Northern Ireland is currently experiencing an "imperfect peace", but nonetheless it must be remembered that there has been a dramatic and sustained reduction in violence over the last five years, the Alliance Party's annual conference heard in Bangor last night.
Alliance opened its 29th conference under a new leader, Assembly member Mr Sean Neeson, who today will deliver his keynote address.
Yesterday he signalled that he plans to harden the party's image. He accused the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, of accepting the Hillsborough Declaration merely because Sinn Fein had rejected it.
"There is no doubt in my mind that if Sinn Fein had accepted the declaration the Ulster Unionists would have rejected it. While the Hillsborough Declaration provides novel and imaginative ideas in trying to solve the present impasse, the primacy of the Good Friday agreement cannot be ignored."
Dr Philip McGarry, the party president, told the conference that despite the major political progress made over the last year Northern Ireland had in some ways become an even more divided society. He warned: "Drumcree 5 is likely to prove as bitter as Drumcree 4.
"Northern Ireland remains a bitterly divided society. Housing is more segregated than it ever has been. Far from peace bringing people together, more and more areas are commonly described as `nationalist' or `unionist'. In reality this means `Protestant-free zones' and `Catholic-free zones'.
"We face months of sectarian protest at Harryville, and Drumcree 5 looms like an ugly cloud ahead," he added.
Nonetheless political progress was being made. "While the peace is an imperfect peace . . there has been a dramatic and sustained reduction in violence over the last five years, and a consequent improvement in the quality of life."
He accused different parties to the Belfast Agreement of cherry-picking. "Sinn Fein has failed to make any genuine effort whatsoever on the psychologically important issue of disarmament. The Unionist Party has failed to get on with setting up an executive. Had they done so last autumn, as anticipated in the agreement, it is likely that some decommissioning would have already happened."
Dr McGarry said the party's vision of the future was "to move beyond the narrow confines of institutionalised sectarianism and towards a genuinely pluralist society in which religion is seen as a matter of private faith rather than political identity.
"Alliance members and voters resent the proposition that their religious background necessarily identifies them as either an orange nationalist or as a green nationalist. There are many in Northern Ireland who genuinely value people before territory and who look forward to the new millennium rather than back to either 1690 or 1916.
