Datuk Shahrir invited Lord ALderdice for a breakfast talk in Parliament

Accompanied by Mr. Jasper Veen, Secretary General of the Liberal International, Mr. Hubertus von Welck, Regional Director and Mr. Rainer Heufers, Project Director of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Lord Alderdice discussed the topic with a few members of the BNBBC.

Lord Alderdice pointed out that the decommissioning of weapons and a power-sharing executive of Protestants and Catholics were the key factors in the peace process. The history of violence in the province made it rather skeptical whether all sides would commit to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organizations and used any influence they had to achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms. It was also a question whether the decommissioning of weapons would end the violence in the provinces.

Lord Alderdice also discussed about power-sharing executive of Protestants and Catholics. Under power-sharing rules agreed in the Good Friday Agreement, the largest party nominates a First Minister – a sort of prime minister – in any government, with a deputy named from the main party on the other side of the religious divide. Similarly, a chairman of each parliamentary committee will be selected from a party different to the Minister in portfolio. However, efforts to revive the moribund political process have been stalled because the largest Protestant party, the Democratic Unionist (DUP), refuse to share power with Sinn Fein, the main Catholic party and political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

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