THE Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, has accused the IRA of continuing to pursue a twin track policy of an Armalite in one hand and the ballot box in the other. He also said he believed the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire was still intact.
Sir Patrick said yesterday that there would be no appeasement of the IRA, whose members he described as "criminal gangsters". He added that any future IRA ceasefire would be scrutinised with a "very, very sceptical and canny eye" to ensure that it was genuine.
He told reporters that the IRA had delivered its New Year message by way of the bomb alert at Belfast Castle. "Nobody can be cheerful about the future when these people have behaved on New Year's Eve in the way they did."
Sir Patrick said that the prospects for peace were bad if the IRA maintained a mood and a mindset of violence.
The Belfast Castle alert had demonstrated that "those who said the IRA are nothing but a lot of criminal gangsters who will continue to wave the Armalite in one hand while using the ballot box as a temptation in the other were right".
Those who left the suspect landmine called themselves the IRA, but in the language of any decent person they were "criminal gangsters".
Sir Patrick added: "They've got to learn that they're not going to succeed in their political objectives by those means. They're welcome to try to succeed through the party that speaks for them [Sinn Fein] and with them and is inextricably linked with them, provided that they do so on the same terms as everybody else."
His message to the republican movement was: "Take your chance at the table on the basis of your democratic mandate and leave your bombs and your guns right out of it." He emphasised that it was republicans themselves who were excluding Sinn Fein from the talks process.
Sir Patrick said there was a great difference between the conduct of the loyalist paramilitaries in the time since they had declared a ceasefire in October 1994 and that of the IRA, which had ended its ceasefire last February.
Asked about recent suspected UDA actions, including a boobytrap car bomb which injured a Belfast republican, Mr Eddie Copeland, and a second such foiled bomb attack aimed at a Derry republican, Mr Liam Duffy the Northern Secretary said that these were also to be condemned.
But he said it was not yet known who was responsible for these attacks.
Asked if he thought the loyalist ceasefire was over, he replied: "I don't think it is over, and I certainly trust it's not over, because first of all it should be maintained, and secondly the loyalist parties would throw away the immense advantages they have gained through that ceasefire.
"To throw that away now would not only be criminal and evil, it would be crazy."
Sir Patrick emphasised that the political talks process involving the British and Irish governments and nine parties was still in place and would continue. He conceded, however, that the British general election "would absorb people's interests as one got ever closer to it".
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said that "glib words and media soundbites" could not disguise Sir Patrick's failure as Northern Secretary.
"He and Mr Major had an unparalleled opportunity to rewrite Anglo Irish relations, but instead they chose to deliberately squander that opportunity", Mr Adams said.
"Mr Mayhew demonstrated an incapacity to move beyond the politics of British self interest and the Tory alliance with the unionists.
"While Irish nationalists and republicans demonstrated an ability to look forward, to take risks and to reach out to enemies, seeking agreement - and this remains Sinn Fein's commitment - where was the reciprocation from Patrick Mayhew?
"Where was the courage and vision, the honesty and good faith engagement which might have grasped the potential of recent years?"
Mr Adams said that republicans faced 1997 secure in their conviction that they would play their part in "achieving a democratic peace settlement".
The Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, said in his New Year message that recent months had been frustrating. "Opportunities for political progress have been squandered in the vain quest for a so called inclusive process", he said. "But we must face facts. There simply is not a genuine commitment to peaceful means on the part of Sinn Fein.
Mr Trimble said that the political process would have to continue without Sinn Fein. He again appealed to the loyalist paramilitaries to maintain a genuine ceasefire, adding: "Everyone will thank you, except, of course, the leadership of Sinn Fein/IRA.
