Suspension of disbelief

With Northern Irish peace talks still bogged down in the mire, the tenability of the Good Friday Agreement falls into question, writes Gavin Bowd from London
This weekend, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland John Reid temporarily suspended the Stormont Assembly. The political parties and associated paramilitary organisations now have six weeks to negotiate a way forward for the Ulster peace process. But does this constitutional sleight of hand merely postpone the realisation that the venerated 1998 Good Friday Agreement is fundamentally unworkable?
The previous six-week suspension was precipitated by the sudden resignation of First Minister David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. Trimble was exasperated by the unwillingness of the Provisional IRA to decommission its weapons arsenal -- a cache that has fed the killings of up to 2,000 people since 1969 -- and left in protest.
The Good Friday Agreement had foreseen paramilitary weapons being put beyond use within two years of its signature. The Unionist majority had entered into negotiations, then into government, with the IRA's political representatives, Sinn Fein, before any move was made to show that the "war" was definitively "over." Continued stonewalling over the disarmament issue, and electoral gains by the anti-agreement Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) made Trimble's resignation unavoidable.
A recent take-it-or-leave-it proposal by the British and Irish governments failed to resolve differences. Under the proposal, British army bases were to be evacuated and demolished and helicopters used only for "training missions." The Royal Ulster Constabulary, long a sticking point in negotiations, would lose its Special Branch, as well as its name. According to the Weston Park declaration, decommissioning was an "indispensable" part of the peace process, but not a condition for the implementation of the above measures. "You'd almost think it was the Brits who were surrendering," joked one senior Irish Republican in his comments to The Guardian.
The proposals were not enough to convince the Unionists, however. The nationalist SDLP supported them, yet disingenuously refused to encourage young Catholics to join the new police service. It was in this confused situation, against the background of a potentially murderous bomb attack in London by "dissident" republicans, that the head of the decommissioning body, General Jean de Chastelain, revealed a plan for the IRA to put its arms permanently and verifiably beyond use.
The technical proposal was hailed by Sinn Fein as a historic breakthrough, which would make the Unionists responsible for any breakdown in the peace process. The spin put on this last-minute coup was as misleading as it was predictable. The IRA had not committed itself to any timetable for decommissioning: it had only accepted a certain form of disarmament that it might deign to follow in the distant future. Unionist rejection of the so-called peace offer was thus unsurprising.
It is becoming clearer by the day that the Good Friday Agreement is a no-win situation for the moderates who signed up for it. IRA foot-dragging has pushed Ulster Protestants towards the DUP. At the same time, Unionist recalcitrance and the IRA cease- fire have made Sinn Fein increasingly attractive to Catholic voters, especially young people who missed the worst of The Troubles. These were the two parties to denounce the suspension of Stormont, as they expect to establish clear water between themselves and their moderate rivals in new elections for the assembly. But Sinn Fein and the DUP know that six weeks will probably exacerbate the divisions that nurture their electoral growth.
IRA decommissioning is most unlikely when it is precisely this arsenal that makes it so politically powerful. Notwithstanding its remarkable electoral career, Sinn Fein has significantly less voters, in proportional and absolute terms, than the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru in Wales. It is the shadow of the gunman that guarantees Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams invitations to the White House and Downing Street rather than the amused disdain that is endured by his Celtic nationalist brethren.
As for Unionists, they have only received praise for their continued concessions. Such "gallant losers" have seen the IRA and other paramilitary groups progressively placed on the same level as the security forces of a democratically-elected, internationally- recognised government. Further humiliation is not going to be tolerated.
Whether there are fresh elections in September or a definite suspension of Stormont, the outcome is likely to be that the institutions agreed in 1998 will be unworkable. Hard-liners will have captured strategic points in the political landscape. The IRA arsenal will be intact, and loyalist sectarian murder gangs will resume their killing sprees with a vengeance. As demographics move in favour of Ulster's Catholic community and exasperation grows in London and Dublin, extreme nationalists can prepare the next stage in the bloody struggle for the north-east corner of the island of Ireland.
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