Issue of the week

When the scribes of British history write about the era of Prime Minister Tony Blair, the embattled leader, despite being successful in taking his party to three successive electoral victories at parliamentary level, will have a tough task in projecting him in a positive light.

Ever since he expressed his open and unquestioned loyalty to US President George W. Bush, becoming his lapdog or poodle, he has been engulfed in controversy after controversy.

The lies he is accused of uttering in taking Britain to war in Iraq where British soldiers are doing the dirty work for the Americans, have earned him a nickname 'B-liar'. Besides, the cash-for-honours scandal, alleged moves by his officials to mislead investigators and his executive order halting an official inquiry into multi-million pound illicit payments by the British Aerospace company to Saudi royal family members were some of the controversies that project Blair in negative light. But in one area, he emerges stronger and deserves full credit-his tireless efforts in finding a solution to the Northern Ireland crisis.

This week, Blair's efforts bore fruit when Sinn Fein announced that it was ready to accept the legitimacy and the authority of a reformed Police Service of Northern Ireland — a force which is still dominated by pro-British Protestants — and share power with the Unionists in the legislative assembly. Protestant hardliners had insisted that they would agree to a power-sharing deal with Sinn Fein only if it accepts the authority of the police force and the courts of Northern Ireland.

A jubilant Blair met his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern on Tuesday and the duo announced that elections to the Northern Ireland assembly at Stormont would take place on March 7. In short, the Northern Ireland crisis is one of colonialism.

It is probably the longest and oldest surviving problem created by land-grabbing, resource gobbling British colonialism which ensured the wellbeing of Britain - Great Britain, then - at the cost of colonized countries.

The Northern Ireland problem was created by the British, the colonial ruler of Ireland. When Ireland was finally granted independence in 1920 after the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein and other anti-colonial forces rose against British rule, Britain retained six provinces of the northern part of Ireland.

The reason: During three centuries of colonial rule, Britain changed the demography of the largely Catholic Northern Ireland. At the time of Irish independence, Scottish and English settlers, who were Protestants, were a majority in six northern provinces, which we now call Northern Ireland or Ulster.

These rich Protestant settlers, most of whom were planters and industrialists, demanded that Northern Ireland should be part of Britain and hence they are called the Unionists or Loyalists.

The Catholics of Northern Ireland continued their agitation for a union with the Irish Republic. They are called Republicans or Nationalists in this conflict.

The March 7 elections will pave the way for the implementation of last year's St. Andrew's agreement where a road map was presented for both the Catholic and Protestant political groups to restore a power-sharing political agreement. The Protestants slightly outnumber the Catholics in Northern Ireland - and in terms of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, they tried out a power-sharing mechanism, till the legislature was dissolved in 2002 and brought under direct rule from London after allegations of an Irish Republican Army spy ring within the assembly.

Sinn Fein, the strongest of the Catholic parties, announced this week that its leader Gerry Adams and four other "heavy-weight" candidates would run for the five assembly seats in West Belfast. Sinn Fein was given a clean bill of health this week by the International Monitoring Commission which said there was clear evidence that the party had eschewed violence. The IMC also commended the IRA though it noted a few members were still engaged in criminal activities. Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein which is fielding nearly 40 candidates for the 108-seat assembly, demanded that Britain offer an official apology for its 35 years of oppressive rule in Northern Ireland.

Blair, who is now playing for history books, could well do that.

Other major parties in the fray are the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP, which is largely Catholic, and two Protestant parties — the Democratic Unionists (DUP) and the Ulster Unionists. Besides, there is the Alliance, a mixed party, which rejects sectarian politics.

Although Sinn Fein has kept its part of the St. Andrew's deal, the main Protestant party, the hardline DUP, which detests the idea of power-sharing with the Catholics, is yet to spell out its position.

DUP's firebrand leader and preacher Ian Paisley has said: "I, as leader of the largest Unionist party, will be setting the stage for this election and you'll just have to wait and see what it will be."

This week, Irish Prime Minister Ahern warned that if the power-sharing executive was not formed by March 26, plan B would be put into operation. According to the St. Andrew's agreement, if a government is not formed by March 26, London and Dublin will jointly run Northern Ireland.

If everything goes well, Sinn Fein (Catholic) and the DUP (Protestant) are set to emerge victorious.

Some may call it a triumph for extremism, but the process will compel the two foes — the Protestant first minister and a Catholic deputy first minister — to work together and take joint decisions for the betterment of their people. Such an arrangement could eventually bury the hatchet.