IRA says it never offered to ‘end war’

By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST — Casting Northern Ireland’s delicate peace negotiations further into confusion, a senior IRA source has denied that the paramilitary group offered to declare an end to its war, or that it agreed to link decommissioning to demilitarization with the British Army.

The denial comes after two Dublin Sunday newspapers reported the IRA’s alleged three-point plan was part of a last minute attempt to salvage the province’s new power-sharing government and halt the re-imposition of direct rule from London.

"Speculation in the Sunday media and since on the contents of the IRA proposal, namely linking demilitarization and decommissioning, a timeframe and the notion of a gesture are all totally and absolutely wrong," the source told the Irish Echo on Tuesday.

The source also re-iterated the IRA’s earlier statement that its engagement with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, which was to monitor the disarming procedure, had ended and that all proposals put to the commission since last November were now off the table.

The Irish media had reported that under the proposals the IRA would have declared its war over in May, would have taken part in a day of national reconciliation to decommission some weapons and would have put its arsenal "beyond use" if its offer made to the Decommissioning Commission had been accepted on February 11.

According to the reports, the three stage approach, in tandem with a significant British scaling down of its military presence in Ireland, was made to General John de Chastelain on what’s becoming known as "Black Friday" when the Northern Secretary, Peter Mandelson, instead suspended the power-sharing Executive.

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Irish government officials believed such a move by the IRA would have been a huge advance on its previous position and fully justified maintaining the Executive and Assembly.

It is also understood de Chastelain considered the IRA move enough to justify him saying his remit could be fulfilled — but it was not enough for Mandelson nor for the UUP leader, David Trimble, whose post-dated letter of resignation was held over unless the new government was suspended.

Fears of disintegration

Concern is growing in Northern Ireland that a gradual disintegration of the Good Friday Agreement may be inevitable unless the British and Irish governments act quickly to inject a new sense of urgency.

Republicans fear that the main thrust of Ulster Unionist Party strategy is now to renegotiate the agreement. Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is on record saying he cannot contemplate the circumstances in which his party would take part in a review which it considers both illegal and unnecessary. Sinn Fein’s ard comhairle voted on Saturday not to take part in a review.

Internal Sinn Féin meetings have been taking place all week and another major review of party strategy in the peace process is due this weekend at a conference called to discuss the peace process.

The mood of these meetings is said to be "angry and confused" and after meeting the remaining 60 republican prisoners in the Maze Jail on Monday, Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly said they shared this mood of frustration and concern.

Sources close to the complex negotiations that culminated in the suspending the democratic institutions set up by the Good Friday Agreement, have sketched out a chronology of how the day went.

Sinn Féin insists that no understandings on a timetable were given during the Mitchell Review last November and that this was made clear over and over again to the Ulster Unionist Party.

"It was a very clear quid pro quo. Trimble agreed to take part in the institutions and the IRA agreed to speak to the Decommissioning Body. That was it and no more," said a senior party source.

"At the end of the Mitchell Review, there was a clear 13-step choreography worked out, which did not include post-dated letters of resignation or deadlines for decommissioning," the IRA source told the Echo.