Protestant Party Quits N. Ireland Coalition

The largest Protestant party in this British province resigned from the power-sharing government Thursday, leaving Britain to decide whether to suspend the troubled experiment in Protestant-Roman Catholic cooperation.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said his party would not return to the four-party coalition government until the Irish Republican Army starts to disarm. He said Britain had a week to respond.

Trimble, who resigned as the government’s leader in July, said his party’s three remaining Cabinet ministers had handed in resignation letters to take effect at midnight.

Under the law governing the power-sharing government, it cannot survive without the participation of either the Ulster Unionists or the largest Catholic-supported party in the provincial Assembly, the Social Democratic and Labor Party.

Formed in December 1999, the power-sharing government has already been suspended three times by Britain--each time over disputes about the IRA disarming.

Trimble said Britain’s secretary for Northern Ireland, John Reid, must decide whether to once again strip the administration of its powers, in effect putting the four-party coalition into cold storage, or dissolve it completely to prepare for new elections.

Trimble said his party had spent 1 1/2 years operating a coalition that included militant Catholics from Sinn Fein--but that Sinn Fein’s IRA allies had failed to meet their end of the bargain by disarming.

“For 18 months we have demonstrated every day our willingness to make progress, in terms of this institution and in terms of developing politics in Northern Ireland,” Trimble said. “For 18 months we have carried the burden.

“And for those 18 months the republican movement has done nothing--nothing at all--to reciprocate the sacrifices, the risks and the effort that we have made,” Trimble said angrily, using the umbrella term for Sinn Fein and the IRA.

Trimble said he and his three Ulster Unionist ministers--Enterprise Minister Reg Empey, Environment Minister Sam Foster and Culture Minister Michael McGimpsey--were prepared to resume office when the IRA fulfilled its May 2000 pledge to put its weapons “beyond use.”

Sinn Fein blamed Trimble for making unreasonable demands, and it insisted that the IRA would not respond positively to any pressure from Britain or the Ulster Unionists.

Reid said that he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the Ulster Unionist move and that he had not decided how to respond.