Hume resigns from N.Ireland Assembly

Hume is credited with kick-starting the Northern Ireland peace process

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader and Nobel Peace Prize holder John Hume has announced he is stepping down from the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Speaker Lord Alderdice confirmed on Monday he had received a letter from the Nobel peace laureate announcing his decision.

The nationalist leader is expected to be replaced as the Assembly member for Foyle by Annie Courtney.

Hume, 63, who has had health problems in recent years, had signalled earlier this year his intention to step down from the assembly when he believed its future was secure.

He also explained that as an MP for Foyle and a Northern Ireland MEP, he needed to scale down his workload.

Last year he was rushed to hospital in Austria with a ruptured intestine and forced to take several weeks off to recuperate.

Hume, who received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble in 1998, is widely credited with getting the ball rolling in the Northern Ireland peace process.

He has always vociferously opposed violence and has stated that IRA violence has done more to prevent Irish unity than anything else.

After 20 years of violence with no end in sight, it was Hume who began a series of contacts with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in 1988, which were to prove crucial in developing the current co-operation between republicans and unionists.

In 1993 he became the link in talks between Adams and the British government led by John Major, which led to the first IRA ceasefire in 1994.

He always advocated that any talks about the future of Northern Ireland should be as inclusive as possible, and declared he did not care "two balls of roasted snow" about the criticism he faced.

A former teacher, Hume first came to prominence through the civil rights movement in the late 1960s, when Catholics demanded substantial changes to the way Northern Ireland was run.

He co-founded the SDLP in 1970, becoming leader nine years later at the age of 42. He has been the Westminster MP for Foyle since 1983, when the constituency was created.

But when the new Northern Ireland Assembly was formed as a result of the Good Friday Agreement, he stood aside to let fellow SDLP member Seamus Mallon assume the Deputy First Minister's role.

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SDLP
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