Decision Time? (23rd - September - 2001)

It would seem logical to assume that if the peace process is to work then at some point people are going to have start believing in the process and start to put some trust in it. At some point all the people who want the present absence of widespread violence to solidify into a permanent peaceful settlement are going to need to start pulling together to make it work. Individuals and parties at some point will need to stop dragging their feet and work with other parties to build the new framework for Northern Ireland and to bring stability.

Individuals and even parties may disagree with certain aspects of what is working out but given the polarization of viewpoints in Northern Ireland what is on offer is as good as it is going to get or very close to it. Any caving in to demands on either side to re-negotiate or re-structure the emerging implementation of the Good Friday Agreement will tend to erode what cross-community support exists.

Given the great differences in political viewpoint that exist, the wording of the GFA was bound to mean different things to different people. These differing interpretations were bound to come into the open during the implementation phase, and it was inevitable that this implementation was going to be controversial. The challenge has been, and is, to implement the spirit of the GFA while treading the middle ground between both sets of interpretations and expectations.

The new policing bill was a case in point. It was always going to be very difficult to keep the support of the majority of the people in both of the main communities and of the majority of the politicians in both of the main traditions. The new policing bill was a success in this regard, now having the support of both Governments, the SDLP and the UUP.

This should have been a turning point. A difficult phase of implementation had been completed and, together with the setting up of the North/South Ministerial Council with its six North/South Implementation Bodies, the framework should have been there to enable the way forward to be constructed and the peace process to be consolidated into a permanent political settlement.

No party is going to have all its objectives met in this settlement and all of the parties need to accept this. Now is the time when parties should take the step of accepting this is the way forward and engaging fully in the process. All parties should engage fully in all of the institutions set up to implement the agreement.

Focus is once again back on decommissioning. Decommisioning is rightly regarded as one of the key questions that need to be settled - de-militarization, policing, security, the political institutions being some of the others. For all areas except decommissioning, there has been at least partial substantial implementation or a time-line has been set up to effect substantial implementation. There has been a substantial security force reduction, the North-South bodies have been set up, the new power-sharing executive has come into existing and legislation for the new police force has been enacted. The one substantial issue for which implementation has not started is decommissioning of paramilitary weapons. Progress towards the settlement of this issue is clearly lagging behind progress in other key areas. Engaging with the De-Commissioning Body is welcome but, to match progress (implementation) in other key areas, actual decommissioning should have occurred by this stage.

Republican-, and Loyalist, paramilitary groups should explain clearly why actual decommissioning of weapons has not occurred by this stage, to parallel progress in other key areas. They should clearly realise that refusal to START to decommission their weapons is substantially hindering further progress in these other key areas. Paramilitaries perhaps need to make clear what EXACTLY they expect to happen before they will decommission their weapons. Presumably the IRA are suspicious of a double-cross - that they will decommission their weapons and then either the Unionist Parties or the British Government will find some excuse to collapse the political institutions and revert back to direct rule or some form of Unionist rule like the old Stormont. Republicans say that Unionist attempts to force decommissioning of IRA weapons shows that Unionists do not actually want to share power. Possibly Unionist politicians and the British Government could help dispel these conceptions by making it clear that they accept the necessity for power-sharing to reflect the two main traditions in Northern Ireland.
Paramilitary groups may have their own agendas but they should consider the wider effects of what their actions might inflict on the people of Northern Ireland. The implementation of the GFA and the development of a peaceful Northern Ireland cannot effectively continue without a start to actual decommissioning of weapons to parallel progress in this direction in the other key areas.

Back to "Cothrom Home Page"

Back to "Other Cothrom Documents"

Note: All pf these Cothrom pages that relate to Northern Ireland were originally created at the end of the '90's/early 00's.