A Year Into N. Ireland Cease-Fire, a Whiff of Normality--and of Fear

The advertisement on Northern Ireland television screens depicts a couple strolling on a beach at sunset with the caption, “Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time?”

The sponsor is the British government, and the pitch is peace.

The pitch is a reversal of years of British ads that used images of violence and death in Northern Ireland to encourage support for security forces in the troubled province.

The about-face has come because of the Northern Ireland cease-fire, implemented Sept. 1, 1994. But its anniversary is being marked with both hope and fear.

The cease-fire has held against the odds, and no deaths have been directly attributed to sectarian violence. There’s a buoyant spirit in the province.

But efforts to push forward the peace process accompanying the cease-fire seem to have bogged down--raising fears that violence between Protestant and Roman Catholic paramilitaries could flare up again.

An off-again, on-again summit meeting set for Wednesday between British Prime Minister John Major and Irish Prime Minister John Bruton may be disappointing because of a lack of agreement on how to proceed with the peace process. And a proposed December visit by President Clinton to both sides of the Northern Ireland border remains unconfirmed.

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“The closer the various sides get to a peace table,” one longtime observer said, “the more the differences between republicans and unionists are exposed. . . . The republicans want to be united to Ireland, the unionists to Great Britain.”

Still, the cease-fire has changed the political and social climate in Northern Ireland dramatically. Roadblocks have been removed, and the army has returned to its barracks. Border roads have been reopened. Tourism has revived; shopping has blossomed; new business investment has arrived. A relaxed spirit prevails--in short, life is returning to something approaching normal.

“What was unthinkable two years ago is now a reality,” said Cardinal Cahal Daley, the Roman Catholic primate of all Ireland, “and the will and ability of both the IRA [the separatist Irish Republican Army] and loyalist paramilitaries to maintain the cease-fire has been tested and stood firm. There is now an historic opportunity for a permanent peace in this land.”

But the animosities between the majority Protestant, pro-British population of Northern Ireland and the minority Catholic republicans still seethe below the surface. In July, Protestant marchers clashed with Catholic protesters during demonstrations celebrating William of Orange’s victory over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Sporadic violence has broken out in the province since the July clash, although not severe enough to destroy the first real cease-fire since the latest conflict began in the late 1960s.

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The British originally sent in their troops to defend Catholics in West Belfast and Londonderry, but the separatists viewed the troops as oppressors and turned against them. “Brits out!” became their chant.

The British government maintained that its soldiers were in Northern Ireland only to keep the peace and prevent civil war. But the IRA and its political arm, Sinn Fein, demanded that the British leave and that the province--with its 600,000 Catholics--be linked with the Irish Republic and its 3.5 million people.

After abortive efforts by political leaders in London, Dublin and Belfast to find a solution to the violence, in December, 1993, Major and then-Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds signed the Downing Street Declaration agreeing to all-party talks on Northern Ireland’s future.

After the cease-fire began, Reynolds and moderate Catholic leader John Hume met Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams in Dublin to discuss talks. Last September, the White House, over objections from the British and the U.S. State Department, granted Adams a visa to visit the United States, and Adams was greeted by some in America as a hero.

“At the time, we thought it was a great mistake to allow Adams into the U.S.,” recalled one British diplomat, “a man who wouldn’t renounce violence in furthering his revolutionary cause. But in retrospect, it might have been a good thing. It locks Adams into the peace process and cease-fire. I can’t see him returning to the U.S. for any congratulations or funds if the IRA breaks the cease-fire.”

But the peace momentum was slowed by the release of the so-called framework document, which spells out what London and Dublin consider a realistic guide for the all-party talks, with suggestions for an agenda.

Unionists rejected it as heavily canted toward Sinn Fein and the republican view. To allay such fears, the British government said it would not allow Sinn Fein to join the talks until the IRA gave evidence of its intent to disarm.

Adams insists that any disarmament come after talks and not before--leading to the current impasse.

In recent days, the British government has signaled a willingness to compromise with the republicans, offering an early release of prisoners, further reductions in British troops in the province and police reform.

Political observers say Irish leaders in Dublin have suggested setting up an international commission to supervise some hand-over of weapons or explosives as a compromise on the disarmament issue.

Meanwhile, the moderate leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, James Molyneaux, has announced that he is stepping down as party chief, prompting a battle for succession that could galvanize the loyalists against any settlement involving Sinn Fein.

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“The British government has attempted to convince the people of Ulster [the Protestant name for Northern Ireland] that the IRA have seen the futility of armed struggle,” said the Rev. Ian Paisley, the extremist leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. “It is quite clear from the words and deeds of the Sinn Fein leadership that this is not the case at all.

“A peace process held in place by concessions to the IRA is a blackmail process. It spells disaster, because as soon as the concessions dry up, the peace is over.”

But David Ervine, the influential leader of the Progressive Unionist Party, the political representative of the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force, said: “I think one day we must sit down at the same table as Gerry Adams. I won’t do that for the sake of doing it. I will do it, but only when I feel it can be of benefit to the people of Northern Ireland.

“The cease-fire has changed people’s lives. There is a perception in my community that policemen not wearing flak jackets and opening border roads are concessions. I regard them as the hope that one day society can be normal.”