By Anne Cadwallader in Belfast
and Andrew Bushe in Dublin
Marathon talks involving the main pro-agreement political party leaders as well as the British and Irish prime ministers have failed to remove the deadlock in the peace process over the IRA disarming.
At the end of an intense four-day session of discussions at Hillsborough Castle, Co. Down, all the two prime ministers could produce was a draft four-page document that has not been agreed by either the Ulster Unionists or Sinn Féin — although it has the support of the SDLP and other smaller parties. Talks were set to reconvene on April 13 after what the governments called a period of reflection. Despite the hopeful spin they put on Thursday’s outcome, it is widely believed the governments halted the proceedings because they saw no end the impasse.
And at Easter republican commemorations throughout Ireland, Sinn Féin leaders made clear that the arms decommissioning issue had not been resolved.
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams warned that the governments’ joint declaration may in fact be counterproductive if it amounts to an ultimatum to armed groups.
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Delivering the traditional 1916 Easter address at the republican plot in Dublin’s Glasnevin Cemetery, Adams described the peace process as "clearly in crisis."
He described the continuing demands for the IRA to disarm as a "provocation."
"This is something which the IRA has made clear it feels under no obligation to do," he said.
Meanwhile, a blunt warning on decommissioning was given by another leading Belfast republican, Brian Keenan, who said there could be no renegotiation of the Good Friday.
"If it falls, it falls," he said.
Speaking at an Easter commemoration in Inniskeen, Co. Monaghan, Keenan said the word decommissioning struck him as "surrender" — and there would be no surrender.
"There is no obligation on Oglaigh na hÉireann to decommission," Keenan said. "Sure Oglaigh na hÉireann aren’t part of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement."
Keenan described the Hillsborough Declaration document as a "rabbit out of a hat" or the "mad March hare" that was full of contradictions and ambiguities.
He said the peace agreement must be implemented in full and it seemed to him that when the British didn’t have an answer, they "played the Orange card and turn on republicans".
"We are very, very frustrated, very angry now, very, very, very impatient," he said.
"We have been on our own before and if we have to be on our own again, we will be on our own again," added Keenan, who was also scathing about the taoiseach’s role in the talks, saying "Free State" leaders could come and go but republicans would be here forever and "win the struggle" because the reason for the struggle still remains.
However, Sinn Féin has made clear that it remains wedded to the peace process and that it would be back at the talks table on April 13 when another massive push is likely to get over the obstacle holding up progress.
Hillsborough Declaration
The Hillsborough Declaration was unveiled by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday, April 1. It proposes that decommissioning, while voluntary, is also an obligation.
It proposes a date be set when a ministers to a proposed power-sharing Executive would be nominated.
Within one month of this, it proposes, there would be a collective act of reconciliation when all parties to the conflict on both sides of the border would decommission some weapons as a token of their penitence for 30 years of conflict.
This voluntary act would, it says, see "some arms put beyond use in a manner to be verified by the International Commission on Decommissioning" with a response from the British government subsequently on demilitarizing and downgrading British Army installations in the North.
Around the time of the act of reconciliation, which would involve all the churches, powers would be devolved and the cross-border councils and implementation bodies come into effect.
The SDLP view the declaration as a practical proposal for concrete steps forward. The Irish government also views the Declaration as its bottom line and that Sinn Féin will have to accept this is as good as it’s going to get.
This is also believed to be the view of all the parties in the Dáil, apart from Sinn Féin, leaving it isolated from the rest of the nationalist consensus. It’s understood that President Clinton was on the phone at least three times to Tony Blair during the talks.
The Ulster Unionist party leader, David Trimble, said if the Declaration led directly to actual decommissioning by the IRA, he would welcome it. "If there is agreement by the paramilitary parties to decommission and act within the ways set out, I think we will be able to trigger the . . . formula to identify those who could become ministers"
The DUP leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley, called the Declaration an "April Fools’ Charter" and a "failure dressed up like a fudge." He accused the UUP of treating IRA victims on a par with murdered members of the British Army and RUC and of drawing parallels with IRA weapons and those of the security forces.
Anti-Agreement unionists within the UUP were similarly scathing and it is far from clear that Trimble will be able to sell the Declaration to his own rank and file.
Easter message
During the course of the Hillsborough talks, the IRA issued its traditional Easter message, which contained no mention of decommissioning, seen by many as an attempt to be neutral on the question.
It did, however, emphasize that its guns are silent and that the peace process has the potential to resolve the conflict and deliver a lasting peace.