Disarmanent in Northern Ireland
David Craig
It is now widely recognised that the Belfast Agreement failed to
clarify whether and how terrorist weapons and explosives should be
decommissioned as part of the "new beginning" That failure is the main
cause of all the crises in the implementation of the Agreement ever
since and is largely why everybody is at Weston Park in Shropshire
today.
However Sinn Fein/IRA, the SDLP and the Irish Government have argued
that because "the guns are silent" we ought not to worry about
decommissioning. I would like to argue that decommissioning is crucial
to the future stability of Northern Ireland.
Safety
No terrorist porganisation can guarantee that their guns and
explosives can be kept from another terrorist organisation, either by
theft, bribery, political conviction or people defecting and taking
weapons with them.
"The Guns Are Silent"
For 30 years Sinn Fein/IRA have used their guns and explosives
(usually against civilians) to demand political concessions. We now
have a government which is intimidated, not just by the use of
violence, but by the threat of the use of violence. The retention by
just one paramilitary group, able to dictate government policy, is
unacceptable.
In some ways the use of the threat of force (as opposed to the use of
force) to achieve political objectives is more sinister. In that way
the threat can be used over and over again. The guns and explosives
are available for the next time; ther eis no danger to the terrorist
personnel and it costs nothing. It is even very difficult to prove a
crime.
In case people are incensed by my reference to just one group, i
acknowledge that loyalist paramilitary groups also have illegal
weapons, but their members are not in Government. I totally agree that
their weapons and explosives should of course be dealt with in exactly
the same way as those of the nationalists.
Democracy
As Tony Blair once said "You cannot mix democracy and terrorism" He
was, of course, quite correct, but probably regrets saying it! It is
arguable that the Belfast Agrement is an attempt to do precisely that.
Nevertheless, no other democratic country in the world would consider
having an Executive or Cabinet, 20% of whose members have access to
private guns and explosives. It doesn't work anywhere else and it
won't work here.
Good Faith
Most unionists who supported the Belfast Agreement did so because they
understood it to mean that decommissioning would be complete within 2
years. Clearly this didnt happen then, or by the next deadline, and at
the time of writng (1 pm Friday 13 Juky 2001) there is no sign that
it will. There is a unionist consensus that not alone did Sinn
Fein/IRA dishonour their committments, but that the British
Government, SDLP, the Irish Government and Bill Clinton fail to put
any pressure on them to do so. Both unionists and nationalists got the
message, that most of these groups just wished the problem would go
away.
It was for that reason that David Trimble put pressure on, firstly by
excluding Sinn Fein/IRA from cross-border bodies, and recently by
promising to resign if promises were not honoured. Blair, Ahern & Co
failed to do anything until the last possible moment. Hence Weston
Park. But the damage has already been done. Both unionists and
nationalists believe, probably corectly, that a solution will be
sought in some fudge which commits unionists and the British
Government to action but which only commits nationalists to pious
platitudes.
It is doubtful if credibility can be rescued at this stage.
Mr Blair keeps repeating the phrase "There is no alternative" Does he
mean that there is no alternative to an "Agreement" which doesn't
produce agreement... because that is all we have now.
If disarmament is not carried out now, there will be no unionist
support left for the "Agreement" It is an issue that will not
go away; it is an issue that can no longer be fudged and it is an
issue that is crucial to the future of democracy in Northern Ireland
CONCERNED ULSTERMAN