August 8, 2001
Ulster Protestants' Leader Rejects I.R.A. Plan on Arms
By WARREN HOGE
LONDON, Aug. 7 — Northern Ireland's leading Protestant politician rejected as inadequate today a disarmament proposal from the Irish Republican Army that the British and Irish governments had championed as a breakthrough in the stalemated Northern Ireland peace struggle.
The dismissal of the I.R.A. offer by David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, left Britain and Ireland facing a gathering crisis in Belfast where they must decide by this weekend how to save the three-year- old peace accord from collapse.
Unless Mr. Trimble can be persuaded by midnight Saturday to resume his post as first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly — a position he quit last month in protest against the I.R.A. failure to disarm — the future of that power-sharing legislature, a centerpiece of the peace effort, is in doubt.
Mr. Trimble said he and his party members needed to see the I.R.A. actually beginning to disarm rather than just announcing a willingness to do so. He dismissed the offer by the clandestine guerrilla group on Monday as "preparatory procedural steps" that fell short of real action.
In a rapid return to the name- calling characteristic of Ulster politics after a day of fresh hope for the peace negotiations, Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A., accused Mr. Trimble of blundering into a "grievous error" and told him to "butt out" of the disarmament issue. Mr. McGuinness is Sinn Fein's chief negotiator.
Mr. McGuinness's angry response cooled speculation roused by a report in a British newspaper this morning that the I.R.A. might make public a disarmament timetable of the kind that Mr. Trimble complained was missing from Monday's announcement. The Guardian reported that the I.R.A. planned to follow up the announcement with a statement that it would start disarming within the month.
On Monday, the international commission headed by Gen. John de Chastelain of Canada that is charged with supervising the disarming of Northern Irish paramilitary groups announced that the I.R.A. had offered a method of putting its arms beyond use that the commission could approve and verify. Though the commission gave no details of the proposal and did not mention when this disarmament would begin — the question considered crucial by the province's Protestants — it was hailed by British and Irish officials as "historic" and "significant."
The urgency behind the effort to produce a breakthrough on disarmament has been fueled by the six-week legal time limit that began with Mr. Trimble's resignation as first minister on July 1. The British and Irish governments now face a series of difficult options with a deadline of midnight this Saturday.
If Mr. Trimble does not agree to resume his post in time — a decision that depends upon further disarmament action by the I.R.A. — the assembly, which is on summer recess, must be convened by Thursday to have enough time to elect a successor.
If that does not happen, the government can suspend the assembly and restore direct rule from London.
Alternately, new elections for the assembly can be scheduled. An election is a step both Dublin and London are reluctant to take because they fear that growing public disenchantment with the peace effort makes it more likely that the winners would be opponents of the power-sharing arrangement between Catholics and Protestants that lies at the heart of the 1998 peace agreement.
The assembly was suspended once before — from February through June 2000 — over the same arms dispute that still dogs the process.
Another option has come under discussion in recent days — a possible one-day suspension of the assembly, which would then put into motion another six-week waiting period. That means the battling rival politicians would not have to return to the disarmament issue until September.
Mr. Trimble is under attack from the increasing numbers of hard-line members of his party who believe that the I.R.A. refusal to start shedding its weapons is proof that the organization is not committed to peace and is simply using its continuing armed state to extract concessions from Dublin and London. Sinn Fein responds to that charge by pointing out that the guerrilla group has maintained a cease-fire for more than four years and that, in its words, there is no threat to peace from guns that are silent.
The Northern Ireland peace effort, a move to end three decades of violence that has killed more than 3,600 people, has lurched from crisis to crisis. The present one arose after five days of talks last month led by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, failed to resolve outstanding issues.
The two governments then produced a package of compromises and presented it to the parties on a take-it-or-leave-it basis last week with a warning that none of it was negotiable. Weighted toward meeting Sinn Fein demands on police reform, withdrawal of British troops, and amnesty for people still on the run, the document was intended to give the I.R.A. the assurances it said it needed to make its long-awaited disarmament move. Unless there is further word from the I.R.A. this week, the governments' package seems to have failed in securing that goal.
"What we need to see is decommissioning beginning," Mr. Trimble said, using the local phrase for disarmament. "We as a party have taken quite adventurous steps in forming a government in expectation that decommissioning would follow, and twice the republican movement has let us down."
Republicans, most of whom are Catholic, want to see Northern Ireland eventually become part of Ireland. Unionists, most of whom are Protestant, want Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain. The 1998 peace agreement was an effort to create political structures permitting the coexistence of those two desires and putting an end to the resolution of disputes with guns.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
