Duke Special and Maura O’Connell as well as a reading by Michael Longley.

Since July, Ms. Vargo has made several trips to Northern Ireland to meet with community leaders, politicians, former paramilitary leaders, the police and many others about the feasibility of using the tenth anniversary to dismantle a portion of the Peace Line. In his book, Making Peace, Senator Mitchell wrote: "I hope and pray that I live to see the day when the Peace Line goes the way of the Berlin Wall: its destruction will be the symbolic end of an age of conflict." Ms. Vargo stressed that the decision to take down part of the wall would ultimately be left to people in those communities and it is known that a professional poll is being undertaken in various parts of Belfast to ascertain the views of the maximum number of people.