The Nobel Peacemakers
One-time rivals John Hume and David Trimble won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for their efforts to resolve the decades-long conflict in the British province.
But in awarding the prize, the Nobel committee also noted that the peace agreement signed in April was the work of other Northern Ireland political leaders as well as the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Irish Republic.
For more on the Nobel winners:
Hume: Architect Of A New Society
And, here are some other key figures in the Northern Ireland peace process:
Gerry Adams
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| Gerry Adams with Martin McGuinness |
Adams, 50, was elected to British Parliament from west Belfast in 1983, but followed Sinn Fein's historic policy of refusing to take his seat. He survived an assassination attempt in 1984, narrowly lost his parliamentary seat in 1992, and regained it by a huge margin in 1997. He is now on verge of leading his party into a cross-community government for Northern Ireland, a Protestant-majority state the IRA and Sinn Fein once pledged to destroy.
In New York on a week-long tour of the northeastern United States for Sinn Fein, Adams congratulated the two winners and said the biggest prize was peace itself.
George Mitchell
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| Sen. George Mitchell |
The reluctant nominee of the British and Irish governments and President Clinton, Mitchell's only trump card was moral authority, which he played with a rare flicker of anger in March 1998. He declared that the politicians could "go on talking for another two years - another 20 years! The time for discussion is over. The time for decisions is no."
On April 10, after presenting his own draft accord and pushing participants through sleepless round-the-clock negotiations, he had an agreement.
In a statement issued Friday, Mitchell said Hume and Trimble "are fully deserving of this honor. I join people of good will everywhere in thanking them for their courage and leadership and wishing them success as they continue to work for peace in Northern Ireland."
David Ervine: A reputed former commander of an outlawed pro-British paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the bald, mustachioed Ervine emerged from prison determined to chart a new path for working-class Protestants.
The UVF and another outlawed group, the Ulster Defense Association, in 1994 stopped killing Catholic civilians in a tit-for-tat campaign against IRA violence. Ervine's legal Progressive Unionist Party, seeking to emulate the success of Sinn Fein, holds two potentially pivotal seats in the new legislative Assembly for Northern Ireland. He enjoys peculiar popularity on both sides of the sectarian divide.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair
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| Tony Blair |
In exchange for a new truce, Blair promised Sinn Fein speedy admission to talks that would conclude by May 1999. And he broke new ground by inviting a Sinn Fein delegation three times to his official London residence before April's agreement was reached.
"There could be no more worthy winners of the Nobel peace prize than John Hume and David Trimble," Blair said in a statement issued by his Downing Street office.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern
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| Bertie Ahern with Tony Blair |
Building a strong personal relationship with Blair and Adams and meeting frequently with Ulster Unionist chief David Trimble, Ahern committed the Irish Republic to dropping its constitutional claim to the territory of Northern Ireland, an essential step to building confidence among Protestants for the peace agreement. The constitutional amendment passed with a 94 percent "yes" vote in May.
"I warmly congratulate John Hume and David Trimble on winning the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize," Ahern said Friday in a statement. "It is a deserved tribute to two of the principal architects of the Good Friday Agreement... and I hope (the prize) will give everyone renewed courage to go forward."