English - BICC

Proliferation of
Violence and
the Momentum
of Arms
The start of decommissioning in
October 2001 has not yet helped
to halt the proliferation of violence
that has burdened the Northern Irish
peace process over the last eighteen
months. Deriving a connection
between decommissioning and the
level of paramilitary violence may seem
odd at first glance, however, a closer
examination reveals a distinct
correlation between the two. The
object or purpose of decommissioning
is not limited to the physical removal
of paramilitary arms from Northern
Ireland; it also aims to obliterate the
culture of violence that engulfs this
divided, war-torn society.
In the following passage Darby and
Mac Ginty provide a superb analysis of
the omnipresent threat that violence
poses to peace processes:
“The most obvious threat to any peace process
is that violence may start up again. Indeed it
seems likely that a combination of factors
would make its return inevitable: an
entrenched culture of violence; the continuing
presence of arms; failure to move towards
successful negotiations and compromise; and
unwillingness to remove the security apparatus
erected during the period of violence. The key
question then is the resilience of the peace
process itself, and its ability to continue,
despite a resumption of violence …”(Darby
and Mac Ginty, 2000, pp.12–13).
Like most societies emerging from a
protracted, violent conflict, Northern
Ireland has faced a continuation, and at
times a proliferation, of violence after
the declaration or resumption of ceasefires—in
1994 and 1997—and even
after the settlement of the peace
accord of 1998. As the interests and
priorities of the conflicting parties in
the peace process changed, diffused,
and fragmented, the nature of violence
altered accordingly. The form of
violence that has evolved in the
province has proved to be more
difficult to tackle than the mainly
politically motivated violence that
prevailed prior to the Agreement.
Top level political debate and crisis
management regarding the
implementation of the Good Friday
Agreement seemingly left little room to
address these new problems in an
adequate manner. Somewhere along
the road from the Agreement’s
negotiation to the beginning of its
implementation phase, the distinction
between the overarching commitment
to non-violent means outlined in the
Mitchell principles (see Box A), and the
method of handling the decommissioning
issue in a broad cross-sectarian
context of confronting violence, was
blurred.
One of the significant findings of this
study is that the arduous
decommissioning debate rarely touched
on the problems that have emerged as
a result of the gradual metamorphosis
of violence since the signing of the
Agreement. The proliferation of
violence did not become a major public
argument in favour of an
intensification of decommissioning.
Demands for decommissioning were
rarely expressed as a means to halt the
escalating violence. A wall of paradoxes
seemed to separate the two
debates. The availability of arms, an
evident linkage that has been
acknowledged as a factor that created
its own momentum in the vicious circle
of violence by virtually every interview
partner on both sides of the political
B·I·C·C
cultures and markets of
violence
spectrum, was apparently perceived to
be less relevant than other factors. We
will attempt to peer behind this
paradoxical wall to analyse why there
has been such difficulties in dealing
with post-Agreement violence,
particularly in relation to the issue of
decommissioning.
Diversification of
inter-, and intrasectarian
violence
John Darby identifies a diverse array of
types and patterns of violence that
pose a threat to the transformation
period of a conflict:
the changing role of state violence;
paramilitary violence with a possible
return to politically motivated
violence, the use of “tactical”
violence, the spoiler dilemma of
zealots versus dealers, and intraparamilitary
forms of “family
feuding”;
violence in the community with
ethnic rivals returning to the streets,
resulting in a rise in “ordinary
decent crime”;
the emergence of new security
related issues in negotiations
(Darby, 2000).
A combination of the second, third,
and, to a certain degree, the last type
of violence appears to be relevant in
the case of Northern Ireland,
particularly in the post-Agreement
period.
The outbreak, late in the summer of
2000, of a violent intra-Loyalist feud
between the two major paramilitary
groups, the UDA/UFF and the UVF,
over territorial claims in Belfast’s
Shankill area caused the deaths of at
least seven people and led to the
expulsion of more than 70 families. In
spring 2001, the Loyalist “family feud”
spilled over the sectarian divide in the
form of threats and attacks on
Catholic homes in Belfast, the most
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