There are only four days to go before the Belfast Agreement will be shaken to its democratic foundations. The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr David Trimble, is scheduled to resign as First Minister this weekend if the IRA has not started to decommission its weaponry. There will be a new arms crisis of the IRA's making. There will be a six-week period - in the midst of the marching season and the seventh summer at Drumcree - before a new First Minister and, possibly, Deputy First Minister are elected when the political institutions will remain rudderless. The process could be suspended or put into review. At the time of writing, there is no Plan B.
From its embryonic start with the Hume/Adams dialogue, this newspaper has given its whole-hearted support to the democratic principles underlying the peace process. It hailed the Belfast Agreement as the most historic Anglo-Irish accord since the 1921 Treaty. It has accommodated the entry of Sinn Fein into the Northern Ireland Executive with its private army intact. The maintenance of that private army now can bring down the Belfast Agreement.
In this newspaper today, we publish a detailed chronology of the decommissioning debacle from that fateful Good Friday in 1998 to this very day. It may be argued that when Sinn Fein signed the Belfast Agreement over three years ago, it signalled in spirit - if not strictly in letter - that the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations would take place. All participants promised to "use any influence they may have" to achieve decommissioning within two years of its endorsement in concurrent referendums, North and South, in the first all-Ireland poll since 1918.
The chronology shows the gains made by the Sinn Fein constituency over the last three years: the release of prisoners, the Patten Report on the reform of the RUC leading, albeit imperfectly, to the establishment of the new Police Service of Northern Ireland which has attracted one-third of applicants from nationalists, the Human Rights Commission, a marked diminution in British Army patrols and closure of 40 per cent of military bases and installations. The biggest concession was made to Sinn Fein on December 2nd, 1999, when the first inclusive power-sharing executive was established in Northern Ireland and Mr Martin McGuinness and Ms Bairbre de Brun were appointed Ministers. This breakthrough was made on foot of a statement from Sinn Fein accepting that "decommissioning is an essential part of the peace process. We believe that the issue of arms will be finally and satisfactorily settled under the aegis of the de Chastelain Commission as set out in the Agreement". Mr Trimble had the memorable phrase for Mr Adams: "We have jumped, you follow".
There were further ebbs and flows in the decommissioning debacle as set out in today's chronology of events. The executive was suspended on February 11th, 2000, and restored on May 30th, 2000. Then the whole concept of decommissioning was changed when the IRA made its direct commitment to put IRA arms completely and verifiably beyond use. The democratic system acquiesced. Only three inspections of selected dumps have taken place.
The purpose of the Belfast Agreement is to end violence in Ireland. A new democratic order was put in place when the people of Ireland - north, south, east and west - exercised their self-determination in the two referendums more than three years ago. They voted, by huge majorities, to end the conflict. They did not vote for an armed peace. There are four days left for Mr Gerry Adams - with his increased mandate - to deliver.