February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The historic cessation of Aug. 31, 1994 was meant to herald a dramatic shift in Northern society. As republicans and nationalists took to the streets of West Belfast to celebrate, unionists looked on with a mixture of fear and suspicion.
Then Ulster Unionist leader James Molyneaux declared the move by the IRA to be the most destabilizing event ever in the history of Northern Ireland.
As the weeks and months progressed, it became increasingly apparent that, contrary to unionist fears, the IRA had extracted little from the British government other than an assurance that it would respect the “consent” principle. In the run-up to the ceasefire, Britain’s Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Brooke, had said that his government had “no selfish or strategic interest” in the North.
Republicans had always rejected the notion of “consent,” but the dialogue between Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and SDLP leader John Hume had outlined a scenario in which republicans could, at least tacitly, accept that unionists needed to be convinced of the merits of a United Ireland before such a thing could come to pass.
In a 1993 memo from the Irish government, the IRA’s governing body, the army council, pointed out that it had “accepted concepts which form no great part of our traditional political vocabulary.”
In the subsequent years, the political process seemed, at different points, to be moving so slowly that a breakthrough might never come, or moving at such speed that it risked throwing the North back into the chaos of the late 1960s and early ’70s.
Less than four years later, the first IRA cessation and the Good Friday agreement was in place. It promised much for both communities.
For unionists, it ensured that the North would remain British so long as they wished, it promised devolved government at Stormont, and secured the removal of Articles 2 and 3 from Ireland’s Constitution, which claimed territorial control of the North. In addition to this, the IRA went on to engage in two acts of weapons decommissioning in order to increase confidence within the unionist community. The leadership of the republican movement has in recent weeks begun talking about the possibility of IRA disbandment.
Nationalists and republicans were promised significant changes to policing, a power-sharing executive, North-South bodies and, ultimately, “demilitarization.”
The current impasse has undoubtedly angered nationalists more so than unionists. Direct rule from London undermines the All-Ireland aspect to the Good Friday agreement. The North-South bodies are operating on what SDLP leader Mark Durkan describes as a “care and maintenance basis,” while the human rights commission, whose job it is to draw up a Northern Ireland bill of rights, is in serious difficulties and 15,000 British soldiers remain stationed in the North. Meanwhile, the loyalist paramilitary groupings remain fully armed and committed to retaining their weaponry.
According to Sinn Fein, the Patten report, which paved the way for significant reforms of the Northern Ireland police force, was gutted by former Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson.
Figures released last month showed that almost 15,000 people were stopped and searched by either the PSNI or the British army last year. Republicans claim that the Northern security forces have been deployed mainly against the Catholic community. Seven years on from the reinstatement of the IRA ceasefire and assurances from various security figures, such as PSNI’s chief constable, that the IRA is not going to go back to war, and the North still resembles a society on high alert.
There is no doubt that the absence of significant paramilitary activity has changed the lives of many for the better. Pubgoers no longer feel the need to look over their shoulders every time a stranger enters the bar. Shoppers are no longer plagued by security alerts and bomb warnings. However, for those living in areas such as South Armagh and North Belfast, things have not moved as quickly as they would have liked.
Nationalists in North Belfast’s Ardoyne watched earlier in the summer as police allowed Orange coat-trailers through the area. It was perceived by Catholics as a direct act of provocation. Less than three years after the Holy Cross Primary School protests, which saw loyalist residents in the area hurl abuse, urine and pipe bombs at Catholic schoolgirls, and the July 12 exercise by the PSNI and Orangemen touched raw nerves.
Meanwhile, South Armagh still hosts numerous spy towers, PSNI and British army barracks, thousands of British soldiers, and thousands of British army helicopter overflights every month.
This month, the two governments and the North parties will sit down in a bid to thrash out a deal that will bring all the outstanding issues to a conclusion. For nationalists, everything is to play for. Return of the cross-border institutions, power-sharing government, a proper equality and human-rights program, and demilitarization will be on the Sinn Fein and SDLP agendas.
Meanwhile, the DUP will be pressing for the renegotiation of certain aspects of the agreement. The party still refuses to engage in face-to-face talks with republicans. The DUP has said that a deal is unlikely in the short term. Some commentators suggest that the party still has its eyes set on a British general election next spring, when it will have the opportunity to rout the UUP.