Sinn Fein must keep its promises
From DAILY TELEGRAPH February 17th, 2000
David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader, says the time for continuous accommodation is over
By DAVID TRIMBLE
AFTER 10 years of work to achieve devolution in Northern Ireland, it brought
me no pleasure to see its suspension last Friday. It was none the less the
right thing for Peter Mandelson, the Northern Ireland Secretary, to do.
He shares the view taken by my own party, and by most democrats everywhere,
that democracy is incompatible with guns, explosives and private armies
capable of using them. Although a few people were tempted to believe that
it was enough that the guns were currently silent, most took the view that
private armies are a threat, poisoning the trust that must form the basis
of any successful democracy. No deal was more finely balanced than the Belfast
Agreement. Its essence was an offer of fully inclusive government in a reformed
Northern Ireland, in exchange for a complete end to all violence and the
exclusive embracing of democracy. The total decommissioning of all paramilitary
organisations was at the heart of the agreement as far as Unionists were
concerned. Many in my party were dissatisfied that the what, when and where
of decommissioning were not spelt out in the agreement. They agreed to support
it only when Tony Blair published a letter saying that decommissioning should
begin as soon as the machinery of government was put in place. The republican
movement can have no doubt about the importance of decommissioning to Unionists.
It has been at the heart of all negotiations since the first IRA ceasefire
in August 1994, and was the main issue delaying the start of talks involving
Sinn Fein until 1997. Unionists also understood the difficulty of the task
faced by the Sinn Fein leadership in persuading the republican rank and
file to forgo the Armalite. This was why we did not, in the end, insist
that the detail of disarmament be built into the agreement. Instead, we
left Sinn Fein's leadership the time and space to persuade its people in
its own way. Throughout 1999, this failed to happen. Some said Sinn Fein
was trying to brazen it out, hoping to pressure other parties into delivering
their part of the agreement without reciprocation. Some said it was trying
to do its part, but could not until the institutions of the agreement were
in operation in November. I and my colleagues agreed to take what, in Unionist
terms, was the enormous risk of agreeing to set up the new administration
before decommissioning. We did this to end the stalemate and to put Sinn
Fein to the test, to give it the opportunity it said it needed, and to see
if it would reciprocate within a reasonable time. As Senator George Mitchell,
the former talks chairman, knows, it fully understood the basis on which
we took this risk. It was left in no doubt that devolution could not last
beyond January, unless it began the process of decommissioning. The mindset
was revealed almost immediately by two very senior republicans, Pat Doherty
and Martin Ferris, who briefed Irish Americans that, even if no decommissioning
occurred, devolution would not be reversed. Gen John de Chastelain's report
on decommissioning on January 31 revealed that the opportunity had been
squandered. It appears that no attempt was made in December or January to
respond to our move. While I continue to understand the difficulties faced
by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, I am astonished at this chance for
progress being thrown away, and at their continued attempt to evade responsibility
for their failure to honour the agreement. This is the difficulty that must
now be faced. Last Friday's suspension must be the end of the road for a
policy of continuous accommodation. It is understandable that many believe
that last Friday's IRA statement, timed to coincide with Mr Mandelson's
announcement, was a spoiling exercise designed to confuse. For a while,
I withheld disbelief, hoping that something would be built on the vague
wording that said the IRA would consider decommissioning in the context
of the removal of the causes of conflict (usually defined by Sinn Fein to
mean the end of the British presence in Northern Ireland). The IRA's decision
in December to appoint an interlocutor to the commission showed that it
recognised the understanding reached in Senator Mitchell's review in November.
When it came to the crunch, however, it was unable to answer my deputy Seamus
Mallon's two questions: will decommissioning take place and, if so, when?
- questions that Mr Mandelson said had to be answered with absolute clarity.
The republicans must now meet the Mallon and Mandelson tests. |
