It is not true that republicans have broken either their commitments on decommissioning under the Belfast Agreement or the undertakings made by the IRA in May of last year during the Hillsborough talks.
That these undertakings should have been wilfully misrepresented by David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party is hardly surprising. What is quite a new development is the spin put on them by Seamus Mallon. Republicans made no commitments on decommissioning in the agreement. Under its terms, there was no obligation on the IRA to decommission within any stated time-frame, or ever.
It may be tiresome to refer back to the text of the agreement and the tortuous terms of the section dealing with decommissioning; tortuous because the parties to the agreement could get assent to nothing else. The text reads:
"All participants reaffirm their commitment to the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations. They also confirm their intention to continue to work constructively and in good faith with the Independent Commission and to use any influence they may have to achieve the decommissioning of all paramilitary arms within two years following endorsement in referendums North and south of the agreement in the context of the implementation of the overall settlement."
The IRA was not a participant in this agreement, so the commitment on decommissioning does not bind it. It won't do to argue that everyone knew that Sinn Fein was the IRA and therefore Sinn Fein's commitment on decommissioning was an IRA commitment.
If that was so, why did the paragraph not simply state: "All participants undertake to decommission all paramilitary arms in their possession of or under their control (within a specified time frame)"? It did not say that because there was no acceptance that the IRA was party to the agreement or that Sinn Fein was proxy for the IRA in the negotiations, so the IRA could not have been bound by the agreement.
(Sinn Fein may well have been proxy for the IRA, and it is not believable that what was agreed did not have IRA concurrence, but there was no acceptance that the IRA was party to the agreement or bound by it). Sinn Fein was party to the agreement and, as far as it is concerned, it signed up to using any influence it might have to achieve decommissioning.
Unionists knew there was no commitment by republicans on decommissioning, and the proof was their frenzy to disguise that reality with a letter obtained from Tony Blair within hours of the agreement being signed.
The letter stated: "I confirm that in our view the effect of the decommissioning section of the agreement, with decommissioning schemes coming into effect in June (1998), is that the process of decommissioning should begin straight away". What would have been the need for such clarification within hours of the agreement being signed if this was part of the agreement anyway?
The remarkable development on decommissioning since the agreement was signed was the success of Sinn Fein in getting the IRA to make precisely the kind of commitments which the agreement signally failed to include. On May 5th, 2000, the IRA stated:
"The full implementation, on a progressive and irreversible basis by the two governments, especially the British government, of what they have agreed will provide a political context, in an enduring political process, with the potential to remove the causes of conflict and in which Irish republicans and unionists can, as equals, pursue our respective political objectives peacefully.
"In that context the IRA leadership will initiate a process that will completely and verifiably put IRA arms beyond use. We will do so in a way as to avoid risk to the public and misappropriation by others and ensure maximum public confidence."
How was that not a substantial advance on the agreement, which included no IRA commitment and which required no commitment to decommission? How can Seamus Mallon now claim that Sinn Fein has failed to exercise any influence on the IRA on decommissioning given that breakthrough? How can unionists claim that the IRA has broken its word on decommissioning when it gave no word in the agreement and its May 2000 statement was conditional on developments which everyone knows have not transpired?
Do republicans understand how offensive their protestations about the silence of the IRA on arms is to the rest of us, especially unionists, as though they deserve kudos for not murdering us? Some of us at least accept that republicans have not broken their word on decommissioning, that the IRA cessation has held (more or less), that they have made substantial concessions on policy issues, notably on the recognition of the Northern state (they don't like to put it like that).
Others, however, have made concessions, too: the unionists' most remarkable concession has been to share executive power with people they believe (not unreasonably) to have been engaged in a murder campaign directed at their community for more than 25 years.
A unilateral and substantial move on decommissioning is now required of republicans; not legally, not because of previous undertakings, not because undertakings by everyone else have been honoured, but because the process to which they have contributed (and in large measure constructed) requires it.
vbrowne@irish-times.ie