Maze prison peace centre gets go-ahead

New facility at site of former prison aims to pass on lessons of peace process to other global troublespots

Plans to turn Northern Ireland's former high-security Maze prison into a centre to promote conflict resolution around the world have finally been agreed after years of political deadlock.

Northern Ireland's deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, said today that he and the first minister, Peter Robinson, had reached an agreement on the development of the site, which will include a "peace building" and "conflict resolution facility".

Announcement of the deal came hours before it emerged that the remains of one of the "disappeared" – IRA victims abducted, killed and buried in secret during the Troubles – had been found. The remains, in Monaghan, near the Irish border, are those of Charlie Armstrong, abducted by the South Armagh brigade of the IRA in 1981, the Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains said.

Last year the Commission received a map from an anonymous source claiming to detail the location of Armstrong's remains. His children have fought for three decades to establish the truth over what happened to their father.

Armstrong is one of the three remaining IRA "Disappeared" yet to have been given a burial. The other two are Gerard Evans and Captain Robert Nairac.

The new facility at the site of the Maze, which will be known as the International Conflict Transformation Centre (ICTC), aims to pass on the lessons of the peace process to other global troublespots.

The centre, funded by the EU, will retain a number of the prison's buildings, including one of the infamous H-blocks and the hospital where 10 republican hunger strikers, led by IRA prisoner Bobby Sands, starved to death in 1981.

Announcing that Sinn Féin and the DUP had resolved their differences on the future of the site next to the M1 motorway outside Belfast, McGuinness said they would soon make an announcement about the deal that would open up the 365-acre site's economic potential. It is also thought the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society will move to the site.

The buildings to be retained recall the history of republican prisoners held there, but also of loyalist inmates, prison staff and the site's earlier history as a second world war airfield.

The issue of how best to redevelop the site have raged since the prison closed in 2000 with Unionists expressing concern over any plan to retain buildings linked to the republican hunger strikers.

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/29/maze-prison-peace-centre