English - BICC

ief 22
On 8 March, the governments met
with the pro-Agreement parties for
round-table talks at the well-known
venue of Hillsborough Castle to
consider a way forward by means of
possible compromises. That same
morning, the IRA had announced that
they would re-open contact with the
IICD and renewed their statement of 6
May 2000 regarding the circumstances
under which they would consider
decommissioning. Such contact was
indeed re-opened a few days later and
has been kept open since. This
surprising move on the part of the
IRA again worked as an immediate
defroster of the icy atmosphere of the
previous weeks, in which belligerent
rhetoric and actual violence had
clouded a solution of the impasse.
However, a statement given by Gerry
Adams made it clear that Sinn Fein
expected the British government to
honour its commitments of May 2000
before Republicans would move any
further on decommissioning (Irish
Abroad, 9 March 2001). On the other
hand, David Trimble simply saw the
IRA statement as a propaganda trick.
Commentators in the media tried to
encourage political leaders to grasp the
opportunity, “take a risk” and jump
unilaterally in order to solve one of the
disputed issues. This was especially
addressed to the SDLP, as their
Stormont ministers Seamus Mallon and
Sean Farren had expressed serious
concerns as to whether the actual
momentum could be sustained until
after the elections, when time would be
running out with the deadline for a
start to decommissioning looming in
June (Irish Times, 8 March 2001).
Speculations about what kind of ‘minideal’
had actually been achieved at
Hillsborough continued to hang in the
press for the next weeks. John Reid’s
summary on the occasion of the St.
Patrick’s Day celebrations most
probably came closest:
“The peace process is nearer its goal than ever.
But we are not there yet. We still have to
complete the job on four key issues:
The decommissioning of weapons—
We need to find ways of putting paramilitary
weapons beyond use and taking the gun out of
Irish politics forever.
Policing—We must arrive at a point where
everyone feels able to support the new Police
Service of Northern Ireland as an
accountable policing service representative of
the whole community.
Normalisation—We must return
Northern Ireland to normality, a process
which includes scaling down the security
measures in response to a decreasing terrorist
threat.
Devolved government—We have to
make sure that all the institutions established
under the Good Friday Agreement are
working at every level, including the crossborder
agencies.
As the political parties agreed when they met
with the British and Irish prime ministers two
weeks ago in Northern Ireland, it is not a
question of picking or choosing any one of
these four areas. We have to make progress in
all four simultaneously if we are to move
forward together. Only by making real
progress in each area will we ensure that
everyone’s concerns are met” (Boston Herald,
20 March 2001).
Underlining these four issues as the
cornerstones of a future deal and not
suspending the institutions over the
unsolved situation was seen as
“parking” the process until after the
elections, which were now set for 7
June. The four issues essentially
described the substance of the interim
deal achieved at the Hillsborough
meeting.
46 B·I·C·C
The June elections
and Trimble’s
resignation
It did not come as a surprise to most
observers that the election campaign
was not the time for seeking further
compromises but that each party
narrowed down its agenda to the
specific concerns of the constituencies.
For the beleaguered leader of the
Ulster Unionists in particular, serious
worries about losing further ground to
the anti-Agreement DUP caused a
movement away from the fourcornered
package and a refocusing on
the arms issue. In an interview with the
Financial Times, Trimble warned that the
institutions of the Agreement were
“not stable” in their current form and
that “crisis could come before the
general elections” unless there was
movement from the IRA on
disarmament (Financial Times, 19 April
2001).
Two weeks later, Trimble armed
himself psychologically by casting his
threat to resign as First Minister on the
1 July into the pre-electoral political
arena. This move stunned the Deputy
First Minister of the SDLP, who had
only been informed at the last
moment, as well as the two
governments in London and Dublin,
who decided to try to carry on with
negotiations on the unsolved issues
despite the difficulties caused by the
elections. The prospect of the
institutions collapsing on the eve of
the peak marching season in early July
could hardly have been gloomier.
Decommissioning was back as the top
stumbling block to the peace process—
and the careful choreography of
Hillsborough was in ruins.