Provo bid for power under British rule |
SURRENDER OF ARMS ?
Gerry Adams’ September 1 statement that the “violence” was “over and done with” satisfied the authorities in Dublin, London and Washington that the Provisionals were prepared to jump through even more hoops to secure power in the British assembly at Stormont.
The same day the Provisionals called to the homes of over 80 members of the 32-County Sovereignty Committee and threatened them with “action” within 14 days unless they ceased military and political actions against the Stormont Agreement. The Provisional dissidents duly obliged with a “complete cessation” announcement on September 7.
Another ‘line in the sand’ was crossed the next day when the Provisionals announced that Martin McGuinness was appointed to the surrender of arms body to facilitate the handing over of Provo arms. What other role could he have on such a body?
Under the Stormont Agreement the Provisionals have agreed to the surrender of arms by May of the year 2000 and agreed also to use their influence to obtain such a surrender.
The question then is not if they will surrender arms but when it will be done. Later in the month two arms finds in Iniskeen and Hackballscross near the Armagh Border were clearly part of that surrender process and not accidental finds.
Another step in the sequence was the ratcheting up of pressure on Republican Sinn Féin by the unofficial and official servants of the Dublin administration. First, on September 14 an ‘emissary’ from Bertie Ahern told two representatives of the organisation that the Continuity IRA had to call a halt to its campaign against British rule within seven days or the new repressive laws would be used against them and Republican Sinn Féin. The messenger was told that Republican Sinn Féin was not a “conduit” for contacting the CIRA.
A week later 15 people associated with Republican Sinn Féin were arrested in Dublin and Monaghan and the new 72-hour detention period was used against a member from Monaghan. All those detained, including a family of seven, were released without charge.
Meanwhile, the nightmare continued for those Six-County nationalists living in areas with a predominantly loyalist population. Nothing has changed for the 32 nationalist families living in Craigwell Avenue, Portadown who have been subjected to nightly loyalist intimidation and protests for the past two months. As a result, seven of these families have put their homes up for sale.
In Lurgan a wall has been built between unionist and nationalist areas while elderly nationalist residents in Seacourt Estate in Larne are terrorised by car-loads of loyalist thugs from other parts of the Co Antrim town. In Crumlin village the majority nationalist community had to rally en masse to prevent Orangemen and the RUC from marching on their village on September 5 (see pages 2 and 4 inside).
Given the logic of the path the Provisionals embarked on in 1986 when they accepted the 26-County State and agreed to work within it the surrender of arms by them will be forthcoming in the next year and eight months. Their cease-fires and the changes to their constitution in 1998 enabled them to take up their seats in Stormont and make a bid for power under British rule.
In the short term the key date is the annual conference of David Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party on October 24 next. The UUP leader needs to know what is going to happen on the question of arms surrender before facing his delegates. Also looming is the deadline for the setting up of the Stormont ‘shadow executive’ on October 31.
At the British labour Party conference all the Stormont participants were assembled for informal negotiations by the British government. The Provisionals looked partic-ularly uncomfortable, faced as they were with the choice of securing arms surrender before October 24 or after that date.
In the New Stormont, assembled on September 14 in the old parliament chamber burned in a fire in 1994, they resembled nothing more than the flies securely caught in spider Trimble and Paisley’s parlour.
The rolling momentum of the surrender of arms issue is becoming irresistible, especially to those seeking power under the British system.
However there still remain those Republicans who reject the Stormont Agreement as it attempts to secure British rule for another generation. They must provide a rallying point for the restoration of true all-Ireland democracy free from colonial rule.
