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that this would inflame Nationalist and
Republican sentiment; neither was it a
provision of the Agreement. Its main
purpose was to buy time and placate
Unionist feeling before the referenda
and elections to an Assembly. Blair
sought to further soothe Unionist
feeling over the lack of
decommissioning by setting up a list of
criteria with which to judge the
sincerity of paramilitary-linked parties
to the Agreement in “an objective,
meaningful and verifiable way” (Irish
Times, 15 May 2000). These included an
unequivocal statement that the “so
called war is finished”, an end to
targeting, surveillance and paramilitary
beatings, the “progressive
abandonment and dismantling of
paramilitary structures”, full
cooperation with the IICD and a
commitment that no other
organisations would be used as proxies
for violence (Irish Times, 15 May 2000).
Declarations like this bought time for
pro-Agreement Unionism, and partially
balanced the difficulties Unionists had
felt in signing up to an Agreement void
of any practical disarmament. What
they did not do was bring a structured
approach to the solving of the
problem. Perhaps one did not appear
possible. The IRA did not wish to
decommission and felt no pressing
need to, as it was not a signatory to the
Agreement. On the other hand,
Unionists demanded its disarmament.
The genius of the Agreement, indeed
of the peace process itself, had lain in
the use of vague language which the
various parties could mould into their
own image, thus allowing both sides to
claim victory, or at least honourable
compromise. Disarmament is neither
an abstract concept nor a woolly form
of words, to be endlessly parsed and
interpreted. Disarmament exists in the
concrete world of gunmetal and
cordite, and as such, has proved
difficult for the politics of the peace
process to digest. Yet upon it rests the
success of the Agreement.
British strategies,
1996–1998
During the tenure of the Conservative
government, a gradual erosion took
place in their insistence on
decommissioning prior to negotiations.
Indeed the dropping of the precondition
began to become apparent in
late February of 1996. Statements from
the government had become even
more explicit by November of that
year and it seemed clear that prior
decommissioning would not be
required to gain entry into talks.
However, sceptics felt it more accurate
to say that the decommissioning precondition
had simply moved from the
entrance way to somewhere behind the
front door. Major may have stipulated
that the only qualification for entry to
negotiations (aside from subscription
to the Mitchell Principles) was the
unequivocal maintenance of a
ceasefire, but it was clear that, within
talks, decommissioning would feature
prominently and that substantive
negotiations could not begin without
all-party agreement on the issue.
The British plan was to set up an allparty
committee at the negotiations to
review the problem of
decommissioning, and only when there
was agreement on how to take the
matter forward could the parties move
beyond the opening plenary session.
Thus the weapons issue was not to be
easily separated from all-party
negotiations (Irish Times, 18 May 1996).
As John Wheeler, the security minister
for Northern Ireland stated, the
commitment to decommissioning was
the most important of the many “keys
on the key ring” that would unlock the
door to peace (Irish Times, 14 June
1996). Major had claimed that
decommissioning need not prove a
“stumbling block” in negotiations, but
it appeared to Republicans that
excessive focus would be given to it
and that it would soon re-emerge as a
blocking mechanism.
B·I·C·C
run-up to the agreement
The incoming Labour government
approached the question of
decommissioning with a sense of
urgency and flexibility not seen in the
previous administration’s handling of
the matter. Getting inclusive talks
started was seen as the overwhelming
priority. This new tone was given a
more concrete form as the Labour
administration explicitly removed
decommissioning as a pre-condition
within talks. Decommissioning was
certainly to be discussed within the
talks but there was to be no
requirement for it to occur and this
realignment of policy secured a
reinstatement of the IRA ceasefire.
Rather than being placed as a central
focus of the negotiations, the creation
of certain structures enabled
disarmament to be set to one side.
Institutionalisation of the
decommissioning question in the form
of the IICD and the subcommittee on
decommissioning, allowed the issue to
be effectively compressed into a rather
lonely fourth strand of the
negotiations. Whilst the DUP and the
UKUP (United Kingdom Unionist
Party) balked at negotiations with Sinn
Fein without decommissioning, the
institutionalisation of the issue at least
provided cover for Ulster Unionists,
who could feel reassured that
decommissioning was not going to be
pushed away for long, given the
creation of specific structures to deal
with it. The benefits of
institutionalisation for Republicans
were seen in the compression of the
issue into discreet fora, which enabled
substantive negotiations to progress
without fear of blockage.
At times, the new government would
apply pressure to Sinn Fein; Blair
warned Republicans that he would
move the process ahead without them
if they dithered on the calling of a
ceasefire (Irish Times, 23 June 1997).
This threat of being left out in the
political cold was applied to Unionists
in more surreptitious fashion a few
weeks later; it was asserted that the two
governments would pursue “rapid
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