Will Clinton weigh in during British elections?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 7, 1997 | by Jamie Dettmer

Britain's beleaguered Conservative Party Prime Minister John Major ended nearly a yearlong guessing game on March 17 by announcing the date for the next general election. When Britons come to cast their ballots on May 1 they will have experienced a six-and-half-week election campaign -- the longest in modern British history. The signs are that Tony Blair's New Labor Party will surge to victory and end 18 years of Tory rule. But a lot still can happen, especially if the length of the campaign and the troubles in Northern Ireland are factored in.

U.S. administrations generally remain impeccably neutral when it comes to British elections: The "special relationship" between America and Britain ensures a continuity in trans-Atlantic closeness regardless of which party forms the government in London -- Washington hasn't had to worry too deeply about the results of British polls. But this election may witness a subtle departure from the traditional neutral stance adopted in the past -- that is, if the Provisional Irish Republican Army gets a chance to draw in the Clinton administration -- a development that could harm Anglo-American relations.

To say the Northern Ireland peace process has stalled would be an understatement. The British province is on the brink of being engulfed once again in terrible sectarian violence. The mainly Catholic Irish Republican Army terrorist force, or IRA, which wants to unite the six British counties of the north of Ireland with the 26 counties of the Irish Republic, has made no placatory moves since reneging on a truce in February 1996 and has undertaken several tactical bombing missions in the last year. The two pro-British and mainly Protestant Loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Force and the Ulster Volunteer Force, have retained their cease-fires but are being riven by the emergence of a third militant splinter organization that detonated a bomb in the Irish Republic in early March.

Disturbingly, attitudes are hardening within the constitutional parties of Northern Ireland as well. In an interview with news alert! a few days before Major announced the poll date, David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionists, the province's largest pro-British party, disclosed his wish to see London reintroduce a system of internment in Northern Ireland for suspected terrorists. The last time Britain used the imprisonment-without-trial system was during the early seventies, and the lid blew off Northern Ireland. Words are dangerous in the province and the word "internment" spells aggression.

Britain's election campaign will give the different forces and parties in Northern Ireland the opportunity to strut their stuff end please their core support. But of them all, the IRA likely will be the most sophisticated in the tactics it employs in the run-up to the polls. One clear objective for the IRA is to shake the peace process free of the British demand that it commit to a permanent cessation of violence before being allowed to enter all-party talks. Another aim for Irish Republicans is to eke out American sympathy and once again appear as genuine peacemakers to politicians this side of the Atlantic.

In a bid to pull off both, the IRA well may call a temporary cease-fire. This could attract the attention of a Clinton administration eager for a peace break-through. While the campaign is on, Major will have no chance to engage in any meaningful dialogue with the IRA -- that could appear intransigent in Washington and prompt critical words from an administration that never has liked him.

Blair's reaction will be crucial. He well may be tempted to grandstand and make postelection promises about letting the IRA into all-party talks ahead of any process of disarmament. If Blair does, Clinton well may fall into an IRA trap and sing his praises.

RELATED ARTICLE: Silence Proves the Better Part of Valor

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri hardly is a shrinking violet. Normally he can be banked on as a hard-hitting partisan voice in any controversy swirling around Washington. But in recent weeks, while Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and other Democratic leaders have leapt to defend the Clinton administration, Gephardt has been noticeably reticent when it comes to talking about the campaign-finance scandal and the election contributions of foreign companies such as the Indonesian Lippo Group.

A quick search of Federal Election Commission records casts some light on why Gephardt may believe silence is the better part of valor. During the last six years Lippo-related officials have contributed more than $20,000 to Gephardt's congressional and presidential campaigns, as well as to his leadership political-action committee, the Effective Government Committee.

Of course, Gephardt isn't the only Democrat outside the administration who benefited from the largesse of the China-linked Indonesian conglomerate. Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia received $4,000 from Lippo over the course of one week in June 1993 and a further $1,000 in July 1994. Rep. Joe Kennedy received $4,000 from Lippo and his uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, received $6,000 from the Hsi Lai Buddhist temple and $1,000 from Lippo.