It’s Those Guns Again

We have been here before, of course: the apparently insurmountable political deadlock, the fear that the devolved government will implode, the endless meetings with the British and Irish governments followed by the patched-up compromise that offers a

The Rocky Road Toward Peace

APR 10, 1998
The Good Friday agreement is signed. A blueprint for radical reform, it calls for an elected Assembly and a cross-party cabinet with devolved powers. More than 71% of Northern Ireland voters approve the deal in a May referendum.
JUN 25, 1998
In the first Assembly elections, moderates on both sides predominate. The Assembly chooses Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble as First Minister one week later.
DEC 2, 1999
After talks led by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell break an impasse over the decommissioning of weapons, Britain devolves power to the Assembly and Executive.
FEB. 11, 2000
Following Canadian General John de Chastelain’s report that no paramilitary group has started decommissioning and a resignation threat from Trimble, Britain suspends the Assembly.
MAY 29, 2000
London rescinds the suspension after the I.R.A. pledges to begin putting its arms verifiably beyond use.
MAY 8, 2001
After a year of surprisingly peaceful and successful government, Trimble offers his resignation effective July 1 over the I.R.A.’s refusal to destroy its arms. He does resign seven weeks later.
AUG 1, 2001
Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern present the local parties with a plan to break the decommissioning deadlock by focusing on police reform, a primary area of concern for the I.R.A.
AUG 11, 2001
Britain suspends the Assembly temporarily in order to avoid calling new Assembly elections in the aftermath of Trimble’s resignation. A new six-week negotiation period begins.

breathing space, though no final solution. Northern Ireland has been to the brink and back several times in the three years since the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, always over the failure of the Irish Republican Army to disarm and Protestant unionist insistence that it does.

On Aug. 7, however, the largest party, the Ulster Unionists, gave notice that they would consider no further postponements and that the I.R.A. would have to make some start at an actual hand-over of weaponry if the power-sharing Assembly was to be saved. The British government, after talks with Dublin, suspended the legislature for the second time over this issue in 18 months. But in the end, room was left for maneuver; the suspension lasted only briefly, and a breathing space of six weeks was provided for further party talks. Just the same, says Paul Bew, politics professor at Belfast’s Queen’s University, “It’s the most serious crisis yet, and the gap between the two principal protagonists is widening.”

Although the idea of another suspension shocked the politicians, the buildup to it had been lengthy. In May, Ulster Unionist leader and First Minister David Trimble had lodged a postdated resignation, to go into effect in July if the I.R.A. had not begun their arms handover. Ulster had been without a First Minister since then and was already in partial crisis. Yet at the beginning of the week there were signs of a breakthrough. Canadian General John de Chastelain, head of an international commission set up in 1997 to oversee paramilitary disarmament, reported that the i.r.a. had disclosed the method by which it would destroy its arsenal, although not when this might happen. Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the move as “important” and his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern called it historic, but the unionists were less impressed. “The I.R.A. has taken a significant step toward decommissioning, but it hasn’t actually begun decommissioning,” said Trimble dryly. His stance infuriated Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A., whose president Gerry Adams warned that “no one should underestimate the intensity of this crisis.”

For the I.R.A., of course, the act of handing over weapons is tantamount to surrender, so to describe how they might be destroyed is indeed a big step. Republicans will also argue that the I.R.A. has maintained a cease-fire for four years and that its weapons are effectively out of use. Then there is the claim that the dissident Real I.R.A. gains from any softening of the republican line. This splinter group has been blamed for the car bomb that exploded in a busy west London street on Aug. 2.

Such arguments have little resonance with unionists. They note that the goal of the 1998 peace accord was to see total paramilitary disarmament completed by May 2000. Their argument for focusing primarily on The I.R.A. is that while it is no more murderous than the Protestant paramilitaries, it is the most heavily armed group and it also has potential influence in government through Sinn Fein, which has two cabinet ministers and a sizable presence in the Assembly. Parties backed by private armies should not be represented in a democratic government, the unionists say.

Despite all the political crises, three years after the peace accord was signed, Belfast is full of buzzing new restaurants and shops. Yet in the back streets, the paramilitaries’ guns still mean power. A youth found Friday with bullet-shattered arms and legs in a traditional paramilitary “punishment shooting” offers just one reason why those guns should go.