Sir, - The Irish Times of August 28th reported that Prof Dermot Keogh, Head of the History Department of UCC, told the Merriman School that it was inexplicable that this State had failed to join the Partnership for Peace (PfP).
The Peace & Neutrality Alliance (PANA) has been campaigning to defend Irish neutrality and to ensure Irish troops engage only in peacekeeping operations directly through the UN or the OSCE and is very pleased that this State has not joined the PfP. Fianna Fail, the Green Party, Democratic Left, Sinn Fein and many Independents ruled out membership of the PfP at the last election and PANA would hope that these parties will stick by their election pledges.
The reasons why Ireland should not join the PfP include the following:
PfP is "a path to full NATO membership for some and a strong lasting link to the Alliance for all." (President Clinton, Detroit, November 1996), and a state committed to positive neutrality should not be so linked to a nuclear armed military alliance.
"Active participation in the PfP will play an important role in the evolutionary process of the enlargement of NATO." (NATO statement at the launch of PfP, 1994).
It is argued that Ireland could pick and choose what parts of the PfP it wants to take part in and would participate only in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions with NATO. But PfP can also include combat missions and, whether it likes it or not, as a PfP member Ireland would be identified with all PfP actions.
Ireland has a well-earned reputation as a peace-keeper for the UN and, as a country with a history of anti-colonialism, is held in high regard in countries which themselves opposed colonialism and imperialism largely from states that now are in the PfP. If Ireland becomes a "peacemaker" for NATO's surrogate, our international reputation will be greatly damaged.
Co-operating militarily with NATO would be in complete contradiction to a policy based on positive neutrality. While it is true that other neutral European states have joined the PfP, it does not mean they were right to do so. There was virtually no debate in those countries about PfP membership.
As a historian, Prof. Keogh knows that the tradition of Irish neutrality can be traced back to Wolfe Tone's belief that Ireland should be neutral in the English Spanish War in the 18th century and that this tradition has been in conflict with an imperialist one well expressed in many aspects of Irish culture, not the least of which would be back issues of The Irish Times, so it is not surprising that there is some support for re-establishing our links with it. PANA opposes membership of the PfP or indeed the other NATO linked organisation, the nuclear-armed WEU. It seeks to amend Article 29.2 of our Constitution which reads; "Ireland affirms its adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination," by adding: "To this end the State shall, in particular, maintain a policy of non-membership of military alliances".
We hope that Prof Keogh will support us. - Yours, etc.,
Chair, Peace & Neutrality Alliance, Blackrock, Co Dublin.