English - BICC

of undermining the rights of voters or
this party is a nonsense (sic)” (Irish
Times, 11 May 1998). Adams also
insinuated that the IRA’s weapons had
already been “taken out of
commission” by having been placed in
dumps (Irish News, 21 May 1998). Alex
Maskey, a leading member of Sinn
Fein, poured cold water on any hopes
of a start to disarmament by
disbelieving that “anyone on the island
of Ireland expects decommissioning to
begin by any organisation” (Belfast
Telegraph, 25 May 1998). However, a
piece of political kite flying was
undertaken by an unexpected
Republican source in June. Padraic
Wilson, the IRA’s leader in the Maze
Prison, believed that “a voluntary
decommissioning would be a natural
development of the peace process” if
the Agreement was properly
implemented and being seen to work
(Financial Times, 17 June 1998).
Perhaps the retention of weapons was
still a useful, steadying influence within
Republicanism at a time of difficult
political shifts, but a signal was being
sent that the prospect of disarmament
could be used as a spur to the speedy
implementation of the Agreement and
as a means of extracting possible
future concessions. Weaponry provided
a form of security blanket, an
assurance of continuity, but it could
also be used as currency, an incentive
to ensure change.
Appointing a Sinn
Fein representative to
the IICD
A chink of light had appeared in the
debate, one which widened in September
1998, when Martin McGuinness
was appointed as Sinn Fein’s
representative to the IICD.
McGuinness, however, was not
officially representing the IRA, a move
designed both to insulate Sinn Fein
from connection with the IRA, and the
IRA from undue pressure to
decommission. At the same time
Adams, in an important statement,
asserted Sinn Fein’s commitment to
“exclusively peaceful and democratic
means . . . . Sinn Fein believe the
violence we have seen must be for all
of us now a thing of the past, over,
done with and gone” (Belfast Telegraph, 2
September 1998). This was widely seen
as the closest Republicans would come
to saying that the war was over.
The timing of these last events was
important. Just a fortnight before, 29
people had died in Omagh as a result
of a bomb attack by Republican
dissidents, the Real IRA. Such was the
universal outcry against these
Republican militants that pro-Agreement
Republicans naturally sought to
put as much distance between
themselves and the taint of militarism
as was politically practical.
Actual decommissioning by the IRA
remained a far off prospect. It was
reported that an IRA convention had
decided in December that the
conditions for decommissioning did
not yet exist (Belfast Telegraph, 8
December 1998). The following
month, an IRA statement voiced
“growing frustration” at Unionist
attempts to resurrect the “old preconditions”
of decommissioning.
Unionism was simply engaged in the
“politics of domination and inequality”
in blocking the speedy implementation
of the Agreement, in particular the
devolution of the power-sharing
Executive, with decommissioning
merely serving as a useful excuse.
Consequently, Unionist demands had
to be “faced down” (Belfast Telegraph, 7
January 1999). Clearly, the IRA was not
about to compromise on this issue.
The effect on Unionists was deeply
unsettling; they took the IRA statement
to be a threat to return to war.
Unionism and
Loyalism, 1996–1998
Ulster Unionism’s reaction to the
Mitchell Commission’s report had been
lacklustre to say the least. Whilst
Trimble viewed it as “worthy of
consideration”, his essential judgement
of it was that it changed nothing and
that it had “simply reaffirmed” the
B·I·C·C
run-up to the agreement
UUP’s belief in elections as the only
way forward (Irish Times, 25 January
1996). This dismissive attitude was
spawned by a continuing distrust of
Republicanism’s real intent and was
reinforced by the weak Conservative
government’s reliance on Unionist
votes in Westminster. Even after
elections, the UUP would only enter
into what amounted to exploratory
dialogue with Sinn Fein; substantive
negotiations would only sprout from a
weapons handover by the IRA (Belfast
Newsletter, 2 February 1996).
However, the end of the IRA ceasefire
curiously softened, rather than
hardened, the UUP stance on the
Mitchell compromise. Trimble stated
that “Mitchell is the thing”; that
adherence in word and deed to the
Mitchell Report summed up his
conditions for negotiating with Sinn
Fein and that if Ulster Unionists had
“reasonable commitments” on the idea
of parallel decommissioning then they
could move in that direction (Irish
News, 1 March 1996).
Indeed, Unionism was fighting a war
of position; whilst mollifying their
position on parallel decommissioning,
they vigorously protected their flank by
attempting to move the British
government beyond its requirement for
the reinstatement of the 1994 ceasefire
as the initial stepping stone for Sinn
Fein’s entry into talks. The ceasefire
criteria would have to be stepped up.
As one source disclosed: “If we haven’t
received a redefinition of ceasefire in
such a way that keeps Sinn Fein out,
then our position [on
decommissioning] is as was” (Irish
Times, 16 October 1996).
All the while of course, the position
remained that it would take the physical
handover of munitions before the
UUP could engage in substantive
negotiations with Republicans (Irish
Times, 25 June 1997). When Sinn Fein
31