Why the NI talks must now reach an agreement

LAST Friday with my Alliance colleagues, I attended the 13th session of the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue in Belfast.

The morning began with a depressingly familiar experience. Each party expressed its sympathies with the injured of the Thiepval bombs and its condolences to the family of Warrant Officer Bradwell who had just died of his injuries.

We had all hoped that October 1994, when the IRA ceasefire was joined with a similar commitment from the Combined Loyalist Military Command, had marked an end to the need for the painful corteges of anger and sadness that must follow terrorist outrages.

It was in October last year that I found myself emerging from another forum the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in Dublin Castle - to express my frustration that it was dying through neglect by some Northern nationalist leaders. My accusations were of course flatly rejected, but it is now clear why there was such a lack of personal commitment from Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness in particular.

In the early days, things had been different. The forum was construed by Sinn Fein strategists as being the all Ireland peace convention which they had described in their 1987 Scenario for Peace document and which they had discussed with the SDLP during nine months of talks in 1988, and later in the Hume Adams meetings.

There was great optimism that the "peace strategy" was working and that nationalist Ireland would soon create an unstoppable political force towards a united Ireland. The dynamic was undeniable, particularly since the then Secretary of State, Mr Peter Brooke, had declared that Britain had no "selfish strategic or economic interest" in Northern Ireland.

For Sinn Fein, however, the year in the forum had been a disappointing experience. The media, always attracted by the smell of cordite, might still be more interested in the republican movement than in anyone else, but at the forum, Sinn Fein was only one party among many and no one else truly shared its agenda.

Was it prepared to accept its place in democratic politics as one of the smaller parties on the island? That was the question which I had put to former Congressman Bruce Morrison and his colleagues when I met them on their important preceasefire visit in August 1994.

He had been uncertain, but by the following autumn, the answer was becoming clear. The republican movement was committed to the achievement of its ends by any means possible. Democratic politics was fine as an alternative to violence, but only if it could be guaranteed to deliver the republican agenda and quickly.

The flirtation with democracy lost its thrill once it became apparent that the national consensus on the future of Ireland was closer to the position of the Alliance Party than to that of Sinn Fein. We now know with some certainty that at this point the republican movement planned for the return to the campaign of terrorism which saw its most recent development last week in Lisburn.

What a tragedy that unionists did not attend the forum in Dublin. Just as Sinn Fein was coming to believe its aim could not be delivered, more and more unionists were falling prey to the vintage Paisley script of sellout and betrayal, now reissued in instalments in Northern Ireland newspapers by Mr Robert McCartney QC.

While Sinn Fein was coming to believe its strategy was failing, Bob McCartney and the DUP were trying to convince the electors of Northern Ireland it was going to succeed. By not being at the forum, most unionists failed to see the truth that had been grasped by the loyalist politicians so despised by Mr McCartney. The PUP and UDP had delivered a ceasefire by persuading loyalist paramilitaries that republicans were not going to have their way and that the nationalist consensus had espoused the principle of consent. This week proved the loyalist analysis right.

The IRA has not returned to violence because it is succeeding but because it is failing. Those who win an argument do not resort to brute force. Only losers do that. The unionists resorted to threats and violence over the summer because they were persuaded by the DUP/UKUP that they were losing. In fact they only really started to lose when they resorted to violence.

The republican movement still has not learnt this lesson. Violence will not build a new Ireland. Violence never built anything, it only ever destroys. How do we persuade - republicans and indeed extreme unionists of this?

The lesson of the last two years is clear. Publicity, US visas, legitimate fundraising, smoothing the path into democracy and offering the hand of friendship have all been tried and have failed. Those who took such risks for peace have been betrayed by republicans. The only remaining alternative is to demonstrate that politics works.

THERE is a profound responsibility now on those involved in the talks process to produce agreement. Real hope can only be built on real results. Those who doubt that democratic politics can work will only be persuaded to commit themselves to it if they see what can be built.

The recent preoccupation of unionists with keeping Sinn Fein out of the talks is not only wrong, it is stupid. Sinn Fein does not want to come into the talks.

Mr McGuinness has made clear that he and his colleagues want the current process to be destroyed and a new one built which is more conducive to the republican agenda. He will not change tack unless he becomes convinced the talks are going to reach a new agreement.

Of course that agreement will not be fashioned on the republican agenda, but on the basis of consent - the consent of the majority in Northern Ireland on the constitutional issue and the consent of all, but especially of the minority, on the institutional issues.

If there is any hope of the republican movement giving up violence for good, and that is by no means certain, then it will be when the talks show signs of succeeding in the absence of Sinn Fein. Then, and only then, will there be any hope of republicans giving up violence, in order to be part of a historic settlement.

As the sound of the Thiepval blast recedes, this reality should be ringing in the ears of all who gather at Castle Buildings under the esteemed chairmanship of Senator George Mitchell. If not, then the bell will toll not only for these talks, but for the prospects for peaceful relations on this island for years to come.