IRA Plan to Disarm Fuels Peace Hopes

In a potential breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process, the Irish Republican Army has floated a plan for putting its weapons “completely and verifiably beyond use,” an international disarmament commission announced Monday.

The absence of crucial details of the IRA proposal, including a timeline for ridding the group of its weapons, was not lost on Protestant political leaders.

Nonetheless, British and Irish government officials hailed the announcement as a significant step toward the disarmament of the militant Roman Catholic group. That is a key point of tension holding back progress on the 1998 Good Friday agreement to end a conflict that has split the people of Northern Ireland for decades into those favoring continued association with Britain and those, like the IRA, who want to be part of Ireland.

The disarmament commission, led by Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, expressed satisfaction with the IRA’s proposed method for giving up its weapons, which was among details that remained undisclosed.

“Based on our discussions with the IRA representative, we believe that this proposal initiates a process that will put IRA arms completely and verifiably beyond use,” said a statement released by the commission.

The IRA said in May 2000 that it would put its weapons beyond use, but Monday’s announcement went a step further. The group now appears to have a plan for how to achieve that.

The announcement came at a crucial time: less than a week before Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly faces possible suspension and three days after a car bomb exploded in a West London neighborhood. Police have described the explosion, which injured 11 people, as an attack by IRA dissidents.

With tensions running high in London and Northern Ireland, officials from both places held out hope that Monday’s news will pave the way for the IRA to give up its weapons. Washington shared their hopes.

“We look forward to further progress on this issue, along with other issues in implementing the Good Friday agreement,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a news conference.

The IRA’s disarmament proposal made public by De Chastelain’s commission appears to touch on two of the three key points that the commission has repeatedly raised with the IRA. They include the group’s level of commitment to disarm, a method to complete the task and the still-unaddressed issue of when the move is to take place.

Gerry Adams--leader of the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein--was quick to declare Monday’s announcement a “hugely historical breakthrough.”

“It is very, very firm proof of the IRA’s commitment and ability to keep promises,” Adams said during an appearance in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, to remember victims of past violence.

“This is an important step forward which I warmly welcome and on which I hope we can build rapidly,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is vacationing in Mexico, said in a statement issued by Downing Street. “I believe it has the potential to resolve the arms issue to everyone’s satisfaction.”

Added Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern: “People should see the historic significance rather than trying to see the difficulties.”

The disarming of the IRA, or lack thereof, has complicated the implementation of the Good Friday agreement in a variety of ways. The unresolved arms issue most recently prompted the July 1 resignation of Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble as first minister of Northern Ireland, a move that threw the peace process into crisis.

The parties have until this weekend to solve the problem. If they fail, Britain must either call new elections or suspend the provincial government and assume direct rule over Northern Ireland.

To avoid having to make the latter decision and instead entice the IRA to give up its weapons, the British and Irish governments released a peace package last week that calls, among other proposals, for integrating Catholics into a reformed police force in the province and diminishing the number of British troops and military installations there.

The package advances Irish republican demands for full implementation of the Good Friday accord. The IRA’s move Monday puts the pressure back on Trimble.

“We’re glad to the see the IRA has taken a significant step toward decommissioning,” Trimble said after a meeting with John Reid, Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary. “But it hasn’t actually begun, and of course we want to see that happen.”

Peter Weir, an Ulster Unionist member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was less sanguine.

“The statement is useless,” Weir said. “It’s a bit like being told by a bloke down at a pub that he has been told that Elvis is alive and well and living nearby. . . . I will believe it when I see it.”

The British and Irish governments had set a midnight Monday deadline for parties to accept or reject the peace package.

An official response by the Ulster Unionists to the plan is likely to rest on whether the IRA releases a statement later this week that contains details on when the group will give up its weapons.

Another key point for the Protestants is whether the recently announced police reforms go far enough to win the backing of the Social Democratic and Labor Party, the moderate Catholic nationalist element in the coalition government.

“The most important issue relating to policing is that the police service in Northern Ireland be fully supported by nationalists, absent which everything else is just hot air,” Trimble said.

The SDLP’s John Hume said his party plans to publish a written response to the governments’ peace package today, which he said will reflect his party’s positive approach to securing the full implementation of the agreement.

Trimble, who met late Monday evening with Ulster Unionist officials to discuss how to respond to the British-Irish peace package, remained skeptical.

“In the absence of actual decommissioning by republicans and an absence of the SDLP moving on policing there was nothing for Ulster Unionists to respond to,” he said.

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Times special correspondent William Graham in Belfast contributed to this report.