Still talking, ten years after ceasefire – ISN
September 1st, 2004
DERRY – Tuesday marked the 10-year anniversary of the first IRA ceasefire, the culmination of years of official and behind-the-scenes negotiation and confidence building.
After yet more intricate and stop-and-start dealings, the way was paved for the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, aimed at permanently settling the 30-year civil conflict in Northern Ireland. With the guns largely silent and the daily litany of bombings, assassinations, and sectarian murder now largely a thing of the past, the focus is on the current political impasse that has stalled the implementation of the landmark peace deal, now under review.
More negotiations were set for Wednesday afternoon, mainly focusing on this same review of the Good Friday Agreement, but also with a view to priming the participants for more difficult negotiations to come. There has been a mixture of positive and negative signals emanating from Northern Ireland in the run-up to Wednesday’s discussions.
Last year’s Assembly elections resulted in an apparent polarization of Northern Irish politics, with the ostensibly more “hard-line” parties on both the Protestant/Unionist and Catholic/Nationalist divide coming out on top. One of those parties is Sinn Féin, allegedly the political wing of the IRA. The complete decommissioning of the vast IRA arsenal and the ultimate disbandment of the paramilitary group have always been key Unionist demands.
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), now the leading Unionist party, which opposes the Good Friday Agreement, initially dismissed any possibility of entering a devolved government with Sinn Féin.
However, recent weeks have seen some positive sound bites coming from both sides. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has hinted that the IRA could be disbanded, pending a successful peace-building process in Northern Ireland, and more immediately, could lead to a restoration of devolution and progress on police and justice issues.
The DUP have reacted coolly to these statements, welcoming them as having potential, but retaining their opposition to the Good Friday Agreement and to power-sharing in the immediate future. The DUP’s electoral success was based on their hard-line stance in dealing with Sinn Féin, in comparison with the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP).
Therefore any appearance of concession could jeopardize this recent triumph, given the apparent preferences of a majority of Unionist voters. Wednesday’s discussions will be chaired by Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen and British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Paul Murphy. Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster on Tuesday, Murphy said that people wanted an end to direct rule, but clearly saw the problems facing the review of the Agreement to be discussed on Wednesday. “This is a different problem that we face, that the DUP is opposed to the Agreement and the other parties are in favor,” he said.
Wednesday’s talks will pave the way for summit-level negotiations hosted by both the British and Irish governments in Kent on 16 September, aimed at restoring the devolved institutions of government in Northern Ireland
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