Peace People will give Nobel money to Third World

Press, 28 October 1977, Page 13

Peace People will give Nobel money to Third World

By

RUSSELL MILLER,

“Sunday Times,” London

Betty Williams and Mai read Corrigan, the Ulster peace campaigners who won the £BO.OOO Nobel Peace Prize, do not intend to give any of the money to the Peace People, the organisation they founded 14 months ago. “Most of the money will be devoted to Third World projects,” says Mrs Williams. “Our war here in Northern Ireland is a poxy, petty, stupid, insane little war when you think of places like Beirut or South Africa. South Africa is at boiling point — ready for explosion. We think now we must look at the Third World very, very seriously.” Miss Corrigan agrees: “We believe that if the Peace People want to maintain their dignity, they should be self-financing and should not rely on the outside world to finance them. There is no point worrying about our little war when there are thousands of children dying around the world."

The Peace People have moved a long way from the days in August last year when the two women showed their courage and called for a halt to the killing. They gathered a huge following of women like themselves, repelled by the day-to-day slaughter of innocent people, and struck a chord which sounded like sanity.

It was the right idea at the right time, and immediately captured world attention. The two women became a movement and suddenly they were in Trafalgar Square, flanked by celebrities and addressing a mass rally. Money poured in from all over the world to help Northern Ireland, but somewhere along the line the Peace People shifted their ambitions. Today their leaders are talking not just about peace, but about taking over control in Ulster and spreading the message around the world of what they call “community democracy.” “We are going to put Northern Ireland together and rebuild it anew,” says Mrs Williams. "I won’t settle for less. We are proving that ordinary people can make decisions without politicians. When he have got enough support we will be able to form a parliament perfectly capable of governing this country. We can show the world what democracy is really about.” This month, Miss Corrigan, a 32-year-old former secretary, has been in the Irish Republic addressing

the Cork Philosophical Society, while 34-year-oid Mrs Williams, a housewife, flew to Canada for a couple of days to “do a television programme.” The Peace People claim to have more than 100 active groups working for peace throughout Ulster, a further 60 in the Republic, and supporters all over the world. Donations in the first 12 months came to £75,000, plus £218,000 lodged in a trust fund for specific community projects. They estimate another £300,000 is available from abroad when the need it. They have their own fortnightly newspaper with a print order of 5000, their own headquarters ■ — a fine three-storey house in a middle-class area of Belfast, bought earlier this year for £42,000 — and a payroll staff of eight including Mrs Williams and Miss Corrigan, who each eam £5OOO a year plus expenses.

But now that the emotional marching days are over, what are their achievements?

Mrs Williams, nothing if not blunt, says: “The Peace People are responsible for a 55 per cent drop in violence” — a figure not entirely supported by the security forces. Miss Corrigan says the Peace People have created a platform for the foundation of a non-violent “community democracy” that within a couple of years will grow powerful enough to govern the entire province and sweep away the party political system.

At the other extreme —- Paddy Devlin, a leading Ulster politician, is withering on the subject of their influence. “They don’t exist, except as a figment of media imagination,” he

says. “Those two lassies, with no past record of working or caring for peace, took off round the world, and no-one has seen them since.” To be fair, the Peace People dare not publicise

many of their activities. When, in August, they listed 13 community projects they had helped (total expenditure £7736), one project was destroyed two days later by a firebomb.

Without naming names, the organisation is at present helping to build three community centres; eight youth clubs are being helped to buy equipment; and £30,000 has been committed to six job-creation projects. Of the trust fund, £8286 has been spent in grants, £21,000 in loans, £39,000 invested in property, and £22,900 committed to different projects by way of grant or investment.

In addition, “flying squads” of the Youth For Peace organisation are on the streets every night in sensitive areas selling the newspaper and spreading the word. “One of our greatest triumphs,” says Mrs Pat Massey, a member of the Peace People executive, “is that we have rescued hundreds of young people from being recruits to the paramilitary. The paramilitaries are nearly finished. They are running out of recruits because we have them.” Her confidence is shared at Peace House, the headquarters in Lisburn Road. Jimmy Mcllwaine, senior shop steward in an engineering works, is responsible for liaison between Peace People groups. “Do you know, I have lived on the Springfield Road for 20 years, and before the Peace People came along I had never even spoken to a Catholic. Now some of my best friends are Catholics.”

Not all the Peace People projects have been starred with success. Earlier this year they appealed for supporters to disclose the whereabouts of illegal arms or, better still, to hand them in to the authorities. The appeal fell on stony ground. No guns materialised. There is also doubt about the number of

groups actively functioning in the cause of peace. A recent copy of the newspaper admitted: “Relatively few new groups have been formed recently and many existing groups are not expanding and growing.”

But the most severe criticism undoubtedly centres on the celebrity status of the two founders and their globetrotting activities (the travel bill in the first 12 months was £18,289). “Join the Peace People and see the world” is a popular if cynical joke around Belfast And “Have you heard the news? The Peace People are in Northern Ireland” is also guaranteed to raise a smile in some quarters.

How the people of Northern Ireland will react to the news that the Nobel Prize money is to be spent in the Third World remains to be seen. It is unlikely to win more friends in Ulster. Equally uncertain is the province’s response to the emerging policy of creating a “community democracy” to rule the country. The architect of this strategy is Ciaran McKeown, a 34-year-old former journalist, who at the start wrote the Peace People credo and has since provided intellectual support for Mrs Williams and Miss Corrigan. “If we can eventually involve something in the order of 6000 people, we can seriously suggest to the British Government that our assembly, or parliament, fulfils the terms of the 1973 constitution for widespread acceptance throughout the country,” he said.

“Anywhere else in the world, it would be an outrageous ambition, but here it could work. Given the party political structure can only provide a tribal solution, and that has patently failed, we have a unique opportunity for the electorate to write its own constitution. I have great hopes that it can be done.” Mr McKeown, the father of five young children, disclaims any political ambition for himself. He intends to resign from back-seat leadership of the Peace People next year. So far he has refused a salary from the movement, and is living on a grant from a Norwegian academic foundation. But when he leaves, he is thinking of asking for back pay of around £15,000, which he plans to devote to a project “in the Third World.”