N. Ireland Sees Chance for Peace Despite Collapse of Government

Even as Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders traded blame Saturday for the breakdown of their 72-day-old power-sharing government, Northern Ireland remained calm and even modestly optimistic about the survival of its battered peace process.

Protestant unionist leader David Trimble rejected a new Irish Republican Army offer on disarmament as too vague, and Gerry Adams, president of the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, accused the British government of betraying the 1998 Good Friday agreement in order to save Trimble.

Britain’s resumption of direct rule in Northern Ireland at midnight Friday confirmed that the pro-British Protestant majority could wield “a veto over progress,” Adams said in dismay.

But just as important was what Trimble and Adams did not say: Neither one quit the suspended government for good or opted out of the Good Friday accord. A predated letter of resignation from Trimble over the IRA’s failure to disarm was relegated to the archives at a meeting of his Ulster Unionist Party council; Adams did not repeat his statement of a few days earlier that he has better things to do with his life than leap from political crisis to political crisis.

While recognizing that the peace process had suffered the worst setback since its inception, British and Irish newspapers predicted that the government can be saved.

“Suspension is not the end of this political process,” the Irish Times said.

Many people in this provincial capital seemed to agree, reacting with a sense of deep regret rather than of impending doom. Another day, another crisis, they said with practiced resignation as they went about their Saturday errands.

“I am disappointed, but at the end of the day it doesn’t come as any form of shock,” said Darren Peoples, 28, a Protestant warehouse manager out shopping with his Catholic fiancee.

“I hoped the government wouldn’t be suspended, but I was reconciled to the fact that it probably would be,” said a Catholic teacher from Magherafelt, waiting for her 5-year-old son to finish riding a coin-operated rocket.

Non-Politicians May Hold the Key to Peace

In the end--as people are fond of saying in a place where nothing ever really seems to end--it may be men and women such as these shoppers at the Castle Court mall who determine whether the peace process survives.

That is not because they are politically active or inclined to take to the streets, but because they have had a taste of peace in the last two years, they like it and want more.

The Good Friday agreement to end 30 years of conflict between pro-British Protestants and Catholics, who want Northern Ireland united with the Irish Republic, brought new businesses, rising property values and a night life to Belfast. It also delivered a local government to deal with people’s problems.

“The peace process can be rebuilt,” the Irish News editorialized. “For once we had locally accountable politicians taking responsibility for everyday things which affect all our lives.”

Despite attacks by dissident extremists--”misery merchants,” a Catholic columnist called them--and periodic political crises, the paper said “this is a more peaceful atmosphere than we have experienced in 30 years.”

Political leaders know there is no stomach in Northern Ireland for a return to violence and no alternative to the peace process, average Protestants and Catholics say. That is why they believe that their politicians will find a way to return to government.

However, neither side pulled any new suggestions out of the wreckage of the previous few days, and the road back will be treacherous, mined by opponents of the peace agreement who hope to bring the government down permanently.

Trimble formed a government with Sinn Fein in December in the belief that the party would be able to persuade the IRA to begin at least symbolic disarmament. He promised skeptics in his own party that he would resign from the government by February if the IRA had not begun to move.

The British government returned to direct rule to prevent Trimble from resigning at Saturday’s session of his party council--a resignation that officials feared might be irreversible.

Trimble emerged from the party meeting flanked by moderates and hard-liners insisting that Friday’s eleventh-hour offer from the IRA did not go far enough to warrant a return to government.

The head of the independent commission monitoring disarmament, retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, reported Friday that he had received the IRA’s first real commitment on disarmament, stating that the group would “consider how to put arms and explosives beyond use.”

De Chastelain said the statement represented a significant step forward and “holds out the real prospect of an agreement.”

But Trimble said that he had spoken Friday with both Adams of Sinn Fein and his deputy, Martin McGuinness, and that neither could tell him precisely what the IRA had in mind.

“We need the republican movement to tell us: Are they committing themselves to [weapons] decommissioning? How are they going to do it? When are they going to do it?” Trimble said.

Many members of Trimble’s party suspect that the IRA’s latest proposal was a gimmick to shift blame for the collapse of the government onto unionists.

Adams, for his part, expressed amazement that the British government and unionists had failed to recognize what he considered to be a major breakthrough on the part of the IRA--a commitment to resolve the weapons issue.

He insisted that the IRA’s latest plans, which he declined to detail, were presented to Britain 24 hours before the Northern Ireland administration was suspended and should have been sufficient to prevent the collapse. He said Britain had “fixated” on helping Trimble.

“If we had delivered the IRA lock, stock and barrel in a way the British government had never been able to do in 30 years of militarism, it would not have been enough yesterday,” Adams said.

“There is within the nationalist and republican section of our people a deep sense of anger and frustration at the way in which the [Ulster Unionists] have dictated events, and the fact that they set aside the spirit and the letter of the Good Friday agreement,” he said.

Adams refused to say whether Sinn Fein would take part in a review of the peace process that is now required by the Good Friday accord. He said his party will meet this week to discuss the review.

The British and Irish governments also are expected to meet to decide whether to conduct the review themselves or try to bring in an impartial mediator.

British Ministers Will Return to Jobs

Meanwhile, a handful of former British ministers in Northern Ireland will return to their old jobs Monday.

Even for those who were expecting it and saw it as necessary, the suspension of the government proved jarring. Michael McGimpsey, an Ulster Unionist and minister of arts, culture and leisure for the last 10 weeks, said he received a hand-delivered notice from British Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson about 15 minutes after the suspension was announced.

“It had all of the dos and don’ts. Don’t go to the office, don’t collect your salary,” McGimpsey said. “Now I know what it’s like to be sacked.”

But McGimpsey remained hopeful that the peace agreement will prevail and that a cross-community government including unionists and Sinn Fein will be restored.

“The exchanges still remain positive. We’re still able to talk,” he said.