Irish peace hangs in the balance for nytire@ursula; Sat, 12 Feb 2000 05:34:47 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Feb 10 2000 from ncp@geocities.com New Worker Online Digest Week commencing 11th February, 2000. Irish peace hangs in the balance. by Steve Lawton YEARS of hard and painful political graft fashioning the Irish peace process, are now under serious threat as the Northern Ireland Assembly is held to ransom over the IRA's so-called failure to begin decommissioning weapons. If a solution to this crisis isn't found by today, the Northern Ireland Bill is expected to come into force suspending the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly institutions. Westminster thereby re-imposes direct ru= le. The Ulster Unionist Party's (UUP) demand that the IRA begin to disarm, imposing a timetable in breach of the Good Friday Agreement that coincides with the UUP's council meeting tomorrow, excludes the overwhelming military power of the occupying British troops, the RUC and Loyalist organisations. Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, wherever he has been speaking over recent days -- on Ulster Radio and TV and on the BBC's Newsnight programme -- he has given a very pointed and stark message for the immediate future. Despite two statements by the IRA over the last fortnight to categorically reiterate its defence of the peace process, and the clear reaffirmation of maintaining the ceasefire with silent guns remaining silent Unionists are set on pushing Sinn Fein a step too far. Yet another statement is being demanded. On BBC Radio Ulster last Tuesday he said that the present crisis "has to be resolved definitely and conclusively." Sinn Fein has, he said, "honoured [its] commitments under the [Good Friday] Agreement. "We have gone much further than that and there is a collective responsibility in all of this, for all of the parties and the [British and Irish] governments to sort it out." This would prevent a crisis, he said, but "if the institutions are collapsed, if we go into review, then this party and this party leader is going to sit back and reflect in a very contemplative way what role I have to play as a messenger who continuously gets shot." The Continuity IRA-claimed bombing of Mahon's Hotel, Irvinestown, County Fermanagh last Sunday, provided an ill-timed weapon for anti-Agreement unionists to stoke up anti-Republican sentiment. There is an unfortunate coincidence of anti-Agreement unionists, disaffected elements like Continuity IRA, combined with the actions of the British government in failing, yet again, to contain the destabilising strategy of hardline unionism that is pushing the peace process over the ed= ge. It remains to be seen whether there is an eleventh hour solution defining the IRA within the overall requirement of demilitarisation, beginning particularly with a British military scaling down. Normalisation cannot otherwise proceed. It would be a dire irony to think that the current first Bill going through the Assembly on disability should abruptly end with the real danger of a return to open conflict. Sinn Fein has a democratic mandate under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement which the referendum endorsed by over 70 per cent in a cross-community vote -- and it has adhered to it. The effect of taking away that absolutely legitimately attained starting block for Ireland's tomorrow, bringing both communities together, will be measured in a horrendous cost of lives yet known. ********************* New Communist Party of Britain Homepage http://www.newcommunistparty.org.uk A news service for the Working Class! Workers of all countries Unite! ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-02.12.00-05:34:48-8358