The IRA have finally apologised to their victims -- a step that may place the initiative for Northern Ireland's future in Catholic hands for the first time, reports James Corbett It was only a few sentences long, but it signalled that one of Europe's most violent militant groups is finally ready to lay down its guns. Last Tuesday, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) issued an unprecedented apology to the relatives of nearly 650 innocent civilian victims killed during its 30-year reign of violence in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. Now is an appropriate time to "address all of the deaths and injuries of non-combatants caused by us," read the statement. "We offer our sincere apologies and condolences to their families." The apology went as far as to acknowledge the "grief and pain" felt by relatives of combatants on all sides, although it fell short of extending the apology to all victims of the Northern Ireland conflict. The statement came just days before the 30th anniversary of Bloody Friday, one of the most notorious dates in Northern Ireland's troubled history. Nine people died and hundreds more were injured when the IRA launched a 21-bomb assault on Belfast. Nevertheless, the surprise apology represents a moment of progress in the province's stalled peace process. Just four days before the IRA's statement, some 113 police officers were hurt in Belfast after rioting broke out between Nationalists and Unionists. Summer is 'marching season' in Northern Ireland, when Protestants -- associated with the Unionist movement that seeks to maintain unity with Britain -- take to the streets in ceremonial procession. The latest riots followed the traditional 12 July marches, the season's high point, which commemorates the Battle of the Boyne. A few days prior to that disturbance, David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist leader and Northern Ireland's first minister, had announced his resignation in protest at the IRA's reluctance to decommission its weapons. Subsequent talks held between representatives of both sides in the province, along with Tony Blair and the Republic of Ireland's prime minister, Bertie Ahern, failed to break the impasse. The IRA's announcement was not just unexpected, it was also unprecedented. At its height, the IRA seldom apologised to its victims. Even when missions had clearly failed, often with the most appalling consequences, an apology was rarely forthcoming. In the handful of previous occasions that the IRA had seen fit to say sorry, it tended to do so in the manner of a reluctant schoolchild and limited its retractions to individual outrages. Apologies were always delayed, sometimes by years. By saying sorry in such broad and unequivocal terms this time, the militant group is drawing a clear line under the past and giving a strong sign that it intends to take no more lives. Moreover, its statement reveals a ready acceptance that it has adopted the political process as the desired method in furthering its aims. Unionists, however, have yet to be convinced. Responding to the IRA apology in the House of Commons, Trimble said: "It is quite significant that this statement says nothing at all about the recent violence that the IRA has been involved in, nothing about what their future conduct is going to be." Not only was he referring to the gangsterism that has gripped Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement -- mainly spearheaded by former IRA members whose previous role has become obsolete -- he was also alluding to the reticence of the IRA in decommissioning arms that had prompted his own resignation as first minister a fortnight earlier. Trimble may have had a point. The IRA have made no political promises and their gesture was bathed in rhetoric. But what distinguishes the apology is that it places the initiative firmly in the hands of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA and the Nationalist movement. The Unionists are now in disarray, largely split between those who unequivocally reject the Good Friday Agreement -- the 1998 peace settlement that forms the basis for the current détente -- and those who are fast losing faith in it. Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party, traditionally the progressive and mainstream face of unionism and partner for peace with moderate nationalist parties such as the SDLP, is fast losing ground to the hawkish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), led by the Reverend Ian Paisley -- the voice of extreme Protestant opinion. Should the DUP make electoral inroads in next year's elections, it would marginalise Unionism even further away from the power brokers in London and Dublin, where it is already viewed as an increasingly obstinate and chauvinistic force. This could only mean that Unionism is likely to get even shorter shrift from any future negotiations on the province's future. By contrast the nationalists -- militaristic simplicities now largely confined to a different era of the province's history -- look to carry on the momentum. Sinn Fein, who won the Belfast mayoral elections in June, have seen a continuous rise in support throughout the peace process and have every reason to continue backing it. Along with the SDLP, their joint vote is now consistently over the 40 per cent mark. Census findings due next year are expected to show that Northern Ireland's Protestant majority has almost disappeared. This could spell crisis for the Unionists. Their political position has always been underpinned by support from London, a demographic majority and the Nationalist political position being undermined by their violence. With these three key factors now called into question and their historically strong leadership damaged by internal divisions, Northern Ireland's future as part of the United Kingdom is being called into question. For now, that remains unlikely. Despite the new moderate tone extolled by the Nationalist side, sectarian conflagrations continue to break out and there is little real sense of friendship between the Protestant and Catholic communities. Old hatreds die hard and, until a genuine sense of partnership is established, the likelihood of Dublin even considering taking on the troubled province to form a united Ireland remains a remote nationalist fantasy. But in a conflict that did not end with a clear victory for either side, the IRA statement can be viewed as just one step, among many others, down the path towards peace, reconciliation and, just maybe, unity.
