UK News 14-12-2000 Clinton: Peace Not A Spectator Sport who: Bill Clinton what: Pledges US support for crackdown on terrorism where: BELFAST when: Yesterday snippet: Speaking in Belfast on the final state visit of his presidential career, Bill Clinton yesterday pledged the support of the CIA for "a joint anti-terror crusade with MI5 and the Irish Special Branch," reports The Mirror. "Mr Clinton bade an emotional farewell to the country that is his best chance for a place in the annals of international peacemaking," says The Telegraph. "The US will intensify its co-operation with British and Irish authorities on counterterrorism to combat groups seeking to undermine the Good Friday accords through violence," he told an all-party conference at the Odyssey Centre. "We are going to get experts from the three nations together in the near future and the US will continue to work to root out terrorism and make this agreement take hold." He told the 8,000-strong crowd at the hockey arena that the peace process "unlike ice hockey, is not a spectator sport" and without naming any specific terrorist groups he warned that the enemies of the peace process "do not need your approval, they only need your apathy". "Just as the ice was melted to allow last night`s event to take place," writes The Guardian`s Ireland correspondent Rosie Cowan, "so it is hoped his trip will lead to a thawing of relations between unionists and republicans". [... more]

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