38 minute read
Colombian Peace Accord
from Collected Speeches from the visits by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins to Latin America 2017
Keynote Address by Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá
Monday, 13th February, 2017
Yesterday, coming back from one of the zonas verdales at Anorí I was making a reflection on what sentiment, what notion, or music of the heart produces an instinct between protagonists that recognises a shared unquenchable sense of the importance of the human dignity of the other, be it victor or vanquished. I remain convinced that poets are best at attempting such a task.
One of our greatest poets, Michael Longley, has given us a poem to record his feelings on the occasion of a ceasefire being declared in our conflict in Northern Ireland. His background was one that embraced the history and tradition of our neighbour and ourselves on the island of Ireland, and thus he was very conscious of murders and woundings that had taken place very close to him in his community.
The words in Michael Longley’s poem Ceasefire, written in 1994, but published in 1998, occur to me so often when in some speech given in proximity to the events of conflict, reference has to be made to the immensity of the sacrifice that is required in the call to remember, the inevitable pain which is recalled, and yet the profound humanity that is revealed by the gestures of respect, and in time that may allow for forgiveness too. May I begin my remarks, then, with Michael Longley’s poem:
CEASEFIRE
I
Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears Achilles took him by the hand and pushed the old king Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and Wept with him until their sadness filled the building.
II
Taking Hector’s corpse into his own hands Achilles Made sure it was washed and, for the old king’s sake, Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.
III
When they had eaten together, it pleased them both To stare at each other’s beauty as lovers might, Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:
IV
‘I get down on my knees and do what must be done And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son.’
And in Spanish it might read like this, and please excuse any mistakes I might make!
ALTO EL FUEGO
I
Recuerda a su propio padre y conmovido hasta el llanto Aquiles le cogió de la mano y empujó al viejo rey Suavemente lejos, pero Príamo acurrucado a sus pies y Llorando con él hasta que su tristeza llenó el pabellón.
II
Tomando el cadáver de Héctor con sus propias manos Aquiles se aseguró de que fuera lavado y, por el amor del viejo rey, colocado con el uniforme, listo para que Príamo lo llevara envuelto como un regalo a su hogar en Troya al amanecer.
III
Después de que hubieran comido juntos, les agradó a los dos contemplar su respectiva belleza como podrían hacer los amantes, Aquiles, construido como un dios, Príamo todavía hermoso y lleno de conversación, que antes había suspirado:
IV
“Me arrodillo y hago lo que debe hacerse: beso la mano de Aquiles, el asesino de mi hijo”.
© Traducción ANTONIO LINARES FAMILIAR
It is a very significant time to be making this first visit by an Irish President to a country with which Ireland has had warm diplomatic relations since 1999, but with which we have also enjoyed much older connections.
The establishment of formal diplomatic relations between our two countries, in 1999, has done much to foster the reciprocal friendship between the Irish and the Colombians. Our relationships have widened and deepened through productive and mutually beneficial co-operation, particularly through academic and cultural exchanges, and, of course, through our support and commitment for the Colombian peace process which has intensified in recent times, and to which we remain committed.
Yet there exists a long history of cultural engagement of the Irish with Colombia, which predates our formal diplomatic relations. Although geography, scale, and our respective historical journeys differ in some respects,
there are significant aspects of the collective experience of the Irish and Colombian peoples which we share – for example, the continuity of land as an issue in our pre-independence and post-independence history and struggles. The movement from a precarious society of tenant farmers to a smallholder’s rural economy, albeit deeply influenced by emigration, and in recent decades urbanisation, is the source of the deep changes in Irish political and social life.
As an old European country, however one without colonies, we Irish have always recognised the global significance of the ancient civilisations of this continent, civilisations that came to such a high point of sophistication and symmetry with nature before the contact and degradation of colonising aggrandisements, with their insatiable extraction of minerals. Then of course, in the 18th century, a generation of Irish Catholics, exiles and their children who had been denied political and economic opportunity in their homeland, and who had sought a life for themselves in commerce, the military and administration in Spain and its far-flung colonies, looked to the Latin Americas. The children and grandchildren of these emigrants went on to become key figures in the political development of Latin America.
The Irish in Colombia first came to prominence when up to 2,000 Irish volunteers travelled here in the early 19th century to fight in the patriot army commanded by Simón Bolivar. Two of the most celebrated figures, Francis Burdett O’Connor and Daniel Florence O’Leary served with distinction during those campaigns that transformed Colombia from a Spanish colony to an independent republic.
O’Connor and O’Leary subsequently wrote memoirs that became important sources for historians researching the revolutionary period. O’Leary, who was appointed as aide-de-camp to Bolivar after the Battle of Boyaca, compiled a monumental 32-volume account of the wars of independence, which was published between 1879 and 1888. The Memorias del General O’Leary was used by Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez for his fictionalised account of Bolivar’s last days in El General en su Laberinto.
The last time I visited Colombia, in 2010, was as part of an Irish parliamentary delegation facilitated by the Irish charity, Trócaire. We Irish Parliamentarians were seeking to understand the reality of the Colombian armed conflict on the ground, and their impact on communities, so as to inform Irish and EU responses to the gravity of the human rights and humanitarian situation. We endeavoured to understand from the perspectives of Colombians that we interviewed and who came forward to us in differing circumstances, the root causes of the armed conflict, the extent of poverty and inequality, and the linkages between forced displacement, illegal appropriation of land, and the conflict as to how natural resources might be developed, in what conditions, and for whose benefit.
We hoped, too, by our visit to increase our own and international awareness of the situation of the victims and their campaigns for access to truth, justice and reparation. We were also eager to express support to, and solidarity with, organisations that were working with great courage on the ground, including the Church and the communities with which they were working in their struggle to defend human rights, and their search for a negotiated solution to the armed conflict.
We took the opportunity of speaking with the Colombian authorities on behalf of the victims of the armed conflict who had asked us to raise protracted issues.
We visited communities in the region of Buenaventura, where we heard many distressing stories directly from relatives, particularly from Afro-Colombian families, of those who had disappeared or were living under serious levels of threat, as well as many disturbing accounts of mistreatment and displacement.
These stories spoke not only of the events of what were then recent times, including the revulsion of families at the practice of ‘false positives’ where authorities dressed the corpses of those executed in the uniform of
guerrillas, thus not only executing a killing, but disrespecting a body and seeking to discredit a family in its community. They also spoke of the terrible realities, through the generations, of a country structured on deep inequalities; a nation where 0.4% of landowners owned 61% of rural land, and indeed one in which 1% of people owned 58% of urban property.
The centrality of land to conflicts across the generations resonated with us Irish. Land is at the centre of the worst atrocities and the most violent acts of confrontation in the 18th and 19th centuries in our own country right up to our independence and beyond.
Despite the many challenges at that time, and the difficulties they faced, I was deeply impressed by the initiatives undertaken by civil society organisations, religious groups, NGOs, trade unions, human rights defenders, indeed all those seeking peace and justice and providing humanitarian accompaniment to those who have suffered as a consequence of the conflict. In our report we called at that time for greater Irish and EU involvement and for the appointment of a European Union Special Representative for Peace in Colombia.
There has been very significant change in the six years since I was last here. Peace, which at that time seemed far out of reach is now within Colombia’s grasp. It deserves support from within Colombia and from the global community.
From the perspective of an outsider the conflict seemed intractable for so many decades. Its roots were so deep and the country’s pain so intense that one wondered if it would ever be possible for a new spirit to emerge with 220,000 people killed, 6.4 million people displaced, over 11,000 people maimed or killed by landmines, 7 million people registered with the Colombian Government’s Victim’s Unit, what a mountain to climb; and yet, as in my own country, hope and the desire for a better future have asserted themselves.
We in Ireland understand the difficult and painful choices that peace and reconciliation can entail and we also understand and were grateful for support that came to us from our friends at critical junctures on the path to peace. It is for this reason that Irish people have been so pleased to support Colombia in its ongoing journey. We recognise the differences in our two processes, but we believe we can make a contribution by making available our own experience of peacebuilding over the last 20 years and more.
I know that many groups and individuals have travelled between Colombia and Ireland in recent months to discuss lessons and parallels from our respective journeys.
We will continue to provide that assistance in the coming, critical, years, including through the Trust Fund which we have helped to establish together with our friends in the European Union. This Trust fund is just one element of the broader support which the EU has been providing to many hundreds of projects all over Colombia, with hundreds of millions of Euro in funding. Ireland has been pleased to contribute to this effort over many years and will, may I say it again, continue to do so.
President Higgins arrives in Bogota
My friend Eamon Gilmore, our former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is today the EU’s “Special Envoy for the Peace Process in Colombia”, will continue to play an important role in representing the friendship of Europe’s member states towards the people of this country, and we in Ireland are proud of his contribution.
As a people, the Irish have a deep commitment to human rights and this has been at the centre of our foreign policy for decades. Through Irish Aid, our overseas development cooperation programme, and through our bilateral and multilateral relationships we have consistently championed the cause of human rights and those advocating on behalf of human rights. We have introduced initiatives at the Human Rights Council of the U.N., for example, for the protection of human rights defenders.
Our involvement in Colombia is no exception to this and it is precisely for such reasons that our relationship with the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights is at the centre of Ireland’s activity here in Colombia. We have been pleased to provide them with financial support for their work with human rights defenders and victims in the province of Nariño as well as in drawing lessons from the peace process in Northern Ireland. Similarly, we support NGOs such as Christian Aid with significant amounts of funding to support Colombian civil society on human rights issues. Again, you can be assured of our continued support in these areas.
Like all peace processes, Colombia’s has had its own unique and difficult challenges. President Santos, delivering his Nobel lecture last December spoke of how:
“Like life itself, peace is a process with many surprises”.
Having seen many setbacks in the peace process over decades from the 1970s, Ireland understands only too well that these matters cannot and will not be resolved overnight or through any simple linear process. However, we also understand the importance of all sides continuing to engage because the ultimate prize of peace is worth any and every effort.
Following the announcement of the result of the plebiscite, on
3rd October 2016, we were reassured to see that the negotiations for a revision were initiated immediately and that a revised text was approved by Congress as early as the end of November.
On the very evening when the results of the plebiscite were published, President Santos went on air to accept the outcome, and he restated his intention to proceed to work for peace. He called for a “national dialogue” and he invited those who opposed the deal to engage constructively with that dialogue. We in Ireland have experienced similar circumstances in our peace process. The intensity and positivity with which both sides have engaged with any setbacks we have had along the way resulted, each time, in a new approach, with a renewed determination to build a lasting peace.
Nobody, however, is underestimating the scale of the challenges which remain in relation to the implementation of the new agreement, including the transitional justice framework, disarmament, and the establishment of a safe and secure environment for all of Colombia’s citizens. It goes without saying that Ireland remains available to support the people of Colombia in any way which furthers the goal of peace in this country.
We are, for example, willing partners in discussing and building the new forms of global economy that are necessary if we are to achieve an adequate response to the global challenges of climate change and sustainable development.
At a time of great global humanitarian crisis, there is so much the world can learn from Colombia’s peace process. The issues under discussion in this country, issues of displacement, disarmament, post-conflict reconciliation, are ones that have significance for communities across this continent and elsewhere in the world, as well as for Colombians.
Over two hundred peace agreements have been concluded internationally in the years since conflict first began in Colombia; and while we must be careful
President Higgins being welcomed to Colombia by Ms. María Ángela not to draw simplistic parallels between Holguín Cuéllar, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ms. Sonja Hyland, distinct regions and their particular Ambassador of Ireland to Colombia and Mr. Néstor Osorio Londoño, conflicts, there can be no doubting that Ambassador of Colombia to Ireland peace processes from different regions can provide important blueprints for conflict resolutions in different contexts. Indeed, it was greatly moving to read that President Santos spoke, on the eve of the signing of the historic peace agreement between the Colombian Government and the FARC, of how our own long struggle for peace and reconciliation in Ireland so inspired him.
Nations and regions across the world can learn much from sharing their experiences, both those that have failed to end conflict permanently and those that have been more successful. While every conflict is different, the challenges and obstacles facing those who work to craft solutions are similar. There is so much that can be learned from the efforts of others to promote truth, forgiveness and reconciliation following long periods of bitter conflict.
Yet, while every peace process learns from what has gone before, they will only be successful if they also respond to the particular challenges of their own context, history and situation. Colombia’s peace negotiations thus has drawn on lessons learned from successful peace processes, including those which took place in Northern Ireland and South Africa, and from processes too which did not have a successful outcome, while also assessing failures from their own previous attempts to negotiate together a peace agreement.
Let me express my admiration for all of those who have played their role in negotiating this extraordinary moment of hope and possibility for Colombia at which you have arrived, and in your achievements in creating mutual understanding from the devastation wrought by bitter conflict. It has been a long and difficult struggle, calling for a real spirit of generosity, a will to create solid foundations for a shared, peaceful future, and the courage to look to the past in a way that is emancipatory. Indeed, it has required from the parties to the conflict the ability to look beyond their incompatibilities and replace armed battle with attempts to move forward in a spirit of peace and reconciliation.
It has also been a challenge which has required the development of innovative frameworks, leading to Colombia’s peace process becoming a globally admired example of how to negotiate a path to sustainable solutions to apparently unyielding conflict.
Lasting peace will never be achieved if we ignore, deny or fail to address the underlying causes of conflict. That is a process which calls for an honest engagement with the past. The Colombian writer, William Ospina, has spoken about the critical importance for all writers to try to make sense of the events of the past in Colombia in order to capture them as intelligible memory:
“Hay muchos relatos, muchas narraciones y muchos testimonios. Lo más importante será que todos tratemos de convertir en algo asimilable y en memoria lo que ha sido solamente tragedia, dolor y asombro”
[There are many stories, many narratives and many testimonies. The most important thing will be that we should try to transform that which has been only tragic, painful and shocking into something intelligible and into memory.]
From a multitude of personal, and communal, tragic events such a collective recall of memory must not affect any false or accommodating amnesia; it must be ethical, it must be moral, and enabling, rather than disabling this effort at remembering, that might enable future possibilities, not be disabled by past events for present of future achievements, emancipations.
A genuine engagement with the past is never an easy task for an individual, a community, or indeed a nation, involving as it does a complex negotiation of the many memories, pains, legacies and emotions of those affected by struggle and conflict. How we remember, forgive, and even forget, are not merely academic questions, divorced from the business of crafting solutions to the challenge of building peace, of being able to live together. What we ensure that we must remember, what we must strive to forget, and what is open to reconsideration, are questions whose answers are fundamental to the achievement of a peaceful, and truly reconciled society.
All societies emerging from conflict struggle face that legacy of the past: challenged to decide what to remember, and how to remember it, as they strive to transact an understanding that may lead, in time, to such a forgiveness as will release them from the weight of past wrongs. The goal, as I have already suggested, is to ensure that an ethically remembered wrong does not disable one from the possibilities of the present or the future.
The announcement, in June 2014, by the various sides in the Colombian conflict of a Declaration of Principles outlining a commitment to ensure the victims’ rights to truth and full justice was a landmark one at the time, as was the agreement in Havana on a Special Jurisdiction for Peace.
For the first time, victims of armed conflict had the opportunity to speak with both the FARC and Government negotiating teams, who listened in detail to the experiences of the victims and the overarching desire of victims
from all sides for truth and clarification of what had happened and who would take responsibility for what had happened. It was also the first time a transitional justice architecture was attempted and framed, one which might directly respond to the right of victims to clarification of the truth, as well as articulating the principles of a rights based approach, reparation and a guarantee of non-recurrence.
The decision to listen to the testimonies of sixty victims of human rights violations was as significant as it was unprecedented.
As those victims in Colombia spoke to the negotiating panels of the abuses of their human rights and the suffering they had endured, they were also speaking to the world about the need to place victims at the very heart of peace negotiations – the need to listen and to ensure that their stories are not met with indifference or disbelief.
The peace process in Colombia thus brought to international attention a gap that will be inherent in any negotiation process if the voices of the victims are not granted their rightful place at that table. Colombia’s peace-building process has shown the world that there can be no false dichotomy between justice and peace, that there must exist an understanding of the mutual relationship between both goals. If peace is to endure we must look beyond the immediate aim of ending conflict and ensure that its root causes are addressed, and that victims’ calls for justice are heard.
Neither should we forget that it is such testimony from first hand witnesses and survivors of conflict that will allow future generations to understand the truth of what has gone before, enabling them, as an old culture has put it, to deal with “the basket of darkness” without losing capacity for “the basket of life”.
Indeed, the importance of accessing truth was a key issue that was raised by victims during the negotiation process. They were correct to assert their right to such truth and to declare its importance in achieving a prospect of real forgiveness and an ability to move forward in a spirit of hope. In negotiating peace, we must understand that true reconciliation requires much more than political agreement; it has to be worked through, in the lived experiences of all those affected by the conflict, and who are considering or who are undergoing a process of change.
Reconciliation is an essential part of any sustainable peace. It involves recognising that while the hurts of the past cannot, and must never be, forgotten, we must also recognise that the future is alive with possibilities not yet born, from which no version of past conflicts should preclude us.
While a terrible and heinous act cannot, for the most moral of reasons, be dissolved or forgotten, it is only through an act of imagination and creativity that we can prevent that tragic memory from colonising the future. The act of forgiveness, however, is not an easy one; it requires a great generosity of vision capable of transcending revenge or bitterness in the interests of achieving a truly reconciled discussion.
It was greatly inspiring for us in the international community to hear that support for the peace process was so strong in areas of the greatest number of victims, but further that many direct victims of the Colombian conflict have accepted the need for a delicately balanced transitional justice architecture which allows for potentially significant reduction in sentences in return for a commitment to truth and guarantees of non-repetition.
Colombia’s peace process has been rightly commended for its wide, at times heated, but yet well informed, discussions which have re-invigorated international debate around peace and justice. It has been a generous and encompassing process that does not, and I hope will never, shirk from examining the core root causes of the long and bitter conflict, including issues of income poverty, land poverty, that call out for land reform and rural development.
Indeed, Colombia’s fifty-year long bitter struggle was deeply grounded in the issue of unequal land distribution. It is a conflict that, let us not ever forget, has seen almost 6 million people forced out of their homes, creating a legacy of enormous internal displacement, and many more forced to flee their homeland and seek refuge elsewhere.
The issue of land has been central to Irish conflicts, and we in Ireland can understand its importance in Colombia, indeed in Latin America in general. Indeed, during my parliamentary visit of 2010, we were briefed on what was then forthcoming legislation, it was before the peace negotiations had got underway, but the Colombian government had commenced the complex but vital process of land reform, notably through the Victims and Land Restitution Law of 2011. That legislation aimed to return land to all those displaced by the conflict.
The Peace Accord approved last November, however, goes much further. It is ambitious and it deserves international support. It speaks not only of land restitution but of integral rural reform and, vitally, of a structural transformation of rural areas. In doing so, it seeks not only to right specific wrongs and to restore to the victims of the conflict what is rightfully theirs, but it also seeks a radical renewal of the social and economic conditions in which more than 11 million Colombians live.
The aim, as the Agreement puts it, to “transform the reality of rural life, with equity, equality and democracy,” may be an extraordinarily ambitious one, but it should never be discussed as utopian. It is necessary, and with help, is achievable.
It is what is necessary for future Colombians but also for all of us on the planet. It is the kind of step we need as we set to the task of crafting new models of connection between ecology, economics and ethics for our new century. Coming from Ireland, with our 1 million hectares of arable land, the scale of the ambition in the Colombian Accord, with its commitment to restitution or formalisation of title of 10 million hectares over 12 years is very impressive.
What is envisaged is not simply a legal process of land reform but a sustained social and economic investment in land and in people, based on the principles of equality, sustainability, environmental protection and dignity.
My wish for Colombians is that all the externalities that serve as context to this Plan also be addressed by your international partners positively. We in Ireland wish you every success in giving life to your inspiring vision for a future Colombia.
As to mechanisms – the formation of a special Agricultural Tribunal to deal with conflicts over land can provide for an independent and transparent system, based on the rule of law, to deal comprehensively and fairly with an issue that has driven so much of the conflict in Colombia. This was an issue that, as I have already said, caused division during and after our own War of Independence in Ireland, a hundred years ago.
We may often think about conflict prevention as an activity involving international peace-keeping troops; bluehelmeted UN battalions keeping warring sides apart. In fact, conflict prevention is often something much more complex than a peace keeping mission. It requires the building of institutions; fair and transparent institutions, operating under rules that all can access and all can understand. Institutions that aim to deal with the sources and legacies of conflict, openly and impartially.
The challenge of comprehensive rural reform is immense. It is something we continue to face in Ireland, nearly a century after our independence. Vibrant, equal and economically sustainable rural societies are not easy to nourish and sustain anywhere and the legacy of conflict, both psychological and physical, makes this a particular challenge in Colombia. I believe that the vision set out in the Agreement is one that can inspire not just the Colombian people but people everywhere who are struggling with unfair and unsustainable systems of land ownership and production.
Finally, but very importantly, as in so many conflicts around the world, women have been disproportionately affected by the five decades of armed conflict in Colombia. Flavia Pansiera, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, in acknowledging that women have been one of the groups most impacted by the armed conflict in Colombia, put it very succinctly:
“In view of this, but also because they constitute one half of the population, it is of the utmost priority to include them in decision making, and to listen and adopt their positions on peace, the country’s development and public policy on human rights.”
It is, unfortunately, too rare an occurrence for females to be granted a place and a voice at the negotiation table. In Colombia women bore much of the burden of the conflict as victims, and also as key participants in the reconstructing of communities shattered by the atrocities of war. For a sustainable agreement to be achieved, their presence at the negotiation table was critical.
The agreement, in 2014, to create a gender sub-commission challenged the historic exclusion of women from peace building; and was key to the achievement of a final accord that would lay the foundations for the building of a new and inclusive society that would respect the voices of all its members.
We should also acknowledge and commend the establishment of the sub-commission on indigenous and Afro-Colombian issues,
the importance of which stays in my mind from my visit to Buenaventura in 2010. I understand the subcommission is unique, but in its potential, an important innovation that others will draw from in future processes.
I commend the efforts by all those organisations that seek to empower women as agents of change. Women experience conflict and migration in a special way as accounts tell us, taking into themselves the pain and insecurity of family members, and can therefore bring a unique set of skills and expertise to the negotiating table, and particularly in post-conflict reconstruction, and in the use of resources that may have been previously a source of conflict.
It is, in other words, greatly important that we recognise that any failure to integrate the female population of Colombia into the building process would have seriously diminished hopes for any successful and viable outcome.
In Ireland, the memory of our own long walk towards peaceful accord is a very recent one. The achievement of the momentous Good Friday Agreement in 1998 was a milestone in our history, and the deep and enduring friendship we now enjoy with Great Britain is an achievement of which we are immensely proud. We remain deeply aware, however, that there is still a road to be travelled, and that our journey will not be completed until the destination of lasting and creative reconciliation has been reached.
It would be naïve to think that the signing of a peace agreement will bring an automatic cessation of violence, prejudice or bitter hatred. It is in itself, of course, a great achievement, signifying the culmination of prolonged discussion, conversation and negotiation, much of it difficult and painful. It is a critical moment of transition, a historical moment of change.
More importantly, however, it is the beginning of a new stage in the journey towards renewed, sustained and stable peace. That distinction between termination and transformation is critical. It is a distinction which Colombians have recognised and been at pains to emphasise throughout the process which has brought them to this juncture – an understanding that peace will only become a powerful reality when it transcends the negotiation tables and the pages of agreements and treaties, and is invited to inhabit the shared spaces of a nation.
Underpinning the Colombian peace agreement is a fundamental understanding of the causes and the drivers of conflict and the clear knowledge that it is these causes that must be addressed if the Agreement is to be
President Higgins supervising the signing of a memorandum of understanding between UCC and UNAL, Colsciencias and COLFUTURO.
successful and to transform the day-to-day lives of the Colombian people. I see in this understanding both the deep commitment of the negotiators on both sides who spent four years crafting this deeply complex, deeply ambitious, deeply intelligent, text but also the indelible mark of Colombian civil society groups.
Women’s organisations, organisations representing indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, victims’ groups, peasant organizations – all contributed not just to the Agreement but to the architecture of the negotiation process itself. To my knowledge, this iterative engagement by civil society with the negotiating teams was also unique. Unique not only in its contribution to what was considered as part of the negotiations and how it was considered – and I spoke earlier of my particular admiration for the establishment of subCommissions on gender – but it has created a baseline for future peace negotiations around the globe. The Colombian process demonstrated that civil society must be considered an integral part of negotiating processes.
Ireland’s work at the Human Rights Council included such a perspective during our 2013 - 2015 term and presented a Resolution on Civil Society Space for the first time ever at the Council. We prioritised this issue because we ourselves have lived the experience of how a vibrant and robust civil society can transform societies and political and economic cultures.
In my own experience of over 40 years as a legislator, Senator, Minister and now President, I have witnessed how many of the most positive transformations in Ireland have their origin in civil society activism. Examples include the peace process in Northern Ireland, the full legal equality of men and women, the protection of our environment and cultural heritage, marriage equality and the advancement of LGBT rights, our anticorruption and transparency legislation.
What Colombia has taught us – and taught the world – through its approach to the negotiation process is that creating a “safe and enabling” environment for civil society, as the Human Rights Council (HRC)Resolution puts it, is only a starting point. The real transformation becomes possible when we sit at the table as equals – discussing, arguing, achieving consensus.
Dear friends, such is the nature of the warm relationship that exists between our two countries, that I know can deepen, and enable us not only to recall our past or current lives, but can offer us an opportunity of building and sharing a rich future in peace and sustainable prosperity.
All of us Irish would like to see Ireland act as a bridge for Colombia to the European Union, a bridge that would contribute to advancing the development of your connections to the European region, and we would, in turn, welcome the opportunity for the further development of the bonds between us so that Colombia can act as a bridge for us to Latin America.
At this very important time in its modern history I want to convey to all Colombians Ireland’s very best wishes for a peaceful, prosperous and inclusive future. We are so pleased, in Ireland, that we have been able, bilaterally and through the European Union, to make our contribution to your peace process.
Global leaders and peoples across the world have much to learn from Colombia’s journey towards peace and reconciliation. As you begin a new phase of that journey I am confident that you will continue to inspire, to innovate and to show the world all that can be achieved when generosity, courage and a real will to craft a lasting and sustainable peace prevails.
Ireland is privileged indeed that you have allowed us to share in your journey from darkness to light.
Muchísimas gracias.
Address at the Launch of Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor
Morro Cabaña, Havana, Cuba
Thursday, 16th February, 2017
Joseph OConnors famous novel Star of the Sea is I believe the first Irish novel to be published in Cuba since James Joyces Ulysses. This makes today a great occasion, and of course it is a great accolade for Joseph, and a well-deserved one.
Es un placer estar aquí en la Feria Internacional del Libro de La Habana, y tener esta oportunidad de asistir al lanzamiento de la edición cubana del libro del autor irlandés Joseph O’Connor, Star of the Sea [El crimen del Estrella del Mar]
[I am delighted to be here today at the Havana International Book Fair, at the launch of the Cuban edition of ‘Star of the Sea’ by Irish author Joseph O’Connor.]
I am also delighted that Irish and Irish-linked writers Colm Toíbín, Michael McCaughan, Lisa McInerney, Dermot Keogh and Purs Lopez Colomé are participating in this most important event in Cuba’s literary calendar, and by their presence deepening cultural links between our two countries.
Some writers of recent times have told us of centuries old connections, such as Tim Fanning whose ‘Los Paisanos, the Forgotten Irish of Latin America’ will shortly be available in Spanish and the wonderful Dervla Murphy whose ‘The Island that Dared’ was published in 2008, and gives details of Cuban life as experienced by a visiting family travelling through mountains, by the sea, in the swamps or the city.
Joseph O’Connor’s famous novel Star of the Sea is I believe the first Irish novel to be published in Cuba since James Joyce’s Ulysses. This makes today a great occasion, and of course it is a great accolade for Joseph, and a well-deserved one. Tá súil agam go mbeidh i bhfad níos mó aistriúcháin déanta amach anseo, de leabhair Chúbaigh agus leabhair Éireannaigh. [May there be many more translations and in both directions.]
From its first publication, Star of the Sea has justifiably received international acclaim and has won many awards including the Prix Littéraire Européen Madeleine Zepter for European Novel of the Year, Italy’s Premio Giuseppe Acerbi for New Literature, The Hennessy/Sunday Tribune ‘Hall of Fame’ Award, and the Prix Millepages for Foreign Fiction. It has also been a number one bestseller in both Britain and Ireland and has been published in many languages.
As to the author - six years ago, I had the privilege of presenting Joseph with the Irish PEN Award for literature. I spoke, on that occasion, of how it was an accolade from his peers that recognised Joseph as one of the most important and influential voices of contemporary Irish literature, at a time that is experiencing little less than a golden period of the novel. Today, Joseph O’Connor continues to be one of the great Irish diplomats of literature, renowned abroad and loved at home for the elegance of his prose and the disciplined acuity of his themes.
Star of the Sea, as a novel, is set in 1847 against the backdrop of the Irish Famine. The reader is brought aboard a famine ship making the journey from Ireland to New York, a vessel on which hundreds of desperate refugees are disposed in their different locations according to class and circumstances. First published in 2004 the novel brought Joseph O’Connor’s name as a novelist to the attention of a very wide and international readership and he has gone from strength to strength in his work.
The Great Irish Famine of the 1840s was the greatest social catastrophe of 19th century Europe. Yet while the historiography of the period between Cecil Woodham Smith’s The Great Hunger and John Kelly’s The Graves are Walking’ has been vastly explored, An Gorta Mór, the Great Irish Famine has inspired surprisingly little creative writing. Addressing this gap, described, by PJ Mathews in the Irish Times as ‘a missing link in the Irish literary tradition Star of the Sea is one of the most important creative works to emerge from Ireland in recent years.
President Higgins attends the launch of a translation of ‘Star of the Sea’ by Joseph O’Connor
La tristeza de la emigración forzada, así como la injusticia histórica en la cual se enraízan muchas comunidades en exilio, son temas que tienen una fuerte resonancia aquí en Cuba.
[The sadness of forced emigration, and the historic injustice in which so many diasporic communities are rooted are themes which will have strong resonance in Cuba.]
In chronicling the lives, backgrounds and motivations of its characters, fleeing the devastation not just of famine but of a tiered, but collapsing system of exploitation and the grinding poverty it created but chose to ignore Star of the Sea provides us with what is a harrowing, brave and imaginative confrontation of that bleakest of bleak moments in our past.
Ach ní hé tragóid an Ghorta Mhóir, a íosphártaigh nó a theithigh, a chum an leabhar seo “Star of the Sea”. Is scríobhnóir ard-chumasach a rinne é sin.
[The events of that tragedy of the Great Famine victims and exiles themselves did not produce Star of the Sea. A brilliant novelist did.]
It is a work that brilliantly and unflinchingly allows the searing reality of this critical event in our ancestors’ lives to unfold for us - a disaster that, between 1845 and 1855, saw the Irish population of almost 8.2 million shrink by a third: starvation and disease killing 1.1 million; emigration claiming another 2 million; and slow deaths from hunger, typhus, exhaustion. The great Irish Famine left a legacy which understandably remained embedded in the Irish psyche.
Yet we too easily engage with it, and when we do at all, it is often in terms of its general features, often thus missing the personal experiences, family tragedies, of which it is composed.
As a novel Star of the Sea is ambitious in structure and the stark, austere and greatly honest writing, and the
complex mix of verbal forms through which the story is told - including first person narratives, letters, the Captain’s log, newspaper clippings, and historical documentation – give a profound authenticity to this great novel, and is a wonderful achievement which I know will be appreciated by a Spanish-speaking readership.
For a rapidly growing number of Irish at home and abroad interested in social history, Star of the Sea presents us with a microcosm of the working through of class in Irish society as it was at the time; the despair of the landlord classes who have lost the source of both their privileges and their abuse, including the number of repentant landlords in their number, the struggle of the poor and destitute as they seek a future, and the many personal stories that characters bring with them as they attempt to flee from the past towards hope in exile.
This novel, Star of the Sea, joins with other works on breaking a silence on an event so deeply tragic as to be too traumatic to recall, and the consequences too which would follow. Silence for others was profoundly ideological. Among the many moving lines that will remain with the reader are lines given to the musing of Grantley Dixon, the American journalist who is the chronicler for the ship’s passage who considering the significance of the evasion of what happened says:
“To remain silent, in fact, was to say something powerful: that it never happened: that these people did not matter.”
These moral reflections should remind us too of the Quaker contribution to famine relief. Such sacrifices made and solidarity offered by families such as the Ellises in Letterfrack, and the Tuke family, father and son in Connemara, who died delivering that relief, and the exceptional, warm estimation they held of those they helped. Their words of kindness, and their actions, speak to us across centuries, decades and generations. Theirs were words such as the moving words of the ship’s captain in the novel:
“as certain as I know that the dawn must come, the people of Ireland would welcome the frightened stranger with that gentleness and friendship which so ennobles their character.”
Star of the Sea defies any narrow categorisation, being part historical novel, part Victorian epic, and part intriguing mystery. It reminds us of Joseph O’Connor’s great capacity to break new ground in his writing, and of his deserved reputation for being both a brilliant writer and an accessible one; a realist who also delves courageously and imaginatively into a past that leans so much on our national character.
There can be no doubt that, as a country, we are fortunate to have contemporary writers of his calibre and the brilliant translators who deliver it for us in Spanish, writers who so beautifully and often so poignantly capture those important moments in our history, parts of our past that surely are key to our understanding of the society we live in, and are challenged to change.
This is a great occasion for Irish Cuban literary exchange for writers and translators and, as President of Ireland, I am privileged to share it with you all.
