Sinn Fein votes depend on IRA compliance

Following the Anglo Irish Agreement of 1985, Sinn FΘin lost one-third of its electoral support to the SDLP

Following the Anglo Irish Agreement of 1985, Sinn FΘin lost one-third of its electoral support to the SDLP. A lesser man than John Hume would have been content to sit back and enjoy the benefits of that political bonus. But, having dedicated over 30 years of his life to an attempt to restore peace and stability to Northern Ireland and to end sterile quarrels over territory in this island, and despite the negative effect success in this mission would eventually have on his own party, he committed himself instead to what most would have seen as an impossible task: persuading the IRA to abandon its violence in favour of the democratic process.

That process also involved him in a second very difficult task: persuading a British Conservative Government to change its approach to the IRA by declaring its lack of any selfish economic or strategic interest in Northern Ireland and expressing its acceptance of the principle of Irish self-determination, to be exercised by the peoples of North and South.

John Hume's efforts have since brought us very close indeed to a resolution of the Northern Ireland problem. As he came to the point where his health required him finally to give up the leadership of his party, he must have been deeply disappointed by the fact that the IRA seemed to have jibbed at jumping the final hurdle in this process - all the more so because a very few weeks ago both he and the two governments seem to believe this was about to happen.

However, the last couple of days have seen renewed hope of a successful outcome to the peace process that he sought to initiate 13 years ago.

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What is still not clear is why the recent breakdown in the peace process occurred and Wednesday's obscurely worded IRA statement brought us no nearer to understanding what did go wrong six weeks ago.

The fact that the announcement on August 8th of IRA agreement with the De Chastelain commission on the disposal of weapons was not accompanied by any actual step to implement that decision, or even to indicate a timetable for such implementation, precluded a return to the Executive by David Trimble at that stage.

Despite Sinn FΘin/IRA's expressions of surprise and hurt at Trimble's rather low-key negative reaction, they could never have been in any doubt on this point. They might, perhaps, have hoped that Trimble's inevitable negative response would have shifted some of the blame for the resultant breakdown to the UUP.

But that announcement, even though unaccompanied by follow-up action, still left open the prospect of arms being put beyond use at a later stage, when the IRA could present itself to its adherents as acting voluntarily and free from pressure.

This could have happened quite quickly. Both governments, as well as the SDLP, clearly thought they had reason to believe there would be early action.

Alternatively, it has been suggested that Sinn FΘin might have had in mind such action being taken some months hence, perhaps shortly before our general election next spring, when it might have hoped to swing some extra votes to its candidates.

What has puzzled me, however, and clearly many others, is that by almost immediately retracting its agreement with the De Chastelain decommissioning body, instead of just letting that hare sit, the IRA chose instead to draw on to its own head the full blame for this breakdown.

Up to then most of what Sinn FΘin/IRA had done had seemed to be part of a skilful and well-thought-out political plan, which had made a lot of sense from their point of view.

It is hard to see the withdrawal of the agreement with the de Chastelain commission as having been part of that plan. This simply doesn't make sense. It is, therefore, difficult to avoid feeling that there was at that point an ill-judged change of plan.

Several suggestions have been made as to what might have precipitated such an action. Panic at reactions to the Colombian expedition has been one of these suggestions.

Another has been that it was caused by the British government's decision to suspend the institutions for 24 hours, but that makes little sense. This British action was inevitable, and must already have been built in to Sinn FΘin/IRA's calculations.

Yet another suggestion has been that Sinn FΘin was counting on McGuinness and de Br·n remaining Ministers until an eventual new election to the Northern Ireland Assembly - not realising that a UUP withdrawal from the Executive would have the legal consequence of depriving all other parties' Ministers of their posts.

Finally, there is the possibility that a change of plan was simply forced upon the leadership by some kind of last-minute grass-roots revolt, or by unexpected strong opposition from a powerful group or individual within the IRA hierarchy.

The truth is that we don't know - and even the two governments may not know - just what went wrong at that crucial moment.

But what we do know is that coming in the wake of the Colombian revelation, and at a time when the Irish Government and Opposition parties, as well as the SDLP, were already becoming impatient with the failure of the IRA to deliver on arms, the IRA's withdrawal from the agreement with the de Chastelain commission did huge damage to the credibility of Sinn FΘin.

It also greatly weakened that party's position in this State at a time when it had been hoping to build up electoral support here.

The two governments were furious at having been let down on what they had understood to have been a commitment to take an early concrete step towards putting weapons beyond use.

The British Prime Minister must have felt particularly annoyed having over-ruled his security advisers on issues such as de-militarisation and policing in the expectation of early delivery by the IRA on the putting of arms beyond use.

But the Irish Government, already concerned at possible losses of seats to Sinn FΘin in the forthcoming election, was equally upset at this debacle.

The bombings in the US put the IRA under even further pressure to mend the hand it had so badly over-played, and Wednesday's IRA statement seems to show it had finally realised what a deep hole it had dug for itself, and the urgency of retrieving its error.

Clearly there is now some chance of early action on putting the IRA's weapons beyond use, hopefully before David Trimble is forced by anti-agreement elements in his party to withdraw from the Executive. Wednesday's climb-down statement makes little sense otherwise.

For, if for a second time in a couple of months hopes of action on decommissioning were once again to be dashed, the impact on Sinn FΘin's electoral support both North and South could be severe.

gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie