Tale of caution from Irish 'peace'

Those in Sri Lanka who are anxious to end the country's 17-year-old separatist war and are determined to get peace talks with the LTTE going, might do well to give some thought to what is happening right now in Northern Ireland.

It provides a cautionary tale especially for those who are so keen to enter into a dialogue with the Tigers, that they would dispense with all preconditions and instead place their faith in the goodwill and the commonsense of the protagonists to the conflict.

There was a time when the Sri Lankan governments laid down a number of conditions that had to be met if talks with the LTTE were to be held. Among such conditions one was the laying down of arms by the Tigers. Such a move would be seen as a gesture of goodwill and seriousness on the part of the LTTE to find a political solution to what is increasingly perceived as an intractable problem.

Of course it was not just governments in Colombo that insisted on preconditions. On the other side of the barricade, the LTTE itself had its list of demands which the government was expected to fulfill if it was to come to the negotiating table.

When Minister G.L.Peiris was in London last month for medical treatment for wounds received at the Town Hall suicide bombing, he told me that insisting on preconditions-such as laying down arms-would prove a serious obstacle to any negotiations.

"One mustn't allow oneself to be hamstrung or impeded by preconditions that lead to a great deal of argument and disagreement. Obviously the problem needs to be sorted out. So if there is a necessity to get on with the negotiations then nothing must be done to increase the difficulties in respect to the commencement of the negotiations," the minister told me.

I posed the question about preconditions because it seemed to me that relying on the good sense and the genuineness of the parties concerned could prove to be the stumbling block to the three decade long Northern Ireland problem between Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists.

Though some peace has returned to the troubled territory following the recent agreement on power sharing and the decision of Ireland to renounce any claims to Northern Ireland, there was a major sticking point, very relevant to our own problem, which I felt could still be the undoing to the agreement that had been stitched together with third party mediation last year. That was the issue of the weapons held by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The arms were never surrendered as agreed to in part of the deal.

But it was expected that before General John de Chastelain, chairman of the International Commission on Decommissioning(ICD) submitted his report at the beginning of February, the IRA would have surrendered-or decommissioned as the euphemism goes- some of its arms as an indication of its genuineness in wanting to build a durable peace.

But as the January 31 deadline for the first report by Canadian General de Chastelain came and went, no arms had been handed over or reportedly destroyed by the IRA. He could not categorically say that the decommissioning of IRA arms had even begun.

Gen. de Chastelain was required by the agreement to report on how the military side of the peace process had progressed. In the event he could only say that the IRA is prepared to meet on a regular basis the ICD; that it has reiterated its support for the peace process and what it sees as the consistent nature of its own ceasefire and that it has not rejected completely all prospects of any disarmament in some form for all time.

Those who wish to see more than a grain of sand in a grain of sand will consider this position by the IRA a positive development. Their faith will be further fortified by the IRA statement on February 1 in which it said: " ..... We are totally committed to the peace process, .... the IRA wants a permanent peace... the declaration and maintenance of the cessation which is now entering its fifth year is evidence of that.... The IRA's guns are silent".

But what of those who see only a grain of sand in a grain of sand. What they see is that the IRA has not performed any act of decommissioning nor has it explicitly stated that it would do so in the future except make some vague gesture of not having rejected the idea.

The crux of the issue however, is this. Will those political groups and individuals in troubled Ulster who stuck their necks out and placed their political future on the block consider this a tenable and sustainable position?

Earlier it was thought that insisting on an arms surrender would scuttle the whole agreement that former US senator George Mitchell had put together between the republicans who wanted Northern Ireland to cede from Britain and the Unionists loyal to Britain. This is considered a pragmatic approach and the best way forward.

Those among unionists who supported the George Mitchell formula believed that if the power sharing arrangement was seen to be working then the IRA might be persuaded by public pressure to make an initial surrender of arms. This in turn would strengthen the arrangement and provide a workable solution though there could be hiccups now and then.

But the strong pro-British unionists never really trusted the IRA to come round and insisted that the unionist leaders were laying themselves open to republican manoeuvres that would quickly unravel the Mitchell plan.

Under tremendous pressure from the unionist rank and file and even some senior members, Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, who is now first minister in the Northern Ireland executive, agreed to call a meeting of the party's council on February 12. If on that day the IRA had not surrendered any weapons and Gen. De Chastelain was in no position to state so in his end of January report, he would resign. So would the other two ministers of his party now in the cabinet.

Now that the IRA has not responded David Trimble and his colleagues in the executive cannot wriggle out of this situation. They believed the agreement implied a twin track approach. As the devolution process proceeded smoothly, they expected to see the IRA responding by decommissioning its weapons.

The IRA has not only undermined their expectations but made it impossible for them to face the Ulster Unionist Party council with any tangible and positive evidence to make their position in the Northern Ireland executive tenable.

The IRA is not going to hand over any weapons in the next few days to save First Minister and Unionist Party leader David Trimble's skin and his political future before the February 12 deadline when the council meets.

The most likely scenario is that Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson will make a dramatic move and suspend the all party executive or government, to save the whole peace process from collapsing.

By doing so he will be playing for time, hoping that Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, will be able to persuade the hardliners in the IRA to make even a token gesture of surrendering arms, as the LTTE did under Indian Government pressure in Sri Lanka shortly before turning the rest of its weapons against the Indian army.

There is a time factor involved and the IRA cannot continue to defy everybody-particularly the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland who opted for peace- by refusing to participate. That is unless they are determined to scuttle the whole deal.

The Good Friday Agreement on which this peace deal is based has set down a final date for decommissioning. That is May 22.

If Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson suspends the executive and imposes direct rule once again, it might temporarily, at least, save David Trimble's skin. But will it save the peace process from unravelling at a time when so many are hoping for a durable and lasting peace?

One should not be surprised if in the next few weeks the British and Irish governments begin applying pressure on the Sinn Fein and the IRA to decide soon on their course of action. So will President Bill Clinton who has a stake in it and would like to end his presidential term being seen as having helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.

Admittedly Sri Lanka is not Northern Ireland. The genesis of our own problem is quite different from that of Ulster. The conditions that prevail are different. There is direct pressure on the IRA from several governments, unlike perhaps on the LTTE.

Even then the IRA refuses to relent under that pressure because basically it believes the only thing that gives it strength and power are the weapons at its command.

That teaches us one lesson. However determined political parties and governments are to reach settlements and bring about peace, those that ultimately decide whether such peace is possible and whether it will be shortlived or lasting are those who hold the weapons.

If that stranglehold on a peaceful solution is to be broken, then those who hold the weapons must be militarily defeated and broken or they must be brought into political negotiations. But to rush into political agreements because that seems the best thing to do would be shortsightedness if there are no safeguards or guarantees from all sides to the bargain as the Northern Ireland situation has proved.

It's indeed fine to proceed without preconditions if all sides are convinced that any conditions arising from the ensuing discussions are met. The IRA is making sure that it keeps the powder dry-just in case.

Given the history of Sri Lanka's own negotiations on the issue, some might consider it advisable to draw some lessons from what has been happening in Ulster these few months.

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