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on Republican militarism, boosting
Sinn Fein’s image as a peacemaker. In
the long term, a process of
decommissioning may serve as a form
of substitute decontamination,
obviating the need for a sharp break
with paramilitarism, instead, taking the
route of gentle transformation.
Sinn Fein probably do not expect to
form a coalition anytime soon, but they
will seek to boost their representation
in the coming election and may also
hope to widen the path leading to
government seats on both sides of the
border. Decommissioning may be a
means to achieving this goal. The
electoral benefits of the peace
process for Sinn Fein are such that
the breadth of political inclusion
that they offer seems to be
continually expanding; this acts as a
continuous draw, pulling
Republicanism towards further
decommissioning.
The second factor relates to the
attenuation of the
decommissioning process. The
Arms Decommissioning (Amendment)
Bill recently introduced by the British
government, has pushed the
disarmament deadline back another
year, and includes the option for
further extensions of this deadline
until the year 2007. Although this
decision has provoked outcry from
anti-Agreement Unionists, criticism
from the pro-Agreement wing has
been relatively muted. The single action
of decommissioning has had a
mollifying effect on the Unionists, who
perhaps recognise that a very
significant rubicon has been crossed by
the Republican movement and a very
concrete symbol that “the war is over”
has been secured.
The lengthening of the process might
be seen negatively as an attempt by the
two governments to indefinitely
suspend action on decommissioning in
the hope that it will not re-emerge into
the political arena. A more benign view
would see the elongation of the
process a an attempt to elevate it to a
different level, one in which it will be
less of a high stakes game. Under these
circumstances, the discussion of
decommissioning would be stripped of
some of its emotional rhetoric, political
face or prestige would not be risked,
and more importantly, the lurch from
crisis to crisis could be averted. The
IRA gesture, by mitigating the
counterproductive tension and
rancour generated by the
decommissioning debate, has given
the conflicting parties in the peace
process more flexibility and room to
manoeuvre on other contentious
issues; it has also advanced efforts
to forge a mutually agreed vision of
security. Both Unionists and
Republicans have every reason to
remain in this extended process of
decommissioning.
Disarmament and
peacemaking:
Lessons from
Northern Ireland
A fact which stands out in
researching the Northern Ireland
peace process, is that paramilitary
weaponry can have a value beyond
its limited military potential, beyond
even its potential worth as a
bargaining chip to extract political
concessions. Weaponry had a
symbolic, ideological value. This
made the question of
decommissioning resistant to
political deal making; both
Unionists and Republicans had
anchored their positions in the
peace process on the issue of
arms. For Republicans, guns lying
in bunkers were proof positive that
there had been no sell-out, despite
many political shifts. For Unionists,
decommissioned weapons were a
powerful symbol that the war was
over, that no future paramilitary
campaign would be waged by those
with whom they now shared power.
B·I·C·C
conclusions
In short, it served as
incontrovertible proof that pro-
Agreement Unionism had not been
hoodwinked, and accordingly could
not be presented as such by its
opponents within the Unionist
family. The profound
psychological significance of the
gun and the bomb to both
Unionists and Republicans
signifies that before the tools of
violence can be put beyond use
the mindsets of the rival
sectarian communities must be
decommissioned. A clichéd
homily of the conflict resolution
business is the adage that “one
makes peace with one’s enemies, not
with one’s friends”. The truth is that
the successful peacemaker makes
peace with an enemy while
remaining circumspect of friends—
all the while making sure that as
many are engaged in the process for
as long as possible. In this respect,
weaponry could play an important
pacifying role for both Unionists
and Republicans. Unfortunately, the
symbolic, ideological value of the
gun did not lend itself easily to
pragmatic solutions, and the result
was a paralysing tussle for some
years.
In seeking a way to transform this
tussle, the International
Independent Commission on
Decommissioning (IICD) played a
valuable role as a third party
interlocutor; although critics would
have preferred that the IICD adopt
a more proactive stance, the
meticulous, incremental approach
of the Commission achieved a
certain degree of success. Lessons
for other processes of small arms
disarmament can be highlighted.
The confidence building nature
of the independent inspections
of arms dumps, a crucial
element of external involvement,
was an imaginative step which
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