Don’t Blame IRA for Coalition Collapse

The suspension last week of the 10-week-old coalition government in Northern Ireland has seen public opinion in the United States stampede into denunciation of the Irish Republican Army and into sympathy with the political maneuvers of the British government and of the Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble. This sudden tilt is being viewed with profound satisfaction by the British, not to mention the Ulster Unionists, who have chafed for years at the admirable refusal of the Clinton administration to take dictation from the British Embassy in Washington.

Tens of thousands of high-flown words have now been devoted to the IRA’s supposed flouting of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, the IRA’s lack of good faith, Sinn Fein’s duplicity. Yet as Britain’s secretary for Northern Ireland, Peter Mandelson, finally admitted, the IRA is not in breach of that agreement. The pact stated that decommissioning of IRA weapons should occur “in the context of the implementation of the overall settlement.” This was what the IRA agreed to nearly two years ago and what it said once more last Friday.

The IRA could have only agreed to disarmament if such a process were mutual, part of the above-mentioned “overall settlement.” Though in fact there has been a distinct lack of such mutuality, the IRA has honored its commitment to peace, ensuring the longest period of tranquillity--now in its third year--in the recent history of Northern Ireland.

Despite this tranquillity, the capacity for organized violence remains overwhelmingly with the Unionists and with the British. Just visit South Armagh, where IRA units are being asked to turn in their weapons. British forts dot the hillsides. British patrols still deploy. British helicopters fill the sky. The Royal Ulster Constabulary is still an unreformed force with an awful history that is vivid in Catholic minds. There has been abundant testimony that RUC officers were implicated in assassinations and bombings of Catholics, and in conspiracies with Protestant terror groups. Last week, Ulster Unionists were insisting that the RUC never be disbanded.

In one well-informed count last year there were about 130,000 legal guns in the north, 90% of them in the hands of RUC and the British Army. What army with the function of guaranteeing the safety of Catholic communities in the north, which is what the IRA deems itself to be, could blithely lay down its arms amid these conditions? What IRA commander could order such a course without facing mutinous dissent? In the view of many Republicans, only a beaten army unilaterally lays down its guns and only an antagonist acting in bad faith would try to force the decommissioning issue at this time.

There is no reason to believe that when Trimble accepted his slice of the Nobel Peace Prize he traded in his instincts and outlook as a Unionist, leader of a party adamantly opposed to power-sharing or anything other than absolute Protestant dominance. The truth is that history dragged Trimble to the negotiating table and forced him to accept the coalition cabinet with its two Sinn Fein members. After as short a time as 10 peaceful weeks, Trimble found this situation intolerable. His sudden flourishing of a previously nonexistent decommissioning “deadline” overstepped by the IRA was a maneuver to destroy the coalition. In this tactic he was backed by Mandelson and Tony Blair. Worse still, Mandelson chose to restore direct rule, even though he was well aware that Gen. John de Chastelain, the retired Canadian officer heading the international disarmament body, was about to report that he was confident of the IRA’s good faith.

There are some signs that the British realized they had overreacted on Trimble’s behalf. Some vague noises were made about the possible withdrawal of some British forces. When the British did suspend the new power-sharing institutions, they began to downplay the significance of the whole affair. But by that time, they had prompted the IRA to distance itself, not without reason, from the process.

If the British government wants to settle the decommissioning issue once and for all, it would propose that the RUC be abolished in favor of a recomposed police force evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants. Half of such a force could include decommissioned IRA volunteers. The announcement of such a force would then be the green light for the IRA to decommission on a grand scale.

One can understand the British dilemma. Blair and Mandelson no doubt feel that if Trimble goes, there will be no Unionist they can deal with. So once again Trimble holds the old, ever-familiar Ulster veto. There’s no reason why the United States should be suckered into playing along with this veto too.