THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 31, 1994 TAG: 9410310058
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
After a quarter-century of bloody fratricide in Northern Ireland, the combatants are sitting down to try and settle their differences with words instead of guns.
The Rev. Ian R. K. Paisley is defiantly, unapologetically not with them.
The Irish Republican Army, which for 25 years has used bombs and bullets to campaign against British rule and for reunification with the largely Roman Catholic Republic of Ireland to the south, announced a much-publicized cease-fire in August. But it didn't use the word ``permanent,'' and it hasn't surrendered any weapons.
That's not good enough for Paisley, the elected leader of the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland, also known as the Ulster Province. He and his hard-line Democratic Unionist Party, which is pro-British and which rejects any change in Northern Ireland's status, are boycotting the Irish government's National Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, that began Friday in Dublin and to which the IRA was invited.
Instead, Paisley was in Hampton Roads, in a brick suburban church, preaching judgment and salvation in the morning and decrying spineless peace talks, President Clinton's ``treachery'' and a biased news media in the afternoon.
``I can't sit down at any table and negotiate the future of my people with a gun to my head,'' Paisley explained Sunday after his fiery 47-minute afternoon speech to about 400 people at the Tabernacle Baptist Church. ``A man says to me he has ceased fighting, the only proof to me is to hand me the gun.''
The broad-shouldered, white-haired Presbyterian preacher elicited repeated shouts of ``Amen!'' as he sought support and prayers for his continued opposition to an armed IRA. It remains, he said, a ``time of battle.''
In his talk, Paisley outlined the historical links between Protestant Ulster Scots - or Scotch-Irish, as they're called here - and the United States' birth and development as a country. Their contributions far outweighed better-publicized connections to southern, Roman Catholic Ireland, he contended.
He then complained about this country's sympathetic overtures to Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. President Clinton, for instance, granted a visa to Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, ``which has the largest killing machine of any terrorist organization in the world, to visit the United States and spread his vicious, lying propaganda and abhorrent, anti-democratic ideals.''
``President Clinton,'' Paisley added, ``has been part of the conspiracy to impose upon us a government by consensus and not by consent. He has bribed us with promises of money if we will comply. He has done so because of his political dishonesty and political chicanery, to buy the votes of Roman Catholic Irish-Americans in the forthcoming election.''
The largely conservative, fundamentalist-Christian audience shouted its agreement.
The British government lied about initial secret talks with the IRA last year, Paisley said. When he claimed this in a speech in Parliament's House of Commons, where he's held a seat since 1970, Paisley was tossed out for a week. Parliament has a rule against calling someone a liar. But Paisley remains distrustful of the government's dealings with the IRA.
The people of Northern Ireland should be asked just two questions on any referendum on how they would like to be governed, Paisley said:
One, do you want to join a united Ireland? Two, do you want representatives from the Republic of Ireland to the south deciding things that affect you?
Paisley said the majority of people in his country would answer ``no'' to both.
``They don't want the ballot box because the ballot box doesn't put out what they want,'' he said of the IRA. ``The only people who can decide the future of Northern Ireland are the people of Northern Ireland themselves.''
As for the United States, Paisley said it should ``get their nose out of it! And keep their nose out of it! It's none of their business.''
The Rev. Rod L. Bell, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist and a friend of Paisley's for 30 years, said the church received five death threats this week against the Northern Ireland leader. He has received similar threats on past visits. At home, he's been shot at, stoned and had his house bombed, and he's guarded 24 hours a day by a security detail equivalent to the British prime minister's. But here, Paisley shrugged, he's told he's safe, and doesn't bring them.
``That causes me no worry,'' he said. ``I believe in God, and believe I'm immortal until my work's done.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, Staff
Rev. Ian R. K. Paisley
Photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN, Staff
The Rev. Ian R. K. Paisley a Presbyterian preacher and member of
Britain's Parliament, signs bibles after preaching at the
Tabernacle Baptist Church in Virginia Beach on Sunday.
KEYWORDS: NORTHERN IRELAND by CNB