24.10.2001

IRA disarms

Adams and McGuinness look south

Decommissioning of weapons by the Provisional Irish Republican Army has begun. Such an act is unprecedented in the history of Irish republicanism. Why is it happening, and why now? Before we look at these questions, first a few facts.

The IRA?s move was signalled on October 22, when Sinn F?in president Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness staged simultaneous press conferences in Belfast and New York to announce that they had ?held discussions with the IRA? and ?put to the IRA the view that, if it could take a ground-breaking move on the arms issue, this could save the peace process from collapse and transform the situation? (The Guardian October 23).

It was obvious that this was already a done deal, and that the SF statement was the first act in a carefully pre-orchestrated scenario. Exactly twenty-four hours later, the Provisional Irish Republican Army issued its statement under the signature of P O?Neill (the soubriquet used to indicate that it was from the IRA?s ruling body, the Provisional Army Council). Soon afterwards, general John de Chastelain?s commission confirmed that it had witnessed a significant quantity of arms, ammunition and explosives being put ?permanently and verifiably? out of use.

This provided the cue for Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble to announce that ?We are dealing with something that satisfies the statutory definition of decommissioning and I think that is extremely important ? evidence of a commitment by republicans to a full implementation of the Agreement?.

Under the circumstances, Trimble?s first reaction was relatively restrained, but in the coming days we can expect him to claim that it was his implacable firmness that put pressure on the IRA to decommission. ?IRA forced to concede on arms? was the characteristic front-page headline in The Daily Telegraph, the voice of Ulster Unionism on the mainland, in reaction to Adams?s statement. But the truth is different.

The latest crisis in the peace process effectively began on May 8, when Trimble announced his decision to resign as first minister of the Northern Ireland power-sharing executive unless the IRA had completed decommissioning by July 1, an impossible and unacceptable demand. Having painted himself into this corner, Trimble had no alternative but to step down. The reasons for his histrionic resignation had nothing to do with principle.

Trimble?s leadership of the UUP was under threat from rejectionists within the party, who foresaw - accurately, as it turned out - that the party would lose seats to Paisley?s outspokenly anti-GFA DUP in the June 7 general and local elections in the six counties. In a general polarisation of the electorate, the defection of many grassroots unionist voters to the DUP, particularly from among the protestant working class, was mirrored by similar defections of nationalists from the Social Democratic and Labour Party to Sinn F?in, who, even if only by a whisker, became for the first time the largest nationalist/republican force in Northern Irish politics. 

This development confronted the British government with an acute dilemma. If Trimble?s antics led to the downfall of the executive and the legislative assembly, there were three alternatives: temporary suspension of the institutions with fresh negotiations, a simple return to full direct rule from Westminster, or calling fresh elections. The outcome of June 7 effectively ruled out the latter option, since the further polarisation of politics in the north of Ireland would probably lead to the collapse of the GFA and, with it, the destruction of one the fundamental planks of Blair?s constitutional reform, not to mention his political reputation.

In the event, Trimble retained the leadership of the UUP but it was clear that his continued survival would necessitate absolute intransigence on the question of decommissioning. Subsequent weeks saw an escalation of loyalist terrorism: sectarian murders, pipe bomb attacks on catholic houses, the burning of catholic churches and chapels, culminating in the horrific scenes in the Ardoyne, where small children were made to run the gauntlet as they tried to get to school. Eventually, Northern Ireland secretary John Reid was forced to recognise that the UDA and LVF so-called ?ceasefire? was a farce.

The denouement of Trimble?s tactics came on October 18, when UUP and DUP ministers resigned from the executive, leaving John Reid seven days in which to decide what to do. Permanent suspension of the institutions, the restoration of direct rule, with an eventual breakdown of the whole peace process and perhaps a return to violence looked the most probable outcome, one which Westminster was desperate to avoid.

This was the immediate context of the decision by the IRA to make what indeed constitutes an unprecedented and historic step. That they should represent it as a last-minute attempt to save the peace process is understandable in terms of gaining the maximum kudos and political advantage from their decision. Quite how much the strategic political thinking of Sinn F?in and the IRA was ever actually focused on preserving the institutions of an artificial statelet created by British imperialism with the sole purpose of preserving the protestant ascendancy in the north of Ireland is, however, another question altogether.

It can plausibly be argued that the political dividends accruing from the seven-year long IRA cessation and from SF?s participation in the peace process are already in the bank; more cynically, one might even argue that a breakdown of the process and a return to direct rule could well have played in the republicans? favour, as this would have driven even more of the catholic community into the arms of Sinn F?in as their natural defenders against a resurgence of violent protestant attacks and sectarian bigotry.

So why decommissioning and why now?

It seems to me that the fate of the peace process did not figure that largely, taking third place behind two other sets of issues. First, the central significance which Sinn F?in and the IRA continue to attach to their relations with the United States government and with their influential support base among Irish Americans; secondly, their strategic focus on making big electoral gains in the Twenty-Six Counties in the next general election to the Dail.

As regards the US, the arrest in August of three men associated with Sinn F?in and the IRA, who were allegedly engaged on a training/liaison mission with the Colombian FARC - an organisation proscribed by the US government and dubbed ?narco-terrorists? by the Bush administration ? caused something of a political crisis; and then, of course, there was what we might call the September 11 effect.     

To say that ?September 11 changed everything? has already become a tired clich?, but there is nonetheless a certain truth in it. Despite the hollowness and hypocrisy of the Bush-Blair global ?war on terrorism?, in theory at least - and despite the fact that its guns have been silent for years - the IRA could have found itself placed alongside the ?legitimate? targets of the imperialists? wrath. Reports suggesting that Haas used Sinn F?in channels to exert pressure on the IRA to embark on decommissioning are entirely credible and it is difficult to imagine what else could have induced Gerry Adams, in the aftermath of September 11, to describe terrorism as ?ethically indefensible?. 

Then there is the question of Sinn F?in?s electoral ambitions in the south, ambitions that, in terms of the twenty-six counties? constitution, could technically lead to Sinn F?in?s right to contest the elections ending up in court, given the fact that it is the political wing of what - prior to decommissioning - could be portrayed as an armed terrorist organisation.

The first sentence of the IRA?s statement reiterated that it remains ?committed to our republican objectives and to the establishment of a united Ireland based on justice, equality and freedom?. The language of a  thirty-two-county socialist republic of Ireland is no longer heard and Sinn F?in?s vision appears to be of a bourgeois democratic republic, in which it will eventually form a government, perhaps with Martin McGuinness as prime minister and Gerry Adams as the first Sinn F?in president of a united Ireland. This is no pipe dream.

Sinn F?in?s performance in the six counties on June 7 undoubtedly gave the Taoiseach and Fianna Fail a lot to think about. By next summer, a general election must be held and there is every sign that Sinn F?in could add to their existing one TD, perhaps even gaining enough seats to be kingmakers in the formation of the new government, with a solid platform for further advances, especially given Fianna Fail?s reputation for financial corruption. Just how decommissioning will play with Sinn F?in?s core support of nationalists is difficult to predict, but one guesses that overall it will be positive.

Gerry Adams?s statement was understandably focused on trying to assuage the anger and resentment that will undoubtedly be felt among many traditional republicans. There has been no surrender, no capitulation to the British government, but many will still be feeling bitter. On the face of it, however, the prospects of a significant split in the movement do not look realistic. Where will they go? The real IRA is already in deep crisis and may itself soon declare a ceasefire. The presence at Adams?s meeting of such figures as veteran republican Joe Cahill, along with the likes of Brendan MacFarlane, Jim Gibney and Seanna Walsh - all IRA stalwarts and close friends of Bobby Sands, suggests that the Army Council?s decision has been accepted, perhaps with regret, but accepted nonetheless.

Throughout the so-called troubles, the CPGB was a consistent, if sometimes critical, defender and supporter of the IRA?s legitimate struggle for a united Ireland, a struggle in which many hundreds of idealistic men and women offered up their lives.

From our perspective as communists, however, as we have made clear often enough before, the Good Friday Agreement itself is not the answer but actually part of the problem, in so far as it brings about not a genuine settlement of the Northern Ireland question but just institutionalises the division of the working class in the six counties along sectarian lines, albeit with a slightly better deal for the nationalist minority.

A lasting and democratic peace in the north can only come about through a united Ireland founded on the consent of both communities, a united Ireland in which the interests of the protestant minority would be constitutionally safeguarded. Such a situation can only arise when working class people - the vast majority - on both sides of the sectarian divide are politically won to socialism and internationalism, for then they will see the real source of their deep historical antagonisms, namely the capitalist system itself, through which, be they catholics or protestants, they are all enslaved and alienated one from another.

Michael Malkin