Stay on peace path urges Clinton

FORMER US President Bill Clinton yesterday urged the people of Northern Ireland to continue on the road to peace and lead the world by their example.

Mr Clinton said he understood the process was difficult, but he asked the people to "vote for peace."

The former president also urged politicians to fully implement the Good Friday Agreement during a speech in Derry to mark John Hume's appointment to the Tip O'Neill Chair of Peace Studies at the University of Ulster.

"I ask you to stay the course and lead the world by your example," he said.

"When the Middle East peace fell apart; when the future was uncertain in Bosnia; when Africa was still reeling from losing 10% of the people in the entire country of Rwanda and two million died in the Congo, I could always point to the Good Friday Accord.

"You need to think a long time before you give it up."

Mr Clinton told a room of invited guests, including Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams; the party's chief negotiator Martin McGuinness, and SDLP leader Mark Durkan, he understood the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement was difficult.

However, he asked whether the situation in the North was any worse than in other troubled areas of the world.

"In a world that is coming together, I think the Good Friday Accord is about the best you could ever do the principle of consent," he said.

"The majority rule; the minority rise; shared political responsibilities; shared economic benefits, special relationships with both the UK and the Irish Republic.

"The assumption that if everyone is treated fairly now when one religious or political group is in the majority, that 30 years from now, if present birth rates continue and emigration doesn't render it totally irrelevant, the other will be in a majority, it will work out fine then, too, when we're all integrated into much bigger units anyway.

"I don't think you can do much better than that, and I think that's why the deal was made in the first place.

"I have studied every peace agreement made and everyone not made everywhere in the world in the last 50 years; nobody could have done a better job in reconciling the complicating and conflicting interests than you did in this agreement," he said.

Mr Clinton's address to the Great Hall at the university's Magee campus marked his third trip to Derry.

The former president was in Derry on this occasion at the invitation of Nobel Peace Laureate John Hume, who was recently appointed to the Tip O'Neill peace studies chair, which was established in memory of the late Irish-American speaker of the House of Representatives.