Clouds over Ulster talks as they end in sunshine
From DAILY TELEGRAPH April 2nd, 1999
Mood has changed, but fundamental issues have still to be tackled, says Toby Harnden
By TOBY HARNDEN
THE sun shone at Hillsborough Castle and all seemed well with the world.
Exhausted but smiling, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern announced how the simultaneous
handover of terrorist arms and devolution of power to Northern Ireland could
happen. Sitting nearby was Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein. A few yards
away stood David Trimble, Northern Ireland's First Minister-in-waiting.
Mr Adams caught Mr Trimble's eye and gestured with a nod of his head that
the Ulster Unionist leader should move through the media throng so he could
deliver his address after the two premiers had stepped down. Mr Trimble
looked Mr Adams in the eye and nodded vigorously. But the reality behind
the brave face displayed so adeptly by Mr Blair and Mr Ahern was that they
had failed to achieve what they had flown to Northern Ireland to do. Despite
38 hours of talks, ending with a 20-hour marathon session, little discernible
progress had been made on the key issue. For perhaps the first time in Mr
Blair's term of office, the Midas touch had deserted him. Having pulled
off the seemingly impossible task of brokering the Good Friday Agreement,
this year's lap of honour had not gone to plan. Mr Adams and his republican
colleagues were present as the Hillsborough Declaration was announced but
their body language showed they would rather have been almost anywhere else.
The declaration was - by another name - the deal Sinn Fein had refused.
The circle the two premiers had attempted to square was reconciling the
demand of Unionists for decommissioning of IRA arms before taking seats
on an executive with Sinn Fein's insistence on its absolute right to those
seats regardless of IRA actions. In a significant shift in Anglo-Irish policy,
the two governments effectively backed Mr Trimble. While decommissioning
was not a "precondition", they said, it was an "obligation" under the Good
Friday Agreement. There was language designed to give comfort to republicans.
Guns would have to be "put beyond use" rather than surrendered and this
would be "voluntary", performed as part of a "collective act of reconciliation".
But decommissioning had to take place. Richard McAuley, Mr Adams's aide
and a former IRA prisoner, said: "You have to be careful about semantics.If what is at the heart of the language remains something which is Sinn Féin delivering IRA weapons then we can't do it." "You can call it a precondition or an obligation or you can call it Swiss cheese but we still can't do it."
This is Sinn Féin's public and private position. The IRA has said it will
never decommission. Despite the positive "spin" put out throughout the week
by Alistair Campbell, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, that a deal
was on the cards, there has been no indication from republicans that their
position on decommissioning had or would change. Having recognised this,
the two governments again extended the deadline for the setting up of the
executive. Effectively, that gives the IRA six weeks to hand in weapons.
The underlying concern among officials is that, having spent nearly a decade
designing arrangements intended to bring Sinn Féin in from the cold, the
deal will unravel unless the IRA does what the IRA has always declared it
will never do. But politicians from all sides were drawing comfort from
this week's events. For Mr Trimble, the unfinished business of Good Friday
has been settled with Mr Blair opting to honour his pledge in a letter to
the UUP leader rather than the letter of the agreement. |
