Ireland: impasse on the Good Friday agreement
The Irish peace process is again in crisis following the failure to meet a third deadline for the formation of a power-sharing executive before Easter. Loyalists are refusing to agree to the formation of the executive without the destruction or "decommissioning" of Irish Republican Army arms, demands which the IRA has repeatedly rejected. There is still no sign of a solution to the impasse, which has blocked the implementation of last year's Good Friday agreement.
On the anniversary of the agreement, Green Left Weekly spoke to Dublin republican activist JOHN MEEHAN about the current state of republican politics in Ireland.
Question: Green Left Weekly has published a number of articles critical of the Good Friday agreement (GFA), but surely there have been some gains?
Any balanced critique of the GFA, and the entire peace process, must acknowledge that some gains have been made. Above all, The IRA cease-fire of 1994 forced the ending of an escalating loyalist assassination campaign. This dirty war was sponsored by the British state, with the active collusion of elements within the 26 County state apparatus.
Readers should follow important new public disclosures about the Ulster Volunteer Force's (UVF) Dublin and Monaghan car bombings of 1974. Relatives of the victims have published a document showing that the debris from the bombings was not forensically analysed by the Dublin government's laboratory. A senior Irish police officer directed his staff to hand this crucial evidence to the Northern Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Evidence suggests that a British officer responsible for helping the UVF took control of the evidence. The Dublin government's minister for justice, John O'Donoghue, has flatly rejected demands for a public inquiry.
Not all loyalist sectarian attacks have ended, a fact grimly illustrated by the recent killing of the civil rights solicitor and supporter of the Garvaghy Road residents Rosemary Nelson.
Another significant gain is the release of political prisoners.
In general, the IRA cease-fire created more political space for real gains to be made by republicans. More resources are going to community initiatives like gaelscoileanna (Irish-language schools), employment and retraining programs for ex-prisoners, and so on.
Question: Despite its limitations, can the GFA be employed as a starting point for a solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland?
After the Good Friday agreement was announced, the Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble, and the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, issued directly contradictory assessments of its meaning. Trimble said the union with Britain was stronger. Adams said the agreement left the union on its last hinge, and regularly says that partition is no solution. They cannot both be right, but both endorsed the GFA.
Supporters of the Sinn Féin position should ponder the following assessment offered by a leading Sinn Féin assembly member from Tyrone, Francie Molloy. Molloy supports his movement's opposition to decommissioning but asked loyalists to consider the following gains they have made from the GFA:
"Republicans are prepared to work on an executive. We are really prepared to administer British rule in Ireland for the foreseeable future. The very principle of partition is accepted, and if the unionists had had that in the 1920s they would have been laughing" (Sunday Times [Irish Edition], March 28).
By any standards, this is a remarkable statement from a leading republican. Even more significant, it has provoked no significant negative comment from within republican ranks, even when a well-known socialist critic of the agreement, Eamonn McCann, publicly highlighted it.
Question: Because of the massive vote for peace, isn't Britain now under more pressure to move towards a resolution of the conflict?
No, the opposite is true. Before 1968, whenever protests were made about loyalist misrule in the Six Counties, the British government said it was a matter for the devolved Stormont administration. The turbulent revolt triggered by the October 1968 civil rights march in Derry eventually "smashed Stormont" in 1972, instituting British direct rule.
Since then, Westminster has held firm to a policy of devolving political power to a local Stormont parliament, but not trusting the loyalists to govern on their own, as they did from 1922 to 1972. London insisted that a place in Stormont be reserved for elected representatives of republicans. They have secured this prize with the GFA, thanks to Sinn Féin. From Britain's point of view, this is a much stronger buffer against criticism than a purely loyalist government.
Question: Sinn Féin saw an opportunity to advance the struggle and took it. What's wrong with that?
Sinn Féin has, in Molloy's words, agreed "to administer British rule in Ireland for the foreseeable future". This sets back the struggle to end British administration in Ireland.
Question: If the IRA decommissions its weapons, nationalists will occupy the high moral ground. So why shouldn't it decommission? The war is over.
The IRA occupied "high moral ground" by declaring a cease-fire and, largely, sticking to it. It has, however, used physical violence, and the threat of it, against several republican dissidents in the last few months: Micky Donnelly, Kevin McQuillan, Paddy Fox and Marian Price.
All supporters of democratic rights in Ireland should demand that the IRA cease this intimidation; otherwise it will become a fully fledged, unofficial police force, just like the discredited Official IRA in the 1970s.
The process is now bogged down over a dispute about Trimble's insistence on the "decommissioning" of IRA weapons. Sinn Féin says, rightly, that the GFA only obliged the signatories to "use their influence" to secure decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. Trimble insists Sinn Féin cannot take seats in a new devolved Northern Ireland administration unless decommissioning begins.
The agreement cannot proceed without Trimble's approval. An April Fool's Day declaration was issued by the British and Irish governments, endorsed by Trimble and the constitutional nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (led by Nobel Prize winner John Hume). It said that while decommissioning was "voluntary", it was also an "obligation". In other words, using more provocative and accurate language, the agreement is governed by a loyalist veto.
The war may be over, but that is not the same as saying that republicans "don't need those weapons any more". Former Sinn Féin publicity director Danny Morrison explains: "The fear within nationalist areas of a repeat of the pogroms of 1969 is real. There was no means of defence. The RUC drove down the Falls in armoured cars firing into houses ... The IRA was poorly armed [and] ... split ... out of the ashes of Bombay Street arose the Provos."
Morrison continues: "Maybe it will never happen again. But imagine, if you will, that in Kosovo a peace deal is struck but that President Slobodan Milosevic insists that representatives of the Kosovan Albanians can only sit in the provincial government, despite their electoral mandate, if the KLA [Kosova Liberation Army] decommissions its weapons. I know the scale is different, but not the analogy." (Irish News, April 5).
Question: Well, what were the alternatives to the GFA?
Progressive alternatives to the GFA are summed up as "go into opposition". The concrete gains republicans have made because of the IRA cease-fire do not require republican participation in a new Stormont, or the abandonment of political principles.
For example, if an executive is not formed before May 22, the amendments to Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution, carried last year with a 95% majority in the 26 Counties, fall, Trimble will not be allowed to head a devolved Stormont administration in the North, and we get back constitutional provisions opposing the loyalist veto. Can any republican seriously argue with that?