Biden’s brief visit to Ulster cools Washington’s influence on the peace process

US President Joe Biden will arrive in Belfast on Tuesday, where he will deliver a speech at the new Ulster University campus the next day. After that, he will travel to the Republic of Ireland, where he will visit relatives and hold meetings with the Government in Dublin.

The president’s short stay in the province is perceived by Northern Irish commentators as an insult to the British government. The confusing circumstances of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement have created a difficult situation for the diplomacy of both countries.

First of all, there is the question of the date. The contract was signed on April 10, Good Friday. Local community groups organized events last Friday. On that day, relatives of victims of crimes committed during the conflict gathered on the beach in Bangor. The media also published their coverage these days.

Another problem is the absence of an autonomous government. Biden and his aides have already expressed discomfort with one-sided politics Boris Johnson amend the Irish Protocol to the Agreement on Withdrawal from the European Union and encouraged negotiations, which were successful when Rishi Sunak He became the head of government in London.

Northern Irish media claim that Biden wanted to give a speech to members of the Belfast Assembly. But the British executive would discourage the plan.

Bill Clinton and George Mitchell, the negotiator of the 1998 agreement, will participate from April 17 to 19 in a symposium on that moment of profound change in the region. It was organized by Queen’s University, whose chancellor is Hillary Clinton.

Bill Clinton, of Irish origin, played a significant role in the peace process. He visited Belfast when his advance was in danger and kept in telephone contact with the negotiators at night and early in the morning in which the final and difficult marginal points of the pact were settled.

Another contribution of the Irish diaspora was the donations of big businessmen to Sinn Féin. They made the IRA-affiliated party the richest on the island, but their condition was an end to violence. The Republican Party owns several seats, in the north and in the south. No one else has that kind of capital.

golf and crime

George W. Bush canceled Sinn Féin’s invitation to the White House St Patrick’s Day celebrations – initiated by Clinton – after IRA members killed a Catholic and nationalist neighbor in a bar brawl. Instead of Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Féin, the sisters of the victims were invited, and they carried out a courageous campaign of denunciation.

Barack Obama he gave a speech while in northern ireland for the g8 summit and is the highlight of a short visit from Donald Trump to the island was his stay at the golf course he owned. Biden, who will not even attend the coronation of Carlos III, is the president who has emphasized his Irish and Republican origins the most.

A walk through the streets of Dundalk and Carlingford, border towns between the North and the Republic, from where his relatives immigrated to the USA is planned. Dundalk was where members of the IRA fled the police and the capital of the region where the terrorist group had logistical structures.

Pro-British unionism, associated with Scottish emigration to the United States, does not welcome the interference of American presidents in their affairs. After the announcement of the reform of the Protocol agreed by Brussels and London, its leader Jeffrey Donaldson pointed out that they would not be under pressure to give a quick answer that would allow the celebration to be presided over by Biden.

In the peace process, union leaders criticized Clinton for his in collaboration with Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahernclaiming that the president cannot teach them lessons, when the violence in Washington DC has caused more deaths than the Northern Ireland conflict.