Northern Ireland and its attempt for a new government
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After the death of a journalist last Holy Thursday, the United Kingdom and Ireland resumed dialogues to end the power vacuum
On Holy Thursday, a day before the commemorations of the peace agreements signed between Ireland and the United Kingdom to end the Irish conflict, journalist Lyra McKee, aged 29, was shot dead in Derry, Northern Ireland, in middle of the riots in the city. The police announced that his death was due to a bullet aimed at the officers.
Leer en español: Irlanda del Norte y su intento por un nuevo gobierno
The Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998 and helped the dissolution of the hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which was militarized, "allowing the region's economy to prosper, while the people were liberated to move as they wanted ", as Time remembers.
Despite the agreement, tensions have always been there, especially among the political and religious communities "making the area volatile and mature for the resurgence of the conflict," according to the same media. As a result, the dissident group New IRA, a group of opponents of the agreement, attributed the facts in testimonies delivered to the Irish News: "at the time of attacking the enemy, Lyra McKee was killed while she was at the side of the enemy forces ( …) the IRA offers our sincere apologies to his partner, family and friends of Lyra McKee for his death. "
As El País mentions, the causes of tensions can be summarized between official or real. In the first, the fact of "disputes over the defense of the Irish language and sectoral policies regarding renewable energies" is discussed. While the latter focus on the "deep latent distrust between the two political factions that dispute the control of this British territory."
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New dialogs
After what happened, last Friday, April 26, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Theresa May and the Prime Minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkar, agreed to carry out a new attempt through a process of political talks, in order to resolve the political stalemate that the British province since 2017, following the "distancing between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin" which prevented the reissue of the unity government, according to Europa Press.
Thus, the leaders affirmed that "what is needed now are actions and not just words from all of us in leadership positions". The leaders are expected to resume the dialogues after the general elections on May 2 but before the European parliamentary elections of May 23.
Theresa May and her new headache
For several experts, the tension of the conflict escalated because the British prime minister was very focused on the Brexit. A process that has cost him the rejection of the opposition party after a series of refusals to leave the European Union. Although one of the most discussed issues in this process was how the border between the two Irelands was going to be managed, now it will be more, since it could aggravate tensions more and be a key point for the violent military.
As a result, "Brexit has forced people in Northern Ireland, who voted by 56% to 44% majority to remain in the European Union, to reconsider their own identities," according to Time.
LatinAmerican Post | Laura Viviana Guevara Muñoz
Translated from "Irlanda del Norte y su intento por un nuevo gobierno"
