Paisley Is the Focus of N. Irish Eyes
Divisive Protestant Leader Is Key Voice on Restarting Assembly

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 7, 2006

BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland -- David Graham, 31, a sharply dressed sales representative, wasn't born when the Rev. Ian Paisley won his first election in Northern Ireland in 1970, yet he strongly backs the 80-year-old Protestant preacher because "he upholds our side of things."

That simple sentiment is why for 40 years Paisley's thundering voice has dominated the political scene in this polarized British province. From the pulpit of his Presbyterian church and here on the tidy streets of his home town, Paisley has breathed fiery outrage into speeches that often seemed to consist of two words: "no" and "never."

Now, all eyes are on Paisley as Northern Ireland -- urged on by the British and Irish governments -- tries to reestablish an elected local assembly in which Catholics and Protestants would sit in the same blue-carpeted chamber and share decision-making power over issues from schools to potholes. Restarting the assembly, known as Stormont, is critical to cementing an end to the sectarian violence that has cost 3,500 lives in the past 36 years.

Paisley, who once called Pope John Paul II the "anti-Christ," has vowed to "never, never, never" sit down with Roman Catholic political leaders, whom he considers "terrorists." So the question now, from Catholics as well as his Protestant supporters, is: Can Ian Paisley say yes?

"He's got to agree because there's no other way forward," said Bill Balmer, 62, a management consultant in Ballymena, an overwhelmingly Protestant town of 30,000 people about 25 miles northwest of Belfast. Like Graham and many other Paisley supporters here, Balmer said it was time for self-rule.

In an interview in London in the halls of Westminster, where he represents North Antrim in the House of Commons, Paisley said his comments in the past should not be construed to mean he could never participate in the legislature with Sinn Fein, the political affiliate of the Irish Republican Army, the outlawed Catholic militia.

"It's a conditional 'never,' " he said, laughing when asked about his reputation for stubbornness and his nickname, "Dr. No."

"I am not saying I will never sit in Stormont with the IRA," he said. "I am saying I will not sit in Stormont until the IRA gives up its weapons. It's a conditional 'no,' not a 'No, I'll never do it.' "

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his counterpart in the Republic of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, have expressed optimism over the IRA's historic announcement last July that it had given up its guns, and the leaders have called for the Stormont assembly to reconvene on May 15. The assembly is a cornerstone of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which mapped out a route to peace in the province of 1.7 million people. But it has been suspended since 2002, when trust between Protestants and Catholics broke down completely after an IRA spy ring was uncovered in the assembly.

Since then, the British government has paid more than $160 million to maintain the moth-balled legislature, including salaries for the 108 members. That funding is to end Nov. 24 if this last-ditch effort to get the two sides governing together fails.

As leader of the largest party, Paisley is slated to be elected as the head of the assembly, with Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader whom Paisley has often called a "terrorist," likely to be elected to the No. 2 post. Adams has said he is ready to share power and is waiting to see if Paisley is "prepared to join the rest of us."

"I hope that he will ultimately agree to work out a way to participate in government," former senator George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) said of Paisley. Mitchell mediated the negotiations that led to the Good Friday agreement. "If you don't go back to power-sharing, it increases the chance of going back to the way it was 20 years ago," he said.

In the interview, Paisley was generally soft-spoken and cheerful, more mellow than his public image, wearing a "Jesus is Lord" lapel pin on his dark blue suit. He laughed about being paged in an airport a few months ago to take a phone call from President Bush, and he chuckled about rumors that Queen Elizabeth II does a wicked impersonation of his distinctive Northern Irish accent.

He said that when he looked back on his long public life, he had no regrets. He disagrees with critics who say he polarized Northern Ireland, marginalized moderate Protestant leaders, fueled bigotry and incited violence. He also served up his characteristic vitriol toward Sinn Fein and the IRA.

"The IRA has held onto their guns," he said. "They've held onto their crime. They've held onto their blood money. Until they make the move, there will be no move made by the Protestants.

"Are we going to tolerate terrorists in the future government of Northern Ireland? My position is absolutely crystal clear: We have said no."

Despite consistently positive assessments of the IRA's disarmament by independent monitors, Paisley insisted that the IRA had made only a "partial withdrawal from criminal acts." The latest report, issued April 26, said the IRA leadership was committed to following a political and peaceful path and was not sanctioning criminal activities. It added, however, that the group faced a "challenging task in ensuring full compliance" by all its members. It also warned that paramilitary groups on both sides were continuing to recruit members and trying to acquire weapons.

Paisley said the IRA's progress toward disarmament had come as a result of pressure from him and other Protestants. "If we break now, if we say, 'All right, we will sit down with you now,' then the cause is lost," he said.

Alex Maskey, a member of Sinn Fein's executive committee and a former mayor of Belfast, said his party was ready to govern with Paisley. Although "not enamored with the idea," he said, the party was willing to try, despite what he called Paisley's "extremely poisonous" impact on Northern Ireland politics. "We want power-sharing reestablished pronto. There's no government here in the North."

In Ballymena, some of Paisley's supporters, including David Brown, a retired auto engineer, said they hoped Paisley would continue to boycott the assembly. Brown said he was a "loyalist" who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain and was opposed to Sinn Fein, which aims to reunite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. "I don't agree with Sinn Fein, and that means don't talk to them," he said.

But many more Protestants interviewed in Paisley's home district said they believed he should choose pragmatic politics over hard-core ideology. "He'll dig his heels in for a while, but he'll have to agree. It's just a matter of time," said Ryan McCaig, 34, a Paisley backer with heavily tattooed arms.

Alan Steed, 53, a Protestant who served in the British army, said now that people have had a taste of peace and are enjoying the boom in construction and tourism it has brought to Northern Ireland, they cannot return to the days of army checkpoints and bombings. "Peace is fantastic," he said. "I can drive anywhere now. Running around and killing people doesn't work. Those days are over. It's much better to argue in the assembly."

In the interview in London, Paisley said he had made mistakes but that he didn't regret his famous "anti-Christ" comment. He insisted that he was not anti-Catholic but opposed to "the Catholic Church's doctrines."

He said he spoke for working-class people who counted on him to do what he promised. People didn't need a "dictionary to understand" his words, he said, because he gave it to them "plain and straight."

Asked if that was because his career had been built on using simple, negative phrases and words such as "not an inch" and "never," he responded: "Our Lord said 'no' -- he said no to evil. You can't condemn a man because he says no to evil. We have said no, and we have no apologies. We have also said yes to very many things."