Crisis Over Decommissioning

Sir, - In order to settle the Northern impasse, unionists and republicans were asked to swallow much that was disagreeable to…

Sir, - In order to settle the Northern impasse, unionists and republicans were asked to swallow much that was disagreeable to them. Unionists were persuaded to accept a package in the agreement. There was much complaint about David Trimble not selling the package convincingly to his grassroots. Some of it was a bridge too far for many unionists. And so the unionists split.

Some of it was a bridge too far for republicans also. For example, decommissioning. But were republicans allowed to split? Not really. Fudge was used instead. Why? Because republicans have the capacity to blow brains out. Anyhow, fudge allows Sinn Fein to claim that what everybody else understood was implied in the acceptance of the Mitchell principles isn't in the agreement. The old hair-splitting which allowed Sinn Fein in the past to refuse to recognise the Government in Dublin, the priority of words over realities, is back again.

Sinn Fein has not sold the agreement and its implications convincingly to its grassroots - only part of it. Pointing to legally held guns, RUC guns and British guns is a red herring. If the IRA were serious, the matter of other guns would have to come up in negotiations. But "not-an-ounce" republicans don't want to face any negotiations which might end with their having to decommission. The penny hasn't yet dropped with the men in the Belfast ghettos and the Armagh fastnesses that normalisation and private armies are incompatible. - Yours, etc.,

Tom Gillen, Weston Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14.