Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FAREWELL TO A DEAR FRIEND » »
EX-US president hails ‘legacy of hope’ Clinton on ‘Ulster’s Martin Luther King’
The courageous, determined hero who preached peace & made peace happen. A great man.
In our darkest days he knew the only thing worth fighting for was peace. And he refused to give up until he helped deliver it. Thank you for changing our lives. And our future.
FORMER US President Bill Clinton paid heartfelt tribute to his old pal John Hume yesterday, the man he described as Northern Ireland’s Martin Luther King.
His handwritten notes were translated into 10 precise paragraphs to honour the Derry man and his passion for peace, his abhorrence of violence, and his unfailing faith that good would prevail.
It was pressure from the US that eventually helped focus the world on the horrendous levels of death and chaos the SDLP man wanted stopped. It was to the US that John Hume turned to for support at the most vital times as he forged on.
And it was the US who bent to his wishes to give Sinn Fein a place in the process in a vital turn of the key to unlock peace.
In a solemn message yesterday, Mr Clinton wrote: “Hillary and I are deeply saddened by the passing of our friend John Hume, who fought his long war for peace in Northern Ireland.
“His chosen weapons: an unshakeable commitment to nonviolence, persistence, kindness, and love. With his enduring sense of honor, he kept marching on against all odds towards a brighter future for all the children of Northern Ireland.
“Through his faith in principled compromise, and his ability to see his adversaries as human beings, John helped forge the peace that has held to this day. I’ll never forget our night in Derry in 1995, with the town square and blocks around full of hopeful faces, walking with him across the Peace Bridge nearly 20 years later, and all of the moments we shared in between.
“His legacy will live on in every generation of Northern Ireland’s young people who make John’s choice, to live free of the hatred and horror of sectarian violence.
“And it will endure in the hearts of those of us who loved him and will be shaped by his example to the end of our days.
“Our love and prayers are with Pat, their children, and grandchildren. May he rest in peace, never losing the twinkle in his eye or the sly smile that lighted our lives.”
In England, Mr Hume followed his former party leader Gerry Fitt to influence London and Westminster, where he was regarded as a rare breed – a likeable Irishman with brains and
Hume “stuck with it”. Mr Adams said: “The peace process, I would like to think was his huge achievement.
“Although he has been ill for some time, I do think he had a sense of that, by persistence and by the way that he was prepared to look.
“This is sometimes put in quite simple terms. On the one hand you will hear that John Hume sacrificed his party and Sinn Fein were too crafty and all of that. That isn’t what this was