Word: unionist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...after the explosion, the talks began anyway, bringing together for the first time the leaders of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, which has waged war to drive the British off the island of Ireland, and the main leaders of their bitter Protestant Unionist opponents. That the talks began at all was a triumph of patience, persistence and cleverness by the governments of Ireland, Britain and the U.S., which are shepherding the broader peace process...
...past the Unionists have been able simply to stonewall the peace process. But last week, there at the head of the Unionist delegation was David Trimble, a hot-tempered, frequently red-faced law lecturer who heads Northern Ireland's largest and most important Protestant party, the Ulster Unionist Party (U.U.P...
BELFAST: Another day, another bomb, another hitch in the Northern Ireland peace talks. No-one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday morning's police-station blast, and no-one was hurt. But that hasn't stopped Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble blaming the IRA, and calling for Sinn Fein to be excluded from the fledgling talks ? just one day after the Republicans arrived. Is this justified? "The IRA denies it, and they're probably telling the truth," says TIME's London Bureau Chief Barry Hillenbrand from Belfast. "It looks to be a Republican splinter group. This shows how fragile these talks...
...There are still a couple of major stumbling blocks. Most of the Protestant Unionist parties are furious at the idea of sitting around the table with men who, they claim, "still have blood on their hands" ? although this can be solved with Dayton-style talks, where the parties negotiate from separate rooms. When will it end? No one knows for sure. Even without Sinn Fein, peace talks have already dragged on for over a year now. The Blair administration will have its work...
...September, when a six-week verification period intended to test the IRA's commitment to the cease-fire ends. But even if the group keeps its guns under wraps, key pro-British Protestants have said they will not negotiate with Sinn Fein. Protestants from the United Kingdom Unionist Party walked out of the site of the talks at Stormont on Monday when a Sinn Fein delegation arrived for preliminary discussions. "We will not negotiate with anyone who supports violence and who are associated with any group which retained the means of inflicting violence upon others for the attainment of political...