by Peter Taylor
There was no let up in the pressure on the beleaguered First Minister, not least from the dissident faction within his own party now united around Jeffrey Donaldson, who had refused to endorse the Good Friday Agreement the day it was signed. On 28 October 2000, at a specially summoned meeting of the party’s governing body, the Ulster Unionist Council, Trimble narrowly saw off a hostile motion tabled by Donaldson and his supporters by 54 per cent to 46 per cent but only did so by declaring that he would exclude Sinn Fein from cross-border Ministerial meetings until there was real progress on decommissioning. As far as General John de Chastelain’s IICD was concerned, decommissioning still meant the destruction of terrorist weapons: inspecting and sealing dumps were merely ‘confidence building’ measures. Ulster Unionists were of the same view. Inspecting a few dumps was not decommissioning. They were thoroughly fed up, believing they had made endless political sacrifices, dividing their party in the process, and got little in return from the IRA. There was a limit to how much longer they were prepared to put up with what they saw as IRA prevarication.
To survive, Trimble had had to seize at least some of Donaldson’s ground: he was true to his word and refused to nominate Sinn Fein’s Health Minister, Bairbre de Brun, to attend a North–South Ministerial meeting on health in Enniskillen on 4 November 2000. Nevertheless, Ms de Brun attended, as did her Irish opposite number, thereby cocking a snook at what Sinn Fein inevitably called a unionist veto. Unionists dismissed it as ‘pantomime politics’. Martin McGuinness warned that the peace process might be facing ‘the mother of all crises’.36 The Education Minister’s concern was understandable, given the importance the Republican Movement attaches to the cross-border bodies, which they see as the doorway to a united Ireland.
Although it was insufficient for Trimble, there had been some good news for the ‘Brits’ on 3 November, the day before the Enniskillen meeting, when Martti Ahtisaari and Cyril Ramaphosa announced that they had re-visited the IRA dumps they had inspected and were able to report that the weapons were still in place – untouched. The revelation that they were still there came as no surprise but the news would have meant far more to the ‘Brits’ and Trimble had the inspectors been able to announce that they had inspected more bunkers. There was, however, some encouragement when the inspectors publicly declared that they believed the IRA were serious about peace. The real test will come in 2001, when, they said, they hoped to make a further inspection. If this turns out to be not an inspection of new dumps but merely yet another re-inspection of those already seen, then perhaps Trimble’s supporters, faced with a review of progress on decommissioning by the Ulster Unionist Council in early 2001, will indeed see this as the beginning of ‘the mother of all crises’, calling into question the IRA’s sincerity. The early months of 2001, with a possible British General Election in the offing (and the new June target date for decommissioning and the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement) would probably decide whether the Executive staggered on or collapsed following Trimble’s withdrawal (with South Antrim in mind) to avoid melt down at the polls.
As deadlines come and go, time is fast running out, not only for decommissioning but for the Good Friday Agreement itself. Even President Clinton, who made a nostalgic visit to Northern Ireland in the twilight of his Presidency in mid-December 2000, failed to work his magic and resolve the decommissioning conundrum. The omens at the beginning of 2001 looked even worse when the Government was hit by Peter Mandelson’s dramatic resignation on 24 January following the allegation that he had made a personal phone call to a junior Home Office minister in 1998 concerning a passport application on behalf of a controversial Indian multi-millionaire, Srichand Hinduja, whose family foundation donated £1 million to the ill-starred Millennium Dome for which Mandelson had responsibility before becoming Northern Ireland Secretary. Blair immediately ordered an inquiry, which reported six weeks later and cleared Mandelson of any impropriety. In his valedictory address outside 10 Downing Street, his final words were about Northern Ireland. ‘It has been the greatest privilege of my political life to play a part in the peace process … something far bigger and more important than any one individual or his career,’ he said. He believed a final settlement was ‘so close now’ and hoped and prayed that it would come about.37 Anyone who saw his drawn and wind-blown face knew that he meant it.
Blair moved swiftly to appoint a new Northern Ireland Secretary and surprised Westminster by giving the job to the tough-minded Scottish Secretary, Dr John Reid, (a PhD in economics) who admitted he only had a passing knowledge of Northern Ireland.38 This was unlikely to cause undue consternation to most of the political parties in the province who knew that the Prime Minister himself had long since taken personal control of the fine threads of the peace process. As Dr Reid took up residence at Hillsborough Castle to begin his sudden and steep learning curve, the shadow of decommissioning, or lack of it, haunted him as it had his immediate predecessors Mayhew, Mowlam and Mandelson. By this time, with growing speculation about an imminent General Election, there were other imperatives closing in on Tony Blair. One of his priorities in the feverish countdown to polling day and his hopes for a coveted second term was to shore up the peace process in which he had invested so much of his time and personal energy. Any dramatic announcement about the final implementation of the Good Friday Agreement seemed out of the question, given the lack of movement in the crucial areas of policing, demilitarization (the scaling down of the army’s presence) and, above all, decommissioning. Keeping the show on the road, however unpredictable its run, was vital so that, come election time, the Executive and Assembly would still be functioning, to demonstrate that rumours of their demise were premature. Although the opposing parties could not agree on the resolution of the outstanding issues, they were unanimous in their wish to see the new political institutions survive, a desire with which the British and Irish Governments happily concurred.
On 25 February 2001, hopes of any breakthrough on the decommissioning front appeared to be dashed when Brian Keenan, alleged to be the IRA’s contact with General de Chastelain’s decommissioning body and one of the hardest of the Provisionals’ hard-liners, told a rally in South Armagh that republicans should not fear the collapse of ‘this phase’ of ‘the revolution’ if the Good Friday Agreement fell. He reaffirmed his commitment to the Armalite and Ballot Box by saying that violence and political negotiations were both ‘legitimate forms of revolution’ and that both ‘have to be prosecuted to the utmost’. Keenan also killed any hope that the IRA would announce that the ‘war’ was over. ‘I don’t know what they’re talking about,’ he said. ‘The revolution can never be over until we have British imperialism where it belongs – in the dustbin of history.’39 However uncomfortably Keenan’s message married with the peaceful professions of Sinn Fein, the ‘Brits’ knew that there were powerful internal reasons for its delivery at that time. With the Provisionals’ grassroots increasingly restless about the impasse in the peace process – not least because of the ‘Brits’ ’ insistence on decommissioning – Keenan had to reassure the IRA’s rank and file in order to stem any defections to former comrades in the now increasingly active ‘Real’ IRA. Exactly a week later, on 4 March, the reason for Keenan’s defiance became all too clear when the ‘Real’ IRA exploded a car bomb outside the BBC Television Centre in West London. One person was injured but no one was killed. The explosion was spectacularly captured on film and beamed around the world to show that at least one IRA was still in business.
Then suddenly on 14 March, in a process that has often seen one step forward matched with two steps back, the IRA anounced that its representative (presumably Brian Keenan) had met General de Chastelain’s Decommissioning Body to discuss a basis for ‘resolving the issue of arms’. How and when the issue might be resolved remained, as for so long, unclear. But at least it seemed like progress and left the way open for David Trimble to remove the ban on Sinn Fein Ministers attending cross-border meetings.
Cha
pter Thirty-Four
Farewell to Arms?
April–December 2001
Ironically, on 11 September 2001, the ‘hand of history’ helped break the decommissioning deadlock when Osama bin Laden’s suicide bombers flew three hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, causing the death of over three thousand civilians. The scenes, watched by the world on live television were literally incredible and millions who switched on thought they were watching some disaster movie. But this was no movie. President George Bush Jr. immediately declared a ‘war against terrorism’ and against those states who supported and gave succour to the terrorists. Afghanistan’s extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime, the Taliban, that had harboured bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network and sanctioned its training camps, were the first target. Bush was true to his word as B-52 bombers began their relentless campaign whilst America’s unsavoury allies, the Northern Alliance, did the fighting and the killing on the ground – with a little help from the CIA and American and British Special Forces. The SAS were now combing caves and hunting for bin Laden in the mountains instead of scouring the wilds of South Armagh and East Tyrone for the IRA.
In Ireland, the Republican Movement looked anxiously on, concerned that President Bush might restore the IRA to the State Department’s terrorist list thus seriously damaging the support, credibility and dollars that Sinn Fein had assiduously reaped from across the Atlantic during the Clinton Administration. It was also concerned that the White House might veto the visas given to prominent Provisionals that made lucrative fundraising events possible. The IRA had been taken off the list following its cease-fire and the last thing it wanted was to see that position restored, thus jeopardising all the political advances they had made over the previous decade. Many Unionists insisted that Bush should never have given the IRA such a reprieve given the atrocities it had committed over the years, citing the carnage of ‘Bloody Friday’ (1972), the La Mon restaurant (1978), Remembrance Day in Enniskillen (1987) and the Shankill Road fish shop (1993), to mention but a few.
Nevertheless, in recognition of its commitment to the peace process President Bush did not put the IRA back on his terrorist list. No doubt he was advised by the ‘Brits’ who saw the danger of the process unravelling and decommissioning vanishing even further over the horizon. Sinn Fein, at the time, had problems enough with the Bush administration since three republicans had been arrested at Bogota airport on 11 August 2001 after consorting with the anti-Colombian government and anti-US guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The guerrillas were Washington’s sworn enemies not only because they were determined to overthrow the US-supported Colombian regime but beause they were regarded as ‘narco-terrorists’ who contributed to the flooding of America with Colombia’s biggest cash crop – cocaine. For republicans to be caught in such company was hardly likely to enhance their standing with conservative Irish Americans who were pillars of the business community and hitherto amongst Sinn Fein’s strongest financial backers. One of the three men arrested in Bogota was Martin McCauley who had narrowly escaped death at the hayshed near Kinnego in 1982 when it was attacked by undercover RUC anti-terrorist officers (see here). It was a rare moment when Sinn Fein was caught on the back foot in the propaganda war. Unionists were gleeful that in their eyes the hypocrisy of the IRA had finally been exposed at a time when it had declared a cease-fire. It was never established precisely what the visitors were up to but it seemed that British intelligence may have monitored their movements and that they were testing sophisticated new equipment in the vast area of the Colombian jungle controlled by the FARC. There was speculation that the exercise was in preparation for ‘a big nudge’ in England should the ‘Brits’, in the IRA’s eyes, continue to drag their feet over delivering their side of the peace process on policing, ‘demilitarisation’ and related matters. The ‘Real’ IRA was alreadly active in England and the prospect, however unlikely, of the IRA returning to its military campaign in London and elsewhere was causing the intelligence services a considerable headache.
However, just as Sinn Fein was reeling from the Colombian debacle, the spotlight was suddenly turned back onto Belfast and away from the Republican Movement. By the end of June 2001, a bitter confrontation had erupted along the sectarian interface in North Belfast where 7,000 Catholics in Ardoyne face 1,000 Protestants in the Glenbryn estate. Ever since the current conflict began, the area has been a sectarian flashpoint but the two communities were now poliarised as never before. On the face of it, the issue was about a short, 400 yard journey to a girls’ primary school. The problem was that the school, Holy Cross, was Catholic but located in Protestant Glenbryn. Traditionally Catholic mothers from Ardoyne had taken their children to Holy Cross through Glenbryn without a problem, but in the heated atmosphere of yet another of Belfast’s ‘long hot summers’, this was to cease. Loyalists in Glenbryn now declared that Ardoyne’s mothers and children could no longer walk the quarter of a mile up the Protestant stretch of Ardoyne Road to Holy Cross. This was Drumcree, where the Catholic residents of the Garvaghy Road did not allow Protestant Orangemen to march down their road, in reverse. But the issue was about much more than a short journey to school. It was about territory and winners and losers. To loyalists, Catholics were getting everything in the peace process whilst Protestants were losing everything. Holy Cross was a line in the sand. Nor were the protests and confrontations entirely spontaneous, any more than they were at Drumcree. With so much at stake in the bigger political picture, Sinn Fein and the loyalist Ulster Defence Association were prominent in organising protests on their respective sides under the banners of different community groups. So savage were the scenes of violence that the RUC officers, clad in black riot gear and looking like Darth Vader, had to escort the children and their mothers to school with soldiers on standby to provide backup. The images of tearful little girls sheltering behind their parents as they ran a gauntlet of loyalist taunts and missiles under heavy police and military escort, shocked not just the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic but other parts of the world. It was as if nothing had changed in thirty years and the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement had never happened. No wonder the ‘Brits’ despaired. However, on 26 November 2001, loyalists suspended their protest following mediation, realising that the photographs splashed on the front of newspapers worldwide and seen globally by television viewers were only helping republicans and wounding the Protestant cause. Critically, after Colombia, Holy Cross turned the tables and the Provisionals were now seen not as the allies of a South American terrorist group but, as in 1969, the defenders of the nationalist community in Ardoyne and elsewhere from loyalist attack. In that too, nothing seemed to have changed.
Nevertheless, the Colombian arrests and the tragedy of 11 September still threatened to cause the Repulican Movement irreparable damage and reverse the remarkable political progress that Sinn Fein was now making. In the Westminster General Election on 7 June 2001, when Tony Blair won a second Labour landslide victory with a parliamentary majority of 166 seats, Sinn Fein met with unprecedented success, winning four seats and finally eclipsing the SDLP which held onto its three. Pat Doherty won West Tyrone: Michelle Gildernew won Fermanagh and South Tyrone, the seat won by the IRA hunger striker, Bobby Sands, in 1981; and Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness held their seats in West Belfast and Mid-Ulster respectively. (Previously Sinn Fein had held two Westminster seats with Gerry Adams elected as MP for West Belfast in 1983, 1987 and 1997 – he lost in 1992 – and Martin McGuinness as MP for Mid-Ulster in 1997.) Amid the celebrations, Martin McGuinness MP attributed his party’s success to ‘Sinn Fein’s peace strategy’ and declared that it was ‘well on the way to becoming the largest political party in the North’.1 Sinn Fein’s rise had indeed been spectacular and Danny Morrison, the former leading Provisional, probably never envisaged just how prophetic his famous ‘Armalite and Ballot box’ phrase was when he uttered them at Sinn Fein’s annual conference in 1981, a few m
onths after Bobby Sand’s historic election victory (see here). Over the following twenty years, the party had seen its share of the vote in local elections more than double, from 10.1 per cent in 19822 to 20.66 per cent in 2001.3
But the ‘Brits’ had little to celebrate: not only did Sinn Fein overtake the SDLP to become the largest nationalist party in the province but Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had trounced David Trimble’s Ulster Unionists (UUP). The DUP won a record five seats against the UUP’s six after Trimble watched three of his party’s seats being washed away by the Paisley tide. The centre, which the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 had been designed to strengthen, caved in to the nationalist and Unionist extremes as a result of the impasse over the full implementation of its provisions, most notably on decommissioning. This strengthening of the extremes was confirmed a few days later when the local election results were announced. (Polling had taken place on the same day as the Westminster election but the count was held over.) Sinn Fein won a further 34 seats, with 20.66 per cent of the vote and the SDLP lost 3 with 19.42 per cent; the DUP won 40 more seats and the UUP lost 31.4 Nevertheless, encouragingly for the ‘Brits’, the moderates of the UUP and the SDLP remained the parties with the largest number of seats. Significantly, as a result of the Westminster and local elections of 7 June 2001, the political map of Northern Ireland changed as the province was effectively re-partitioned along ‘green’ and ‘orange’ lines. The nationalists of the SDLP and Sinn Fein now controlled most of the South and West (South Down, Newry and Armagh, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Mid-Ulster, West Tyrone and Foyle) and the Unionists of the UUP and DUP controlled most of the North and East (Lagan Valley, Upper Bann, South Antrim, East Antrim, North Antrim and East Londonderry). The exception in this Unionist heartland was Gerry Adams who was elected for the fourth time in predominantly nationalist West Belfast.
