Some months back a senior Sinn Fein figure, asked by journalists when the August 1994 ceasefire might be renewed, responded: "It's not easy to get a ceasefire from the IRA." But now, sooner than most people and particularly the unionists had expected, the ceasefire has been restored. Immediately the critics are carping. Republican Sinn Fein has predicted the resumed ceasefire "will expose as never before the
Provisionals' reformist policy which seeks to make British rule in
Ireland acceptable".
There are reports of scepticism within the Provisional movement about the likelihood that the traditional goal of a united Ireland can be achieved through the talks process.
But the Sinn Fein ardchomhairle member, Mr Jim Gibney, was clear about his party's aim going into the talks. "We're going in with a republican analysis to get a united, independent Ireland," he said.
"Sinn Fein are still a republican party. We're not going to let anyone else limit our horizons. We are going into the negotiations with our republican analysis intact. We are republicans and we want to see the British government disengaging from Ireland."
The 1920 Government of Ireland Act had partitioned the country and secured the Union with Britain but Mr Gibney declared: "We're going in there to put the Union on the negotiating table. We will endeavour to convince people that the best political solution for the people of this island is to live in an independent and free country.
"Sinn Fein will agree to the outcome of the negotiations on the basis of `nothing is agreed until everything is agreed'. We are going into negotiations with people who don't share our views. Other people might try to fix the parameters of the negotiating process, we will not, we're open-ended." He pointed out that Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Government in Dublin "are all nationalists, all in principle agreed on the constitutional imperative of securing the independence of the country".
Sinn Fein was going into the negotiations "seeking thorough-going constitutional and political change - the political institutions that exist must transcend partition".
The chief Sinn Fein negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness told The
Irish News yesterday his party believed that "an agreed unitary and independent Irish state is the best structure to achieve a lasting peace".
Describing negotiations as "an area of struggle for Irish republicans" he went on: "Sinn Fein will enter any negotiations as an
Irish republican party seeking national determination for the Irish people and an end to British rule. Partition is wrong. It is a failure of the past which must be put right."
The McGuinness interview acted as a counterbalance to an article in the same paper last Thursday by the party president, Mr Gerry
Adams who provided ammunition for his critics when he wrote: "During these talks Sinn Fein will press for maximum constitutional change, for a re-negotiation of the Union, for the political, economic and democratic transformation of this island. We will encourage the Irish government and others to pursue a strategy for Irish unity. And inside and outside of the negotiations we will press for equality."
The phrase "re-negotiation of the Union" was seized on by the likes of Republican Sinn Fein who claimed its erstwhile comrades "seek only a New Stormont rather than a New Ireland free of British rule".
The Sinn Fein chairman, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin reiterated the party's belief in Irish unity during a Radio Ulster interview yesterday but he also offered another option in the shorter term.
"I believe that we can actually conceive, as they did in South
Africa, of the possibility of a negotiated agreement that provides for transition from the present failed political entity to a democratic structure that all shades of opinion on this island can give allegiance and authority to." Asked if Sinn Fein would "sign up to a transitory agreement", Mr Mitchell replied: "We've made it clear that that may in fact be the pragmatic outcome of negotiations - some form of interim or transition political agreement."
The pragmatic note sounded by Mr McLaughlin echoed the statement issued by Mr Adams after the IRA ceasefire. He said Sinn Fein would be "guided" by its aim of Irish unity. It would be encouraging the
Irish Government and others to join it in seeking an end to British rule and asserting the constitutional rights of nationalists.
In what may turn out to be a key phrase in negotiations, Mr Adams continued: "In any agreed political settlement the political allegiance of northern nationalists must be given expression and effect." At the time of the Forum report, Sinn Fein was heavily criticised because it did not sign up to the principle of consent as formulated in that document. A senior Sinn Fein figure said privately afterwards that the party did not want to give away its negotiating position before all-party talks had even begun. But he went on to say that he could live with an "interim settlement" leading to a United
Ireland in 10 or 15 years' time.
Such talk of Irish unity, even in a decade or two, may seem highly unrealistic in a situation where there is no guarantee that unionists are even going to sit at the same table as republicans, much less agree with them about anything. But the dream of unity is taken very seriously by many northern nationalists who feel it is the only true solution to their problems and who have never forgiven "the South"
for abandoning them in 1922.
No more than David Trimble on the other side of the fence, Mr
Adams and his friends will have to tread carefully to ensure they are not left open to charges of "sell out" from their own supporters'
ranks. If such claims were to be widely believed it would probably split the republican movement with consequences that few people on the island could escape.