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| Irish Ambassador Aingeal O'Donoghue, left, and J.R. Kim, the author of the "Northern Ireland Peace Process," hold the newly-published book at the envoy's residence in Seoul, June 20. / Korea Times |
By Kang Hyun-kyung
The Irish peace treaty, the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which ended three-decades of conflict in Northern Island, has some valuable lessons worthy of Koreans' attention in their pursuit of unification.
"The support and engagement of the international community is hugely important to the process in a range of different ways and times," Irish Ambassador to Korea Aingeal O'Donoghue said at a reception to celebrate the launch of the "Northern Ireland Peace Process," a book written by J.R. Kim, at her residence in Seoul, June 30.
"For example, former U.S. President Bill Clinton was a hugely important player during negotiations, particularly at certain times when negotiations ran into real difficulties, in persuading players to come back to the negotiating table."
The envoy also mentioned other internationally-renowned figures, such as former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, who oversaw the process of decommissioning weapons held by the paramilitaries of the unionists and nationalists, and U.S. diplomat George Mitchell as two other key peacemakers.
"The European Union also played a very coherent and developed strategy around building cross-community and cross-border cooperation," she said.
According to the envoy, the Northern Ireland peace process was the result of combined efforts of committed individuals, civil society, the business community and Irish Diaspora around the world.
Tensions in Northern Ireland began in the 1960s, nearly four decades after the Republic of Ireland obtained independence in 1921 from the British colonial rule.
Ireland was divided with the Northeast part of Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom. The majority of the residents in Northern Ireland preferred the British rule and they are called unionists. Meanwhile, large minority groups who have Catholic and Republican background, described as nationalists, called for its separation from British rule and being part of Ireland.
Paramilitary units of the two sides clashed with each other and the British Army, and the bloody conflict cost the lives of more than 3,000 with some 38,000 injured during three decades until the late 1990s.
The deadly conflict came to an end after two years of multilateral negotiations to build peace in Northern Island led to the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998. The historic deal calls for leaving the decision that would affect the fate of the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in their own hands.
Author J.R. Kim, a unification ministry official, said he was encouraged by former Irish Ambassador to Korea Eamon McKee to take a look at the peace-building process in Northern Island as a possible model for the unification of the two Koreas.
While doing research about the topic, he said, he was convinced that the Northern Ireland Peace Process model was more suitable for the unification of the Korean Peninsula than the German model.
It took almost four years for Kim to complete the book project.
Kim claimed that there are circumstantial differences between the two Koreas now and East and West Germany in the late 1980s before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, countering the popular debate that the German model could be replicable on the Korean Peninsula.
The South Korean approach to unification is gradual and incremental, whereas the German model illustrated the absorption of East Germany by West Germany, he said.
The differences will make it difficult to apply German reunification to the Koreas, he argued.
On the contrary, he said, Ireland and Korea have much in common in that they are both divided, have had colonial experiences and a civil war, and seek an incremental peace process.
Veteran political scientist Ra Jong-yil, a professor of emeritus at Hanyang University in Seoul, however, reserved his judgment about Kim's claim, saying Korea and Ireland are very different.
He also said he was not convinced by the cheerleaders of the German reunification as a model for the Korean unification either, because of the same reason.
