The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Interview with Garret Fitzgerald

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ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]; More protests as another hunger striker dies in Northern Ireland while British Prime Minister Thatcher maintains her government`s refusal to give in to the strikers. Tonight, from Dublin, the man in the middle of the Irish dilemma, the prime minister of the Republic of Ireland, Garret Fitzgerald.

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MacNEIL: Good evening. The grizzly cycle has occurred once again in Northern Ireland. Yesterday, 27-year-old Michael Devine became the 10th IRA prisoner to die by refusing food and medical attention. His death was followed by the now predictable protest in the streets by Roman Catholic sympathizers and sporadic violence. Various attempts to persuade the hunger strikers to end their protest, or the British government to compromise on the strikers` demands, have failed. Four more prisoners are currently refusing food. They are insisting that the British authorities treat them as political prisoners. The British refuse, saying they were arrested and convicted as criminals for acts of violence or terrorism. Michael Devine, for instance, was serving a 12-year sentence for illegal possession of firearms. The strikers are members of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, or the Irish National Liberation Army, also an outlawed organization -- both attempting to force the British out of the province of Northern Ireland. This impass has been viewed with growing dismay across the border in the Republic of Ireland, where the prime minister, Dr. Garret Fitzgerald, has recently criticized both the hunger strikers and the British. Tonight, an interview with Prime Minister Fitzgerald, recorded yesterday by satellite from Dublin. Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, a word about Prime Minister Fitzgerald. He was elected prime minister on June 30 after parliamentary elections in Ireland left neither his party nor that of his opponent, incumbent Prime Minister Charles Haughey, with a majority. After two weeks of negotiations. Dr. Fitzgerald emerged with a coalition that gave him the prime ministership by three votes. Dr. Fitzgerald is an economist by training who has written extensively on political economics. He served as foreign minister in a prior Irish government in the `70s. Mr. Prime Minister, welcome, sir.

Prime Minister GARRET FITZGERALD: Thank you very much.

LEHRER: The 10th H-Block hunger striker has now died. Is the situation any closer to a solution now than it was when the first one, Bobby Sands, died?

Dr. FITZGERALD: I don`t think that I could say that. There have been many attempts to find a solution by way of mediation. Some of these have seemed to come close to success; others have not got off the ground. At the moment there is no immediate sign of a break, although I know those efforts continue to try and find a way through.

LEHRER: Where would you place the blame for the stalemate that exists right now?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, the primary responsibility rests with the IRA, who have organized this hunger strike, and indeed whose prisoners-- whose members are in prison because of acts of violence committed in Northern Ireland, or involvement with acts of violence. And we had thought, however, about six weeks ago, that proposals that had been put forward by the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace -- which is a body related to the Irish Roman Catholic hierarchy -- provided a possible basis for solution. And it did seem at one moment as if both the prisoners and the British government were willing to accept something along the lines of the proposals put forward by the commission as a solution. However, that effort failed, and our involvement in the matter dates from that time. Up to then Irish governments haven`t become actively involved, but we felt that things had been so close to being resolved that we ought to seek to encourage a solution, and we did put pressure on the British government at ministerial meetings of British ministers, to try and encourage them to go back to the kind of format that had emerged in the discussions with the commission. These efforts haven`t, I`m afraid to say, succeeded.

MacNEIL: Why did you think it broke down. Prime Minister? Did the British sabotage the agreement or the possibility of an agreement?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, it`s very hard to say. We weren`t involved in the discussions themselves. But it did seem as if they were very close to agreement. I think the British subsequently said and indicated that they thought the commission were over optimistic, and thought they`d got closer to an agreement than they really had. But it looked a little to us that there was very little dividing the sides at that point in time, and there was a commitment from the British minister that somebody from the Northern Ireland office in the British government`s Northern Ireland [office] would go into the prison the following morning and put forward proposals along these lines. And that wasn`t met. It wasn`t until 24 hours later that an official went in with proposals which were very different from, and did not go as far as what had been under discussion -- and by that time a hunger striker had died and the position had changed, so that that opportunity was missed. It was at that point that we became involved in trying to revive that initiative.

MacNEIL: Do you think the British -- that Prime Minister Thatcher should give in to the strikers` demands to be treated as political prisoners?

Dr. FITZGERALD: No. We have never said that, and indeed, the prisoners themselves have departed from that position. And I think there`s some misunderstanding about that. On the 4th of July they made a statement which made it clear that they weren`t seeking exclusive treatment for themselves or particular prisoners. They would be quite happy that whatever improvements in conditions were agreed would be extended to other prisoners in Northern Ireland. So the political status issue, which is what started the hunger strike, seemed to recede from the scene at that point. And indeed, that was part of-- one of the factors that has encouraged us to believe that a solution might be possible.

MacNEIL: I see. It`s a bit confusing to people in America. Could you just tell us very simply, what is your position on the hunger strikers and the cause they are pursuing? How do you view them?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, the hunger strikers are members of the IRA or the INLA. These are two illegal organizations which have very little electoral support, and in the elections they`ve stood in under normal conditions here over the last 10 years they`ve got very little electoral support indeed. There was some support -- minority support, which is more significant-- for H-Block candidates, that is, candidates who are in support of the hunger strike issue, in our recent general election, but even then the vast majority of those who voted in different parts of the country voted for parties -- the democratic political parties opposed to the IRA and the INLA. So that they have not had-- they don`t have support for their actions, for the violence they`ve pursued, or their attempts to impose their will on the people of Northern Ireland. They are also organizations which are illegal here, which don`t recognize our government or our courts, whose members rob our banks and post offices, and have murdered a number of our policemen -- who are unarmed in this country in the course of their duties. They are organizations, therefore, that are hostile to this state and to democracy. The hunger strike, however, has raised problems because-- despite the background that I`ve just given, the hunger strike weapon is emotionally a potent one, and it does arouse amongst people in Ireland of the nationalist tradition feelings -- part is humanitarian concern for those who are willing to put their lives on the line, as you might say, and sometimes deeper emotions harking back to the struggle for national independence 60 years ago. And the effect of the hunger strike has been, certainly, to increase in some degree tolerance of the IRA and perhaps even support for the IRA. And it`s our concern with that factor which has been one of the reasons leading us to intervene in the matter and press the British government to show a measure of flexibility, without conceding on the issue of political status, which itself has, I think, been effectively withdrawn by the prisoners as a demand.

LEHRER: In other words, Mr. Prime Minister, the IRA is winning the propaganda war against the British in terms of the H-Block situation, right?

Dr. FITZGERALD: It has, I think, been doing so by using this particular weapon, and that does constitute a certain threat to the stability in our state and in the island as a whole. And in our battle against the IRA, as a democratic government with the support of the democratic opposition, we`re naturally concerned with anything which strengthens them. We`re particularly concerned lest the sympathies of other-- people in other countries also are aroused to the point of giving them support which could strengthen them in terms of weapons or explosives, to enable them to continue their campaign of violence. And that also is very much in our minds in seeking to find a solution to this problem.

LEHRER: Does the fact that it seems to be working as a tactic -- the starvation idea -- make them less likely to agree to a negotiated settlement now, while they`re seemingly growing in stature and support?

Dr. FITZGERALD: It`s very hard to say. There have been very considerable fluctuations in the position taken up by the prisoners and by the IRA leaders. Obviously somewhat separate, but related. And there have been periods when they have indicated a desire for a settlement and have lowered the tone of their demands -- as I`ve mentioned, dropping the political status issue; in other periods they`ve tended to harden up their position. So there have been fluctuations. It`s not easy at any moment to assess precisely where they stand. There are indications that although there are propaganda gains of a substantial character in the short run, that perhaps some of IRA leadership recognize that these may not last indefinitely, and that a settlement of some kind might perhaps be better.

MacNEIL: How did they-- I`m sorry. Please go on.

Dr. FITZGERALD: No, well it`s just that sometimes that seems to be their attitude; at other times they seem to be more hard-lined. There isn`t a consistent pattern to the attitudes taken up, which I think is one of the problems in finding a solution.

MacNEIL: How do you-- do you wonder yourself, as an Irishman, how they continue to persuade healthy young men to practice what must be a very painful and ghastly form of suicide? How do they continue to persuade them to?

Dr. FITZGERALD: I think that`s something which no one will fully understand who hasn`t lived in prison conditions over a period of time. And remember, this protest has gone on for a long time before the hunger strike; there were other forms of protest including the so-called "dirty protest." If prisoners have gone through this for a long period of time, and if they`re in a prison where there is hostility on the part of warders, over a period of years the abnormality of the conditions they live in must have psychological effects on them which leaves them open to a feeling of desperation, that the only way out is to go to the limit of sacrifice of their own lives in the hopes of finding some resolution to the situation they find themselves in. I think that psychological factor is something that none of us can easily understand who haven`t been through the experience. And that has perhaps made it easier for the IRA to persuade people to volunteer to take on this responsibility of threatening to starve oneself to death.

MacNEIL: You say that they are able to tap into the genuine well of nationalist spirit which produced the Republic of Ireland 60 years ago, which you are now the prime minister of. Are they thus succeeding by the hunger strike means in achieving a legitimacy that they failed to do through violence and other means? Is that a real risk in your view?

Dr. FITZGERALD: No, not in the sense of securing majority support or anything like that, but certainly they did secure H-Block candidates. Candidates expressing sympathy with them, though not necessarily support for the IRA, did secure bigger minority support in our recent general elections that at any other election. Traditionally, local elections, at which they put forward candidates, they have got about 11/2 percent of the vote, standing in about half the constituencies, which is a measure of the lack of support there has been for the IRA in the Republic. They haven`t put forward candidates in Northern Ireland, so one can`t measure the support there so accurately, but it certainly has been very much minority support in electoral terms. The reason they haven`t put forth candidates is because they wouldn`t have won under normal conditions. In our general election here, however, they did in some constituencies secure something like 15 percent of the vote, and in fact, because of our multi-seat system, succeeded in electing two representatives to the Dail, both of whom were in the prison, one of whom has since died as a hunger striker.

LEHRER: You`ve described the British government position on this as being inflexible. Inflexible in what way, Mr. Prime Minister?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, it is very hard to pin down the inflexibility in the particular form. The British government have indicated that if the strike ended they would make various changes in the prison administration. But there has been a reluctance to clarify this and to make it clear, either verbally or in writing, in a way that would perhaps help the prisoners to accept a solution. That`s been one aspect. And then there has been-- there was the difficulty that when there was the promise that someone would go in the following morning and put forth proposals, that this didn`t happen and then a hunger striker died so that that opportunity was missed. There has been inflexibility in these ways, which have contributed to the problem, although the genesis of the problem lies with the prisoners and with the IRA itself.

LEHRER: As you know, the British say that the conditions within H-Block are superior to those of most prisons anywhere in the Western world, and that the very things that the H-Block protestors are demanding are already available, for the most part, to the other prisoners in H-Block who are not involved in the hunger strike. Do you of your own knowledge know whether or not the British position is in fact correct?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, it`s very complex and some of the issues are issues of extraordinarily fine detail -- the conditions under which people be required to work; the kind of work they be required to do; what would happen if they didn`t work -- details of this kind which it`s very hard to evaluate. So that it`s not easy to answer that question specifically. There are some areas where the issue seems fairly clear. At this stage there seems to be a clear willingness to allow the prisoners to wear their own clothes, but there remain other areas where the British have not been specific and where the prisoners, because of the failure of an earlier solution last December, mistrust the vagueness of the British position. That earlier failure, I think, is psychologically important: the fact that there was a settlement, and that it broke down, is important. As regards conditions in the prison, one factor which I mentioned earlier, which is a psychological one, but which you can`t ignore, is I think the hostility between the warders and the prisoners. The warders are -- naturally enough, I suppose -- drawn exclusively from the Loyalist population of Northern Ireland, and their attitude to the prisoners, I think, has been hostile in a way which produces quite a profound psychological effect. And you can have a prison in which conditions are theoretically very good, but where the actual relations that exist between warders and prisoners undo the good of whatever the physical conditions may be. And that, I think, is an important factor and one hard to evaluate. But I think it is an important one which has contributed to the attitude of the prisoners.

MacNEIL: In saying the British have been to a degree inflexible, Prime Minister, are you also saying that if Mrs. Thatcher wanted to, she could solve this?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, we had the feeling that at the moment early in July when the Irish Commission on Justice and Peace put forward its proposals, and when these seemed to be, in substance, agreed by the British minister on the spot -- subject to what seemed fairly minor difficulties or differences -- we had a feeling that a solution could then be found. The fact that that wasn`t proceeded with either with the speed or in the form that had been more or less agreed, contributed, we think, to the continuance of the hunger strike. We feel it might have been settled at that moment. The prisoners had shown a certain flexibility. They had dropped the political status claim. Their relatives were very concerned that the whole affair should be settled. The IRA was under great pressure from the relatives. It was a moment when there could have been a settlement, and that chance was missed: in our view, it was a pity that it was missed. It is more difficult at the moment to find a way to a solution because attitudes have hardened since then.

MacNEIL: That`s just-- I`m sorry.

Dr. FITZGERALD: No. go on

MacNEIL: That, of course, is just a solution to the hunger strike and the conditions in the prison. What do you view -- from your very special vantage point -- what do you view as the solution to the Northern Ireland problem itself: a majority of Protestants facing a minority of Catholics, at each others` throats?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, if any of us knew the solution to it in the sense of being able to provide a blueprint to resolve the problem, it would have been resolved by now. And it is because it is an intractable problem that it`s still there. But basically the problem is one between two ethnic communities inhabiting the same space with different traditions, who live in fear of one another. It`s a problem which is very difficult to resolve because on the one hand, the minority in Northern Ireland were for 50 years under the control of the majority, which has its own provincial government, and were not treated equitably in that period. They were excluded effectively from a share in government and indeed from a fair share of employment and housing. And that has left a deep-seated sense of grievance and determination never to go back to a situation of being under the control of the majority. The majority, on the other hand, feels themselves psychologically to be a minority in the island of Ireland -- to be threatened not merely by the nationalist population within Northern Ireland, but threatened by being a minority and the feeling that their cultural identity might be lost if they allowed themselves to be merged in a nationalist Irish community of the whole island. So that each side is living in fear of the other. And we have to try to relieve these fears and to create the conditions in which a solution can be found that enables the two to live together, and to live with us within the space of this small island. That`s not easy to achieve, and the responsibility rests on all of us, on us in the Republic and the two communities in Northern Ireland, and on the British, who have the sovereign power there, to try and work towards a resolution of this conflict situation. And I think we`ve all been at fault at different periods in different ways in not doing enough towards this.

LEHRER: You were quoted over the weekend, Mr. Prime Minister, as saying that some British politicians, and now some Northern Ireland politicians -- Protestant politicians in Northern Ireland -- are now saying privately that maybe a united Ireland is the only solution. Do you agree with that? Is that your position as well?

Dr. FITZGERALD: I said-- perhaps I ought to distinguish here. Many British politicians, indeed, most British politicians I have met -- though by no means all -- do believe and say in private that the ultimate solution must be a coming together of the two parts of Ireland in some relationship, not necessarily a unitary state -- perhaps a confederate state -- in a close relationship with Britain. But while saying this privately, until recently at any rate-- most of them are very reluctant to say it publicly and indeed even today very few will commit themselves publicly to this proposition. The result is that the Loyalist population in Northern Ireland are in a sense being deluded into thinking that there is much more support for their continued participation in the United Kingdom -- that there is more support in Britain than there really is. And that-- that, we feel, is perhaps helping to make them more hard-line because they don`t, perhaps, realize that they haven`t got really the support of politicians or public opinion in Britain for their very determined and hard-lined position. And we think it would be perhaps helpful if British politicians would be more honest in public and say in public what they say in private. So far as the politicians in Northern Ireland are concerned, within the Unionist community as a whole, amongst people who are not politicians, there does exist a significant minority who I think feel that a solution has to be found between north and south -- between the two communities in Northern Ireland -- and that the time has come to try to work towards that. I don`t think that`s the view of the bulk of the Loyalist population, but it is true of a significant minority, probably more among the middle classes than elsewhere. Amongst Unionist politicians, publicly, certainly, their position remains very hard-line, I think some of them may privately face the reality that ultimately there has to be a solution between north ad south, but they wouldn`t survive very long if they said that in public.

MacNEIL: What can the United States do now -- either officially through the government, or as interested Americans -- to contribute to either easing the hunger strike situation or a long-term solution?

Dr. FITZGERALD: Well, we have been very grateful for the support that has come from the United States at various points. The Irish-American leaders in Congress -- Speaker O`Neill and Senator Kennedy, Senator Moynihan. Governor Carey, and many others who have joined them, the friends of Ireland --- their support has been valuable because it has helped, I think, to consolidate moderate opinion in the United States. It`s helped to discourage people from contributing to the IRA and to their financial resources -- which give them the power to kill hundreds and hundreds of Irish people in Northern Ireland, as well as attacking, of course. British troops there -- and we`ve been grateful to the support of successive administrations. President Carter in his time made a very generous offer of massive financial aid if a particular solution were found, an offer which, under more favorable circumstances, might have found an echo and helped toward the solution.

MacNEIL: Is there something -- some initiative -- that the present administration might take which would be significant and useful?

Dr. FITZGERALD: I think that there can be initiatives there, yes. His administration -- which I think is more Irish in some ways than any that has preceded it-- I know that there is great sympathy for the Irish dilemma, the Irish tragedy, in the administration. And I think that the close relations which the administration has with both the Irish and British governments put it in the position to help both of us towards a solution, and we are grateful for any assistance that the administration can give in that respect. Again, the previous administration did, I think, indicate in the spring of `79, May `79 to the British government that there should be some political movement in Northern Ireland. And then w an attempt by the British initiative at that time toward a political solution, which failed but it was made partly in response to an American expression of concern and interested in a solution. So that we`ve seen already how an American administration can move the British government to action, even, if in that particular instance, the action didn`t- wasn`t successful.

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there, Dr. Fitzgerald. Our time is up. Thank you very much for joining us from Dublin this evening. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We will be back on Monday night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.