The Real Crux in the Peace Process Brian Rowan, The Armed Peace ?

Life and Death after the Ceasefires ( Mainstream publishing, 14.20 euro) Reviewed by John Bruton TD One of the presumed secrets of peace-making is to concentrate on points on which agreement is possible, and leave aside those on which it is not. Another is to allow one's antagonist to hold on to the ideological assumptions which give purpose to his struggle, while finding ways to end the struggle itself. There are limits to this approach, and the Northern Ireland peace process has now reached them. On the Unionist side, the impossible ideological assumption is that Northern Nationalists, if treated decently, will eventually either come to feel British or come to accept their lot, as have the Irish who have gone to live in Britain. A corresponding assumption is made by nationalists about Unionists in a United Ireland. On the Republican side, the ideological assumption is that the IRA is an army, like the British Army. It owes its allegiance to a 32 county Irish Republic - an entity that has not had any political manifestation since the end of the First Dail back in the early 1920s. But its army continues, exercising its full sovereignty, without the constraint of a state. Sinn Fein does not constrain, or even speak for the IRA. So when, in the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein agreed, it would "use any influence it may have to achieve

decommissioning of paramilitary weapons", that in no way bound the IRA. The IRA owes its allegiance to the original Irish Republic, not to Sinn Fein. Another ideological assumption of the IRA is that its war is with the British state, which it wants withdrawn from Ireland. Thus it can kill Catholics like Brendan Campbell, Bobby Dougan, Charlie Bennett, and Joseph O'Connor but say that that does not break its ceasefire, because its ceasefire only encompasses action against British forces (like off-duty policemen). This same ideological assumption made it difficult for the IRA to accept paragraph 9 of the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 which offered talks to parties which agreed to a "permanent end to use of, or support for, paramilitary violence". The IRA ideology did not allow it to give that commitment because the 32 Irish Republic had not yet been achieved. Its unwillingness to use the "p" word permanent led the IRA to face a substitute, the equally difficult "d" word decommissioning! Again, Republicanism could not accept the Good Friday institutions as a permanent settlement. They were only part of a process. The Republic was still the goal. Naturally enough, Unionists found this unsettling. Most Unionists come from a religious tradition which looks for biblical certainty, so it was not surprising that they were looking for more certainty than Republicans could offer. There have, of course, been major changes in the political position of the Republican movement. The acceptance of places in a Storming administration, with partition still in place and Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution gone has a huge change. But the ideological outworking of that change has not taken place. The underlying ideology still waits for the re-establishment of the 32 county Republic.

A re-evaluation of its ideology by the Republican movement is necessary if the disbandment of the IRA is ever to happen. For the last ten years, the peace process has ignored this necessity. As a result neither Sinn Fein, the IRA nor anyone else has had their ideological assumptions dissected in a respectful, yet rigorous, way. This lack of rigor goes all the way back to 1916. Ireland needs a lasting settlement, not an endless peace process. Perhaps the Good Friday Agreement contains all the ingredients. Those who reject it, or who see it as a mere tactical arrangement, should say exactly what it is they expect to add or take from it, to make it permanent. Then we will have peace, not just a peace process. Brian Rowans book gives a detailed outline of the tactics of Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries in the period between the first IRA ceasefire and last year. He sees the IRA raid on Castlereagh barracks in October 2002, when it captured British secret service files, as a seminal event. It showed that the IRA still had a serious military intent. The book is the work of a security correspondent. A broader political analysis is missing. There were many interviews for the book, but none with the Irish or British governments. And Brian Rowan should treat his excellent paramilitary sources with less reverence and more analytical rigour. John Bruton T.D. is a former Taoiseach.