Sinn F?in joined in:
The IRA cessation ? has now been in place for a total of almost four years ? IRA guns are silent and the Sinn F?in leadership is confident that the IRA remains committed to the objective of a permanent peace ? There has been a particular focus on arms ? Sinn F?in accepts that decommissioning is an essential part of the peace process ? Decommissioning can only come about on a voluntary basis ? In the executive the two Sinn F?in Ministers will make and honour the pledge of office which includes a commitment to non-violence and exclusively peaceful and democratic means ? We reiterate our total commitment to doing everything in our power ? to remove the gun forever from the politics of our country.
The outcome of the Mitchell review was the establishment of the Northern Ireland Executive, and subsequently it put an end to direct rule Westminster in December 1999. The policy-making body of the UUP, the Ulster Unionist Council, narrowly accepted the review ? by 480 votes to 349 ? and Sinn F?in entered the Executive committed to decommissioning. In other words, it meant that the loyalists had to realise that their sound-bite ?no guns, no government? no longer had any meaning; now it was ?government before guns?. From the vantage point of the Apprentice Boys? annual Lundy Day parade in Derry, Edwards sums up Protestant frustrations:
To outsiders, [the parade] is a strange, atavistic and tribal affair. Yet its symbolism is fascinating, for it is not sectarian, it is political. At a time when the Protestant community was riven over the Agreement ? when David Trimble had managed to persuade the Ulster Unionist Council to agree to enter government without IRA decommissioning having occurred, and when the Protestant community were still reeling after the appointment of McGuinness (whom they knew to have been the IRA Chief of Staff) as Minister for Education ? it was extraordinary to watch the burning of an enormous effigy of Lundy ? a representative of the British government who, three centuries earlier, had been accused of being on the point of selling out the people of Derry.
What Edwards believes is that once again ? as though history moves in circles ? the British government was selling out the Protestants of Northern Ireland. True, if it were meant to be in accordance with the Agreement, the impossible became reality. Edwards also argues that ?from the unionist perspective it seemed as though the British, Irish and US governments always reacted to republican intransigence by pressurising David Trimble into further compromises,? i.e. by giving concessions to nationalists.
However, on the day the UUC voted on the Mitchell review, Bruce Anderson ? as usual ready to castigate the political landscape ? criticised unionists for being stubborn and argued that they would not get a better deal. He recognised the flaws in the peace process,though, but at the same time he believed unionists should acknowledge the advantages they could get from an executive. He does not, however, present any concrete examples. Furthermore, Anderson believed that ?unionists are entitled to reassure themselves that there will be a binding timetable for decommissioning, and that Saturday?s concessions will be the last concessions. Government before guns ? but the guns must follow in short order.?
Presently, a year and a half later, there has not been any significant progress on IRA?s decommissioning.
Trimble?s Ultimatum Revisited?Guns go or I go,? David Trimble threatened recently. It resembled events in early 2000, when Peter Mandelson, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, had to suspend the Northern Ireland Assembly in order to prevent Trimble from resigning. The background at that time was the ever-recurrent issue of arms decommissioning. Despite the promises Sinn F?in had made after the Mitchell review, IRA still failed to make any progress. A few months after the suspension, ?the IRA released a statement saying that it was ready to begin a process that would ?completely and verifiably? put its arms beyond use,? and this lead to the reinstatement of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Shortly after, two independent weapon inspectors, Martti Ahtisaari and Cyril Ramaphosa, reported that they had been to IRA weapon bunks and secured that the weapons could not be used without their knowledge. Apparently, this was the greatest progress the peace process had made for years, but of course it was not enough.
The fact that IRA is determined to keep its arms in store confirms loyalist suspicion of IRA?s goal of uniting Ireland with force. Although Ireland revoked its constitutional claim over Northern Ireland in 1999, there still is a deep-rooted mistrust of what is believed to be the nationalist?s real agenda. Michael O?Neill explains:
The spectacle of paroled terrorists f?ted as heroes at Sinn F?in?s party convention almost derailed the Agreement. A seasoned commentator observed that ?many unionists got a glimpse of the future ? or what they feared might be the future ? and did not like what they saw.? Above all, there is concern ? that once inside the policy process republicanism will use that bridgehead as Trojan Horse for its ?real? agenda.
Going a little further back in time, Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn F?in, stated on a conference in 1986 that ?our main objective, our destination, is the reconquest of Ireland by the Irish people. This means the expulsion of imperialism in all its forms, political, economic, military and culture. [The final objective was] an Ireland, free, united, socialist and Gaelic.? Protestants in Northern Ireland are known to have an elephant?s memory, and it is understandable that they interpret Sinn F?in?s and IRA?s exhaustive efforts to slow down the peace process as a preservation of the old revolutionary line.
The DUP harps on this deep-seated fear and rejects any further concessions to the republicans. Loyalists, who see nothing but Sinn F?in?s ?puppet show? of the peace process, are attracted to Paisley and his argument to entirely scrap the agreement; to ?go right back to the drawing board, negotiating only with parties which are not associated with armed paramilitaries.? In a scholarly perfection of the ?sound-bite?, Paisley declared that ?our alternative is trust opposed to treachery, democracy as in the rest of the UK opposed to fascist dictatorship, truth not lies, pledges kept not broken, no veto for any party except the people of Ulster.?
The Future?As the marching season closes in with increased violence ? Portadown has already experienced a forecaste of what to come ? as well as a general election in June, 2001 could prove to be an extremely dramatic year for the peace process. As already mentioned, Trimble vowed to resign if there is no significant progress of arms decommissioning before July. It is peculiar, but strategic indeed, that the date lies so close to the twelfth parades. There will be an enormous focus ? not least from the outside world ? on the nationalist violence. It is a media stunt by Trimble, awarded the Nobel Prize in 1998. If he resigns, and if it leads to the downfall of the peace process, as some political commentators believe, it ensures that nationalists will suffer a major setback in the outside world?s perception of them. Trimble is well aware that the outside world will regard them as the main obstruction on the road to peace.
However. the loyalists in Northern Ireland are divided more than ever. Representatives of the two largest unionist parties, UUP and DUP, have been going vilely at each others necks, accusing each other ferociously. The DUP has accused the UUP that Trimble?s threat to resign is a ?pathetic and cynical election stunt.? The UUP has accused the DUP of their hypocrisy of sitting in an assembly with Sinn F?in, a party it [the DUP] has vowed that it would not share power with.
Thus, the general election in June has turned into a referendum on the peace process. For Catholics, there are no complications, but for Protestants it matters greatly where they put their vote: UUP or DUP, pro-agreement or not, Paisley or Trimble? ?So far, Trimble?s tactic has been a success, in the immediate sense that [supporters of] the Ulster Unionist Party has united behind him,? but the question is how long his supporters will accept concessions after concessions. That is what they have been served the past seven years since the commencement of the present peace process ? seven years of adding fuel to Paisley?s fire. For Protestants, the peace process has never been in such a critical condition. Indeed, 2001 will see the peace train venture far beyond known territory.
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