DUBLIN — It took a year and a half of wrangling between the two protagonists, David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Gerry Adams' Sinn Fein, to form the new cross-party Northern Ireland government in Belfast in November. Two months later, Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Peter Mandelson, dissolved it.
Four months after that, the Irish Republican Army made its most significant concession to date: a May 6 IRA statement promised to "initiate a process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use". Moves are now afoot to put the power-sharing executive back together again, in a way that would appease Trimble and Mandelson.
Mandelson's rushed-through dissolution of the Stormont executive made three issues crystal clear.
Britain remains in the driver's seat. Both Sinn Fein and the other nationalist party represented in the new executive, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), opposed Mandelson's move, largely for tactical reasons. So too did the Dublin government. Their opinions counted for nothing; this was a unilateral decision which destroyed foolish claims that the Good Friday agreement had weakened or diluted British sovereignty.
It showed that Trimble has the nationalist parties at his mercy: either they agree to unionist demands or the agreement collapses. The republican movement has slowly but surely abandoned one principle after another, the primary one being the existence of the IRA. Unionists want to see it dissolved — that is the real meaning of their demand that all republican weapons must be "decommissioned" — and the May 6 declaration shows they'll get what they want.
Mandelson's move also showed that the unionists will always come back to the table for more, while refusing to concede anything even on minor issues. SDLP deputy leader Seamus Mallon on May 17 criticised the "drip-feed" of concessions: "One half hour after the decommissioning issue was effectively resolved, then we had two more issues on the table".
Policing
The issue of policing is a case in point. The British government had established a commission, headed by ex-governor of Hong Kong and prominent Tory Chris Patten, to hand down recommendations for reform of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
Debate has narrowed down to whether the name "RUC" should be preserved in the title of the police force. The unionists have made so much noise about this issue that even a timid Patten proposal for a name change (Northern Ireland Police Service was a favoured alternative) has, effectively, been abandoned by the British government.
The unionists claim that Mandelson has agreed that the new name will be "The Police Service of Northern Ireland (Incorporating the RUC)", although Mandelson denies it. Mandelson has however written a public letter to Trimble saying, helpfully, "I can confirm the RUC is not being disbanded".
The demand to "disband the RUC" has been heard less and less frequently from Sinn Fein also, traditionally the main advocate of such a radical reform of policing.
Instead, the party's policy has changed to take account of the Good Friday agreement. At its annual conference, held on April 9-10, the party voted down a motion from its Armagh delegates to reaffirm "our position that the RUC be disbanded and that membership of the RUC precludes membership of any new police service".
Big shift
Nevertheless, the May 6 IRA declaration is a big shift in a few short months.
After Trimble and Mandelson pulled the plug on the devolved government in February the IRA angrily "ended its engagement" with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD), set up to administer decommissioning. The underground army also withdrew "all propositions put to the IICD since November".
The Sinn Fein political leadership was apparently unhappy with this development. It began moves to put the executive back together again in a way that would appease Trimble's unionists. The IRA declaration now that the guerillas will allow their arms dumps to be "inspected by agreed third parties who will report that they have done so" to the IICD.
A key role in all of this was played by Mac Maharaj, a leader of the African National Congress (ANC), who was Nelson Mandela's transport minister.
According to one newspaper report, he "got to know, and like, the then British trade minister Peter Mandelson". He met the Irish republican leadership in Belfast in February and reportedly conveyed a blunt message: "We know you can't say the war is over at this point, but let the unionists know the war is over".
Neatly completing the connection, one of people given the job of inspecting the IRA's dumps is former ANC and trade union leader, and now millionaire businessperson, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The repatching of the power-sharing executive might yet not work. It all depends on a meeting of Trimble's party, originally scheduled for May 20, but postponed for a week because the leadership is nervous about the result. Many unionists clearly believe they can wring more concessions from the nationalists.
On the other side, doubts are growing among the supporters of the republican movement. An opinion poll published by the BBC showed a quarter of Sinn Fein voters opposed the IRA decision to dissolve.
One former republican prisoner, Tommy McKearney, commented that the IRA announcement "amounts to an acceptance of decommissioning. The movement led by Adams and [Martin] McGuinness has irrevocably opted for the path of parliamentary reform".
BY JOHN MEEHAN