February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Anti-Good Friday agreement members of the UUP, such as the two MPs, Jeffrey Donaldson and David Burnside, have called the meeting to demand tougher action against Sinn Fein for alleged breaches in the IRA ceasefire.
It will be the ninth meeting of the UUP’s 800-plus-member ruling council since Trimble became party leader in 1996. Last Saturday, he joked that “some people” are going to have to get used to the fact that he is a cat with more than nine lives.
He is refusing to say, until the meeting on Saturday, what tactics he will use against Sinn Fein in the run-up to the assembly elections, which must be held by May 2003, with many observers believing his party will pull out of the power-sharing Executive before polling day.
Trimble will have at least three policy successes to present to the Ulster Unionist Council. The British government has conceded it will appoint an independent monitor to regularly give audits on the status of the republican and loyalist ceasefires.
London has also agreed to place extra security cameras along the peace line in East Belfast to keep watch over both loyalist and nationalists in the Short Strand area, despite local objections.
It’s also highly likely Trimble will also be able to assure delegates to the council that the RUC full-time reserve, which the Patten Report said should be phased out, will remain for the foreseeable future.
Both the SDLP and Sinn Fein have voiced their anger that, once again, Trimble has managed to use a forthcoming meeting of his ruling council to persuade the British government to unilaterally make concessions to unionists outside the terms of the Good Friday agreement.
Speaking in London after Trimble’s meeting the British prime minister, Tony Blair, on Thursday, Britain’s Northern secretary, John Reid, said he would retain the last word on whether paramilitary ceasefires had been breached. But, he added, there is no reason as much information as possible should be made available to the public.
“What people in Northern Ireland are concerned about is the ongoing violence in the streets,” he said. “They want to know what is the pattern — is it worse than ever, is it better, what areas are improving, whose behind it, where is it happening? We haven’t got a mechanism for that yet, but we will have in the not too distant future.”
Meanwhile, the IRA has said it opposes the idea of monitoring paramilitary ceasefires. In an interview with An Phoblacht, an IRA leadership spokesman said the plan would only be used “to serve the interests of those opposed to change.”
The IRA restated its commitment to the search for peace and praised the discipline of its “volunteers.” The spokesman said he believed “sections of the British military and its intelligence agencies, including the Special Branch, are still at war” and that the “leadership of unionism” and “elements within the British establishment” are working to create another crisis.
The IRA representative stated the groups opposition to sectarian violence. He said he welcomed efforts to end the violence but pointed the finger at the “securocrats” and Special Branch, who run agents, particularly within the UDA, as the prime movers and instigators.