Sir, - There is now less than four months to go until the deadline for total decommissioning, and the IRA is trapped in a process whereby General de Chastelain can announce a default on its part, if at any point in the next four months he decides that it is not co-operating with his commission. Similarly, the IRA will be unambiguously in default of the Good Friday Agreement if it does do not complete decommissioning by 22nd May 2000.
This being the case, I find it absolutely astonishing that the Ulster Unionists are preparing to give away the moral high ground next month by unilaterally withdrawing from the Executive.
Despite what John Taylor claimed recently, General de Chastelain has not set a deadline for the commencement of decommissioning by January 31st. If the general's imminent report is positive (the paramilitaries are co-operating in good faith, have maybe reached agreement on "modalities", and in de Chastelain's professional opinion can still meet the May deadline), but actual "product" has not yet been handed over, it would be crazy of the UUP to bring down the institutions at the 11th hour. I also imagine that General de Chastelain would find it intensely irritating that, in attempting to do his job for him, the UUP would have effectively undermined all his painstaking work just as he was beginning to build confidence among the paramilitaries and get somewhere.
What George Mitchell said at the conclusion of his review ("Without devolution there will be no decommissioning") still applies. There are those who believe there will be no decommissioning anyway. Perhaps; but don't give people an excuse not to decommission by forcing a crisis three months early.
If there has still been no decommissioning by May 22nd, the SDLP will come off the fence and ensure the continuation of the Executive without Sinn Fein. However, if the Executive crashes next month it won't get back up again in the forseeable future. The UUP will have thrown away the one part of the Good Friday Agreement which it fought for the most. - Yours, etc.,
Ian Rushforth, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Street, Liverpool, England.