Trimble Warns IRA He’ll Quit Over Arms Dispute

The Northern Ireland peace process was thrown into turmoil Tuesday when First Minister David Trimble announced that he will resign as leader of the province’s power-sharing government July 1 unless the Irish Republican Army disposes of its arsenal by then.

Trimble, who is fighting for his political life as head of the pro-British Ulster Unionist Party, gave a postdated letter to the speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, John Alderdice, stating that he will step down unless “the republican movement keeps the promises it made over a year ago. . . . A clear onus is now being placed on republicans and others who act to preserve them.”

He denied that the pressure he is putting on the IRA and its political ally, Sinn Fein, will bring about the collapse of the provincial government.

“I have said repeatedly that I am determined to achieve and sustain devolution. I am determined also that the people will have the real peace they voted for,” Trimble told reporters. “The IRA promised a year and two days ago that they would put their weapons beyond use. There was no deadline then, and they were given a whole year to do something. They haven’t done it.”

The IRA first called a cease-fire nearly seven years ago and has twice allowed independent observers to inspect its arms depots to demonstrate that the weapons are no longer in use. But the outlawed group has not destroyed its arsenal or permanently sealed the dumps.

Trimble’s announcement, on the day that Prime Minister Tony Blair called a June 7 general election in Britain, appears aimed at unionist voters who have grown disillusioned with the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

Many unionists feel that the peace process has been a one-way street in which paramilitary prisoners have been released and Roman Catholic nationalists have gained a foothold in government, but the IRA still has its weapons to fall back on. The unionists also suspect that the republican group is supplying the breakaway Real IRA, which claimed responsibility for the 1998 Omagh bombing--the bloodiest in the three-decade conflict--and subsequent blasts in Northern Ireland and London.

The Ulster Unionists fear losing as many as five of their nine seats in the British Parliament, three of them to the anti-agreement Democratic Unionist Party headed by the Rev. Ian Paisley. Unionist parties could split the vote in two other contested districts, throwing the seats to Catholic nationalists seeking a united Ireland.

Trimble’s party also risks losing as many as 40 of the 186 seats it holds on local councils across Northern Ireland, primarily to hard-line unionist candidates. In such a climate, Trimble would certainly face a leadership challenge at his annual party meeting next month.

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, education minister in the Northern Ireland government, said Tuesday that Trimble was gambling with the peace process for his own political gain.

“He intends to go forward at this general election effectively allowing the rejectionist unionist tail to wag the unionist dog,” McGuinness said. “Effectively what he is now offering to the unionist people is a negative manifesto, and in effect a wreckers’ charter.”

He also warned that Trimble’s decision will not improve prospects for IRA disarmament.

The IRA has dug in its heels against previous unilateral Protestant demands. The group views a weapons hand-over as tantamount to surrendering after a war it did not lose.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, called Trimble’s threat a “pathetic and cynical election stunt” and urged him to resign sooner rather than later.

“Our ministers would be very happy to resign along with him and his colleagues. Let him put his money where his mouth is,” said Robinson, whose party wants to see the dissolution of a government that includes Sinn Fein.

Trimble’s announcement also coincided with a Democratic Unionist motion of no confidence in McGuinness, who last week admitted for the first time that he had been a top IRA commander in the city of Londonderry in the 1970s.

McGuinness is to testify at a public inquiry into the 1972 “Bloody Sunday” fatal shooting of 14 civilians by British soldiers and police. He denies police claims that the IRA opened fire first.

That inquiry has irked some unionists, who feel that the actions and reputations of the British army and Royal Ulster Constabulary have come under fire during the peace process while the IRA has not had to account for its role in more than 30 years of political violence.

Unionists also have decried the judgment of the European Human Rights Court last week that the British government must pay reparations of $14,500 each to the families of 14 people, including eight IRA members killed on their way to bomb a police station. The court said the government had failed to investigate properly.

The last time Trimble threatened to quit over the disarmament issue, Britain suspended the Northern Ireland government for three months until the IRA agreed last May to allow the foreign inspectors into its weapons depots. At the time, the IRA issued a statement that it would put the weapons “completely and verifiably” out of commission in keeping with the Good Friday agreement. That deal in effect set a June 2001 deadline for disarmament.

Irish republicans argue that the guns are silent and that unionists have not kept their end of the bargain with full police reforms, a pullback of British troops and Sinn Fein participation in committees working with the Republic of Ireland.

Trimble’s resignation as first minister almost certainly would bring down the power-sharing government because neither he nor any other Protestant moderate would now have enough unionist votes to be elected to the post.

If Trimble resigns, the British government could call another suspension.

Trimble said he advised the British and Irish governments before making his statement. John Reid, Blair’s Northern Ireland secretary, said it would be “highly regrettable” if Trimble resigned.

“Progress needs to be made on all fronts,” Reid said, adding that intensive efforts would be made in the next eight weeks to salvage the peace process.

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