Unionists Reject Plan for Governing Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland peace process suffered a serious setback Wednesday night when the Ulster Unionist Party flatly refused to form a government with the Irish Republican Army’s political wing this week as proposed by Britain and Ireland.

The decision, announced after a 15-minute meeting of the party’s executive council, cast doubt on the future of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement and seemed to leave political leaders at a loss for what to do next.

The Unionists ignored last-minute appeals from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, who have been trying for weeks to break the impasse over disarming the IRA and forming a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland.

It was a particular blow for Blair, who last week gambled that he could force Northern Ireland’s Protestants and Roman Catholics to move forward by announcing the establishment of a provincial government by this Sunday and rushing through legislation to hand over some powers.

The proposed legislation promised to suspend the Northern Ireland government if the IRA failed to give up its guns. In an eleventh-hour bid to get the Unionists to sign on, Blair offered amendments that would have set up a detailed timetable for disarmament.

“Don’t close the door on this,” Blair pleaded on BBC television. “This is an agreement that provides exactly the guarantees the Unionist Party requires.”

Shortly afterward, however, Ulster Unionist chief David Trimble emerged from his headquarters in Belfast, the provincial capital, to say that the party’s long-standing position remained unchanged: The IRA must begin to disarm before Protestant unionists will sit in government with the republican guerrilla group’s political allies, Sinn Fein.

“I have not sought, nor will I seek, a change in party policy. It remains as it has been,” Trimble said after the brief meeting of his 110-member executive.

Even before Trimble spoke, Northern Ireland Secretary Marjorie “Mo” Mowlam had called for the 108-member Northern Ireland Assembly to meet today to select the 12 ministers who would form an executive.

Sinn Fein is due to get two seats on the executive, based on its proportion of the vote in the assembly election last year.

It is unclear whether the Ulster Unionists--who have the largest block of seats in the assembly--will attend today’s meeting. But even if they do, they have made it clear they are not prepared to name their ministers. Without the Unionist ministers, an executive cannot be established and Britain cannot turn over some powers to a regional government Sunday, as Blair had planned.

Instead, Britain will remain in full control of Northern Ireland’s affairs and the peace process is likely to be put on ice for the rest of the summer while the British and Irish governments review it, as called for under the terms of the accord.

The fear among many officials, however, is that extremists on both sides will try to fill the political vacuum with renewed violence. The IRA has observed a cease-fire since July 1997, and the major Protestant paramilitary groups also are honoring cease-fires. But there are Catholic and Protestant extremists who continue to plant bombs, seeking to crush the peace process.

Even Blair has warned that the collapse of the Good Friday agreement--which called for power-sharing in the province, disarmament of combatants and continued union with Britain until a majority in the province votes otherwise--could push the region into “the abyss.”

It also was unclear late Wednesday how Sinn Fein and the IRA will respond to a suspension of talks.

“The two governments have a responsibility to keep the show on the road, and we will find a way forward,” an Irish official said. “We do not know how Sinn Fein and the IRA are going to act. They’re the imponderables.”

Sinn Fein leaders were furious with Blair on Wednesday for offering to amend the legislation with a timetable for disarmament in an effort to win over the Unionists.

“For those who may genuinely want to deal with the issue of guns, they are going about it the absolutely worst and wrong way,” Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said.

And Adams’ deputy, Martin McGuinness, said their supporters “out on the streets will be rightly angered by what is happening.”

Disarmament is viewed as surrender by many republicans. They argue that they have proved their seriousness about “taking the guns out of politics” by honoring the cease-fire.

The Good Friday agreement calls for paramilitary groups to completely disarm by May but does not specify that they must begin before the government takes power.

Unionists, however, believe that militants should begin disarming in the spirit of the agreement. They do not trust the IRA to disarm and do not want to find themselves sitting in government with a political party that has its own army.

The weapons issue is in the hands of an independent commission headed by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, who is supposed to determine whether paramilitary groups are giving up their guns.

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William Graham in Belfast, Northern Ireland, contributed to this report.