A week that has made history on this island began with a tumultuous row over the chairmanship of the Northern Ireland negotiations and ended yesterday with a tepid one on the same subject at the opening of the Forum discussions. Two points stand out: despite being non inclusive, the talks process has, at least, started and, as is typical of such negotiations, the tumult has been overwhelmingly about procedure rather than substance.
The crucial importance of the progress that has been made was underlined by the continuing political and popular shock over the murder of Det Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare, which the Government clearly attributes to the IRA. The refusal of Sinn Fein representatives to condemn it undermined the propaganda advantage they sought to extract out of their exclusion from the talks. It added greatly to the legitimacy of the two governments insistence that Sinn Fein can only participate if and when the IRA ceasefire is restored.
The task of negotiating procedure may be of secondary importance, but it has still enlivened the talks and underpinned their democratic legitimacy.
The man who drafted the six principles which have brought established and paramilitary parties together in the process, Senator George Mitchell, is now installed as chairman, but faces a further negotiation on his precise powers. He was quite philosophical about becoming a procedural football, knowing full well that the various unionist parties had to cut their teeth on these issues, either to demonstrate their independence of the two governments or in an attempt to subvert the deal that they had made.
The critical developments came on Tuesday evening, when Mr David Trimble decided to break from the other unionist parties and negotiate directly with Government ministers, probably for fear of the whole process melting down or because he saw his own identity being submerged in an unacceptably rejectionist formula. He believes he has established an important principle in securing agreement that the two governments will confer with the parties over the powers of the chairman. An equally important one is that a precedent of negotiation has been established that may be applied in other spheres when the talks proper get under way.
That this will take some considerable time should not surprise anyone familiar with the ups and downs of Northern Ireland politics, notably their seemingly endless capacity to confuse procedure and substance. It probably suits Sinn Fein leaders in the short term to be outside this process, while they see how it pans out. But even in that time span they will lose out by not participating. It has been said with justice that many of the extra votes they secured in the recent elections, which swelled their overall total to 42 per cent of the nationalist turnout, were borrowed, in the sense that people voted for the political, not the military, strategy of the Sinn Fein leadership. They will see that support ebb away if they prevaricate and miss the opportunity that has opened up this week to negotiate a settlement.