Can the Northern Ireland peace process be revived?

Submitted by Anon on 2 May, 2003 - 1:34

By Patrick Murphy

Attempts to revive the peace process in Northern Ireland (NI) have stalled. After George Bush's visit to Belfast during the Iraq war, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern expected to be able to announce the reopening of the NI Executive. Elections are due in May and the two governments don't want to postpone them.

Without a working NI government, however, the elections are likely to be pointless, and, moreover, to produce significant victories for Sinn Fein and the anti-Agreement Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Given that likely scenario, the elections probably will be delayed.

The NI Executive was suspended when Unionist Party leader and First Minister David Trimble threatened to resign in protest at the lack of progress in IRA decommissioning. His attempts to keep his party in the powersharing government have always been under pressure from Ian Paisley's DUP, but they were blown apart by Republican blunders late last year. A paramilitary raid on Castlereagh police centre was laid at the door of the IRA, three Sinn Fein members were arrested and charged with training FARC guerrillas in Columbia, and a Republican intelligence operation was exposed at the heart of government in Stormont. These events made it impossible for Trimble to maintain his position in government and at the same time lead the Unionists.

Blair and Ahern believed that they had secured from the IRA a definitive statement that their war was over and their paramilitary wing was to dissolve. The IRA did deliver a confidential statement to the governments last week, apparently believing that it would satisfy their demands. Not for the first time, however, there is much wrangling over the precise words used. The IRA has avoided specifics in favour of general undertakings and assurances. Tony Blair has effectively rejected this as inadequate by asking for specific clarifications, for example, on weapons and punishment beatings

The general assurances of the IRA would probably have been enough for the two governments. They would not, however, be enough for Trimble, and he is the key to progress. Here is a concrete example of the central problem in Republican analysis of the Irish question.

Republicans have operated for decades on the assumption that they will persuade the British government to leave, to pull troops out, to re-unify Ireland. Central to their strategy was armed struggle, but linked to it tactically was electoralism and community politics. In fact, the people they needed to persuade and deal with were the Unionist minority in Ireland, the majority in the North.

The great paradox of the anti-British Republicans is that, in effect, they relied on the British to coerce the northern Protestants into a united Ireland. Right now Sinn Fein leaders claim that the IRA statement is absolutely clear and demand that the two governments accept it and revive the NI Executive. In fact it is of no real consequence what the two governments think if the Unionist community can not be persuaded that Republicans intend to relate to them democratically rather than militarily.

In the long run the IRA and Sinn Fein will probably produce a form of words that permits the process to restart. They have far more to gain from it than anyone else and no other strategy. They can afford, however, to stall in the short term because they will almost certainly be winners in any sudden election. Trimble also needs the Executive to be revived as he has risked all on the idea that devolved government can produce stability and progress. The IRA will not use any words or carry out any act that smells even faintly of surrender or defeat but they have ended their armed struggle on the basis that it was bankrupt and counter-productive.

The new strategy is to institutionalise Irish unity through the expansion of cross border co-operation and policy making and the principle of "parity of esteem" within the North. This strategy requires a powersharing government in the NI. Sinn Fein's manoeuvres and delays will seek to achieve that on the best terms for them, but they do need Stormont government to be revived.

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