Ceasefire possible if modest requests are met

FOR almost 12 months now several journalists, including myself, have been led to believe there is an unequivocal IRA ceasefire on offer in return for relatively minimal undertakings by the British and Irish governments.

These undertakings are fivefold: (i) that Sinn Fein would be included in all-party talks shortly after the announcement of an enduring IRA ceasefire (three months at the outset); (ii) that such involvement would be without further pre-conditions; (iii) that the decommissioning issue would not be allowed to be a barrier to progress in the talks; (iv) that there would be a deadline for the talks; and (v) that the British undertake a series of "confidence-building measures", such as the transfer of a number of prisoners to Northern Ireland and fair arrangements on the conduct of parades.

It is, of course, possible that I and other journalists have been conned or that we have simply misunderstood what the IRA position is. Certainly, my repeated optimism over the imminence of an IRA ceasefire for a year now shakes even my own confidence in my judgment on this. But I continue to believe that an enduring ceasefire would happen if the modest requirements were met. Furthermore, I believe the IRA would not resort to a military campaign to overturn an outcome to such talks, however far such outcome might be from republican objectives.

Of course, this analysis might be wrong either in that there is no ceasefire now on offer, on anything like the minimal conditions I have outlined; or in that there is no guarantee that the IRA would not resort to murder and bombing if the outcome of the talks were not to its liking. But wouldn't it be tragic if the analysis (which is widely shared by journalists, politicians and officials) was correct and that death, injury and destruction continued because the analysis went untested?

Mr Bertie Ahern has a unique opportunity now, in the week before he becomes Taoiseach, to test that analysis. In spite of (indeed, perhaps because of) the awful murder of the two police officers in Lurgan on Monday, he should proceed to meet Mr Gerry Adams and inquire precisely what would secure a permanent IRA ceasefire. Indeed, he should arrange to ensure that Mr Martin McGuinness, Mr Pat Doherty and Mr Gerry Kelly are there as well.

Mr Ahern has the patience to endure the circumlocutions of Adams-speak, and by the end of the meeting he may be able to write down in four or five points what precisely will secure a ceasefire and get Mr Adams and company to agree that the price is correct.

If this is not possible then Mr Ahern, and the rest of us, will know we are all being led up and around a garden path and that the only way to deal with the IRA is through outright confrontation. But if the requirements for a ceasefire are more or less as I and others have understood them, then, as Taoiseach, Mr Ahern should secure agreement to such terms by the British government. That should not prove difficult as the new British government is well disposed.

Then, either there is an unequivocal ceasefire or there is not (and the governments should state through private contact what terms would be deemed unequivocal). If there is an unequivocal ceasefire, the talks should progress with Sinn Fein involvement after the agreed time-lag. If there is not an unequivocal ceasefire within, say, one month, then the two governments should declare that Sinn Fein remains excluded from talks whether there is a ceasefire or not afterwards.

OF course, even if there is an unequivocal ceasefire there is no way of being sure it will endure if the outcome of the talks is unsatisfactory to the republican movement (which it certainly will be), but what is to be lost by proceeding on the assumption that it will?

Essentially it will not matter what the IRA's attitude is to a final outcome of all party talks, provided the following: (a) that the talks proceed to deal with the substantive issues; (b) that an agreement is reached among representatives of the vast majority of the Northern Ireland electorate and the two governments; (c) that such agreement is endorsed in a referendum in both parts of Ireland.

Such an outcome, whatever its character, if copperfastened by referendums would be invulnerable to IRA armed opposition, for two reasons. First it would be "certain" and terrorism cannot persist in the fact of certainty (Enoch Powell was right about this). And, second, it would undermine the central plank of the IRA's legitimacy, the undemocratic imposition of a constitutional settlement in 1921.

Further factors would come into play as well. The security forces underpinning such an outcome would, for the first time in Northern Ireland, command broad-based support and would thereby be effective in dealing with the IRA security threat. The option of internment, would even be politically acceptable then, if required.

There is understandable shock and outrage over the murders of the two RUC officers, Roland Graham and David Johnston, in Lurgan on Monday. But the vehemence of this outrage is conditioned in part by the fact that such killings have become occasional in Northern Ireland. We have been able to recover a proper sense of anger, undulled by the attrition of repeated atrocity.

This month 10 years ago, the IRA murdered seven people in Northern Ireland. Who outside the family and friends of the victims can remember even one of the names? Two were RUC officers: Samuel McClean, shot dead at his parents' farm at Callan, Drumkeen, near Letterkenny, and Robert Guthrie, who was shot dead while driving his car into an RUC station in Belfast.

Three were connected with the UDR: Joseph McIlwaine, who was shot dead at a golf club at Lisburn, Nathaniel Cush, a former member of the UDR, murdered by a booby trap bomb under his car, and John Tracey, who was shot while renovating a house off Lisburn Road, Belfast. Another was a 21-year-old British soldier, Joseph Leach, who was shot dead by a sniper in Belfast. The seventh victim, Thomas Wilson, was an alleged "informer" whose body was found in an entry off the Falls Rd.

Two Catholic civilians, Dominic O'Connor and James Keelan, were murdered by loyalist paramilitary gangs. (This information is taken from An Index of Deaths from the Couflict in Ireland 1969-1993 by Malcolm Sutton.)

I do not recall any sense of outrage over these atrocities, although each one was as horrendous and abominable as the murder of Roland Graham or David Johnston. Our senses were then dulled by the relentlessness of the carnage.

However awful the killings in Lurgan have been, the scale of awfulness has diminished greatly, and that diminution is, I believe, testimony to the willingness on the part of the IRA to end the conflict permanently. Mr Bertie Ahern should try to capitalise on that willingness now.