A time to stand back and consider North crisis

A few weeks ago, at a meeting of the Anglo-Irish Parliamentary Body in Galway, Sir Peter Brooke asked the assorted delegates …

A few weeks ago, at a meeting of the Anglo-Irish Parliamentary Body in Galway, Sir Peter Brooke asked the assorted delegates to remember what he described as the three most useful words in the English language. These, he said, are: "Wait a minute!"

The former Northern Secretary was reminding his audience that there are times when the most important thing is to stay calm, stand back from a crisis and consider all the options rather than rush into action.

His advice is important at a time when it looks as though peace could be slipping away before our eyes. Since the UUC meeting at the Waterfront Hall on Saturday, four men have died violently and an attack on an RUC station has left a policeman seriously injured.

Within hours of the UUC vote, the body of David Greer (21) was found on a road in north Belfast. He was known to have links with the UDA.

READ MORE

On Tuesday, the loyalist feud claimed two further victims. Bertie Rice (63) was shot in front of his wife, who is recovering from her second stroke. Rice, a former UVF internee, came back to live in Northern Ireland last year after spending almost 20 years in South Africa.

The third man to die in this tit-for-tat bloodletting was Tommy English (39), a member of the Ulster Democratic Party and known to be close to Gary McMichael. The only witness to his death was his wife.

If there is one thing that we know after 30 years of conflict, it is that when politics is seen to falter in Northern Ireland violence rushes in to fill the vacuum.

It was always on the cards that Saturday would be very difficult for David Trimble. In the Waterfront Hall, as the vote was being taken, some of his closest supporters were deeply pessimistic. Several people said to me: "The important thing now is that he shouldn't resign immediately."

In the end it was probably Jeffrey Donaldson's youth and that most of the delegates still see Mr Trimble as the most credible leader available which swung the vote in his favour. His survival has bought some precious time to get the peace process back on the rails.

The fact that it was necessary for the Trimble camp to come up with proposals almost as hardline as those of its opponents was probably inevitable given the mood of the delegates. It has been said that the Ulster Unionist leader has merely shifted the responsibility for dealing with the problem of decommissioning on to everybody but himself.

His supporters argue that if other parties to the agreement had moved earlier to rebuild unionist confidence in the whole process, particularly after the South Antrim by-election, this might not have been necessary.

Tony Blair's last-minute appearance in Belfast; the IRA's statement last week that it was prepared to open its arms dumps to a new inspection: these were seen by most unionists as blatant attempts to influence Saturday's council meeting. "Too little and too late" was the phrase used to me by several delegates.

Mr Blair does not carry the clout which he used to such effect in the referendum campaign of 1998. On the contrary, he is widely seen as the author of Mr Trimble's difficulties, having made promises to the unionist community on decommissioning which he has failed to deliver.

As for the IRA, it may be unfair but it is hardly surprising that members of the Ulster Unionist Council were not much impressed by last week's statement.

If there is one gleam of light it is that both Sinn Fein and the SDLP, while obviously furious at Mr Trimble's ultimatum, have been judicious in their response. There has been no talk of pulling out of the Executive or other threats of dire action. The way has been left open for the two governments to find a solution.

However, nobody should be left in any doubt as to how the meeting at the Waterfront Hall is seen by nationalists. Last weekend in Derry it was an SDLP voter who said to me: "This just proves what we've suspected all along, that they never wanted to share power with nationalists." Another comment was: "Trimble seems to thinks it's his agreement. But the whole point is that it belongs to all of us."

David Trimble has committed himself to an inclusive political settlement in Northern Ireland. He may yet fall on that principle. Yet he knows how much has already been achieved. There is a palpable pride, right across the community, that local politicians are managing Northern Ireland's affairs and, what is more, doing so with a high degree of success.

John Hume is fond of saying that the decommissioning of weapons is not the issue, that what matters is the decommissioning of mindsets on both sides. We still have some way to go before we reach that point, but David Trimble and Gerry Adams have shown that it is possible to move forward from entrenched mistrust.

There is a way through this crisis but it will demand political skill and sensitivity from all sides. The Government of this State has made it clear that it does not intend to pull back from the political institutions set up under the Belfast Agreement. That is a sensible decision but Bertie Ahern also needs to convince the IRA to take the steps necessary to bring unionists back on board.

P.S. In my column last week, I inadvertently referred to a mythical, two-headed BBC correspondent called Mark Grimason. In fact, Stephen Grimason is BBC Northern Ireland's political editor while Mark Simpson is its political correspondent. I listen to and learn a great deal from both of them and apologise for joining them together in this way.