NORTHERN IRELAND: GUNS AND GOVERNMENT.

A CONSTITUTIONAL COUP

The Irish `peace process' began with the 1994 IRA ceasefire and culminated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. But the peace process is now in crisis. Northern Ireland Unionists, backed by the British Government, have walked away from the process. The point of contention is the Unionist demand that the IRA make the ceasefire permanent by handing over its armoury to its historical enemy, the British state. In November last year the Ulster Unionist Council agreed to participate in a Northern Ireland power-sharing assembly and cross-border institutions involving the Republic, but only if the IRA began to `decommission' its weapons. By this they meant literally handing them over. The IRA never agreed to this, seeing handover as tantamount to surrender. If achieved in this way, decommissioning would simply pass the inheritance of militant republicanism to break-away groups such as the `Real IRA'. Reflecting this, Sinn Fein has always interpreted decommissioning as one component of demilitarisation in Northern Ireland, that must involve the security forces as well as the paramilitaries. This conflict of interpretation now is in danger of destroying the peace process.

The 1998 Agreement stated that `the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms' would occur, `in the context of the implementation of the overall settlement', and within two years of the referendum (now 22 May, 2000). This was confirmed in June last year when Sinn Fein and the other parties committed themselves to the `decommissioning of all paramilitary arms' by May 2000, provided the overall Agreement is implemented. In November Sinn Fein nominated representatives to work with the independent international commission in order to begin decommissioning by early 2000.

In January the International Commission on Decommissioning reported that there had been little progress. This triggered a Unionist threat to withdraw from the assembly at the Unionist Council meeting on 12 February. Just as in 1974, when the Unionist Council rejected the Sunningdale Agreement, so in 2000, the Unionist Party was seeking to veto the power-sharing arrangements. In 1974 the British government had eventually caved in after Unionists imposed a blockade on Northern Ireland; in 2000 the British government didn't wait for a confrontation. On 11 February, Peter Mandelson, the Northern Ireland Secretary, dissolved the institutions that had been established in November, and reimposed Direct Rule.

Mandleson was adamant. He was acting for the good of the peace process, to maintain `consensus across the political spectrum'. He was impartial and had not taken `one side or the other'. The timing of his decision suggested otherwise: at the eleventh hour the disarmament commission reported that the IRA would `initiate a comprehensive process to put arms beyond use', stating this `holds out the real prospect of an agreement' on decommissioning. Mandelson was unshaken. In his view `there had to be real definition and clarity about the commitments': while the commission might be content, he was not. It was clearly more important to pre-empt a Unionist withdrawal from the assembly than to respond constructively to the IRA position. The Unionist tail was wagging the British dog.

The IRA response was predictable. Stating the British Government had `reintroduced the unionist veto', it withdrew its representative from the decommissioning commission and withdrew its proposals. The Irish Government, which had viewed the IRA proposals as `highly significant', was enraged. Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, described suspension as a disaster for the peace process, and as potentially illegal under Irish law.

The Agreement has the status of an international treaty between the Republic and the UK, and the Republic has had to introduce changes to its written constitution in order to adopt the Agreement. The 1998 referendum gave the government the power to permanently remove the Republic's constitutional claim to jurisdiction in Northern Ireland, and the 1999 British-Irish Agreement Act enabled powers to be devolved to the joint institutions. In December the institutions were created and the change to the constitution was made permanent. But in neither case is there provision for suspending these changes and reverting tO the former status quo. Irish Government officials have stated this would put them in a very difficult position should there be a legal challenge from Sinn Fein. Ahern, meanwhile, has refused to introduce legislation that would recognise the suspension, arguing instead that the Agreement should be reinstated as soon as possible.

Perhaps more serious, unilateral suspension broke the Agreement itself. As Brendan O'Leary noted, the Agreement established a federacy between the Northern Ireland Assembly and Westminster, and suspension could only occur if the devolved Assembly agreed to it. This was why Mandelson had to introduce legislation specifically to suspend the Agreement. Given that the British state has no written constitution, it can, under the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, legally and unilaterally override the 1998 Northern Ireland Act that implemented the Agreement. But this raises the question of whether the Agreement was ever worth the paper it was written on. The referenda, in Northern Ireland and the Republic, endorsed a model that would place constraints on the exercise of British sovereignty in Northern Ireland. A key element of the Agreement was the removal of the British Government's claim to absolute sovereignty in Northern Ireland Section 75 of the former Government of Ireland Act. This has now demonstratively been been reinstated.

When he announced the suspension of the Agreement in February, Mandelson stated this was a temporary measure that would not require a full review of the peace process. One week after the suspension, British officials were stating that IRA commitments on decommissioning would have been enough to prevent suspension had they been tabled earlier. Close to two months have now elapsed, and there remains little progress.

Sinn Fein sees Mandelson's suspension of the Agreement as a constitutional coup, yet remains committed to decommissioning as part of the overall implementation of the Agreement. The Irish Government, meanwhile, has been actively seeking an alternative to the `guns' versus `government' dichotomy imposed by the British Government. It has started to redefine the options suggesting that a statement from the IRA that the war is over, and reflecting this, a commitment to disband the IRA, might address the security concerns underlying the demand for decommissioning. To secure this, the Government is arguing there should also be a commitment from the British Government to withdraw troops from Northern Ireland, to demilitarise, and to reform policing and the justice system. Ahern summed up the position at the March Fianna Fail Ard Fheis in arguing `all the armies must be stood down'. The position was later developed in his mid-March speech to the Australian Ireland Fund in Sydney, where he sought historical precedent for this approach in Eamon de Valera's 1923 declaration that `the war so far as we are concerned is finished'.

This has found some limited response from the British Government, with Mandelson announcing limited troop withdrawals, even committing the government to a timetable for full withdrawal, and giving some extra commitment to other aspects of `normalisation'. The proposals are being discussed further at meetings between Blair and Ahern, and may have concrete outcomes later in April. But there is still a gulf between the two governments. While Ahern is seeking to recontextualise the decommissioning issue, Mandelson still insists that `decommissioning will not go away' and that it must be achieved by 22 May. Once again, perhaps, he is playing to the Unionist gallery B the Ulster Unionist Council is due to hold its annual conference on 25 March and to reinstate the current leadership. The political spotlight has refocused on the Unionists, and on a recent statement from the leadership that they could accept a decommissioning process that did `not involve arms up front': This comes close to the IRA proposal of `putting weapons beyond use', and could offer a way out of the impasse.

But yet again the whole process is held hostage to the debating floor of the Ulster Unionist Council. Some things never change.

James Goodman is a Research Fellow inthe Faculties of Humanities and SocialSciences at the University of Technology, Sydney. His book, Single Europe: Single Ireland: Uneven development in process, was published by Irish Academic Press in January, 2000.

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Author:	GOODMAN, JAMES
Publication:	Arena Magazine
Geographic Code:	4EUUN
Date:	Apr 1, 2000
Words:	1353
Previous Article:	BUT WILL IT GET ON THE NEWS?
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Topics:	Ordnance Political aspects

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