Negotiations to revive a Catholic-Protestant administration for
Northern Ireland resumed Monday after a 14-month hiatus caused by
the IRA's alleged record-breaking robbery of a Belfast bank.
In the interim, the Irish Republican Army handed over its
weapons stockpiles to disarmament officials and pledged never to
resume "armed struggle," major achievements on the road to lasting
peace in this long-contested British territory.
The governments of Britain and Ireland, which jointly oversaw
Monday's discussions with rival local leaders at Hillsborough
Castle near Belfast, hope that such reconciliatory actions by the
IRA will eventually permit Protestants to work again with Sinn
Fein, the IRA-linked party that represents most of Northern
Ireland's Roman Catholic minority.
After Monday's meeting, officials in both governments said they
would reconvene talks Feb. 20 and set an April target for a deal to
revive power-sharing, the central aim of Northern Ireland's Good
Friday pact of 1998.
But Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley, the key
Protestant politician in position to share power with Catholics,
said the IRA remains criminal and terrorist — and Sinn Fein a
political pariah.
Departing the castle after talks with Northern Ireland Secretary
Peter Hain and Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, Paisley said
his party would not cooperate with Sinn Fein until the IRA
disappeared. For now, the Democratic Unionist negotiators will
continue refusing to negotiate directly with Sinn Fein
officials.
Paisley cited the conclusions of an expert international
commission, published last week, that the IRA had halted most
activities but still was running criminal rackets and spying on
rival politicians, intelligence agencies and government
departments.
Such activity, Paisley said, meant Britain and Ireland should
have barred Sinn Fein from Monday's talks.
"I don't think the Sinn Feiners should be at talks to set up a
government of Northern Ireland when they are still at their
criminal activity," Paisley said.
A Sinn Fein delegation arrived at the castle after Paisley and
did not immediately comment. But over the weekend, Sinn Fein
leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness said they expected
Britain and Ireland to push Paisley toward a new deal — or to
impose one on him.
"Are the governments in charge or is Ian Paisley in charge?"
Adams said.
Paisley, 79, has spent decades marshaling Protestant opinion
against compromise. In 2003, voters made his Democratic Unionists
the biggest party in Northern Ireland's legislature, giving him
veto power over the formation of any new administration.
A four-party coalition that was led by moderates, not the
hard-line Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein, governed Northern
Ireland in fits and starts from December 1999 to October 2002. But
the four-party coalition, which allotted fewer positions to the
hard-liners, proved chronically unstable because of arguments over
the IRA.
The Democratic Unionists came close to cutting a deal with Sinn
Fein in December 2004, but it failed when the IRA refused to permit
any public record of its disarmament. Within days, trust was
shattered when a hostage-taking gang stole US$50 million — a
British record — from the Northern Bank, a raid authorities blamed
on the IRA.
Northern Ireland political analysts appear evenly divided on
whether a new coalition with Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein on
top could work at all. Without a deal, Britain will continue to
govern its territory in quasi-colonial style with Hain and other
lawmakers appointed from London, a system instituted in 1972 when
bloodshed over Northern Ireland peaked.
After the talks, Hain warned that Britain expected a deal within
months — otherwise the province's long-mothballed legislature could
be abolished and a planned 2007 election canceled. He noted that
the legislature's 108 members were still receiving salaries and
expenses worth an average of $150,000 annually.
"It's costing many millions of pounds to stay idle and people
won't stand for that," he said.
(Chinadaily.com via agencies February 7, 2006)
