George Mitchell: Hillary was "very much involved" in Northern Ireland peace process

[jackson_dem]

Who to trust? The man who led peace efforts in Northern Ireland or the anti-Hillary rethug msm? :sarcasm: Mitchell, a superdelegate, has not endorsed either candidate. His insight can't be explained away as being a Hillary supporter coming to her defense. ;)

-snip-

Katie Couric There has been a lot of controversy about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy credentials, and some of the claims she has made. She’s talked about being active in the Good Friday Agreement, the peace agreement in Northern Ireland which you of course spearheaded. Can you describe her role in that process?

George Mitchell: She was helpful and supportive, very much involved in the issues, knew all of the delegates. She accompanied President Clinton on each visit he made to Northern Ireland, made several visits of her own. Her greatest focus was on encouraging women in Northern Ireland to get in and stay in the political process, the peace process. And I have said publicly many times and wrote in my book, the role of women in the peace process in Northern Ireland was significant. It did make a difference in the process, so as I said I think it was a helpful and supportive role.

Couric: Her claims to be involved in, you believe are not exaggerated?

Mitchell: Well, I haven’t seen the exact words that she has used to describe it. I have gotten a lot of calls from reporters who have told me what she said but I think her statements are generally accurate to the extent that they have been relayed to me.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/10/eveningnews/main3923206.shtml?source=search_story

[woolldog]

1. haha

:rofl:

[Lucinda]

2. Your link didn't work for me. This one does:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/10/eveningnews/main3923206.shtml?source=search_story

Thanks for the post! I hadn't seen this interview.

[jackson_dem]

4. Thanks, corrected

[woolldog]

3. Here's what David Trimble had to say

He won the Nobel Prize:

I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill going around," he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely "the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets" during elections. "She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.

Here's what Conall McDevitt had to say about this:

Conall McDevitt, an SDLP negotiator and aide to Mr Hume during the talks, said: "There would have been no contact with her either in person or on the phone. I was with Hume regularly during calls in the months leading up to the Good Friday Agreement when he was taking calls from the White House and they were invariably coming from the president.

Full article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/08/wuspols108.xml

[amborin]

5. Hillary was crucially involved in the Irish peace process...numerous articles attest to this

don't have time now to dig them up and post

Couric is such a loser

[woolldog]

7. One more negotiator who worked on the Ireland talks

Steven King, a negotiator with Lord Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party, argued that Mrs Clinton might even have helped delay the chances of peace. "She was invited along to some pre-arranged meetings but I don’t think she exactly brought anybody together that hadn’t been brought together already," he said. Mrs Clinton was "a cheerleader for the Irish republican side of the argument", he added.

"She really lost all credibility when on Bill Clinton’s last visit to Northern Ireland when she hugged and kissed Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/08/wuspols108.xml&page=2

[Up2Late]

6. K&R

:kick:

[Alamom]

8. John Hume - Nobel Laureate, Gandhi Peace Prize, Martin Luther King Award

Nobel Peace Prize , Gandhi Peace Prize, Martin Luther King Award. The only winner of all three Awards speaks along with others: Hillary's Irish Leagacy

John Hume



http://www.irishecho.com/newspaper/story.cfm?id=18626

Hillary's Irish Legacy
Prominent backers cite relevant role in peace process
By Ray O'Hanlon
3/5/08

"I am quite surprised that anyone would suggest that Hillary Clinton did not perform important foreign policy work as first lady. I can state from firsthand experience that she played a positive role for over a decade in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland," said former SDLP leader and Nobel laureate John Hume in a statement responding to critical press reports.


"She visited Northern Ireland, met with very many people and gave very decisive support to the peace process. In private she made countless calls and contacts, speaking to leaders and opinion makers on all sides, urging them to keep moving forward," said Hume.
>

Anyone criticizing her foreign policy involvement should look at her very active and positive approach to Northern Ireland and speak with the people of Northern Ireland who have the highest regard for her and are very grateful for her very active support for our peace process," Hume concluded in his defense of Hillary's Irish legacy. Not surprisingly, some of the senator's most vocal defenders have been women activists from Northern Ireland.


In a series of statements compiled by labor and fair employment advocate Inez McCormack, Clinton was lauded for her "decade-long support" of the peace process.
"We believe it is important for others to know the pivotal role Mrs. Clinton played in helping us in Northern Ireland at critical junctures in the peace process. She supported us over many years and we will always be grateful to her," said McCormack

>

O'Leary said that in her forthcoming book she would be including tributes to Clinton for her role in the peace process from individuals including Bertie Ahern, Cherie Blair, Gerry Adams, Bono and John Hume.
"Based on the tributes I received, the people of Ireland are profoundly grateful to Senator Clinton for taking an interest and giving her time to inspire us to pull together and build a better life for the people of Northern Ireland.


Long, but wonderful read & a book to come.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hume

John Hume (born 18 January 1937) is a former Northern Irish politician, founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and co-recipient of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, with David Trimble.

He was the second leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a position he held from 1979 until 2001. He has served as a Member of the European Parliament and a Member of Parliament for Foyle, as well as a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the modern political history of Northern Ireland and one of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace process there. He is also a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize and the Martin Luther King Award, the only recipient of the three major peace awards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Trimble

William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, PC (born 15 October 1944), is a politician from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the first First Minister of Northern Ireland. He shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party. He served as Member of Parliament for Upper Bann from 1990 until 2005, when he was defeated in the British general election and resigned the leadership of the UUP soon afterwards. On 6 June 2006 he became a member of the House of Lords as The Right Honourable William David Trimble by the name, style and title of Baron Trimble, of Lisnagarvey in the County of Antrim.<1> On 17 April 2007 he announced that he was to leave the UUP and join the Conservative Party.<2>

[woolldog]

9. David Trimble has said she was nothing more than a cheerleader

See article posted above.

[rodeodance]

16. You are SPAMING this thread.

[Slagathor]

33. SPAMING? what's "spaming"? (nt)

[bigtree]

22. Obviously Tremble is lying. I don't know the man, but I do know George Mitchell

His word is beyond reproach.

[bettyellen]

27. Trimble was AGAINST PEACE IN NORTHERN IRELAND. wake the fuck up.

he's not a reliable source.

[Apollo11]

23. Thanx Alamom!

I hope folks will take the time to read your post before joining in with the "piling on".

[FunkyLeprechaun]

10. As someone that's experienced the NI Troubles

And had relatives who were in the Peace People, I am insulted that Hillary takes credit for the peace process. It was a very hard slog for the Irish politicans as Protestants and Catholics continually refused to work with each other. My relatives were involved in the early civil rights movement (Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which was the group fired upon on Bloody Sunday), my parents couldn't get married in Ireland due to one being Catholic and the other being Protestant and had to go abroad to get married (1973), my great aunt participated in the Peace People movement in 1976 and also volunteered to give prisoners meals at Long Kesh prison (possibly running into Bobby Sands at some point). So many people tried to bring peace to Northern Ireland and 1997 was just 30 years after the Northern Ireland Civil Rights movement began.

And that wasn't enough for some people as the PIRA decided to bomb a town centre in Omagh in 1998 (which killed one of my cousins). I was in Bangor, County Down when it happened and we had to go into the nearest shopping mall and wait for the all clear. I can tell you that at the time people had enough of the violence and were sick of it. That's only when people began to work with each other. The first integrated (Protestant and Catholic) school opened later, with many more opening in the following years due to the popularity.

And Hillary says she helped with the Peace Process? Maybe she was involved with it but as an insider it would have been really difficult. In 1998 I wore my High school ring and had one side hidden because it has the Irish flag on it. People are particularly sensitive when it comes to seeing the Irish Flag. People still refused to work with each other back then and were easily insulted when they saw anything related to the Irish republic, ditto for those who saw anything related to the Orange cause (as a result I didn't wear Irish flags or anything with the colour of orange on it).

Flash forward 7 years later (2005), I visited the Belfast St. Georges Market (in 1993, I saw armored tanks and soldiers with guns going down the Belfast city streets). I just about fell over when I saw Irish flags alongside the Ulster flag. I was like, "Wow... I couldn't even wear a t-shirt with an Irish flag on it in 1993 and now I see this..." and I was so happy I cried a little bit.

It was a LONG hard process and Bill Clinton came at the tail end of this process. We were just about to work together and needed a helping hand in order to work together. The Good Friday Accords were between the British and the Irish governments (Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern) in the hopes of the Republicans and the Loyalists working together.

And Hillary takes credit? Don't even get me started. She's said she's had meetings in Belfast between Protestants and Catholics (the Belfast city hall said the meetings never happened). The Peace Process was a culmination of 30 years of the Troubles. Women were at the forefront of this movement, beginning with Pat McCluskey, Sister Clarke, Maire Drumm, Miriam Daly, Bernandette Devlin, Mairead Farrell, Roisin McAliskey, Aine and Eibhlin Nic Giolla Easpaig, Rosemary Nelson, Mary McAleese, Women in the Falls Road area in Belfast, Mairead Corrigan, and Betty Williams. I wrote a paper about these women and not once did I mention Hillary Clinton. I've included people like Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington (to demonstrate the involvement of women in Irish politics in the early 20th century), Mary Robinson, Mo Mowlam (the only non-Irish woman in my essay but she worked extensively in the peace process), and others in my essay and NO mention of Hillary Clinton. My essay was about Women in the Troubles and I did A LOT of research (it was a 20-page essay) and I did not include Hillary Clinton in my essay because there were no articles detailing her involvement in the peace process.

Hillary Clinton has subsequently ignored all these women who worked so hard to bring peace (some were assassinated in the process, some became radical and departed from the original peace actions (Devlin is one)). She takes credit for the peace process? Hah! My great aunt is rolling in her grave right now.

If people say she did help with the process, they are certainly grasping at straws.

[rodeodance]

13. self -delect--wrong place

[JoFerret]

15. Left to themselves the peoples of NI would live in harmony

No-one is exaggerating her role. Just saying that she had one and it was positive.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

18. You must be kidding!

The Good Friday Accords were 307 years since the Battle of the Boyne. This is the event that really truly ripped apart the Protestants and the Catholics and they still fight over it to this day. The Orange Order repeatedly tries to march through Catholic neighbourhoods when they celebrate William of Orange's victory over James at the Battle of the Boyne. That's why the Irish tourism board recommends that visitors NOT come to Northern Ireland during the month of July. I'm so neutral over this issue... my relatives were part of the IRA and my grandfather was an Orangeman.

It was a real effort to bring both sides together because of the acrimony towards the other's religion. To say Hillary Clinton had a role in bringing these sides together is a real laugh.

I am willing to bet my Protestant and Catholic relatives will agree with each other for the first times in their lives that Hillary Clinton didn't have a role in the peace process.

[rox63]

11. Hillary was about as involved in the NI peace negotiations as Laura Bush is

with the current Israeli/Palestinian negotiations. She was the First Lady, a mostly ceremonial role with no power.

[rodeodance]

17. Your first mistake was to compare HRC to Laura. That invalides the rest of your comments.

[Slagathor]

34. Nope. Both are/were merely married to the president (nt)

[bigtree]

20. Where's her testimonial from a key and principal player in those negotiations?

[jackson_dem]

29. What was your role in NI? What is your opinion based on?

Where you the lead negotiator like Mitchell was?

[styersc]

12. I guess now Mitchell is a change hating bigot.

Shame- I used to like him.

[rodeodance]

14. Thanks George Mitchell. you are a very respected DEM and your comments are welcome

[FunkyLeprechaun]

25. I will agree with you on that

He was a very invaluable resource in the peace process. He's a chancellor at my parents' alma mater, Queen's. One of the best schools in Ireland, alongside Trinity.

However, I have to disagree with his comments on Hillary Clinton. I did extensive research for a 20-page essay for my Irish History class on the role of women in Irish politics in the 20th century. My most cited websites were CAIN and Ireland's Own. I bought books which were devoted to the role of women in the NI Troubles.

They talk about Mo Mowlam extensively and she was not an Irish politican (she was Tony Blair's secretary of Northern Ireland at the time of the Good Friday Accords).

Not one mention about Hillary Clinton. They did talk about Bill Clinton though but not about Hillary.

This is the first I've heard about her involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process since the Good Friday Accords. And I did visit NI quite a bit due to my grandfather's failing health 1997 and I wouldn't be surprised I was in NI when the Clintons were there. I remember the papers then talking about Bill Clinton, but not Hillary. I've saved papers from Northern Ireland at the time (my aunt and great aunt would send off some papers to us) and there's NOTHING in them about Hillary's involvement, just Bill.

I'd like to chat with my aunt in NI to see what she thinks of Hillary's claim. She'll probably say the same thing as my mum says, that it's a load of bollocks.

If you think speeches are tantamount to the Peace Process... I'll give you that. She gave speeches in Northern Ireland, she even commented on the death of Rosemary Nelson in 1999. However, her speeches weren't related to the peace process, it was related to the advancement of women in Irish society (she even spoke in the Republic). David Trimble praised her for speaking on behalf of women in NI. Just not the peace process.

[bigtree]

19. Oh, the embarrassment for those who've tried to belittle and deny her role

Of course, they have no shame.

[robbedvoter]

21. Back then, she was attacked for being too involved. Now, they "remember" her

as some kinda Pickles - interesting selective memory

[NDambi]

24. Is that the same George Mitchell that said this:

Hillary Clinton's Role in the Northern Ireland Peace — Minor.

Senator George Mitchell, the Clinton administration's leading northern Ireland peace negotiator, said Hillary was "not involved directly" in the diplomatic negotiations that led to the landmark April 1998 Good Friday agreement on power-sharing. She took an "intelligent interest" in the issues and got acquainted with many of the key players.

Processblog.washingtonpost.com

http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Hillary_Clinton_s_Role_in_the_Northern_Ireland_Peace_Process

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/clinton_and_northern_ireland.html

[jackson_dem]

30. The two statements are not mutually exclusive

But when you have a candidate running on just words I guess you have no choice but to belittle the experience of someone with a record.

[moondust]

26. Nobel winner: Hillary Clinton's 'silly' Irish peace claims.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/08/wuspols108.xml

"I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill going around," he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely "the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets" during elections. "She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player."

[NDambi]

28. Hillary also claim experience from Macedonia...and Bosnia...NOT!

Macedonia opened its borders a day before she arrived and when she went to Bosnia, she went with Chelsea, Sinbad and Sheryl Crow! Her role in Ireland was minor, as stated by George Mitchel, before they got to him...haha..

She's such a frickin' liar...

She says all Obama did was give a speech, seems she's only done the same..lol!

[jackson_dem]

31. K

:kick:

[Slagathor]

32. She was merely someone's wife. That simply doesn't count for anything.

Mitchell is just being nice to her.