FRFI 164 December 2001 / January 2002
On 23 October the IRA issued a statement that, ‘in order to save the peace process’, it had begun the decommissioning of arms. This was confirmed the same day by a statement from the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning which said that it had witnessed an event ‘in which the IRA has put a quantity of arms completely beyond use’.
The previous day major speeches by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to Republican activists in Belfast and New York announced that they had asked the IRA to consider decommissioning arms. Adams argued that the Peace Process was at a crossroads, the British government was not honouring its commitments, the Unionists were obstructing the fundamental changes needed and that this must not be allowed to happen: ‘Our aim is to save the Good Friday Agreement’. To this end Adams and McGuinness had ‘held discussions with the IRA and we have put to the IRA the view that if it could make a groundbreaking move on the arms issue that this could save the Peace Process from collapse and transform the situation’.
The historic IRA statement was greeted with delight by the British government and not least by David Trimble, who had staked his political future on achieving IRA arms decommissioning. Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), with the support of the Labour government, had gradually built up political pressure on Sinn Fein through obstructing the development of the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement and Sinn Fein’s participation in them. His resignation as First Minister of the Assembly on 1 July was a central part of this strategy. It culminated with the resignation of the UUP’s three members of the Executive on 17 October. It was this gradual collapse of the institutions set up under the Good Friday Agreement which had the effect of undermining the whole present political strategy of Sinn Fein. This, allied with the changed political situation internationally after 11 September and the threat to Sinn Fein’s support in the USA, finally pushed the IRA into the actual deed of arms decommissioning.
But even this was not enough for the DUP and some members of Trimble’s own party. The volatile and unstable nature of Unionism at the present time was highlighted by the farce of Trimble’s re-election as Assembly First Minister. He only regained his post at the second attempt, and after some convoluted political juggling involving members of the Women’s Coalition and the Alliance Party redesignating themselves as Unionists to give him a majority in the Unionist camp.
During this whole period loyalist attacks on the nationalist working class have been on-going, with pipe-bomb attacks on homes and the continued disgrace of the daily ‘protests’ against the schoolchildren of Holy Cross in north Belfast (see FRFI 163). Schoolchildren and parents alike have had to face a daily barrage of sectarian, racist and sexist insults, and a bombardment of bottles, bricks, fireworks and balloons filled with urine on their way to school each morning. The fascist Red Hand Defenders, cover name for the UDA and LVF, has issued death threats against parents prominent in the ‘Right to Education Group’, set up to mobilise support for the children. At least two pipe bombs have been thrown during the loyalist demonstrations as the children make their way to school.
In north Belfast there has been a sustained campaign by loyalist terror gangs, associated with the UDA, attempting to force nationalist families out of their homes. In one week at the end of October there were over a dozen pipe-bomb and blast-bomb attacks on Catholic families. In south Belfast during the same period attacks from the UDA have resulted in six Catholic families being terrorised out of their homes and leaving the area.
On Sunday 4 November, as part of the back-on-track Good Friday Agreement, the RUC had its name changed to the ‘Police Service of Northern Ireland’ (PSNI). The police supervisory body also had a name change, from the Police Authority to the new Police Board. Apart from a few cosmetic changes, everything else remains the same. One of the last acts of the old Police Authority was to order 50,000 plastic bullets at a cost of £300,000! One week after the formation of the ‘new’ police service, on the afternoon of 11 November, a drunken mob of loyalists attacked nationalist homes in the New Lodge area of north Belfast. They forced their way into two houses smashing one resident in the face with a brick, blinding him in one eye. The response of the new PSNI when they arrived was to show their continuity with the old RUC and fire off plastic bullets at the nationalist residents! A 10-year-old Catholic boy was hit in the leg and a 14-year-old Catholic girl was hit in the chest and had to be rushed to hospital.
The deed is done but is this worth it?
Bob Shepherd
