When
my chance came at yesterday's Culloden Hotel IICD
press conference to ask a question of General John
De Chastelain, I did not want to waste it on trying
to prise out of him the specifics of the mode of
putting weapons beyond use, or to obtain detail
of the arms inventory. Other journalists had been
doing that to no avail. The general seemed a determined
character, eager to honour whatever agreement he
had entered into with the IRA. I chose instead to
address my question to the issue of trust which,
it seems, is the only anchor weighty enough to institutionally
moor the Good Friday Agreement for any length of
time.
I
put it to him that while there was little room to
doubt his integrity, it was nevertheless continuously
undermined by the IRA leadership who, on previous
occasions where arms had been 'put beyond use',
had briefed their volunteers that no IRA guns were
in fact decommissioned. At family meetings, or at
the more selectively attended IRA meetings, participants
who used the term 'decommission' were firmly rebuked
by leadership figures. Moreover, volunteers were
sometimes told that de Chastelain knew he had to
spoof that decommissioning had occurred in order
to save the peace process and avert a certain return
to war by the IRA, frustrated at progress being
blocked by unionist demands for something they knew
they would never get. On other occasions IRA volunteers
were informed that dummy material had been placed
in arms dumps so that the general could pretend
he was decommissioning actual product. What I refrained
from telling him was that other tales told to volunteers
to reassure them that the general was putty in the
hands of the IRA, would, if true, leave little room
for doubt that roving our hills and rustic lanes
was a Canadian Casanova, as comfortable in condoms
as he was in water boots. I put it to him that when
stories of this type filter out to unionists, ready
at the best of times to overdose on suspicion, the
effect on unionist confidence can be cataclysmic.
I
felt it was more important to raise the question
than to get an answer. Which was as well, because
the general failed to respond, using up his words
vainly trying to persuade me that the IRA had not
surrendered. I felt it was vital to address the
issue of trust because in my view Sinn Fein strategy
is premised on ensuring that unionism can never
attain the degree of trust necessary to allow it
to settle down comfortably in government with the
Adams led Provisionals. Yesterday's Culloden announcement
did nothing to usurp that belief.
Sinn
Fein played it shrewdly. Even when punched from
corner to corner, the party's ring craft is outstanding.
Having taken a hammering since the Northern Bank
robbery last December and this January's murder
of Robert McCartney, the party leadership decided
the time was right to pull the same rabbit out of
the same hat for a fourth and final time. Even if
the rabbit were no longer tender, it would prove
a tasty enough morsel for the London and Dublin
governments, eager to sate themselves on some success.
For Sinn Fein, what was meat to both governments
should be poison to unionism.
By
not allowing the DUP to have their nominee witness
the decommissioning the IRA have ensured that Ian
Paisley will reject the latest move as a cynical
ploy. He will make sufficient noise to convince
many observers that he is a troublesome blusterer
who has no intention of doing a deal with Sinn Fein.
Had the Reverend McCaughey been one of the witnesses
and testified in the positive, then Paisley could
hardly have downplayed the significance of De Chastelain's
report. It was not in Sinn Fein's strategic intentions
to allow that to happen. In accordance with the
practice of ensuring an opponent is given enough
rope with which to hang himself, it was a safe wager
that Harold Good would prove easier for Paisley
to reject. And so it proved to be. In terms of moving
towards re-establishing devolved government yesterday's
move is two years too late, and from Sinn Fein's
point of view deliberately so.
For
this reason, the terms of decommissioning outlined
at yesterday's conference were not on offer in October
2003 when a bedraggled John de Chastelain appeared
in front of camera to persuade nobody of anything.
Had the general said then what he said yesterday,
David Trimble could have entered the assembly elections
of the following month with a deal he could sell
to the unionist electorate. The then UUP leader
had the will, ability and, if only just, the unionist
mood in his favour. That did not happen and post-election
the unionist constituency had returned a brand of
unionism less likely to strike a deal but easier
to blame for blocking any deal.
This
gives Sinn Fein a certain edge when it moves to
sell its wares in this year's market but at the
market price of two years previous. Sinn Fein by
continuously pitching its offer below the asking
price of the unionists but in line with the political
price fixers in London and Dublin has succeeded
in keeping the peace alive as a process but without
ever allowing it to bed down as a solution. The
resulting instability, for which unionism can be
blamed, fuels Sinn Fein's primary concern - it's
expansionist project in the Republic.
The
Culloden events have great potential to persuade
many that the IRA has given up its war making capacity
if measured in material terms. But the IRA at war
is no longer the dilemma that faces unionism. It
follows that the relinquishing of the weapons of
war will not assuage unionist concerns, which have
moved up a notch because decommissioning as a confidence
building measure no longer has the potency it once
possessed. Decommissioning is no longer the antidote
to the endemic mistrust that plagues the unionist
community. After three previous rounds, unionism
is convinced that the IRA robbed the Northern Bank.
It will be difficult to disabuse it of the notion
that the same is likely to happen again.
Such
a view is reinforced by the unlikelihood that the
IRA has surrendered every weapon. The suspicion
remains that sufficient hardware will be maintained
in order to police dissent, intimidate rivals and
let the criminal fraternity - to whom it is widely
believed the IRA now farms out robberies - know
who is boss. General De Chastelain stated that he
believed all IRA weaponry had been decommissioned.
His reason for saying this is that what he disposed
of tallied with estimates by both governments of
what the IRA held in its armoury. This was coupled
with a statement from the IRA that it is no longer
in possession of any weapons.
The
difficulty for unionism in accepting these reassurances
is that both governments have proven in the past
that their intelligence assessment of the IRA was
well below speed. They obviously did not know that
the IRA was about to rob the Northern Bank last
December otherwise they would have moved to pre-empt
it. As for the word of the IRA, had the general
asked the organisation was it responsible for the
robbery the organisation would have said no.
Out
of all this it emerges that the central dilemma
to be resolved for unionism is that the existence
of the IRA - rather than the organisation possessing
weapons - is mutually irreconcilable with the Good
Friday Agreement. Already we can see the shape of
the debate that will bore the world for the foreseeable
future and ensure that the interminable peace process
trundles on: unionism demanding that the IRA disappear
and Sinn Fein claiming the IRA is a figment of unionist
imagination.
