IRA Rejects Anglo-Irish Peace Proposal

In a blow to the fragile peace process in Northern Ireland, the outlawed Irish Republican Army on Wednesday rejected an Anglo-Irish outline for settlement terms, saying it was skewed in favor of pro-British Protestant parties.

But the IRA statement did not appear to immediately threaten a tenuous cease-fire or signal withdrawal from peace talks by Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing.

“It [the settlement proposal] is a pro-unionist document and has created a crisis in the peace process,” said a statement from the IRA, the mainline Roman Catholic paramilitary group that has waged three decades of violence to join the province with the Irish Republic. The Protestant unionists seek to keep the six counties of Northern Ireland as part of Britain.

The IRA rejection amplified concerns expressed by Sinn Fein leaders to British Prime Minister Tony Blair earlier this week and came as new sectarian violence in Belfast, the provincial capital, claimed its fourth victim in three days.

A 55-year-old Catholic man was mortally wounded as he sat in his car after leaving work at an auto parts shop Wednesday afternoon. Witnesses said a gunman walked up to the car on Utility Street bordering a hard-line Protestant area, fired five shots at close range and escaped on foot.

In its statement issued in Belfast, the IRA accused Blair of having surrendered to pressures from majority Protestants in formulating a proposed outline for a peace settlement with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern earlier this month.

The proposals cannot be the basis for a final settlement, the IRA said, accusing the British government of stalling and failing to implement “any meaningful confidence-building measures” since talks including Sinn Fein opened in September.

Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, warned over the weekend that the peace proposals had “gone over like a lead balloon” among republicans, who favor unity with the Irish Republic. Sinn Fein leaders, who insist that they will remain in the talks, assert an independence from the IRA that Protestant politicians and the British government regard as meaningless rhetoric.

The IRA statement dampened hopes awakened by proposals intended to break a stubborn Protestant-Catholic deadlock.

With the talks moving here next Monday under their American chairman, George J. Mitchell, momentum appeared to be gathering for the first time since Sinn Fein joined the negotiations after a July 20 IRA cease-fire. Thus far, the most conspicuous success of the peace talks, in which unionists refuse to engage Sinn Fein, is that they have survived.

Although it stopped short of a declaration of resumed violence, the IRA rejection Wednesday was categorical in its condemnation of Protestant parties, Blair and the British government.

“The responsibility for undoing the damage done to the prospects for a just and lasting peace settlement rests squarely with the British government,” the IRA said in its statement sent to news agencies.

Sinn Fein and the IRA particularly object to proposals for an assembly chosen by proportional representation that would return home rule to Northern Ireland for the first time since the 1970s. Given their 60%-40% population advantage, Protestants would probably control the provincial legislature.

Also unacceptable to republicans, who reject any “internal” political settlements for the province, is a planned intergovernmental council that would include Britain, Ireland, Northern Ireland and representatives of new legislatures in Scotland and Wales.

Catholics seek strong cross-border ties with Ireland and don’t think that plans for north-south bodies outlined in the proposals go far enough. Unionists think that they go too far.

Wednesday’s slaying came two hours after Blair told Parliament, “We mustn’t give in to violence; that’s precisely what the killers want.”

Since Dec. 27, six Catholics and two Protestants have been killed by maverick Protestant and Catholic extremists who spurn the talks and believe that only violence can settle sectarian differences.

The IRA reportedly will review its cease-fire decision in March.