Effect Of The Peace Train Organisation

EDM number 1471 in 1994-95, proposed by Harry Barnes on 17/10/1995.

That this House congratulates the Peace Train Organisation for its imaginative and broad-based campaigning since 1989 to challenge the IRA's bombing and disruption of the Belfast-Dublin railway link and Loyalist murders of Catholic taxi drivers; believes that the Peace Train, which was under the tutelage of the Irish President, Mary Robinson, became a powerful symbol of the unity of the peoples of these islands against terrorism; further believes that these initiatives played an important role in isolating terrorists and their apologists and thereby helped to create the conditions for the ceasefires of 1994; notes the decision of the Peace Train Organisation to formally dissolve the campaign once it had achieved its original objectives and commends its final, successful and 700-strong Belfast-Dublin Peace Train on Saturday 14th October which was confident and optimistic about the prospects for a permanent peace; is concerned, however, about the continuing terrorist campaign of intimidation, including nearly 200 beatings, four murders and many firebombings since the ceasefires, as well as the continued concealment of the disappeared, around 20 people murdered by the IRA, whose families want the right to give them a decent burial; and wishes well to all those who wish to highlight these terrible abuses of human rights.

This motion has been signed by a total of 18 MPs.